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FMD_test_700

Fraudulent offer for complimentary Dunkin' Donuts voucher

04/18/2017

Social media users are frequently targeted by anniversary giveaway and survey scams, with one common form of bait being fake coupon offers for free boxes of Dunkin' Donuts: Such scams typically provide links which lead to web pages (not operated or sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts) displaying the Dunkin' logo along with entreaties to spread the scam further by sharing those pages and writing thank you in the comments field. The free Dunkin' Donuts offers are a variation of the company anniversary survey scam, a ploy that depends on the unwary unwittingly promoting the phony offer to their social media friends: anniversary survey scam These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the companies they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook share buttons and post comments to the scammers site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two Reward Offers (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards). A representative for Dunkin' Donuts wrote on the company's official Facebook page that the online "free dozen" coupon was not one offered by the chain: The Better Business Bureau issued guidelines warning specifically of identical scams on Facebook that target shoppers: Dont believe what you see. Its easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure theres a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organizations real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward thats too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Legitimate Dunkin' Donuts offers are listed in a Promotions page on the company's website. Promotions

FMD_test_701

Public Broadcasting Cuts (2006)

06/08/2006

Claim: Congressional recommendations currently under consideration would cut $115 million in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] House Republicans just voted to slash funding for NPR and PBS this year. We stopped them last year. We can stop them again. Can you ask 3 friends to sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS? https://www.civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting https://www.civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting Origins: Although a long-outdated piece decrying supposed piece upcoming cuts in funding for the NEA, NPR, PBS, and Sesame Street has been circulating for years (it addressed legislation already voted upon way back in 1995), recent congressional efforts have brought the issue to public attention again. In June 2006, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding voted to cut federal funding provided to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. The proposed cuts would reduce the corporation's 2007 budget by $115 million, a 23% decrease in funding. So far the budget cuts are only a subcommittee recommendation; they will not take effect unless they are approved by the full House Appropriations Committee and both houses of Congress. Similar budget cuts recommended by the subcommittee in June 2005 were overturned through lobbying efforts. June 2005 Last updated: 8 June 2006 Sources: Klein, Rick. "GOP Takes Aim at PBS Funding." The Boston Globe. 8 June 2006.

FMD_test_702

Dearborn in the U.S.A.

07/06/2015

Claim: President Obama signed an executive order authorizing the opening of an ISIS-sympathetic youth center in Dearborn. Example: [Collected via email, July 2015] Here is something from Facebook that is so far out I am asking you to debunk it ASAP. An executive order signed by the President so ISIS can open a center and train youths in Dearborn, Michigan. Origins: On 25 June 2015, an article reporting that President Obama had signed an executive order authorizing the opening of an ISIS-sympathetic youth center in Dearborn, Michigan (an American city with a large Muslim population which has been featured in a good many rumors and fake news stories) was widely circulated via social media: featured Following months of obstruction by state officials, the federal government intervened on behalf of a Muslim group who is outspokenly supportive of the Islamic State, to open the doors of a new Islamic youth outreach center in a lower-income area in the city of Dearborn. The facility will be run by Syrian-born Aisha Hani-Salaam, a recent immigrant and unapologetic supporter of ISIS. President Obama, who signed the executive order to allow the center, said, "We need to take advantage of every opportunity to end the violence between our people. Hopefully this will start a new era in relations between the United States and the religion of Islam. Muslims are understandably angry over the Western media's overblown portrayal of ISIL as merciless killers. I believe this is a good opportunity to end the fighting and use diplomacy to usher in a new era of peace, as well as gain a powerful new ally in that part of the world." Despite the President's hopeful and reassuring message, Hani-Salaam remains angry and openly criticizes some American Muslims for their 'lukewarm' traditional condemnations of the United States. The above-quoted article was mistaken by many readers for a genuine news report. However, it was just a spoof published by a clickbait fake news site known for spreading malware.

FMD_test_703

Did Rosie O'Donnell 'Plead Insanity' Over Illegal Campaign Donations?

05/06/2018

In May 2018, right-wing blogs pounced on a New York Post story concerning alleged campaign contribution violations by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. According to the Post, the former co-host of The View exceeded the $2,700 limit on individual campaign contributions in donations to several Democratic Party candidates via the fundraising web site ActBlue, while using five different New York addresses and four variations of her name. According The report also said that O'Donnell donated $90,000 to 50 different committees and candidates for federal office. O'Donnell reportedly told the Post via email that she did "nothing nefarious," adding that she did not choose to donate over the limit. The newspaper also quoted her as saying: My anxiety is quelled by donating to those opposing trump [and] his agenda especially at night when most of these were placed. Conservative bloggers seized on that remark to accuse O'Donnell of "pleading insanity": accuse Trump-hating liberal Rosie ODonnell has accused President Trump of many bogus crimes. She has been obsessed with trying to accuse President Trump of nonsense. She has became completely obsessed with President Trump. Her Twitter feed is filled with incohrrent [sic] rants. Now the Trump curse continues as she is pleading insanity in hopes of not paying the penalty for breaking campaign finance laws. She is facing criminal charges thanks to a campaign finance scheme. In fact, there has been no announcement of an investigation into the alleged donations, let alone "criminal charges." The Federal Election Commission did not comment on the Post's report. While the Post's report has been aggregated by blogs and other news outlets, no second source has emerged corroborating its findings. An ActBlue spokesperson, Chris Fleming, did not comment on the story, but did tell us: ActBlue does not allow over the limit contributions in any one transaction, and ActBlue offers donors the option of saving all their info in an account where they can track their cumulative giving through ActBlue and compare/add to offline giving. While the Post reported that FEC violations only rarely lead to penalties, Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said that it can depend on the jurisdiction. "For instance, some cities and states are much more aggressive about finding and fining people for these violations than others," said Levinson, who focuses on campaign finance in her work: On the federal level, it is true that the Federal Election Commission is a model of inaction. I think it would be fair to say that fines are not common, but I'm not really convinced that these types of violations are terrifically common. For her part, O'Donnell accused the Post on Twitter of employing "sinister ways to warp the truth." She also posted a photograph depicting her contributions on the ActBlue platform, listed at 66 donations totaling $75,500: Twitter She told the Post that candidates should refund donation money that exceeds the individual limit, adding, "I don't look to see who I can donate most to.... I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit." FEC regulations state that campaign committees that receive individual donations over the $2,700 limit have 60 days to refund the excess amount, redesignate it toward another election, or reattribute the money to someone else. In the event of a redesignation or reattribution, the contributor must be notified of the committee's intent and offered the chance to collect a refund instead. state The newspaper's report centered on contributions from O'Donnell to two current Democratic congressional candidates Lauren Underwood in Illinois and Omar Vaid in New York as well as campaigns for three current lawmakers from the same party: Rep. Adam Schiff from California; Doug Jones of Alabama; and Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania. Lamb's campaign will reportedly contact O'Donnell and offer to either refund or redesignate her excess contributions; Vaid's told the Post that it would amend its filings. A spokesperson for Underwood told us: Because of the data point differences in name, address, and employer, our systems did not flag these contributions as totaling above the limit. In the coming weeks, we will be amending our report. Bloggers also attempted to compare O'Donnell's purported violations to the outright illegal donations that led to the 2014 conviction of right-wing documentarian Dinesh D'Souza. D'Souza was sentenced to five years probation and eight months in a halfway house after pleading guilty to making illegal contributions in the names of others. D'Souza asked two friends and their partners to donate $10,000 apiece in 2012 toward Republican Wendy Long's senatorial candidate. sentenced "I do think we could find a distinction between what D'Souza was charged with making a contribution of about 10 times the legal limit with what O'Donnell is accused of making a total of $5,400 in contributions over the legal limit to five different candidates," Levinson said. "O'Donnell's error seems more believably to be one of ignorance, while it is hard to believe that D'Souza believed a $20,000 contribution was legal." Sanders, Anna. "Rosie O'Donnell's Campaign Donations to Dems Went Over Legal Limit." New York Post. 5 May 2018. Federal Election Commission. "Remedying an Excessive contribution." Federal Bureau of Investigations. "Dinesh D'Souza Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to Five Years of Probation for Campaign Finance Fraud." 23 September 2014.

FMD_test_704

Does this internet trend show evidence of racial prejudice in cases of tax-evasion prosecutions?

03/15/2019

One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks. However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples, not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion, so widely spaced in time and differing in circumstances as to be unhelpful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with or imprisoned for non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity. On June 4, 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, who was a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated at the time. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine, a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest. Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue; the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, so they took what was then a novel approach: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, "They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money." He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction, he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. In a literal sense, Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected, as well as the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities. Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative, we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons—maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advice, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of cases and will instead work with offenders to facilitate payment of their back debts, rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who, along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley, owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties to avoid paying immense sums of taxes. Some of Helmsley's luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987, a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year, Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn., a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsley's bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt—the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the money owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances, as well as liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though. Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the IRS that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to the National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again that his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report. During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. "We're talking about old taxes," he said, adding, "We're not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if I'm not paying taxes while I'm doing whatever I'm doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true." The accuracy of Mr. Sharpton's assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharpton's assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoing spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions.

FMD_test_705

Target Transgender Bathroom Policy

04/20/2016

Public debate around transgender individuals and bathroom use hit a fever pitch in April 2016, largely due to the controversial passage of HB 2 (otherwise known as the "bathroom bill") in North Carolina. On April 19, 2016, Target released a statement confirming a new policy regarding transgender customers and bathrooms. The statement emphasized Target's commitment to inclusivity, reiterating its core belief that everyone—every team member, every guest, and every community—deserves protection from discrimination and should be treated equally. Consistent with this belief, Target supports the federal Equality Act, which provides protections to LGBT individuals, and opposes actions that enable discrimination. In its stores, Target demonstrates its commitment to an inclusive experience in various ways. Most relevant to the current conversations, the company welcomes transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. Bathroom controversies were not new in April 2016, but HB2, which was by far the highest-profile legislation of that nature, provoked a significant response across the country. Target was not the first large and well-known entity to clarify its policy regarding transgender bathroom use, and the brand responded to some feedback on Twitter: "Everyone is welcome at Target." Not all of the public's response was positive. Target's Facebook page was flooded with critical responses similar to the heavily satirized comments that appeared when the chain announced gender-neutral toy aisles. Some misinformation also circulated about the development. The website The Political Insider reported that the retailer released the statement under pressure from the President and LGBT groups, claiming that Target "just caved to pressure from the Obama administration and liberal activists." They alleged that any transgender person could use the bathroom in their stores according to the gender they associate with, suggesting that men were now allowed to use the restroom next to young girls. No information substantiated the claim that Target was pressured to institute the chain-wide policy, and no retailers of a similar size and scope have reported any organized push to enact similar policies. While HB2 is an enforceable law, Target's bathroom policy is simply a brand decision based on its own ethics and belief structure. It is true that Target announced on April 19, 2016, that transgender shoppers and staff were welcome to use the bathroom that best matched their gender identities. However, neither President Obama nor any groups appeared to have forced the retailer's hand in issuing the policy, and no "transgender bathrooms" were included in the details of the announcement.

FMD_test_706

Did Actress Dawn Wells Make Millions from 'Gilligan's Island'?

11/05/2019

We now accept as commonplace the notion that actors in popular television shows are set for life financially, as we read about how cast members in hit shows such as "Friends," "Seinfeld," and "The Big Bang Theory" not only were paid upwards of $1 million per episode during those series' initial runs, but then earned millions of dollars more in residuals and royalties from syndication deals, DVD sales, and video streaming. $1 million earned That wasn't always the case, however. The actors from television shows of decades past shows whose episodes have been continuously rerun countless thousands of times all over the world and are touchstones of popular culture did not reap any such bounty. Those cast members were typically paid salaries that ranged from modest to pretty good, and they may have received additional payments for the first few airings of episodes in which they appeared, but that was it they collected little or no residuals when their shows were sold into syndication, and no royalties from a home video market that didn't yet exist. As Eve Plumb, who portrayed Jan Brady on the 1970s sitcom "The Brady Bunch," revealed in 2011: The biggest misconception is that were all rich from it, but we are not. We have not been paid for reruns of the show for many, many years. We are not making money off of it at all. Eve Plumb The one notable exception to this circumstance, according to legend, is actress Dawn Wells, who played the character of Mary Ann Summers in the 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island." Numerous websites such as Mental Floss have offered versions of the following tale about how Wells supposedly parlayed her three seasons on the show into a lifetime of paychecks: versions Wells was married to talent agent Larry Rosen when she was hired for the Gilligan cast, and it was Rosen who noted the clause in her contract (which was standard at the time) that limited her to collecting residuals only the first five times any episode re-ran after its original airing. Rosen told Wells that if the series was a success, this clause could cost her a lot of money. Wells was the only castaway who asked for an amendment to that residual clause in her contract, and the producers granted it, never thinking the series would be on the air 40 years later. As a result, [producer] Sherwood Schwartz and Dawn Wells are the only two folks connected with the show who still receive money from it. This narrative seems quite improbable on its face. Actors are generally represented by a bevy of various unions, guilds, agents, and lawyers, and the idea that only one person in the whole television industry possessed the savvy to recognize that a contractual entitlement to residuals was a potentially lucrative reward worth pursuing strains credulity. Moreover, the goal of most television producers in that era was to keep their shows going long enough (generally three years) to amass a sufficient number of episodes for syndication deals after those series ended their original network runs, as the syndication market provided the bulk of potential profits. While producers may not have expected their shows to still be airing "40 years later," they certainly hoped their series would enjoy long TV afterlives, and they would not be keen on sharing those revenues with actors who had little bargaining power (nor would they want to set a precedent for other actors to follow). A minor actor in a secondary role who dared to press for a contractual guarantee to perpetual royalties likely would have been curtly informed how quickly and easily she could be replaced. We don't need to speculate on the state of 1960s television to know the answer here, though, because Wells herself has repeatedly stated that this legend is false. In 2014, for example, Wells said during an interview that she was paid a salary roughly equivalent to $50,000 in today's dollars and "never received any residuals": interview Q: They stopped making Gilligans Island 47 years ago. Do you still receive residuals? A: We never received any residuals. Q: How much money did you make for Gilligans Island? A: Nothing. I dont know, maybe I made $700 a week. I understand (the producer) Mr. Schwartz made $90 million on the reruns alone. I think we got paid ... maybe we made $50,000, I dont know. And in a 2016 interview, she answered the question, "Whats one big myth about [Gilligan's Island]?" by asserting that the actors "didn't really get a dime" in residuals: A misconception is that we must be wealthy, rolling in the dough, because we got residuals. We didnt really get a dime. I think my salary -- of course, I was low on the totem pole, Ginger [Tina Louise] and Thurston [Jim Backus] got more -- was $750 a week. Sherwood Schwartz, our producer, reportedly made $90 million on the reruns alone! A 2014 Washington Post obituary of Wells' cast mate Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, also observed that Johnson "resented ... that he and other cast members were left out of the bulk of the syndication profits." obituary For what it's worth, the daughter of "Gilligan's Island" creator Sherwood Schwartz disputed the oft-repeated claim that her father realized as much as $90 million from the series: disputed Schwartzs daughter Hope Juber dismissed that estimate as an urban myth. While he, and my family were certainly comfortable, that kind of wild estimate is ridiculous and surprising, she wrote in an email. She said her father made his own deal with the studio just like the cast members, but not for that kind of money. She added, If there is $90 million, it must be buried in a chest on the island somewhere because weve never seen it. Mackie, John. "Full Interview With: Mary Ann on Gilligans Island." Vancouver Sun. 22 January 2014. Bernstein, Adam. "Russell Johnson, Actor Who Played the Professor on Gilligans Island, Dies at 89." The Washington Post. 16 January 2019. Malito, Alessandra. "Why We Keep Hearing About Once-Famous TV Actors in Financial Trouble." MarketWatch. 10 September 2018. Kovalchik, Kara. "TV-Holic: Still on Gilligans Island." Mental Floss. 8 September 2010. OK!. "Eve Plumb Not Paid for 'Brady Bunch' Reruns." 3 February 2011. Goldberg, Lesley. "Why the 'Big Bang Theory' Stars Took Surprising Pay Cuts." The Hollywood Reporter. 29 March 2017. Clash, Jim. "Interview: Actress Dawn Wells Answers the Big Ginger/Mary Ann Question, More." Forbes. 18 March 2016.

FMD_test_707

The Real Mitt Romney

07/02/2012

Claim: Item presents information about the "real" Mitt Romney. true Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2012] The Real Mitt Romney! After going to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan bar, but never worked as an attorney. As a venture-capitalist, Romney's first major business deal involved investing in a start-up office supply company with one store in Massachusetts that sold office supplies. That company, called Staples, now has over 2,000 stores and employs over 90,000 people. Romney or his company Bain Capital (using what became known as the "Bain Way") would go on to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino's, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, and many others. Got your calculators handy? Let's recap. Volunteer campaign worker for his dad's gubernatorial campaign 1 year. Unpaid intern in Governor's office 8 years. Mormon missionary in Paris 2 years. Unpaid bishop and stake president for his church 10 years. No salary as president of the Olympics 3 years. No salary as MA governor 4 years. That's a grand total of 28 years of unpaid service to his country, his community and his church. Why? Because that's the kind of man Mitt Romney is! And in 2011 Mitt Romney gave over $4 million to charity, almost 19% of his income ... Obama gave 1% Joe Biden gave $300 or .0013% This is real character vs ... well you know what! Origins: This item about former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney first hit our inbox in June 2012. Most of the information contained therein is verifiable, as described below: After going to both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan bar, but never worked as an attorney. In the 1970s, Mitt Romney attended Harvard University and earned a degree from the school's then-new joint business and law degree program. According to a 2007 Boston Globe profile: George Romney loomed large in his son's decision to earn business and law degrees simultaneously. Intent on following in the professional footsteps of his father, who had been chairman of American Motors Corp., Romney expressed an interest in business school. George Romney believed a law degree was a valuable commodity. So his son pursued both. Harvard's joint MBA/JD program was relatively new at the time it had been launched two years earlier and was intensely rigorous. Typically, business school is completed in two years and law school in three; dual-degree students earn both degrees in four years, spending their first year at one of the schools, their second at the other, and their final two shuttling between both. Out of Romney's 800 business school classmates and 550 law school classmates, only 15 earned degrees through the dual program. Romney excelled at both schools, graduating with honors from the law school; becoming a Baker Scholar at the business school, a distinction reserved for the top 5 percent of the class; and impressing many of his peers with his quick mind and skill at building consensus. The biography The Real Romney notes that: Shortly after Romney left Harvard, he began working at BCG [Boston Consulting Group], a fitting first job for a freshly minted Ivy League graduate. Romney was hedging his bets, though, not wholly confident that he would make it in the business world. He passed the Michigan bar exam in July 1975 and was admitted to practice law there the next year. He figured it would provide him a landing place if he didn't cut it in business. But the safety valve wouldn't be necessary. As a venture-capitalist, Romney's first major business deal involved investing in a start-up office supply company with one store in Massachusetts that sold office supplies. That company, called Staples, now has over 2,000 stores and employs over 90,000 people. Romney or his company Bain Capital (using what became known as the "Bain Way") would go on to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino's, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, and many others. The long-term effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the so-called "Bain Way" remains a subject of debate. In January 2012, the Wall Street Journal published an analysis of the business investments made by Bain Capital during Mitt Romney's tenure there and reported the following: The Wall Street Journal, aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward. Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost. Another finding was that Bain produced stellar returns for its investors yet the bulk of these came from just a small number of its investments. Ten deals produced more than 70% of the dollar gains. Some of those companies, too, later ran into trouble. Of the 10 businesses on which Bain investors scored their biggest gains, four later landed in bankruptcy court. (Full details of the Wall Street Journal's analysis can be viewed here.) here Volunteer campaign worker for his dad's gubernatorial campaign 1 year. A 2007 Time magazine article touched on a teenaged Mitt Romney's working for his father's Michigan gubernatorial campaign in 1962: He was 15 when his father ran for Governor in a state in which no Republican had held the job in 14 years. Mitt worked the campaign switchboard and traveled the county-fair circuit in a Ford microvan. George put Mitt to work at the "Romney for Governor" booths, shouting over a microphone and loudspeaker system, "You should vote for my father for Governor. He's a truly great person. You've got to support him. He's going to make things better." Mitt realizes now that his dad had something in mind beyond his own political career: "He was teaching me how to get out there." Unpaid intern in Governor's office 8 years. Mitt Romney did work as an intern in the Michigan governor's office while his father held that position, but not for anything close to eight years. George Romney served as Michigan's governor for only six years (January 1963 to January 1969), and for most of that time Mitt Romney was living outside of the state: first as a student at Stanford University in California from 1965-66, then as a Mormon missionary in France from mid-1966 through the end of 1968. Mormon missionary in Paris 2 years. Mitt Romney served as a Mormon missionary in France for a thirty-month period from July 1966 to December 1968. In 2007 the New York Times France was a humbling experience for Mr. Romney, who recalled it as the only time in his life when most of what I was trying to do was rejected. Missionary work is a rite of passage for Mormon men, who are encouraged to volunteer when they turn 19. Mitt Romneys grandfather, father and older brother had all served in Britain, so his assignment to France came as a surprise, he recalled. The son of a car company chief executive who later became governor of Michigan, Mitt Romney called his mission an instructive first experience of deprivation. He lived on about $100 a month, sleeping on cast-off mattresses and crowding into small apartments in groups of four. The only toilet was often down the hall and the only shower in a public bathhouse. The 175 missionaries in France all rose at 6 a.m. each day, rang doorbells from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and turned in by 10. Mr. Romney quickly stood out. His father was perhaps the best known Mormon public official of his day, and Mitts three years of French at the exclusive Cranbrook school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., had made him more fluent than his peers. Like most missionaries, he did not win many converts. After reading Mitts demoralized letters, his father sent back a favorite motto: Despair not, but if you despair, work on in your despair. Mr. Romneys companions, though, recall only his zeal. In newsletters, he often led the lists recording contacts made or tracts distributed. He chafed at the door-to-door entreaties, pushing for new ways to market their creed, like an exhibition baseball game or staging an American night in a youth center. Unpaid bishop and stake president for his church 10 years. The authors of The Real Romney described Mitt's service as a bishop and stake president in his church: Mormon congregations, typically groups of 400 to 500 people, are known as wards, and their boundaries are determined by geography. Wards, along with smaller congregations known as branches, are organized into stakes. Thus a stake, akin to a Catholic diocese, is a collection of wards and branches in a city or region. Unlike Protestants or Catholics, Mormons do not choose the congregations to which they belong. It depends entirely on where they live. In another departure from many other faiths, Mormons do not have paid full-time clergy. Members in good standing take turns serving in leadership roles. They are expected to perform their ecclesiastical duties on top of career and family responsibilities. Those called to serve as stake presidents and bishops, or leaders of local wards, are fully empowered as agents of the church, and they carry great authority over their domains. Mitt Romney first took on a major church role around 1977, when he was called to be a counselor to Gordon Williams, then the president of the Boston stake. Romney was essentially an adviser and deputy to Williams, helping oversee area congregations. His appointment was somewhat unusual in that counselors at that level have typically been bishops of their local wards first. But Romney, who was only about 30 years old, was deemed to possess leadership qualities beyond his years. Romneys responsibilities only grew from there; he would go on to serve as bishop and then as stake president, overseeing about a dozen congregations with close to 4,000 members altogether. Those positions in the church amounted to his biggest leadership test yet, exposing him to personal and institutional crises, human tragedies, immigrant cultures, social forces, and organizational challenges that he had never before encountered. No salary as president of the Olympics 3 years. Mitt Romney served as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002. According to his spokesman, Romney donated the salary and severance pay he received for that effort to charity: In Romney's case, he signed an offer letter in 1999 acknowledging he would be paid $280,000 annually for the Olympic job and receive up to one year in severance pay after the Games. Romney announced the day he started the job that he would not accept any wages unless the organizing committee completed the Games with a profit. He also told the Salt Lake Tribune one of his "absolutes" was that he would "not accept any severance pay when his three-year term is complete." He also cited his pledge to forgo any severance pay in his book, "Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games." When the organizing committee posted a surplus of nearly $100 million after the Games, Romney accepted $922,980 in total salary as well as the $476,000 severance package. [His spokesman, Eric] Fehrnstrom said Romney gave his salary as well as the severance pay to charity. Romney and his wife, Ann, also donated $1 million to the organizing committee during his tenure. Asked what charities received the money, Fehrnstrom said Romney does not discuss publicly his charitable giving. No salary as MA governor 4 years. Just prior to his swearing-in as Massachusetts' governor in 2003, Mitt Romney's transition team announced that he and his lieutenant governor would not take salaries ($135,000 and $120,000 per year, respectively) while in office. And in 2011 Mitt Romney gave over $4 million to charity, almost 19% of his income. Obama gave 1% Joe Biden gave $300 or .0013% According to an in-process federal income tax return made available by the Romney campaign, in 2011 Mitt and Ann Romney declared a gross income of $20,908,880 and charitable contributions of $4,020,572, the latter figure comprising 19.2% of the former. tax return The additional information about the charitable donations of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden is incorrect, however. In 2011 the Obamas reported agross income of $844,585 and charitable contributions totaling $172,130, the latter figure comprising 20.4% of the former (a rate higher than the Romneys' 19.2%). The Bidens reported a gross income of $379,035 for 2011 and claimed $5,540 in charitable contributions, the latter figure comprising 1.5% of the former. reported reported Last updated: 2 July 2012 Erb, Kelly Phillips. "President Obama and Vice President Biden Release 2011 Tax Returns." Forbes. 13 April 2012. Hohler, Bob. "Romney's Olympic Ties Helped Him Reap Campaign Funds." The Boston Globe. 28 June 2007. Khan, Huma. "Mitt Romney Made Nearly $22 Million in 2010, Paid Less Than 14% in Taxes." ABCNews.com. 24 January 2012. Kirkpatrick, David D. "Romney, Searching and Earnest, Set His Path in 60s." The New York Times. 15 November 2007. Kranish, Michael and Scott Helman. The Real Romney. New York: Harper, 2012. ISBN 0-062-12327-0. Maremont, Mark. "Romney at Bain: Big Gains, Some Busts." The Wall Street Journal. 9 January 2012. Pfeiffer, Sacha. "Romney's Harvard Classmates Recall His Quick Mind, Positive Attitude." The Boston Globe. 26 June 2007. Rubin, Jennifer. "Romney Paid 42 Percent of 2011 Income in Taxes and Charity." The Washington Post. 24 January 2012. Boston Business Journal. "Romney Passes Up $135K Governor Salary." 31 December 2002.

FMD_test_708

Does This Pic Prove Russia Can Be Seen from Alaska?

02/11/2024

On Feb. 3, 2024, a photograph circulated on social media allegedly showing a view of Russia from Alaska. "Russia is 2 miles away from Alaska," one post on Reddit captioned the image, while another post on X (formerly Twitter) claimed that "Russia is 55 miles away from Alaska." post post Russia is 2 miles away from Alaskabyu/NicoleN_Pillow1899 inBeAmazed Russia is 2 miles away from Alaska u/NicoleN_Pillow1899 BeAmazed "Is it real?" one Reddit user asked. We found that the image was also shared on Instagram and featured in a BuzzFeed article. asked Instagram article In short, the photograph is authentic, but it does not show Russian territory visible from Alaska. The photo was featured in a 2018 BBC article with the title "American lone sailor held in far east Russia near Alaska" and an article by TASS, a Russian press agency, with the credit of " ," which translates to "Yuri Smityuk." We found the photograph was captured by Russian photographer Yuri Smityuk. The caption to the image shared by IMAGO, a German photo agency, read (emphasis ours): article article read CHUKOTKA, RUSSIA JUNE 24, 2018: Mechigmen Spit near the Lorino whaling settlement. There are 1200 people living in the village which is the centre of Russia s subsistence whaling and walrus hunting. Lorino maritime hunters have an annual catch limit of 60 gray whales and 1 bowhead whale. Therefore, the photograph was not captured in Alaska, contrary to what some social media users claimed. However, it is true that Russia's Big Diomede Island and Alaska's Little Diomede Island are about 2.5 miles apart. (The Russian and Alaskan mainlands are approximately 55 miles apart at their closest points.) 2.5 miles mainlands (Google Maps) Given that the so-called Yesterday and Tomorrow Islands are so close to each other, it is possible to see Russian territory from Alaska, as can be seen in the Getty Images photograph below: photograph (Getty Images) For reference, here's what the Diomede Islands look like from from above: (Getty Images) In January 2011, we investigated whether vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said, "I can see Russia from my house," during the 2008 presidential campaign. investigated Anchorage, Mailing Address: 605 West 4th Avenue Suite 105, and AK 99501 Phone: 907 644-3661 Contact Us. How Close Is Alaska to Russia? - Alaska Public Lands (U.S. National Park Service). https://www.nps.gov/anch/learn/historyculture/how-close-is-alaska-to-russia.htm. Accessed 7 Feb. 2024. Diomede Islands | Bering Strait, Russia, & Alaska | Britannica. 18 Dec. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/place/Diomede-Islands. Mikkelson, David. "Did Sarah Palin Say: 'I Can See Russia from My House'?" Snopes, 29 Jan. 2011, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-russia-house/. Yesterday and Tomorrow Islands. 27 Jan. 2018, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91638/yesterday-and-tomorrow-islands.

FMD_test_709

Did the Trump Administration Send 18 Tons of PPE to China in Early 2020?

03/31/2020

Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic in March 2020, social media users began sharing a tweet ostensibly posted by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) that castigated U.S. President Donald Trump for supposedly having sent 18 tons of personal protective equipment (PPE) to China while ignoring warnings and calling COVID-19 concerns a "hoax." Readers wanted to know both if Waters had actually tweeted those words, and whether the content of that tweet was true: sharing The authorship of the tweet is easily verifiable, as it appears on the timeline of Waters' Twitter account: It is also true that on Feb. 7, 2020, while critics contended that the Trump administration was doing relatively little to prepare for the coming pandemic in the U.S., the State Department announced it had facilitated "the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials" in order to help "contain and combat the novel coronavirus": relatively little announced facilitated This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials. These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people. Today, the United States government is announcing it is prepared to spend up to $100 million in existing funds to assist China and other impacted countries, both directly and through multilateral organizations, to contain and combat the novel coronavirus. This commitment along with the hundreds of millions generously donated by the American private sector demonstrates strong U.S. leadership in response to the outbreak. This assistance only adds to what the United States has done to strengthen health security programs around the world. For the last 20 years, the United States through USAID has invested over one billion dollars to strengthen the capacity of more than 25 countries to prevent, detect, and respond to existing and emerging infectious disease threats. Since 2015, under our commitment to the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), this support has helped improve surveillance and laboratory systems, risk communication, outbreak response, and address the rising threat of anti-microbial resistance. The United States is and will remain the worlds most generous donor. We encourage the rest of the world to match our commitment. Working together, we can have a profound impact to contain this growing threat. This same topic was also the subject of a CNN editorial published on the same day as Waters' tweet, which criticized Trump for allowing the transfer of PPE to China even after at least a dozen cases of COVID-19 had been discovered in the U.S.: published a dozen cases Concerns about a dwindling supply of PPE are not new. Back on February 7, the World Health Organization sounded alarm bells about "the limited stock of PPE," noting demand was 100 times higher than normal for this equipment. sounded alarm bells Yet the same day as the WHO warning, the Trump administration announced that it was transporting to China nearly 17.8 tons (more than 35,000 pounds) of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials." As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted in the press release announcing this shipment, "These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people." Americans indeed are a generous people. We want to help those in need. And at the time these medical supplies were shipped, more than 28,000 people in China were infected with nearly 600 deaths attributed to the virus. But how could Trump allow tons of vital medical equipment Americans to be transported to another country in February if, as he has claimed since January, he fully understood the risk the United States was facing from the virus. As a reminder, the first known case of coronavirus case on US soil was confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on January 21, 2020. The next day, Trump was asked about the virus while attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. CNBC anchor Joe Kernen asked the President: "The CDC has identified a case of coronavirus in Washington state ... have you been briefed by the CDC?" to which Trump responded, "I have." Kernen continued, "Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?" Trump declared: "No. Not at all. And we're we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine." As we covered in a separate article, it is not true that Trump literally dismissed the coronavirus itself as "a hoax." He did, however, liken the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax" while seemingly downplaying the potential severity of the outbreak by comparing it to the common flu and claiming the press was "in hysteria mode": separate article Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. Theyre politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, Hows President Trump doing? They go, Oh, not good, not good. They have no clue. They dont have any clue. They cant even count their votes in Iowa, they cant even count. No they cant. They cant count their votes. One of my people came up to me and said, Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didnt work out too well. They couldnt do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, theyve been doing it since you got in. Its all turning, they lost, its all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something thats been pretty amazing. Were 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that. So a number that nobody heard of that I heard of recently and I was shocked to hear it, 35,000 people on average die each year from the flu. Did anyone know that? 35,000. Thats a lot of people. It could go to 100,000, it could be 27,000, they say usually a minimum of 27, it goes up to 100,000 people a year who die, and so far we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesnt mean we wont, and we are totally prepared, it doesnt mean we wont. But think of it. You hear 35 and 40,000 people, and weve lost nobody, and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode. Some defenders have argued that the Trump administration's cooperation in sending donated supplies to the part of the world with the largest number of coronavirus cases at the time (China) was the most effective way of combating the outbreak, while critics have maintained that those supplies should have been kept on hand for use during the inevitable spread of the coronavirus to America. Given that some of the supplies had been donated by the "American private sector," it's unclear what would have happened to them had the U.S. State Department declined to facilitate their transportation to China, and whether that action ultimately saved or cost more lives in the U.S. is not possible to determine at this point. But for what it's worth, the Canadian government was likewise criticized for sending supplies to China for the same reasons: criticized Canadas department of Global Affairs shipped 16 tonnes of personal protective equipment to China [in February] to help Beijing fight the novel coronavirus, an effort that it undertook even after the World Health Organization had warned countries to prepare for possible cases. Critics are questioning the wisdom of exporting gear overseas just weeks before it was sorely needed in Canada. The Canadian government, however, says the shipment was an effort to collaborate with China in the fight against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Amir Attaran, a professor at University of Ottawas school of epidemiology and public health and its faculty of law, said he was surprised to learn Global Affairs shipped personal protective equipment (PPE) to China. It was absolutely certain in early February that we would need this equipment, he said. "This decision went beyond altruism into high negligence and incompetence because Canada did not, and does not, have surplus equipment to spare. Adam Austen, deputy director of communications for Mr. Champagne, said Canadas shipment to China was an effort to co-operate in the fight against the virus. Global pandemics require global co-operation. After all, pandemics know no borders. Co-operation is vital to ensuring the health and safety of people around the world. This includes protecting people here in Canada, as support of this kind can help to slow the spread of the virus, Mr. Austen said. Wikipedia. "Timeline of the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in the United States." Accessed 31 March 2020. Branswell, Helen. "Coronavirus Concerns Trigger Global Run on Supplies for Health Workers, Causing Shortages." Stat. 7 February 2020. Obeidallah, Dean. "Trump Administration Sent Protective Medical Gear to China While He Minimized the Virus Threat to US." CNN. 30 March 2020. Miller, Tim. "Warnings Ignored: A Timeline of Trumps COVID-19 Response." The Bulwark. 25 March 2020. Palma, Bethania. "Did President Trump Refer to the Coronavirus as a Hoax?" Snopes.com 2 March 2020. Pompeo, Michael R. "The United States Announces Assistance to Combat the Novel Coronavirus." U.S. Department of State. 7 February 2020. Chase, Steven. "Ottawa Faces Criticism for Sending 16 Tonnes of Personal Protective Equipment to China in February." The Globe and Mail. 25 March 2020.

FMD_test_710

Beto O'Rourke's 'Reality Check' can be paraphrased as Beto O'Rourke's demonstration of the truth or a candid assessment of the situation.

09/01/2018

Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas came to national prominence in 2018 through his high-profile campaign to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. senator Ted Cruz. During the course of his campaign, the Democratic candidate has been confronted with various claims and allegations about himself and his family. One such meme, entitled "'Beto' Reality Check," was shared widely on Facebook in August 2018:A spokesperson for O'Rourke's campaign described the meme as "factually incorrect in countless ways" and largely referred us to several existing news reports about the allegations. The following is our breakdown of the five sections contained in the meme.O'Rourke adopted the name "Beto" to appeal to Latino voters: The meme claimed:NOT HISPANIC"Robert O'Rourke" became "Beto" for his political campaigns and on the ballot, a tactic that gives the false impression he's Latino, misleading voters in a state with many Hispanics.In fact, O'Rourke was known as "Beto" long before he entered political life, although his birth name is Robert and he appears to use both first names interchangeably. (For example, his July 2018 Federal Election Commission "Statement of Candidacy" lists his name as "Robert Beto O'Rourke.")O'Rourke told CNN that his parents referred to him as Beto "from day one," and that it "just stuck." Others have noted that the name is likely derived from a pronunciation of the Spanish "Roberto," and O'Rourke himself described it as "a nickname for Robert in El Paso." (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 78 percent of El Paso county residents listed themselves as being of Mexican heritage in 2016.)O'Rourke's family is of Irish heritage. According to the New York Times, his family "came over from Ireland four generations ago to work on the railroad." His father Pat O'Rourke was a prominent El Paso County official during the 1980s.A 1986 article about Pat O'Rourke in the El Paso Times referred to his then 14-year-old son as "Beto O'Rourke." In 1999, six years before O'Rourke ran for El Paso city council, the same newspaper referred to "web site designer Beto O'Rourke" in a short article about his I.T. business Stanton Street Design.After checking the archives of the El Paso Times, we found multiple references to "Beto O'Rourke" between 1986 and 2004, when O'Rourk was either a child or a businessman and had never run for political office.In March, the campaign of O'Rourke's Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, launched a radio jingle that poked fun at the name "Beto" and included the following lyrics: "I remember reading stories/Liberal Robert wanted to fit in/So he changed his name to 'Beto'/And hid it with a grin ...":FIRST LISTEN: our new 60-second statewide radio ad introducing our liberal opponent, Congressman Robert ORourke, to Texas voters.Help #KeepTexasRed: https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 7, 2018The next day, O'Rourke posted a photograph of himself as a young boy, wearing a sweater with the nickname "Beto" stitched into it, establishing that, contrary to false accusation, he did not "change his name" for political reasons:pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 7, 2018O'Rourke used his father's connections to avoid trial for two felonies: UNPROVENThe meme claimed:FELONY ARREST RECORDAs an adult in his mid-20s, O'Rourke was caught breaking into the University of Texas El Paso. Charged with breaking and entering and burglary, he mysteriously avoided trial. A few years later, arrested for drunk driving, he again walked with a "deal." Being the song of a powerful, politically connected County Judge apparently has benefits. O'Rourke dismisses his felony convictions as "youthful pranks" and "mistakes"; it's old news, move along, nothing to see here.O'Rourke has indeed been arrested for burglary and drunk driving, a history which he has discussed several times over the course of his political career, as his spokesperson told us: "While charges were dismissed, this is something that Beto has always publicly addressed -- during his initial run for the city council, his run for Congress, in profiles written about him, during dozens of interviews, and at town halls across the state during this campaign."In a 27 August 2018 op-ed for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, O'Rourke himself wrote:Twenty-three years ago I was arrested for attempted forcible entry after jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. I spent a night in the El Paso County Jail, was able to make bail the next day, and was released. Three years later, I was arrested for drunk driving -- a far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse.According to El Paso county jail records, O'Rourke was arrested for attempted burglary on 19 May 1995, when he was 22 years old. He was released from custody the same day. Court records show that the prosecutor dropped the charge in February 1996.O'Rourke was also arrested for driving while intoxicated on 27 September 1998, the day after his 26th birthday. He completed a "misdemeanor diversion program" (namely "DWI school") in October 1999, and the charge was dropped.In August 2018, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News cited police reports, including a witness account, which suggested that the incident leading to O'Rourke's DWI arrest was relatively serious and involved a collision with another vehicle and a possible attempt by O'Rourke to leave the scene:State and local police reports obtained by the Chronicle and Express-News show that ORourke was driving drunk at what a witness called a high rate of speed in a 75 mph zone on Interstate 10 about a mile from the New Mexico border. He lost control and hit a truck, sending his car careening across the center median into oncoming lanes. The witness, who stopped at the scene, later told police that ORourke had tried to drive away from the scene. O'Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on police breathalyzers, above a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, the state legal limit at the time.In the case of his DWI arrest, O'Rourke did not face prison time because he completed an alternative adjudication program. It's not clear why the attempted burglary charge was dropped in 1996 (we asked the O'Rourke campaign about this but didn't receive a response to that particular question in time for publication). However, we could find no evidence that O'Rourke's father had any role in either case, nor did the meme offer any evidence.Congressman O'Rourke's father Pat was the El Paso County judge until 1986 -- a kind of chief executive of the county's governing body, the Commissioners Court -- so he had not held office for nine years by the time of his son's attempted burglary arrest.O'Rourke violated 'insider trading' laws: The meme claimed:INSIDER TRADING VIOLATIONSAfter being sent a memo specifically prohibiting investment in Twitter's IPO [initial public offering], O'Rourke made a tidy one-day profit on it. When uncovered by a government watchdog, he quickly turned himself in. This violation of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) is apparently a habit, as there are several other instances of this behavior; he characterizes them as mistakes.Despite the meme's claim, O'Rourke has never been charged with, or convicted of, violating any laws related to insider trading, including the STOCK Act, which bars members of the U.S. Congress from benefiting from financial transactions made on the basis of information they received in their capacity as members of Congress.But this section of the meme does contain elements of truth in that -- after the matter was brought to light by a third party -- O'Rourke reported his potential violation of rules to the House Ethics Committee (for stock transactions he maintained were executed by his broker without his knowledge), and the matter was resolved without any charges being brought against him:U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke alerted the House Ethics Committee that he might have violated a new law restricting members of Congress from engaging in certain stock transactions.It is the first case to come before the committee involving a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress from participating in initial public offerings, or IPOs, other than what is available to members of the public generally, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Committee for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group.ORourke, a Democrat whose district covers a portion of western Texas, reported the possible violation after Legistorm, an online news site that tracks congressional issues, informed him that his Nov. 15 disclosure saying he participated in the Twitter IPO earlier in the month might indicate a violation of a 2012 law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act.The freshman congressman also reported that, through his stockbroker, he participated in six other initial public offerings this year. In an interview, ORourke said he didnt see a Nov. 5 memo from the House Ethics Committee warning members of Congress about participating in IPOs.On 27 November 2013, O'Rourke wrote on Facebook that the ethics committee had informed him they would consider the issue resolved once he sold off any remaining shares that he bought during any IPOs, and sent the U.S. Treasury a check equal to the amount he earned in profits from those IPO-related shares:Upon receiving the letter from the Committee today I instructed my broker to sell all remaining shares, which he did. I then sent a check for the full amount of the profit from all IPO trades this year to the U.S. Treasury by overnight mail. Copies of the trades and the check have been sent to the Ethics Committee.I apologize to the House of Representatives and to the people I represent for not exercising due diligence. I will be much more thorough in the future concerning financial transactions and do my best to ensure that I am in full compliance with all rules covering members of Congress.Records filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives show that O'Rourke bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of shares in Twitter on 7 November 2013 (the first day the company was traded on the stock market), before selling off between $1,000 and $15,000 in shares later that day.Records also indicate that on 27 November 2013, O'Rourke again sold off between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Twitter shares "pursuant to the recommendations made by House Ethics Committee in a letter from 11/27/13."A condom full of "white powder" was found in O'Rourke's father's car: trueThe meme claimed:FATHER'S DRUG SCANDALO'Rourke's father, while county judge, had a 2-way radio installed in his Jeep. Installers discovered a condom packed with a "white powder" concealed in his vehicle and called police. Much to the dismay of investigating officers, the Captain on duty, a friend and political ally of O'Rourke, flushed the evidence down the toilet and dropped the charges. The Captain was subsequently suspended and tried for tampering with evidence.This section of the meme relates to incidents which took place in 1983, when Beto O'Rourke was 10 years old, and which had absolutely nothing to do with him.Nevertheless, it's true that in February 1983, El Paso County Sheriff's Captain Willie Hill told two police officers to get rid of a condom full of white powder which they had found in Pat O'Rourke's car while they were installing a radio in it. The officers suspected the powder to be heroin or cocaine, but the substance was never tested to determine its true nature.Hill was temporarily suspended but was reinstated after being acquitted on a misdemeanor charge of evidence tampering. (The prosecutor had earlier dropped a charge of misconduct against him.) Hill testified that he made a snap decision about the discovery of the powder, which he strongly suspected had been planted there to embarrass or undermine either O'Rourke or one of the officers installing the radio.O'Rourke and Hill were friends, as O'Rourke (then county judge) told the El Paso Times: "Because he's a good man, it would be an injustice if Willie were to suffer grievous consequences from this whole episode. You have an honest and honorable man implicated by pure fluke. And that's just damn right not fair."O'Rourke was involved in a family business that was prosecuted for tax violations: The meme claimed:FAMILY BUSINESS FEDERALLY PROSECUTEDO'Rourke's family business "Charlotte's Furniture," a store "Beto," his mother and sister are involved with, was charged in 2010 with altering records to avoid IRS reporting. Investigators found they accepted cash payments, in one instance over $630,000 from an unnamed individual (that's a LOT of furniture)! Found guilty on 15 counts, the sentence was a $250,000 fine and 5 years' probation. Around the time O'Rourke announced as a senate candidate, the business was shuttered and its records became unavailable. O'Rourke passes the prosecution off as a "mistake"; it's been covered, move along, nothing to see here.The meme got the basic facts right about the federal tax case against Charlotte's, but it falsely claimed that Congressman O'Rourke was personally "involved" in the company. He was not.In 2010, Charlotte's Inc., an El Paso furniture store company started by O'Rourke's grandmother in 1951, was convicted of "structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements, a tax-related felony. The company was charged as a corporate entity, but the Congressman's mother, Melissa O'Rourke, acted as its authorized representative.The company pled guilty to accusations that it had restructured transactions in order to present relatively large cash payments as having been made in installments of less than $10,000. Anti-money laundering provisions of U.S. law require that a business reveal the identity of any individual who makes a cash payment above that threshold.In total, Charlotte's and its employees illegally restructured $630,000 in payments, all from one customer, in this way between May 2005 and October 2006. The identity of that customer is not known. U.S. District Court judge Kathleen Cardone gave a sentence of five years' probation and a $500,000 fine, with $250,000 of that suspended.In 2017, Melissa O'Rourke announced that she intended to close down the business but denied the decision was connected to her son's U.S. Senate campaign or the 2010 conviction.According to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts records for 2017, Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with Charlotte's Inc., whose directors were Melissa O'Rourke and the Congressman's sister Charlotte O'Rourke.Records for 2005 and 2006 (when the I.R.S. reporting violations took place) as well as 2010 (when the conviction happened) show that Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with the company at those times, either.The Congressman is part owner of the property where Charlotte's was located. According to O'Rourke's 2013 congressional financial disclosure, his mother gifted him an ownership stake worth between $1 million and $5 million in Peppertree Square, a shopping center on North Mesa St. in El Paso.However, his part ownership of the Peppertree Square property (which does not appear to entail any management function in any of the businesses located there) did not accrue until 31 December 2012, more than six years after the conclusion of the I.R.S. reporting violations at Charlotte's. One such meme, entitled "'Beto' Reality Check," was shared widely on Facebook in August 2018: meme A spokesperson for O'Rourke's campaign described the meme as "factually incorrect in countless ways" and largely referred us to several existing news reports about the allegations. The following is our breakdown of the five sections contained in the meme. The meme claimed: NOT HISPANIC "Robert O'Rourke" became "Beto" for his political campaigns and on the ballot, a tactic that gives the false impression he's Latino, misleading voters in a state with many Hispanics. In fact, O'Rourke was known as "Beto" long before he entered political life, although his birth name is Robert and he appears to use both first names interchangeably. (For example, his July 2018 Federal Election Commission "Statement of Candidacy" lists his name as "Robert Beto O'Rourke.") Statement O'Rourke told CNN that his parents referred to him as Beto "from day one," and that it "just stuck." Others have noted that the name is likely derived from a pronunciation of the Spanish "Roberto," and O'Rourke himself described it as "a nickname for Robert in El Paso." (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 78 percent of El Paso county residents listed themselves as being of Mexican heritage in 2016.) CNN noted listed O'Rourke's family is of Irish heritage. According to the New York Times, his family "came over from Ireland four generations ago to work on the railroad." His father Pat O'Rourke was a prominent El Paso County official during the 1980s. New York Times A 1986 article about Pat O'Rourke in the El Paso Times referred to his then 14-year-old son as "Beto O'Rourke." In 1999, six years before O'Rourke ran for El Paso city council, the same newspaper referred to "web site designer Beto O'Rourke" in a short article about his I.T. business Stanton Street Design. article article After checking the archives of the El Paso Times, we found multiple references to "Beto O'Rourke" between 1986 and 2004, when O'Rourk was either a child or a businessman and had never run for political office. In March, the campaign of O'Rourke's Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, launched a radio jingle that poked fun at the name "Beto" and included the following lyrics: "I remember reading stories/Liberal Robert wanted to fit in/So he changed his name to 'Beto'/And hid it with a grin ...": FIRST LISTEN: our new 60-second statewide radio ad introducing our liberal opponent, Congressman Robert ORourke, to Texas voters. Help #KeepTexasRed: https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek #KeepTexasRed https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 7, 2018 March 7, 2018 The next day, O'Rourke posted a photograph of himself as a young boy, wearing a sweater with the nickname "Beto" stitched into it, establishing that, contrary to false accusation, he did not "change his name" for political reasons: pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 7, 2018 March 7, 2018 The meme claimed: FELONY ARREST RECORD As an adult in his mid-20s, O'Rourke was caught breaking into the University of Texas El Paso. Charged with breaking and entering and burglary, he mysteriously avoided trial. A few years later, arrested for drunk driving, he again walked with a "deal." Being the song of a powerful, politically connected County Judge apparently has benefits. O'Rourke dismisses his felony convictions as "youthful pranks" and "mistakes"; it's old news, move along, nothing to see here. O'Rourke has indeed been arrested for burglary and drunk driving, a history which he has discussed several times over the course of his political career, as his spokesperson told us: "While charges were dismissed, this is something that Beto has always publicly addressed -- during his initial run for the city council, his run for Congress, in profiles written about him, during dozens of interviews, and at town halls across the state during this campaign." In a 27 August 2018 op-ed for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, O'Rourke himself wrote: op-ed Twenty-three years ago I was arrested for attempted forcible entry after jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. I spent a night in the El Paso County Jail, was able to make bail the next day, and was released. Three years later, I was arrested for drunk driving -- a far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse. According to El Paso county jail records, O'Rourke was arrested for attempted burglary on 19 May 1995, when he was 22 years old. He was released from custody the same day. Court records show that the prosecutor dropped the charge in February 1996. records records O'Rourke was also arrested for driving while intoxicated on 27 September 1998, the day after his 26th birthday. He completed a "misdemeanor diversion program" (namely "DWI school") in October 1999, and the charge was dropped. arrested In August 2018, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News cited police reports, including a witness account, which suggested that the incident leading to O'Rourke's DWI arrest was relatively serious and involved a collision with another vehicle and a possible attempt by O'Rourke to leave the scene: cited State and local police reports obtained by the Chronicle and Express-News show that ORourke was driving drunk at what a witness called a high rate of speed in a 75 mph zone on Interstate 10 about a mile from the New Mexico border. He lost control and hit a truck, sending his car careening across the center median into oncoming lanes. The witness, who stopped at the scene, later told police that ORourke had tried to drive away from the scene. O'Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on police breathalyzers, above a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, the state legal limit at the time. In the case of his DWI arrest, O'Rourke did not face prison time because he completed an alternative adjudication program. It's not clear why the attempted burglary charge was dropped in 1996 (we asked the O'Rourke campaign about this but didn't receive a response to that particular question in time for publication). However, we could find no evidence that O'Rourke's father had any role in either case, nor did the meme offer any evidence. Congressman O'Rourke's father Pat was the El Paso County judge until 1986 -- a kind of chief executive of the county's governing body, the Commissioners Court -- so he had not held office for nine years by the time of his son's attempted burglary arrest. judge governing body The meme claimed: INSIDER TRADING VIOLATIONS After being sent a memo specifically prohibiting investment in Twitter's IPO [initial public offering], O'Rourke made a tidy one-day profit on it. When uncovered by a government watchdog, he quickly turned himself in. This violation of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) is apparently a habit, as there are several other instances of this behavior; he characterizes them as mistakes. Despite the meme's claim, O'Rourke has never been charged with, or convicted of, violating any laws related to insider trading, including the STOCK Act, which bars members of the U.S. Congress from benefiting from financial transactions made on the basis of information they received in their capacity as members of Congress. STOCK Act But this section of the meme does contain elements of truth in that -- after the matter was brought to light by a third party -- O'Rourke reported his potential violation of rules to the House Ethics Committee (for stock transactions he maintained were executed by his broker without his knowledge), and the matter was resolved without any charges being brought against him: violation U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke alerted the House Ethics Committee that he might have violated a new law restricting members of Congress from engaging in certain stock transactions. It is the first case to come before the committee involving a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress from participating in initial public offerings, or IPOs, other than what is available to members of the public generally, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Committee for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group. ORourke, a Democrat whose district covers a portion of western Texas, reported the possible violation after Legistorm, an online news site that tracks congressional issues, informed him that his Nov. 15 disclosure saying he participated in the Twitter IPO earlier in the month might indicate a violation of a 2012 law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act. The freshman congressman also reported that, through his stockbroker, he participated in six other initial public offerings this year. In an interview, ORourke said he didnt see a Nov. 5 memo from the House Ethics Committee warning members of Congress about participating in IPOs. On 27 November 2013, O'Rourke wrote on Facebook that the ethics committee had informed him they would consider the issue resolved once he sold off any remaining shares that he bought during any IPOs, and sent the U.S. Treasury a check equal to the amount he earned in profits from those IPO-related shares: wrote Upon receiving the letter from the Committee today I instructed my broker to sell all remaining shares, which he did. I then sent a check for the full amount of the profit from all IPO trades this year to the U.S. Treasury by overnight mail. Copies of the trades and the check have been sent to the Ethics Committee. I apologize to the House of Representatives and to the people I represent for not exercising due diligence. I will be much more thorough in the future concerning financial transactions and do my best to ensure that I am in full compliance with all rules covering members of Congress. Records filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives show that O'Rourke bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of shares in Twitter on 7 November 2013 (the first day the company was traded on the stock market), before selling off between $1,000 and $15,000 in shares later that day. filed Records also indicate that on 27 November 2013, O'Rourke again sold off between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Twitter shares "pursuant to the recommendations made by House Ethics Committee in a letter from 11/27/13." indicate The meme claimed: FATHER'S DRUG SCANDAL O'Rourke's father, while county judge, had a 2-way radio installed in his Jeep. Installers discovered a condom packed with a "white powder" concealed in his vehicle and called police. Much to the dismay of investigating officers, the Captain on duty, a friend and political ally of O'Rourke, flushed the evidence down the toilet and dropped the charges. The Captain was subsequently suspended and tried for tampering with evidence. This section of the meme relates to incidents which took place in 1983, when Beto O'Rourke was 10 years old, and which had absolutely nothing to do with him. Nevertheless, it's true that in February 1983, El Paso County Sheriff's Captain Willie Hill told two police officers to get rid of a condom full of white powder which they had found in Pat O'Rourke's car while they were installing a radio in it. The officers suspected the powder to be heroin or cocaine, but the substance was never tested to determine its true nature. Hill was temporarily suspended but was reinstated after being acquitted on a misdemeanor charge of evidence tampering. (The prosecutor had earlier dropped a charge of misconduct against him.) Hill testified that he made a snap decision about the discovery of the powder, which he strongly suspected had been planted there to embarrass or undermine either O'Rourke or one of the officers installing the radio. being acquitted O'Rourke and Hill were friends, as O'Rourke (then county judge) told the El Paso Times: "Because he's a good man, it would be an injustice if Willie were to suffer grievous consequences from this whole episode. You have an honest and honorable man implicated by pure fluke. And that's just damn right not fair." El Paso Times The meme claimed: FAMILY BUSINESS FEDERALLY PROSECUTED O'Rourke's family business "Charlotte's Furniture," a store "Beto," his mother and sister are involved with, was charged in 2010 with altering records to avoid IRS reporting. Investigators found they accepted cash payments, in one instance over $630,000 from an unnamed individual (that's a LOT of furniture)! Found guilty on 15 counts, the sentence was a $250,000 fine and 5 years' probation. Around the time O'Rourke announced as a senate candidate, the business was shuttered and its records became unavailable. O'Rourke passes the prosecution off as a "mistake"; it's been covered, move along, nothing to see here. The meme got the basic facts right about the federal tax case against Charlotte's, but it falsely claimed that Congressman O'Rourke was personally "involved" in the company. He was not. In 2010, Charlotte's Inc., an El Paso furniture store company started by O'Rourke's grandmother in 1951, was convicted of "structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements, a tax-related felony. The company was charged as a corporate entity, but the Congressman's mother, Melissa O'Rourke, acted as its authorized representative. felony The company pled guilty to accusations that it had restructured transactions in order to present relatively large cash payments as having been made in installments of less than $10,000. Anti-money laundering provisions of U.S. law require that a business reveal the identity of any individual who makes a cash payment above that threshold. restructured provisions In total, Charlotte's and its employees illegally restructured $630,000 in payments, all from one customer, in this way between May 2005 and October 2006. The identity of that customer is not known. U.S. District Court judge Kathleen Cardone gave a sentence of five years' probation and a $500,000 fine, with $250,000 of that suspended. sentence In 2017, Melissa O'Rourke announced that she intended to close down the business but denied the decision was connected to her son's U.S. Senate campaign or the 2010 conviction. announced According to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts records for 2017, Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with Charlotte's Inc., whose directors were Melissa O'Rourke and the Congressman's sister Charlotte O'Rourke. records Records for 2005 and 2006 (when the I.R.S. reporting violations took place) as well as 2010 (when the conviction happened) show that Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with the company at those times, either. Records The Congressman is part owner of the property where Charlotte's was located. According to O'Rourke's 2013 congressional financial disclosure, his mother gifted him an ownership stake worth between $1 million and $5 million in Peppertree Square, a shopping center on North Mesa St. in El Paso. disclosure However, his part ownership of the Peppertree Square property (which does not appear to entail any management function in any of the businesses located there) did not accrue until 31 December 2012, more than six years after the conclusion of the I.R.S. reporting violations at Charlotte's. O'Rourke, Robert Beto. "Statement of Candidacy." Federal Election Commission. 9 July 2018. Bradner, Eric. "With Primary Ending, Cruz Takes Opening Shot at Beto O'Rourke's Name." CNN. 7 March 2018. Stanton, John. "Juarez's Biggest Booster Is an Irish-American Congressman." BuzzFeed News. 14 October 2014. Draper, Robert. "Texas, Three Ways." The New York Times. 14 November 2014. Scharrer, Gary. "O'Rourke Goes Out Talking." The El Paso Times. 8 December 1986. The El Paso Times. "Consumers Dial Up Web Site." 16 June 1999. O'Rourke, Beto. "Texas Should Lead the Way on True Criminal Justice Reform." The Houston Chronicle. 27 August 2018. Diaz, Kevin. "Police Reports Detail Beto O'Rourke's 1998 DWI Arrest." The Houston Chronicle. 31 August 2018. Cruz, Laura. "Friends, Family Say Goodbye to O'Rourke." The El Paso Times. 7 July 2001. The White House. "Fact Sheet: The STOCK Act -- Bans Members of Congress from Insider Trading." 4 April 2012. The El Paso Times. "Congressman May Have Broken Ethics Rules with Twitter Stock Purchase." 26 November 2013. Landis, David. "Jurors Decided Hill Negligent, Not Criminal." The El Paso Times. 23 December 1983. Scharrer, Gary. "O'Rourke Expresses Sorrow Over Charge." The El Paso Times. 29 October 1983. Legal Information Institute. "U.S. Code, Title 31, Subtitle IV, Chapter 53, Subchapter II, Section 5324 -- Structuring Transactions to Evade Reporting Requirement Prohibite." Cornell Law School. Accessed 31 August 2018. U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division. "U.S.A. vs Charlotte's Inc. -- Information." 4 May 2010. U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division. "U.S.A. vs Charlotte's Inc. -- Amended Judgment." 8 June 2010. Villa, Pablo. "Charlotte's Furniture Store to Close This Year, Owner Says." The El Paso Times. 4 August 2017. Correction [4 September 2018]: This article has been updated to more accurately describe the role of El Paso County judge.

FMD_test_711

Fraudulent Sharpie Anniversary Gift Promotion

02/20/2016

In February2016, links began circulating on Facebookpromising a treasure trove of Sharpie brand markers to users who completed a short series of steps: The embedded links led toURLs which were generated seemingly at random and didn't link to Sharpie's web site. Users who clicked through to claim the promised prize were routed to pages which appeared plausibly Facebook-esque(but werehostedoff Facebook): As evidenced by the above-reproduced screenshots, the associatedURLs don'tmatch the official domains of Sharpie or Facebook. The fake giveaway was another version of the common survey/sweepstakes scams which urge readers to share freebie bait on Facebook, which then spreads the scam to more friends and groups. Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among brandsused as enticementsbyscammers, many aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauexplained how to identify and avoidbad actorsimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions.

FMD_test_712

Is This a Severely Wounded Marine's Wedding Photograph?

01/04/2013

Three days before Christmas in 2004, Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel was on a routine patrol during his second tour of duty in Iraq when a suicide bomber blew up near his truck. The blast severed a portion of his left arm and three fingers from his other hand, fractured his jaw, left him blind in one eye, shattered his skull, and melted most of the skin off his head. Sgt. Ziegel was in a coma for months afterward and spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, where he underwent more than 50 operations, including the fitting of a plastic cap for his skull and the surgical reconstruction of his face with holes for his missing ears and nose. The London Times described the transformation of Sgt. Ziegel's experience into what seemed to be a modern-day fairy tale: The fairy tale goes like this: they are high school sweethearts from a small town, Metamora, Illinois, in the American Midwest. He graduates from high school, becomes a U.S. Marine, and is sent to Iraq. When he returns, they get engaged. He proposes before he leaves for his second tour. She is 18; he is 21. She can't wait for him to come home. The tour is cut short. A suicide bomber blows up near his truck, and he suffers horrific, life-changing injuries. A day later, he is in San Antonio, Texas, at the Brooke Army Medical Center. She leaves her hometown for the first time to fly there with his mother so they can be by his side. She is there for him. His injuries are severe. He will have numerous operations, and she will stand by him throughout. It will be a year and a half before they all go home. In the meantime, she will move in with his mother. The homecoming is a triumph. He is a hero, and she is his heroine. Their commitment to each other is inspiring and rock-solid. They get married. She is now 21, and he is 24. The wedding takes place on October 7, 2006, and that date is declared a state holiday: Renee and Tyler Ziegel Day. Their romance is covered by The Sunday Times Magazine. They plan to have a family. Love conquers all. During the period between Ty's convalescence and his marriage to Rene Kline, photographer Nina Berman, on assignment for People magazine, visited him three separate times and recorded a series of photographs chronicling his recovery, homecoming, and wedding day. One of those photographs was an iconic image that won the portraiture category of the World Press Photo contest in 2006, the most prestigious international award for photojournalism; yet it was questioned by some social media users when they encountered it without explanatory context: photographs I wanted to know if there's any way to tell if this photo is accurate? It's circulating on Facebook right now with a caption of "This man served our country. Like for respect." But the girl in the photo, why does she look so unamused? Shouldn't she be smiling? And her face looks very pixelated. I would love to know more about the backstory if possible. The photograph was described as follows by Lindsay Beyerstein for a 2007 Salon article: A young couple stands side by side facing the camera. There are all the usual accouterments: the frosted, school-photo backdrop, the red bouquet precisely matched to the red trim on the bride's white gown. The groom wears a decorated dress uniform. It could be any couple in any town except that the groom's features have literally been melted off. He has no nose, no chin, no ears, and no hair. His head appears to attach directly to his shoulders, and his face is so badly burned that it's a struggle to decipher his expression. The bride's expression is equally opaque. Some people think she looks stunned. Others describe her expression as anxious or even fearful. Her mouth turns down slightly at the edges, but her wide brown eyes gaze straight ahead, and something about the set of her jaw suggests resolve. Some viewers strenuously deny that there's anything unusual about the young woman's countenance at all. In that article, Nina Berman also described the circumstances under which the photograph was taken: It was their wedding day. Before they went to the high school where they were married, they went to a commercial portrait studio. I normally don't find those commercial studio pictures very interesting. They seem fake. People just put on a happy face. But then I thought, this is a different wedding picture, isn't it? So I kind of stepped back. I thought, it's the same as having someone with their body blasted off in a high school yearbook. Rituals like this, young people getting married, if this doesn't say that this war is having an impact, I don't know what does. It just cries out to people: hey, this war is real. There's a very palpable reality to this war in certain communities. It's right there, not in the cities or on the coasts. Most people in the media and the cultural elite don't know anyone in the military. My whole goal is to say, hey, this war is not some kind of abstract thing. Unfortunately, difficulties in the marriage proved too much for the couple to overcome, and Ty and Rene were divorced in January 2008. They were too young to be married, too young to process the possibility that what led them into a lifelong commitment was a desire for certainty in an uncertain world. There is no mystery, no implosion, no tragic conclusion. There were factors that added up, factors that at the time they could not have foreseen: that a marriage would not offset the consequences of Ty's injuries, that it would not compensate for the loss and the grief felt by a young woman losing her father. Everyone suspected it was too soon, that maybe it wasn't right. But nobody spoke out. Others, strangers, projected onto them what they needed to believe. They were larger than life. When we heard their story, we put ourselves in their shoes, imagining what we would do in the same situation. Renee personified the courage and strength we hoped we would have. But she was 18 years old, and neither was prone to introspection. They weren't people who asked why. Between the two of them, they had so much life experience, but the emotional narrative of their lives never caught up. What made us think it would? Why did we have such high hopes for them in the first place? Nobody really ever knew Ty and Renee. Not even Ty and Renee. But this is not the end. They emerged from the marriage with warmth and affection for each other, not anger and recrimination. She was there when he needed her most; she showed up and stood by him. That is more than many people will ever have in a marriage. It is something they will always share. Ty Ziegel passed away in December 2012. A Metamora Iraq War veteran, who became a symbol of survival after a car bomb explosion, has died. Family members say 30-year-old Ty Ziegel died after falling on ice. Angela Cochran, Ziegel's girlfriend, said he had been an inspiration in the three months since they began dating. "You can ask him anything about his scars, his time in Iraq, how everything happened; he's like an open book," said Cochran. "He was willing to share stories. That's what makes him so inspiring. He's not trying to hide." Testimony given at a coroner's inquest several months later revealed that Ty's death had been the result of heroin and alcohol intoxication rather than injuries sustained in a fall.

FMD_test_713

Did Bill Murray Recommend Eating Children's Ice Cream to Teach About Taxes?

02/23/2017

A meme circulating on social media in late February 2017 attributed a quote about paying taxes to actor Bill Murray, but it was originally shared by a parody Twitter account. The parody account stated, "The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream." However, the Twitter account from which it was posted bore this disclaimer: "I AM NOT BILL MURRAY. This is a parody account. This account is not in any way affiliated with the actor Bill Murray." Before it was finally suspended by Twitter, the Murray parody account posted mostly benign jokes in the casual tone and pithy humor associated with Murray, such as "Trail mix? Oh, you mean M&Ms with obstacles," and "When one door closes, another one opens. Or you could just re-open the closed door. Because that's how doors work." The fact that the Twitter account was not real did not prevent its tweets from being widely shared. For example, in November 2015, the disreputable site PoliticalInsider.com shared the above meme as fact, as did TheFederalistPapers.org. We were unable to find any genuine comments made by the actor Bill Murray about his feelings on taxes. He also does not have an official Twitter account. Kasperowics, Pete. "Actor Bill Murray to CNBC: 'I Think We Ought to Be Personally Responsible.'" The Hill. 10 February 2012. Shoard, Catherine. "The Gospel According to Bill Murray: Impending Apocalypse, Seatbelt Safety and His Favourite Saint." The Guardian. 20 November 2014. Read, Max. "Bill Murray on the Bill Murray 'No One Will Ever Believe You' Urban Legend." Gawker.com. 20 July 2010.

FMD_test_714

AIG Bailout

02/08/2009

Claim: Congress supported a bailout of AIG because that company insures the Congressional pension trust. Example: [Collected via e-mail, January 2009] Politicians! Did you ever wonder? I couldn't figure out why Congress would let some firms go under and then bend over backwards to help others. This makes sense now! This sounds almost too logical. Why hasn't it received national press coverage? Remember when this economic crisis hit, and Congress let Bear Stearns go under, pushed a bunch of forced marriages between banks, etc.? Then they bailed out AIG. At the time, I thought, "That's strange; what does an insurance company have to do with this crisis?" I think I just found the answer. Among other things, AIG insures the pension trust of the United States Congress! No wonder they got bailed out right away! To hell with the people; let's protect our future, said all our Senators and Congressmen. Nice to see where their loyalties lie! I'm from the government, and I'm here to help myself! Origins: As the U.S. government began, in the latter part of 2008, to grapple with growing economic turmoil and the prospect that many large U.S. financial and corporate institutions were on the brink of failure, one of the vexing issues it confronted was which businesses it should attempt to rescue. Should the government take over or provide direct financial assistance ("bailouts") to mortgage finance companies (particularly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the banking industry, or the auto industry? One of the corporate entities "bailed out" by the government was the insurance giant American International Group, commonly known as AIG. In September 2008, the Federal Reserve (not Congress) provided AIG with an $85 billion loan in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake, and the Federal Reserve also provided another $37.8 billion loan to AIG three weeks later and subsequently gave the company access to another $20.9 billion. (These loans were restructured in November 2008 to provide a total bailout package of over $150 billion to AIG.) Why did the government decide to assist AIG? The item reproduced above posits that it was pure self-interest: Supposedly Congress "bailed out" AIG because that company "insures the pension trust of the United States Congress" while supposedly allowing other financial institutions to wither and die or pushing them into "forced marriages." (Global financial services firm Bear Stearns didn't "go under"; it was acquired by JPMorgan Chase, with assistance from the Federal Reserve, back in March 2008. In other transactions, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, and JPMorgan Chase purchased Washington Mutual.) However, AIG was more than just an ordinary "insurance company." That firm insured the debt of other financial institutions, and government officials were greatly concerned that AIG's failure could have a cascading effect that would produce catastrophic results for the entire U.S. (and global) financial industry. What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but AIG's role as an enormous provider of esoteric financial insurance contracts to investors who bought complex debt securities. They effectively required AIG to cover losses suffered by the buyers in the event the securities defaulted. It meant AIG was potentially on the hook for billions of dollars worth of risky securities that were once considered safe. If AIG had collapsed and been unable to pay all of its insurance claims, institutional investors around the world would have been instantly forced to reappraise the value of those securities, which in turn would have reduced their own capital and the value of their own debt. Small investors, including anyone who owned money market funds with AIG securities, could have been hurt, too. And some insurance policyholders were worried, even though they had some protections. "It would have been a chain reaction," said Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of economics at Princeton University. "The spillover effects could have been incredible." Associated Press economics writer Jeannine Aversa explained the importance of the government's decision in the wake of the AIG bailout: Q: Why is it important to keep AIG afloat? A: AIG is a global colossus, with operations in more than 130 countries. It is so interconnected with other financial firms that its problems have a jolting ripple effect both in the United States and abroad. AIG was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy in September 2008 when its credit rating was downgraded, and it could not post the collateral for which it was obligated under the "credit default swap" contracts it had issued. Credit default swaps are a type of corporate debt insurance. The Fed raced to the rescue at that time to prevent AIG's failure, which could have triggered billions of dollars in losses at other banks and financial firms that bought these swaps from AIG, sending them into failure as well. As a final nail in the coffin of the "AIG insures the pension trust of the United States Congress" claim, we reproduce the following response provided to us by Charlie Armstrong, AIG's Senior Director of Advertising & Global Branding: In response to your question as to whether AIG insures the US Congressional Trust, we don't. In fact, we've been told that no private company insures federal pensions; such a product doesn't exist. Further, none of our financial services companies provide advisory services to Congress' pension fund. We've explored this issue at length with our business units and have found no connection whatsoever to the fund. This rumor surfaced recently on a blog. We're not sure who started the rumor or why, but the rumor is baseless. The OpenSecrets website lists Barack Obama among the many politicians from both parties who have previously received campaign contributions (not "bonus payments" or "bailout money," as is frequently reported) from AIG. Last updated: 18 March 2009 Aversa, Jeannine. "Meltdown 101: Why Did the AIG Bailout Get Bigger?" The Guardian. 12 November 2008. Bawden, Tom. "Citigroup Buys Debt-Hit Wachovia." The [London] Times. 30 September 2008. Gordon, Marcy. "JPMorgan's WaMu Purchase Stands - Bailout or No." The Seattle Times. 29 September 2008. Montia, Gil. "Bear Stearns Acquired by JPMorgan Chase for $240 Million." Banking Times. 17 March 2008. Ventura County Star. "Bear Stearns Acquisition Sends Tremors Through Markets." Banking Times. 23 March 2008.

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Did Boyd Bushman Provide Evidence of Alien Contact?

10/31/2014

A video posted to YouTube on October 8, 2014, featured the deathbed revelations of former Lockheed Martin engineer (also known as the "Area 51 scientist") Boyd Bushman, who spoke with aerospace engineer Mark Q. Patterson shortly before he passed away at the age of 78 in August 2014: https://youtu.be/bqQArKpA5ZQ. Bushman went out with an extraterrestrial disclosure bang, making claims about having worked on projects involving antigravity, UFOs, aliens, "Area 51," and Roswell, New Mexico. According to his comments in the video, government officials had been in contact with aliens who closely resemble humans, tend to be "approximately four and a half to five feet tall," "have three backbones" that are "actually cartilage," and are able to communicate telepathically: "They're able to use their own voice by telepathy to talk to you. You walk into the room with one of them, and all of a sudden you find yourself giving the answer to your question in your own voice," he said. In the video, Bushman described two types of aliens, some of whom live for 200 (presumed Earth) years and hail from a planet called "Quintumnia," where, improbably, they continue to rustle cattle despite their vastly advanced technological state: "They divide them into two groups. One group are wranglers, and the others are rustlers—the ones who are stealers of cattle. The two groups act differently. The ones that are wranglers are much more friendly and have a better relationship with us." The sole piece of evidence Bushman presented in support of his tale about alien visitations from Quintumnia was some purported photographs of these extraterrestrial beings. However, when Bushman's claims began to gain traction on the Internet, a Reddit user located an existing plastic toy alien doll that closely resembled the image of the "alien" Bushman had presented in his video: Reddit https://youtu.be/2FPQL9qoZ9I. A news outlet in Quebec also pointed out that the "alien" seen in the pictures held up by Bushman during the interview could be purchased at Walmart. Did Boyd Bushman prankishly decide to have one over on everyone as he departed his earthly life? Was he a publicity-seeking charlatan, a true believer who actually thought he had experienced the things he described, or was he suffering the effects of senility? Regardless of his reasons for offering them, Bushman's extraordinary claims weren't the least bit convincing in an evidential sense, as Stuart J. Robbins noted for SWIFT: A deathbed confession can be a way to solidify one's reputation. The thinking could easily be, "People really believe that people are 100% honest on their deathbed, so I'm going to make sure I go out with a 'bang' and make my claims yet again. People who didn't believe me before might this time because they'll think I'm telling the truth 'cause I'm about to die." However, in addition to explaining why the common reasons to believe deathbed confession testimony are unconvincing, there's a better reason why the testimony is not useful: They're doing it wrong. Let's say I had a bunch of secrets of exotic physics and decided to do a deathbed confession. Here's what I would say: "I've been working on antigravity and warp field physics for the last 50 years, in secret, with the US government." Then, instead of showing photos of a spaceship or a blurry alien, I would add: "And here are the equations. Here is a diagram for how you build a device. Here is a working model. Here is exactly how you put everything together." In other words, it shouldn't matter who I am, what my experience is, or what pretty (or ugly) picture I show. What I need to show is HOW to do it. Just saying something doesn't make it so. I need to provide enough information for someone else to verify and duplicate it. Otherwise, what's the point? To make a spectacle before I die? That's why I find this whole deathbed confession thing unconvincing and, perhaps more importantly, not useful: We have no more information than we had before. We have no way to verify any of the information claimed. No way to test or duplicate it. At best, we have another person claiming this stuff is real, and while he or she may be proven right with the passage of time, their "confession" contributed absolutely nothing to that advancement. Until then, it's no better than any other pseudoscientific claim. Cloutier, Jean-Francois. "An Engineer from Lockheed Martin Talks About UFOs Before His Death." TVQC. October 26, 2014. Fetcher, Joshua. "Former Lockheed Martin Engineer from Texas: I Met Aliens at Area 51." San Antonio Express-News. October 30, 2014. van Velzer, Ryan. "UFOs Over Tucson Video Part of Viral Debate." The Arizona Republic. December 14, 2007.

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Do banks need to disclose all transactions exceeding $600 to the IRS as part of the Biden administration's proposed plan?

09/16/2021

Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden's American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan intends to fund all of this through higher taxes on income earners and increased reporting requirements for banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have drawn the ire of several banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: "The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600, regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers." Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns: The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal: "Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy. The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions to report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to oppose this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately." We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after December 31, 2022, states: "This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner." This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Nyamagaga Gondwe, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, who explained, "It is the amount below which the IRS would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. The latter is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting. The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions exceeding $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions. The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cash flows above $600, that doesn't mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year—gross inflow and gross outflow—and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo but wouldn't require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can obtain other information through audits. According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility in raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. The Tax Notes report also states that the Treasury Department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third-largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income, amounting to $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: "Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance." Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, "Only the prior year's total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January." Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBA's consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may impose on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already provide a lot of data to the IRS and that this would impose additional costs on their systems. The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burdens on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, necessitating system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes that the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to realize: "Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges." Former IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. However, CAP's analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers. Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS's data security is already much better than that of the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially larger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for. The Biden administration's bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers' privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. This enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way, so the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. By deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On October 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600; Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?" "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600—that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes." Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the banks are portraying it.

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There are parks in Southeast Raleigh that still dont have air conditioning in the gym

10/25/2017

Charles Francis says Raleigh isn't spending its parks money fairly. Francis, a Democrat, is running for mayor of Raleigh against three-time incumbent Nancy McFarlane, who is unaffiliated. They are in a runoff after none of the three candidates—Francis, McFarlane, and Republican Paul Fitts—secured the 50 percent of the vote required to win. (McFarlane got 48 percent, Francis got 36 percent, and Fitts got 12 percent.) In a debate on Friday, Francis suggested the city shouldn't focus all of its energy on Dix Park when more basic needs go unaddressed. Dix Park is a 308-acre property just south of downtown Raleigh that the city bought from the state in 2014 and plans to develop into a destination recreation spot. "It's not right that there are parks in Southeast Raleigh that still don't have air conditioning in the gym," he said. "We've got to have equity in the way we approach our parks." Southeast Raleigh, the city's lone predominantly Black area, hasn't enjoyed the same economic success as other parts of the city where businesses are opening and property values are rising. Francis grew up there and is campaigning on the idea that the city should be doing more for the area. A recent PolitiFact analysis of the Oct. 10 election showed Francis received his most fervent support in Southeast Raleigh. He has previously talked about how those voters could swing the election. "There are 80,000 Black voters in Raleigh," Francis said at a forum in September. "McFarlane normally wins with 25,000 to 30,000 votes. If only a quarter of African-American voters vote—and vote the right way—we're going to win." Given the city's budget is $919 million, PolitiFact wondered whether there are, indeed, gyms in Southeast Raleigh that don't have air conditioning. What we found: the city controls 23 gyms at 19 venues. And yes, there are three gyms in Southeast Raleigh that don't have air-conditioning units, according to Raleigh's parks, recreation, and cultural resources department. Biltmore Hills Park, John Chavis Memorial Park, and Tarboro Road Park are all located in Southeast Raleigh and lack air conditioning units. But that's not the whole story. There are six other Raleigh gyms that also lack air conditioning. The gyms at Green Road Park, Lions Park in Northeast Raleigh, Method Community Park in West Raleigh, Millbrook Exchange Park in North Raleigh, and two gyms at Laurel Hills Park in Northwest Raleigh also lack air conditioning. Most area gyms have AC. There are also four gyms in the Southeast Raleigh area that do have air conditioning: Barwell Road Community Center, Halifax Community Center, Roberts Park Community Center, and the Worthdale Community Center. The city says it didn't begin putting air-conditioned gyms in park facilities until 2006. It costs about $300,000 to install units in older facilities. The city says its budget for capital projects will fund air-conditioning units in eight of the nine AC-less gyms by 2022. Method Park, the lone outlier, is being considered for AC funding as part of the 2023 budget, the city says. Our ruling: Francis said gyms in Southeast Raleigh don't have air conditioning. There are four area gyms that have it and six gyms elsewhere in the city that don't have it. That context is important when debating city priorities, and Francis didn't elaborate during the televised debate. But he's right: there are three gyms in Southeast Raleigh that don't have AC. We rate his claim Mostly True.

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Hidden Sex Drawing in 'Monsters, Inc.' Scene

05/24/2016

In May 2016, a viral YouTube video purportedly featuring one of the final scenes in the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. renewed interest in a rumor that a drawing of characters "Uncle Roger" and "Mommy" engaged in a sex act could be spotted on Boo's bedroom wall. The drawing did not actually appear in the movie at all. The image was created by Corey Vaspasian for a digital editing contest for the website Cracked, in which users were asked to insert R-rated "Easter eggs" into children's movies. The above-displayed image was later inserted into a clip from Monsters, Inc., which convinced many people that it was real. While Disney and Pixar both love to insert "Easter eggs"—intentional hidden messages or inside jokes—into their films, this is not an example of one. The real scene from Monsters, Inc. featured an innocent picture of a cat. While many of the X-rated Disney rumors have been proven false, the movie The Rescuers did actually feature two frames showing a topless woman.

FMD_test_719

Are $250 coupons being offered by Kohl's to users on social media platforms?

11/18/2019

In April 2020, a coupon purporting to offer $250 in merchandise from the Kohl's department store circulated in Facebook posts directing viewers to click on a survey question: This was a scam. Such efforts that trick viewers by offering free goods or money are long-standing. Kohl's is also a frequent target of such scams, but this fraud can target any business, from airlines to beer makers. A good rule of thumb to follow: If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. also frequent any airlines beer makers These types of viral "coupon" scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their "free" gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. Despite the latest coupon scam above, Kohl's was indeed celebrating its 57th year as a department store, as of September 2019. It opened its first store in Brookfield, Wisconsin, according to company literature. In 2016, a variation of the same type of scam circulated, offering viewers $75 off purchases. literature variation The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers WHP. "Scam Alert: Kohl's $75 Off Coupon Is Too Good to Be True." 24 May 2016. Better Business Bureau. "Scam Alert: Giveaway Scam Poses as Facebook." 14 April 2017.

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Is Simon Cowell Leaving 'America's Got Talent'?

06/26/2023

In June 2023, paid ads were displayed on Facebook and Instagram claiming that Simon Cowell would be leaving "America's Got Talent," NBC's performance-competition TV show better known as "AGT." However, this was false, and the purpose of these ads was to lure users into a scam that could cost them thousands of dollars a year. The scam claimed that Cowell had endorsed an "amazing miracle gummy product" for weight loss called G6 Keto ACV Gummies, with "ACV" standing for apple cider vinegar. To be clear, none of this was true. Cowell never endorsed any CBD or keto weight loss gummy products, and his image and likeness were used without permission. Furthermore, we do not recommend placing trust in weight loss promises that feature the words "amazing miracle." In this story, we will walk through how this scam worked, including shedding light on the strange return addresses that appeared on packages received by customers who ordered similar gummies in the past. The Facebook and Instagram ads featuring Cowell displayed before-and-after pictures that seemed to show a weight loss transformation. "Simon Cowell Shares How He Dropped 56 In Just Weeks," the ads read. The link in the ads directed users to a specific page on the website brownnature.art. Before clicking on the link in the ad, we decided to check out the homepage for brownnature.art. According to our findings, this website appeared to have been created solely for running scams. How did we know this? A fake bookstore served as the facade for the scam operation on the website. This bookstore did not have any payment options enabled, meaning users could not order any of the books the website claimed to offer. Returning to the ads featuring Cowell, we clicked the link that took us to a specific page on brownnature.art. An article loaded in our browser that featured a People magazine logo. "Simon Cowell Confirms He is 'LEAVING' America's Got Talent After His Accidental 'Live' Confession On-Air," the false headline read. The article also falsely claimed that celebrities Kelly Clarkson and Melissa McCarthy had lost weight with G6 Keto ACV Gummies. Both Clarkson and McCarthy have been featured in these scams for years, despite having no connection to any keto weight loss gummies. This was not a story that People magazine had ever published. Scammers had replicated the design of how articles are displayed on people.com, the official website for the magazine, in an attempt to fool users into believing they were reading an authentic story from the publication. After clicking on one of the many links in the fake People magazine article on brownnature.art, we were led to the G6 Keto ACV Gummies website, secure.get6gproducts.com/v1/. The creator or creators of the product's website published several false statements that extended the scam seen in the social media ads and the fake People magazine article. For example, Dr. Mehmet Oz never called the product the "holy grail" of weight loss, nor did the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism medical journal publish any pieces about the gummies, as the G6 website claimed. The G6 website also included mentions of CBS News, NBC, CNN, Women's Health, Woman's World, and Honolulu Magazine, even though these publications never featured, mentioned, or endorsed anything about the product. Perhaps worst of all was the fact that no phone number was available on the G6 website, not even in its privacy policy or terms and conditions documentation. In fact, part of the terms and conditions left two spaces after "TOLL FREE" where the phone number belonged: "Please contact Customer service at TOLL FREE between the hours of 9am EST - 9pm EST Mon - Sat with any questions regarding your product, payment or return." We have seen phone numbers omitted like this on CBD and keto weight loss gummies websites for more than a year. This was not a one-time issue. For many months, we have been observing comments from purported customers who complained about being victims of CBD and keto weight loss gummies scams. Many of these comments were posted to YouTube and contained detailed accounts of how they were scammed. These customers often stated in their comments that they were charged around $200 after believing they would only be paying about $40. They also expressed surprise that making a purchase enrolled them in a subscription that would charge their credit card hundreds of dollars per month, resulting in charges totaling thousands of dollars per year. Additionally, customers reported that when the gummy packages arrived at their doorstep, they contained no real identifying information about a parent company or anything about the people behind the products. According to the customers, the packages only included the two words "fulfillment center" along with a P.O. Box physical mailing address for Tampa, Florida, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Customers often reported a return address with the city of Smyrna, Tennessee. If any readers ordered CBD or keto gummies that promised an "amazing miracle" involving weight loss, we recommend they contact their credit card company to inform them of the scam. Again, these scams sign customers up for subscriptions. Unless action is taken, a new charge for hundreds of dollars will be placed on customers' credit cards every month. As for how Cowell truly lost weight, he once credited dropping pounds to his vegan diet. We found no credible reporting that indicated he ever consumed gummies. To be completely clear, we have never found even one real example of a celebrity who endorsed CBD or keto weight loss gummies.

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Did Paul Ryan state that women who utilize contraceptives are engaging in acts of murder?

03/08/2017

On 3 March 2017, the website USPOLN published an article that contained several quotes ostensibly uttered by Senator Paul Ryan, including one statement in which he supposedly asserted about birth control that "If there was a legitimate way to have intercourse and not get pregnant, God would have included it in His holy books." This article was framed as presenting portions of a discussion between Ryan and CNN host Jake Tapper, and the introductory paragraph replicated a legitimate exchange between Ryan and Tapper about health care reform and birth control that took place on 13 November 2016. During that exchange, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) refused to say if some women would lose access to birth control benefits after Republicans repealed

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Did Levi Strauss Announce a Partnership with Michael Bloomberg to Advocate for Gun Control?

09/10/2018

In September 2018, several conservative websites and the National Rifle Association (NRA) reported that Levi Strauss & Co., the producer of the iconic Levi's brand of jeans, had partnered with businessman and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to "attack gun rights." The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) declared that Levi Strauss had abandoned its "rugged image" and would be working with "a billionaire oligarch in an effort to empower the government to trample upon the fundamental rights of the American people." The conservative LifeZette website similarly stated that the company planned to donate $1 million over four years through grants to anti-gun groups—including the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded and heavily funded by Michael Bloomberg—and would also encourage employee contributions by offering to double-match all the money they contribute toward the anti-gun campaign. On September 5, the NRA-ILA posted a meme on Facebook asserting that "Levi Strauss turns their back on Second Amendment supporting customers." It is true that Levi Strauss announced in September 2018 that it would be partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control measures. However, the accounts highlighted above included subjective (and sometimes misleading) characterizations of the company's efforts rather than objective facts. For example, Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh stated that the company was "stepping up [its] support for gun violence prevention," not that it was working to "attack gun rights." The latter characterization came from LifeZette and the NRA, not Levi Strauss itself. Similarly, the NRA's Facebook meme claimed that the company had "[turned] its back on Second Amendment supporting customers," but none of the actions announced in September 2018 specifically related to customers rather than to the issue of gun violence in general. (In 2016, the company requested that customers not bring firearms into their stores as a safety measure.) Finally, LifeZette wrote that Levi Strauss would be donating money toward "anti-Second Amendment activities," but that is not at all how the project was characterized by Levi Strauss itself, whose CEO stipulated that he did not favor repealing the Second Amendment. In a blog post on September 4, 2018, Levi Strauss announced three actions in support of gun violence prevention: 1. The Safer Tomorrow Fund: We have established this fund to direct more than $1 million in philanthropic grants from LS&Co. over the next four years to fuel the work of nonprofits and youth activists who are working to end gun violence in America. 2. Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety: We are partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety and executives from the business community, including Michael Bloomberg, to form a coalition of business leaders who believe that business has a critical role to play and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country. 3. Employee Support: We are doubling our usual employee donation match to organizations aligned with our Safer Tomorrow Fund. Additionally, we are encouraging employees to utilize their five hours a month in paid volunteer time to become more politically active. In an op-ed column for Fortune magazine, Bergh addressed the potential concerns of gun-owning customers and stressed that he was not advocating for the repeal of the Second Amendment and did not believe gun owners were irresponsible. He stated, "You may wonder why a company that doesn't manufacture or sell guns is wading into this issue, but for us, it's simple. Americans shouldn't have to live in fear of gun violence. It's an issue that affects all of us—all generations and all walks of life. So today, on top of our previous actions, Levi Strauss & Co. is lending its support for gun violence prevention in three new areas. I know that Americans, including many of our own consumers, employees, and other partners, hold a wide spectrum of views related to guns. I'm not here to suggest we repeal the Second Amendment or to imply that gun owners aren't responsible. In fact, as a former U.S. Army officer, I took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. But as retired four-star general Michael Hayden once said, 'There are some weapons out there that frankly nobody should have access to. And actually, there are some people out there who should never have access to any weapons. We can't

FMD_test_723

7 out of 10 Oregon families living in poverty have at least one parent who works.

09/11/2013

A common and perhaps reasonable assumption is that people who are poor dont have jobs. But in anAug. 7, 2013, infographicon its website, the left-leaningOregon Center for Public Policywrote that 7 out of 10 Oregon families living in poverty have at least one parent who works. Was this the debunking of a common myth about those in poverty? Do a full 70 percent of Oregon families in poverty have a parent who works? We first rang Chuck Sheketoff, the executive director of the Silverton-based center, who said that the figure was part of the centersJune 27, 2013, Working But Still Poor fact sheet. Work is not a sure path out of poverty, it said. A pie chart on the second page says that 69 percent of families in poverty were working families, composed of 22 percent who had at least one parent working full time and 47 percent who had at least one parent working less than full time. About 31 percent of the families had no parent working. The numbers were from the centers analysis of theU.S. Census Bureaus2011 American Community Survey data. Sheketoff pointed us to Jason Gettel, the centers policy analyst who crunched those numbers. Gettel explained that he usedDataFerrett, a free data analysis program promoted on the Census Bureaus website. DataFerrett allows users to analyze all of the survey responses to carve out data in different ways. We wanted to see what proportion of families in poverty had a worker present to show that people do live in poverty despite the fact that they work, Gettel said. Theyre there because some jobs pay too little, or theyve been laid off for some period of time, but not because they dont put forth a work effort. Gettel walked us through DataFerrett and showed us how he selected certain variables in order to limit the survey responses to arrive at the 7 out of 10 number. He limited the data to only the Oregon families who are in poverty with a related child. He then searched for types of work experience by different family members, such as householder worked full-time in the past 12 months and spouse worked full time in the past 12 months or female householder worked less than full-time in the past 12 months and no spouse present. Finally, the numbers were weighted to more accurately reflect statewide numbers, since the American Community Survey does not count as many people as the 2010 U.S. Census. The analysis showed that there were 437,991 families with children in Oregon. Of those, 86,255 were in poverty. This is the pool of Oregon families we would use for further calculations. Next we did some simple addition and subtraction. We first added up the 3,042 families where neither the householder nor the spouse worked; the 4,429 families where single male householders did not work; and the 19,339 families where single female householders did not work. This showed us that 26,810 of the 86,255 Oregon families with children had a parent who did not work in the previous year, roughly 31 percent. Put another way, 59,445 Oregon families with children in poverty 69 percent had a parent who worked at least part time in the previous year. Its worth noting here that the Census data only breaks down work experience by three different types and only over a 12-month period: full-time work, less than full-time work, or no work. That means somebody who last worked a one-month retail job during the 2012 holiday season would qualify as a less than full-time worker. Were not sure that most people count that as a parent who works. Indeed, government officials generally categorize people unemployed for six months or longer as long-term unemployed. We also want to note that poverty is defined as the federal poverty threshold. For 2011, that threshold was $18,123 for a single parent with two children and $22,811 for a two-parent family with two children. The threshold varies depending on the number of adults and children and whether the adults are under 65 years old. Next we wanted to verify that Gettel had used the right variables to arrive at the right numbers. DataFerrett, to put it nicely, is not the most intuitive program for the average user. We called the U.S. Census Bureau, where a survey statistician in the poverty statistics branch also used DataFerrett to check our variables and numbers. The process that was used was the correct process, said Robert Bernstein, a bureau spokesman. The end result was this 69 percent figure. Lastly, we wondered if similar studies had been done. Again, we turned to the Census Bureau. One table indicated that nearly 64 percent of Oregon families with income below the poverty level in the previous year had a worker in the family. Those data were from the 2011 American Community Survey. Another 2011 Census table based on national data showed that, of the 33.1 million people in families in poverty, 21.1 million individuals were in families with at least one worker about 64 percent. Neither of those studies was limited to families with children. We looked at some other studies, too, and saw similar percentages. None of these studies is a perfect apples-to-apples comparison to the Oregon Center for Public Policys data, but they show that the Oregon centers numbers are within range of what similar studies have found. The Oregon Center for Public Policy wrote that 7 out of 10 Oregon families living in poverty have at least one parent who works. We checked Gettels analysis and confirmed his results. We also confirmed the analysis and numbers with the U.S. Census Bureau. While the numbers are accurate, under the survey design, somebody classified by federal employment officials as long-term unemployed could be counted as working under the Census definition. We think thats an important clarification. We rate this statement Mostly True.

FMD_test_724

Does this meme show examples of racial bias in prosecutions for tax evasion?

03/15/2019

One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks. However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples, not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion, so widely spaced in time and differing in circumstances as to be unhelpful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with or imprisoned for non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity. The investigation, which took place in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2003, led to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, who was a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated at the time. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine, a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest. Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue; the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, so they took what was then a novel approach: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, "They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money." He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction, he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. In a literal sense, Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected, as well as the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities. Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative, we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons—maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advice, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of cases and will instead work with offenders to facilitate payment of their back debts, rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who, along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley, owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties to avoid paying immense sums of taxes. Some of Helmsley's luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987, a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year, Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn., a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsley's bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt—the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the money owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances, as well as liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for in unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though. Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the IRS that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to the National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again that his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report. During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. "We're talking about old taxes," he said, adding, "We're not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if I'm not paying taxes while I'm doing whatever I'm doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true." The accuracy of Mr. Sharpton's assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharpton's assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoing spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions.

FMD_test_725

What Does Obama Read? 'The Post-American World'

10/07/2008

A photograph of Barack Obama carrying (and presumably reading) the best-selling book, The Post-American World, is a real one, snapped by Doug Mills of the New York Times in Bozeman, Montana, in May 2008: What does Obama read?Hussein Obama with a book in his hands. He's reading "The Post-American World" it's a Muslim's view of a defeated America! However, the characterization of the pictured book as "a Muslim's view of a defeated America" is erroneous: The book does not posit a "defeated America," nor does it express a Muslim point of view: The The Post-American World was written by Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-born political journalist (commonly described as a "political moderate") who specializes in world affairs and has written for (and edited) U.S. national news publications, hosted U.S. television news programs, and authored several books on international issues. A Village Voice profile described Zakaria (a naturalized citizen of the United States) thusly: Fareed Zakaria written hosted authored Although he was a rising star in the serious foreign-policy world of the '90s (The Nation once described him as a "junior Kissinger"), it was his post-9/11 Newsweek cover story "Why They Hate Us" that put him on the mainstream map as someone who could make sense of the now threatening outside world. And he has continued to win himself a substantial following with his thoughtful critiques of the Bush administration's activities in Iraq. He is America's go-to man for global chaos, providing some urgently needed outside perspective on our never ending war on terror.His own upbringing was open-minded and secular; he sang Christian hymns at school and celebrated Hindu as well as his own Muslim holidays. "I do know a lot about the world of Islam in an instinctive way that you can't get through book learning," he says thoughtfully, but admits he finds the role of token Muslim explainer in the American media slightly uncomfortable. "I occasionally find myself reluctant to be pulled into a world that's not mine, in the sense that I'm not a religious guy." The following review (from Publishers Weekly) summarizes the thesis of The Post-American World When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but the rise of everyone else, readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China andIndonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum. As for what the chief executive reads in his spare time, according to deputy press secretary Bill Burton, President Obama brought the following books with him to his August 2009 vacation at Martha's Vineyard: In 2015, President Obama's summer reading list, as announced by the White House, included the following books: arner, Dwight. "What Obama Is Reading." The New York Times. 21 May 2008. Joffe, Josef. "The New New World." The New York Times. 11 May 2008. Press, Joy. "The Interpreter." Village Voice. 9 August 2005. Wolf, Richard. "President's Reading List a Hefty One." USA Today. 24 August 2009.

FMD_test_726

Are Social Security Numbers Assigned by Race?

04/11/1999

The Social Security "middle digit" rumor is yet another Big Brother conspiracy theory, this one purporting that the federal government and its policies help promote racism. We're told the fifth digit of Social Security numbers denotes race, thus identifying blacks and minorities to mortgage lenders, university admissions officers, employers, and others in application processes that should be color blind. Armed with the foreknowledge of who is black and who is white, perhaps the resumes and applications of African Americans are being shuffled to the bottom of the pile. It's a chilling thought because we know in our heart of hearts if an exploitable resource did exist for pegging sight unseen what color any of us was, there are bigots out there who would not hesitate to use it. Thankfully, it doesn't. The e-mailed warnings quoted above are bunk; none of the digits in a Social Security number has anything to do with race. The only information 'hidden' in an SSN is where and when it was issued. Each SSN is composed of nine digits, commonly written as three fields separated by hyphens: AAA-GG-SSSS. The first three-digit field is the area number and indicates what state was listed in the applicant's mailing address when the number was issued. Someone with a mailing address in Oregon, for instance, would have a SSN beginning with 540 to 544, while the SSN of someone with a mailing address in Alabama would begin with 416 to 424. The second set of numbers (a grouping of two, which includes the supposed infamous 'race' digit) shows when the SSN was issued, not to whom. Note that it does not directly correspond to the year of issue: a 42 in this field does not indicate this particular SSN was handed out in 1942. Different states go through this two-digit code at different rates. Moreover, when a state is done with a particular group number, the next one it begins using comes off the line according to a numbering system which makes perfect sense to the government, but to no one else. (Even so, we're going to attempt to explain it here.) Before 1965, only half of the potential group numbers were used: odd numbers below ten and even numbers above nine. In 1965, the system was changed so that assignments continued with the low even numbers and the high odd numbers. Therefore, group numbers for each area number are exhausted in the following order: Odd numbers, 01 to 09 Even numbers, 10 to 98 Even numbers, 02 to 08 Odd numbers, 11 to 99 The last four digits on an SSN are unique to the individual and are known as the series numbers. They are handed out in chronological order within each area and group number. Simply put, if two people living in the same area apply for a SSN during the same year, the first five digits of both numbers will be identical. If their applications hit the desk at the SSA at the same time, there will be a one-number difference, say, 3456 vs. 3457. Getting back to the 'race' digit possessed of a better understanding of how the SSA assigns that number, we find that prior to 1965, a bushelful of SSNs with even numbers in this position were generated (45) as compared to a mere handful of odd (5). The more densely populated the area, the greater the amount of group numbers exhausted, resulting in SSNs in highly-populated areas more closely patterning themselves to the pre-1965 nine-to-one optimal result for this field. In less populated areas, however, the discrepancy between odd and even is less noticeable, because the five odd numbers are used up first (e.g., if in Alaska only twenty group numbers have been used up, then five are odd and fifteen even, resulting in a three-to-1 ratio.) From 1965 on, group numbers continue to be assigned on the above basis, but now with the second set of potential codes (49 only this time; there is no 00) being called into service when the first fifty are used up. Consequently, group codes have to achieve a ten-to-one even-to-odd imbalance before the numbers begin resetting themselves towards parity. So how does this impact the rumor? At the wildest point of the numbering swing, the odds are 10-to-1 any given person's SSN group code is an even number. Therefore, the claim that "I polled 35 African-Americans, 34 had an EVEN fifth digit in their SS#, the 35th person was White/Puerto Rican," isn't all that surprising. Especially when you consider that the five odd group numbers were handed out first, it's almost a leadpipe cinch that the SSNs of most of the people you meet will contain an even group code. All of the foregoing can be summed up thusly: The first five digits of an SSN say nothing about who the number is assigned to they merely reflect the state and year of issue. The last four digits are particular to the individual subscriber, but they're handed out randomly, with the sole determining factor being when the paperwork is processed. Other than his state of residence at the time of application, nothing about the SSN-holder's identity is coded into the number assigned to him. Let's face it, many of us don't trust the government. Any random tidbit that seems to confirm the rightness of that stance will be seized upon by those who already believe the worst of Uncle Sam. In this case, because Social Security numbers are constructed to conform with certain arcane and almost incomprehensible numbering schemes, it's not that far of a stretch to conclude that some of the 'secret information' encoded into them could be used against us. We already harbor mistrust over being identified by a number, and the revelation that secret stuff is going on with how the numbers are handed out only serves to heighten that anxiety. White, black, or green, no one likes being reduced to a number; it smacks too much of governmental impersonalization, and its Orwellian overtones disturb us. In the case of African-Americans, this more general unease is further enhanced because of how their government treated them in the past, as Patricia Turner, a University of California-Davis African-American and African Studies professor noted in her book, I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture: There is no denying that African Americans have suffered unduly at the hands of the government. The Social Security number theory's got that sort of element of the government wanting to track Black people. It's a theory typical of a suspicion or mistrust of the government that also exists in the non-Black community. Segments of the white community initially resisted implementation of the Social Security card system because they didn't like the idea of Big Brother government nationally numbering people" Additional information: The SSN Numbering Scheme (Social Security Administration) A Myth About Social Security Numbers (Social Security Administration) Blocksma, Mary. Reading the Numbers. New York: Penguin, 1989 ISBN 0-140-10654-5 (pp. 162-164). Reading the Numbers Johnson, L.A. "Cyberconspiracy Theories." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 30 July 1998 (p. E1). Turner, Patricia. I Heard It Through the Grapevine. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California, 1993. ISBN 0-520-08185-4 (pp. 103-104). I Heard It Through the Grapevine

FMD_test_727

Is Mohammed the Most Popular Name for Newborn Boys in the Netherlands?

01/16/2018

On 15 January 2018, DailyWire.com, the right-wing web site headed by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, posted an article falsely reporting that "Mohammed" was the most popular name given to baby boys born in the Netherlands in 2017: article The mainstream media in the Netherlands reported last week that "Noah" was the most popular baby name for boys in the small European nation. "Noah and Emma were the most popular children's names in the past year," reported Nos.nl. "This is evident from the annual list of names of the Social Insurance Bank, which pays out the child benefit. Boys were named Noah 635 times, while 755 girls went through life as Emma since last year." The year before, "Daan" and "Anna" were the most popular names, the site said. But a journalist at Powned.tv did a little research on the report and found something completely different. Checking for "Mohammed" and all its alternative spellings the writer found that 636 babies had been given that name last year. PowNed.tv, the web site DailyWire.com aggregated their story from, is a Dutch blog owned by GeenStijl, a right-leaning site that boasts about being "needlessly offensive." Both GeenStijl and PowNed.tv have been criticized for posting anti-Muslim and anti-migrant content. criticized Baby names in the Netherlands are recorded by the Social Insurance Bank (SVB) for social service purposes, and each year SVB releases a list of the most popular names and ranks them. (For example, Noah and Emma were the most popular boys' and girls' names in 2017, while Daan and Anna were the most popular in 2016.) PowNed arrived at their conclusion that Mohammed was the most popular boys' name for 2017 by tallying all of that name's variations and then weighing that total against the number of newborns who were named Noah in 2017, a methodology that's flawed, for obvious reasons. SVB ranks names by specific spellings, so if the variant spellings of any one name are tallied together, that approach changes the ranking order. Thus, "Mohammad" may be a less popular name on its own than "Morris" or "Moos," but when all the different spellings of "Mohammed" are considered together, that name is more popular than either: ranks It's true that if multiple variant spellings of the name "Mohammed" are entered into the SVB database, then the results document that 636 of the babies born in the Netherlands in 2017 were given that name. But if the same rule were applied to, for example, the names "Lucas" and "Daniel," it would be clear that Mohammed was hardly the most popular boy's name in 2017. Almost 2,000 Dutch children were named for some form of "Lucas," while more than 1,000 were given a variation of the name "Daniel" in 2017. The topic of migration in Europe has attracted the attention of nationalists and white supremacists, particularly since 2015, when the number of people seeking refuge from places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria spiked. European countries have been the targets of false stories claiming that migrants are creating rape capitals and "no-go zones." attention spiked rape capitals no-go zones DailyWire.com has a tendency to share stories that are taken out of context or not verified. For example, in the days after a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, the site helped spread a false rumor that "leftists" were digging up Confederate graves. In March of that year, the site spread a false claim that Democratic lawmakers refused to stand for a fallen Navy SEAL's widow. In May 2017, the site falsely reported that Harvard University was holding segregated commencement ceremonies. DailyWire.com spread false claim segregated The site was embroiled in another racial controversy after posting a video disparaging Native Americans in October 2017. After removing the video, Shapiro responded by apologizing but called the video 'satire.' controversy DutchNews.nl. "Noah and Emma Top the List of Most Popular Dutch Baby Names." 12 January 2018. Al Jazeera. "Rise of the Right: 'Anarchist' Media in the Netherlands." 27 November 2016. GeenStijl.nl. "LOL. Real Donald Trump Retweet Dumpertvideo." 29 November 2017. O'Donnell, Katie. "Anti-Immigrant Forces Gain Ground in Europe." Politico. 22 October 2017. Hinshaw, Drew. "Polish Nationalist Youth March Draws Thousands in Capital." The Wall Street Journal. 11 November 2017.

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Cashier's Check Overpayment Scam

08/03/2003

An interesting and highly lucrative con targeting those attempting to sell vehicles (and other high-ticket items) online works similarly to the highly successful Nigerian scam. However, while this type of larceny typically features businessmen from Africa intent on closing odd-sounding deals, it plays on the victims' honesty rather than their greed. [Collected via Facebook, May 2015] There is a scam going around, and I was almost a victim of it today. I recently posted an ad on Craigslist, and I was contacted by a person who sent me a check for $1,500 for the item I was selling. When I received the check today, it was for the amount of $4,000. When I asked why the check was for so much, they informed me that the extra money was to be shipped via Western Union to the shipper so the item could be picked up and delivered. I became suspicious and took the check to my bank to ensure it was legitimate. I was informed that it was, in fact, a fake. The bank told me that if I had cashed this check, it would have bounced back to me, and I would be responsible for the $4,000, with the bank having access to all my banking information. I am asking everyone to please like and share this post to make it go viral so this does not happen to you or anyone you know, or any hardworking Americans. Here is a picture of the check below. Please take the time to like and share. Let's get this thing viral. [Collected via e-mail, 2003] My husband is currently selling his motorcycle online. Last week, when he posted his bike, he received an email from a Hotmail account stating that the sender was interested in buying his bike and was located in West Africa. He mentioned that he knows someone in the U.S. who owes him money and would like to get our address to meet and make the exchange, and that he would pay for all shipping charges. A friend of ours, whose cousin is also selling his bike, received the same email but from a different email address and name. That sounded funny to me. Well, my husband re-posted his bike yesterday online, and he received another email from yet another person, just about the same, stating he resided in West Africa. The scam works like this: Example 1: Dr. Dipo Morgans of Nigeria wants to buy your used car for $5,000. His friend, Mr. Okuta, will be sending you a cashier's check for $8,000. You are to keep $5,000 for the car and send the remaining $3,000 to Dr. Morgans. Example 2: Dr. Dipo Morgans of Nigeria wants to buy your used car for $5,000. He will be sending you a cashier's check for $8,000 on the understanding that you will forward $3,000 of it to the shipping company that will be transporting your car to Africa. In some versions of the scam, the buyer is not an individual but rather an agent for a firm that purchases cars on behalf of others, often diplomats stationed in foreign lands. This car broker is usually located in Africa. The "reason" for the inflated-value check will vary from one attempt to defraud to another. Currency exchange problems will be cited, or a horrified buyer will realize he's had the check prepared for far too large an amount. Alternatively, the check may be sent by a third party for the full amount this other person supposedly owes the buyer, or it could be a refund check for a failed sale of something that would have cost more. Sometimes, it is claimed that it would take 30 days to clear a check from Africa, hence the need for an American third party to send the payment. The reasons are many, varied, and false. Cars or motorcycles aren't the only items to attract this form of scam; those attempting to sell horses have experienced it too. It's not unreasonable to extrapolate that those attempting to sell boats will be similarly targeted. What matters is not the nature of the item being offered for sale but its price; it has to be high enough to justify the seller's feeling comfortable in sending thousands of his own dollars to a stranger under the mistaken belief he's already holding an even greater sum in his hand. In another form of the scam, those advertising online for roommates are contacted by prospective apartment-sharers who want to send cashier's checks to cover the first few months' rent plus a few thousand extra, requiring that the extra be mailed back to them. Though nothing is being offered for sale, it's the same scheme: the check will turn out to be worthless, but usually only long after the roommate-hunter has mailed his own very good check to the con artist. The scam works because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) requires banks to make money from cashier's, certified, or teller's checks available in one to five days. Consequently, funds from checks that might not be good are often released into payees' accounts long before the checks have been honored by their issuing banks. High-quality forgeries can be bounced back and forth between banks for weeks before anyone catches on to their being worthless, by which time victims have long since wired the "overpayments" to the con artists who have just taken them for a ride. Although this scam is in its infancy, real people have already been bilked out of thousands of dollars by it—in some cases, tens of thousands. The con has claimed victims in communities across the USA, so don't let your not having heard about it before lull you into a false sense of security. That the game is new doesn't mean it's not dangerous. How to Avoid Falling Victim to Cashier's Check Scams: Additional information: Espinoza, Richard and Dan Morgolies. "Latest Net Scam Preys on Honest Folks." Charleston Gazette. 1 June 2003 (p. D7). Flaum, David. "Scam Hits Sellers Over Net." The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal. 2 March 2003 (p. G1). Jones, Matthew. "Beach Police Officers Warn of Fake-Check Web Scam." The Virginian-Pilot. 9 January 2003 (p. B4). Kades, Deborah. "Wisconsin Residents Fall Prey to Used Vehicle, Lottery Scams." The Wisconsin State Journal. 12 December 2002. Kristof, Kathy M. "Nigerian Money Con Targets Small Firms." Los Angeles Times. 7 September 2003 (p. C3). Associated Press. "Missoula Credit Union Members Taken." 15 March 2003.

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Government Grant Scam

12/10/2004

Scam: Telephone solicitors call out of the blue, looking to hook you up with thousands of dollars worth of government grants (aka free money) they claim you are eligible for. REAL FRAUD THAT COSTS ITS VICTIMS AROUND $250. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] There is a telephone scam targeting people across the nation. The caller identifies himself as a representative of the Government Grant Association. The caller then leads the person to believe they have qualified for a government grant, and in order to pay out the grant, they need the person's bank account number or they have the account number and need the person to verify it. Origins: A new form of the "prepayment" con has been blanketing the US throughout 2004. Through it, the unsuspecting are lured by the promise of government grants into agreeing to have an "up-front fee" (usually $249) siphoned from their bank accounts. Though the fee is taken immediately, the grants never materialize, leaving those who have been led to believe they were about to be enriched to the tune of thousands of dollars sadly disappointed and a few hundred dollars poorer. "Prepayment" frauds are far from brand new; many successful flim-flams hold out the carrot of big money (which never materializes no matter how hard it is chased after) to seduce the gullible into parting with some of their hard-earned funds. Those so deceived have acted on the belief they were arranging hard-to-secure loans at very favorable rates, often with distant countries said to be eager to lend to Americans. Or they were promised access to little-known and almost-forgotten college grants. Or they received the news they'd won foreign fabulous wealth in lotteries they had no recollection of entering. Even the venerable Nigerian scam is a prepayment con: though its victims initially believe that for helping distressed foreigners move large sums of cash from their country they will receive millions of dollars, very early in the process they discover they will have to pay numerous sums to various individuals to bring this about. Folks conned via prepayment schemes mistakenly believe they stand to gain vast amounts of something for practically nothing. Acting on that faith, they willingly part with funds they would ordinarily be reluctant to spend, yet which, by comparison to the prizes about to be gained, momentarily appear to be relatively small sums. The 2004 'government grant' fraud operates on that principle. Those contacted by such cheats are told they are entitled to claim government grants worth anywhere from $8,000 to $25,000. In return for their banking information and what now seems an insignificant processing fee of $249, said grants will be directly deposited into their accounts. Those who suspect something might be wrong with the notion of the government handing them money for no discernible reason are told they are eligible for this form of largesse as a reward for having paid their taxes promptly for the past few years or because they are senior citizens. Individuals who further question the process are issued all manner of guarantees, including the provision of 800 numbers to call if at any time they wish to bow out and have their up-front fees refunded. "Supervisors" may join phone conversations between scam artists and their potential victims to assure those expressing doubts about the government wanting to give them money that everything is meticulously legitimate. The doubters may also be given the addresses of websites to examine which, they are told, will explain in far greater detail how these grants operate. These promises and seeming proofs serve only one purpose, and it is not the protection of the consumer; they work to lend an air of legitimacy to the pitch so as to soothe the suspicions of those about to be taken. Very few will think to call those numbers; they will instead trust that what they have been told are guarantees are, in fact, valid ones. Those inquisitive enough to dial those 800 numbers find they either go unanswered or have been disconnected. Those operating versions of this scam have, in the past, identified themselves as representatives of granting agencies with names such as the Government Grant Center, Consumer Grants USA, Ultimate Funding Inc., Government Grant USA, Federal Government Information Center, Federal Government Grant Information Center, National Grant Center, Federal Research Funding, Customer Care Plus, and Department of Revenue. However, the absence of a purported grant facilitation entity from this list does not prove it is legitimate, so no comfort should be taken from its absence. Swindlers routinely invent impressive-sounding names and titles for themselves and the entities they supposedly represent. "That's what scam artists do," said Pat Coakley of the Better Business Bureau, "they operate under a variety of names and phone numbers, then leave town and start all over again under other assumed names." As to how the con is run, one of our readers who was contacted by someone intent on victimizing him with the 'government grant' scheme reported this exchange: [Bryan] Good morning, this is Bryan. [Swindler] My name is Alec Watson. (Female with an Indian or Pakistani accent.) [Bryan] This is Bryan. [Swindler] Can I speak with Bryan P. please? [Bryan] Speaking. (I never answer in an affirmative manner anymore. I once had my long-distance carrier changed because I said yes when they asked me if I was Bryan. Once they recorded my yes, they had me saying yes to anything.) [Swindler] Again, my name is Alec Watson from the Las Vegas Government Grant Processing Center. And you have been approved to receive an eight thousand dollar grant. We would like to verify your information. Do you live at _____? Do you still work for _____? [Bryan] Correct. Why would I get a grant for $8,000? [Swindler] We have noticed that you have paid your taxes on time for the last 20 years. Can you please verify your bank? [Bryan] North Island Financial Credit Union. [Swindler] Can you tell me what your bank routing number is? [Bryan] No, I cannot. [Swindler] Bryan, we can process you for $8,000 for a full free grant. We can automatically withdraw the processing amount from your bank account. Do you think that a cost of $257 is worth receiving $8,000? [Bryan] Well, if you're charging me $257, then it isn't free, now is it? [Swindler] I can give you a few minutes to get your checkbook. [Bryan] I am at work. I do not have a checkbook with me. (Not kidding; my wife knows better than to send me to work with a checkbook during the holidays.) [Swindler] A deposit slip? [Bryan] No. [Swindler] Sir, we cannot finish without your banking routing number; can you call someone at home and receive it? [Bryan] Why can't you subtract the money from the grant? [Swindler] Because we are not allowed to touch the grant money. Did you get your checking information yet? [Bryan] Please remove me from your calling list. [Swindler] Bryan, you don't want the $8,000? We are not authorized to remove you. [Bryan] Okay, I found you on the web, and it says you are a rip-off. Please let me talk to a supervisor. [Swindler] CLICK. As Bryan experienced, the quite reasonable question of "Why can't you deduct the fee from the funds you'll be sending me?" is always countered by the claim that it is impossible to do so. Others who have been party to such come-ons report being told laws precluded the use of the grant (or loan or scholarship or lottery prize) for anything other than its designated purpose, which included barring the use of even a small part of those funds for payment of processing fees. Bryan's example also shows how much he was pressured to provide his banking information. Someone less aware of the possibility of being conned might well have given up that number under such a barrage. The scam succeeds as well as it does, in part, due to the many television commercials touting free government money. (Such advertisers are vending books containing the contact information for a variety of government grants, loans, and subsidies.) Though there are genuine government grants to be had, they are not available to just anyone for no purpose. Forget about the ads on TV; there are not untold troves of government funds available just for the asking. Grants are awarded based on specific criteria having been met for specific programs. Such grants are very strictly administered, require the completion of a great deal of paperwork, and are overseen at every step. These are not "Fill out a simple form, then cash a huge check" types of propositions; these are "Prove to us that you qualify under this program, then, provided you are engaged in the activity we are interested in fostering, we might subsidize some of your costs" sorts of deals. The hoops to be jumped through are many and varied, and there is precious little by way of a freebie to it. Regarding the government grant scam, keep these three points in mind: The U.S. Government does not telephone people to offer them grants. Grants are never guaranteed, nor are they issued for no apparent purpose, so folks should be downright suspicious of any talk of grants where the words "free" or "guarantee" are mentioned. Real government grants require extensive documentation with great attention to detail. There is nothing simple or painless about securing a government grant. How To Avoid Falling Victim To Prepayment Scams: Above all else, have nothing to do with 'deal of a lifetime' offers that require payment in advance of fees. Do not fall for schemes whereby you are required to prepay taxes on lottery winnings, or pay to have a prize shipped to you, or are to be charged a loan application fee. Do not pay someone for the privilege of working for them. With regard to 'free government grants' come-ons, disabuse yourself of the notion that the U.S. government is in the business of providing grants (aka free money) to whichever of its citizens have made it their habit to pay their taxes on time. (Rather, the U.S. government offers a disincentive to those who are tardy with their payments; it assesses penalties for deadlines missed and charges interest on the amounts overdue.) Stop believing in the chimera of "something for nothing."

FMD_test_730

Was Donald Trump instrumental in rescuing the NYC Veterans Day Parade in 1995?

11/13/2019

A story from 1995 resurfaced around Veterans Day 2019, reporting that then-private citizen and real estate mogul Donald Trump had "saved" the Veterans Day parade that year in New York City when organizers ran out of money. On Nov. 6, 2019, for example, the Daily Caller News Foundation website published a story bearing the headline, "The 1995 NYC Veterans Day Parade Had $1.21 In The Bank. Then Donald Trump Stepped In." A meme circulating on Facebook similarly described Trump's intervention:This claim apparently originated with Trump himself, or at least it was touted on his campaign website in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. The website at the time stated: headline campaign website Mr. Trump has long been a devoted supporter of veteran causes. In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of World War II, only 100 spectators watched New York Citys Veteran Day Parade. It was an insult to all veterans. Approached by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the chief of New York Citys FBI office, Mr. Trump agreed to lead as Grand Marshall a second parade later that year. Mr. Trump made a $1 million matching donation to finance the Nations Day Parade. On Saturday, November 11th, over 1.4 million watched as Mr. Trump marched down Fifth Avenue with more than 25,000 veterans, some dressed in their vintage uniforms. A month later, Mr. Trump was honored in the Pentagon during a lunch with the Secretary of Defense and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. First off, Trump's website contained some confusing pieces of misinformation: The Veterans Day parade in New York City went by the name the "Nation's Parade." The poorly attended parade "with only 100 spectators" occurred in 1994, not 1995 (The New York Times reported police did not give a crowd estimate). Only one Veteran's Day parade took place in the city in 1995 the Nation's Parade on Nov. 11. That event was slated by the U.S. Defense Department as representing "the official close of the 50th anniversary of World War II." reported We contacted the United War Veterans of New York (UWNY), which organized the Nation's Parade in 1995, to ask about claims that Trump's intervention saved the event from cancellation, and we were referred by spokesman Pat Smith to a Nov. 10, 1995, New York Times article about the event. Smith told us that Trump did make a financial contribution toward the parade, but also said UWNY is a small, volunteer-staffed group that doesn't keep records that could answer questions in detail about an event that occurred more than two decades ago. article The 1995 Times article reported that Trump did make a financial contribution, but that he tried to make it in exchange for being named the parade's grand marshal even though he is not a veteran. The Times reported Trump gave $200,000, not $1 million: By mid-August, organizers had a bank account of exactly $1.21. A request to airlines to donate blankets for aging veterans was turned down because logos might not be visible on television. Then Donald Trump, a nonveteran, agreed to throw in $200,000 as well as raise money from his friends, in exchange for being named grand marshal. Since then, money has come in, though not enough to meet the original budget, which was reduced from $2.9 million to $2.4 million. Fireworks were just one of many cuts. In May 2016, CNN spoke to Vincent McGowan, the president emeritus of UWNY who organized the parade in 1995. McGowan said that Trump's contribution was "somewhere between $325,000 and $375,000," but McGowan also said Trump's donation did save the event. McGowan also said Trump was never the grand marshal because that honor was only given to military veterans. CNN In a follow-up story, the Times in 1995 reported that organizers had agreed to make Trump the parade's grand marshal, a move that had angered some veterans, while others expressed appreciation for his "crucial" financial assistance: reported Also in the reviewing stand was the developer Donald Trump, who provided the only note of controversy in an otherwise positive day. Many veterans were angry that organizers had agreed to name Mr. Trump, who is not a veteran, as grand marshal in exchange for his contribution of $200,000 and help in raising additional funds. Another story, dated Nov. 11, 1995, from the news service UPI, reported that Trump contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000 for the parade, which was viewed by parade Director Tom Fox as having been key: UPI Police estimated 500,000 people attended the largest military parade ever held in New York. Organizers, who placed the turnout at closer to a million, said the parade would not have been a success if it hadn't been for real estate developer Donald Trump, who contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000. "Donald Trump saved the parade," said parade director Tom Fox, himself a Vietnam veteran. "We had asked for donations from 200 corporations, and none of them came through," he said. "This donation is the single most important thing I've ever done," said a beaming Trump. "This is more important than all of my buildings and my casinos. This is my way of saying thank you to all the men and women in the armed services who have made it possible for me to become a success. Without them freedom and liberty would be gone." In sum, we are rating this claim "True" because two individuals involved with the planning of the 1995 parade stated on two separate occasions that Trump's efforts and donation did indeed enable the event to take place. Still unclear are the origins of other sources of funding. Martin, Douglas."Veterans Day Parade Tries for a Comeback." The New York Times.10 November 1995. Fitzpatrick, David and Curt Devine."Trump Will Give $1 Million to Marine Charity, but There Are Other Discrepancies." CNN.25 May 2016. McFadden, Robert D. "On Parade To the Beat of History." The New York Times.12 November 1995. UPI."More Than 500,000 Watch Nation's Parade." 11 November 1995.

FMD_test_731

You Don't Know Jack Daniel's

10/24/2015

Claim: Jack Daniel's is giving away a limited number of free cases of whiskey to Facebook users who like and share a post. Example: [Collected via e-mail and Twitter, October 2015] Going all over my page that Jack Daniels is giving away whiskey.....better hurry only 190 left Origins:In October2015, links began circulating on Facebook promisingusers a free case of Jack Daniel's whiskey as a celebration of the brand's 125th anniversary: The embedded links involved a variety of URLs, some of which included entirely unrelated scam-bait terms like "iTunes" and "Apple." Users who clicked through to claim their purported free case of Jack Daniel's were routed to a pagereading "Jack Daniels is Giving FREE Cases of Whiskey to celebrate 125th Anniversary (190 Cartons Remaining)," which clonedthe style of Facebook-based content (but was hosted on a non-Facebook URL): As noted, URLs visible in the posts didn't point to any credible domains or sites linked to Jack Daniel's. By now,most social media users are familiar withsurvey scams: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait by scammers(seeking personal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users). Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauillustrated how folks might spot and avoid bad actors utilizing the reputations of brands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Last updated: 24 October 2015 Originally published: 24 October 2015

FMD_test_732

Disappearing Dependents

03/29/2006

Several million fewer dependents were claimed on federal income tax returns the year the IRS started requiring taxpayers to list the Social Security numbers of their children. I had read at some point that millions of dependents dropped off the 1040 forms the year that the IRS required Social Security numbers. This seems incredibly high, but I know that it was a fact that many divorced parents were both claiming the same children as dependents, and some people were even claiming their pets. The U.S. federal income tax code requires residents to be responsible for their own taxes; that is, it's up to each taxpayer to calculate their income, determine their allowable deductions, and file a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service (or hire someone to do it for them). Such a system allows (some say it even encourages) taxpayers to cheat, engaging in everything from blurring the line between business and personal expenses to hiding large amounts of unreported income. Although tax fraud may never be completely eliminated, the increasing use of automated record-keeping and tracking technology has made many of the more common cheating schemes quite difficult, if not impossible, to execute successfully these days. Given how often we're asked to provide our Social Security numbers (they seem to be used for just about everything these days), those of us who began paying federal income tax only in the last twenty years might be surprised to discover that not until 1987 did the IRS begin requiring taxpayers to include the Social Security numbers of all dependent children claimed on their returns. After all, listing phony dependents in order to claim illegitimate extra deductions has historically been one of the more common forms of tax fraud, so it makes sense that the IRS would always have wanted to track such information as closely as possible. This is the notion behind the legend made familiar to many readers by the 2005 best-seller Freakonomics that the year the IRS began asking taxpayers to provide Social Security numbers for all dependent children, the number of claimed dependents suddenly dropped significantly: some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. Suddenly, seven million children—children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year's 1040 forms—vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States. The "seven million" figure appears to be accurate, as noted in a December 2000 National Tax Journal article by Jeffrey B. Liebman that drew its data from a 1990 Internal Revenue Service conference report. Another way in which taxpayers without children might claim a dependent child is to invent a fictional one. The strongest evidence for this possibility is that in 1987, the first year in which taxpayers were required to list Social Security numbers of dependents on their tax returns, seven million fewer dependent children were claimed than in the previous year. The suggestion by the Freakonomics authors that most or all of that drop in the number of dependents claimed in 1987 was directly attributable to fraud was an obvious one but not necessarily the only one, as alternative explanations could have accounted for a substantial portion of the reduction in the number of claimed dependents. For example, it was not until 1987 that the IRS first demonstrated a program to allow parents to automatically obtain Social Security numbers for their newborn children when those births were registered, and the program did not become nationwide until 1989. Since the average citizen doesn't generally keep abreast of all the changes made to the tax code from year to year until they directly affect them, perhaps many taxpayers sat down to fill out their returns in 1987 and didn't realize until it was too late that they had never applied for Social Security numbers for their children. However, the assumption that many taxpayers had previously claimed non-existent children until the newly implemented Social Security number requirement made it much more difficult for them to safely do so is certainly an obvious one, and seems to be supported by additional information provided by Liebman. Further evidence that nonexistent children may have been claimed comes from the 1988 TCMP [Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program]. In 1988, taxpayers were required to list on their tax returns the Social Security numbers of all dependents who were at least five years old. On tax returns where the TCMP auditor disallowed an EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit] claim, 39 percent of the disallowed dependent child claims were dependents for whom the taxpayer checked the box stating the child was under five and did not provide a Social Security number—possibly because the children did not exist. Likewise, although follow-up reports in subsequent years noted that some portion of the previously claimed dependents who went "missing" in the 1987 tax year were indeed real people who were not claimed as dependents in 1987 for reasons other than their being fictitious (e.g., they were children who had in earlier years been unlawfully claimed as dependents by each of two divorced parents), the pattern of disappearing dependents in 1987 was indicative of widespread fraud. Starting in 1987, the IRS required that taxpayers report the Social Security number of all dependents over the age of five. That year, seven million American children disappeared from the nation's tax returns, representing a 9 percent drop in the 77 million dependents claimed the previous year and $2.9 billion more in yearly tax revenue. The tax agency said about 20 percent of the vanished dependents were children who had been claimed as dependents by both parents after a divorce. Under the law, only one parent may claim the child as a deduction. Most of the others probably never existed, John Szilagyi, an IRS researcher, said. Some families apparently became quite greedy in creating dependents, each worth a $1,080 deduction in 1986 and $1,900 in 1987. About 66,000 taxpayers who claimed four or more dependents in 1986 claimed none in 1987, after the Social Security identification rule went into effect. More than 11,000 families claimed seven or more dependents in 1986 but none in 1987. Those returns are now under investigation, with more than 1,000 audits in which the 1986 dependents were disallowed, and back taxes and fines collected. Mr. Szilagyi said some cases of apparent fraud have also been referred to the authorities for criminal investigation. "In any individual family, you can imagine that one or two children might legitimately have stopped being dependents in 1987, but it's hard to imagine a legitimate situation in which a taxpayer had seven dependents one year and none the next," said Mr. Szilagyi, who drafted the proposal to require Social Security numbers from dependents and babysitters. Mr. Szilagyi said his research indicates that there are probably four million to five million more dependents being claimed illegally, either because they are fictitious or do not legally qualify as dependents.

FMD_test_733

The national debt is larger than our entire annual economy.

03/28/2013

Budget-cutting is a favorite theme for Champaign County Rep. Jim Jordan, a formerRepublican StudyCommitteechairman with themost conservative votingrecord of any Ohio Congress member. Jordan has frequentlyopinedthat thecontroversial sequester budget cutsimplemented on March 1 are a positive step toward reining in out-of-control government spending. On March 19, the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending that Jordan chairs held a hearing on how several government departments decided where to make cuts required by the sequester. At the hearing, Republicans and Democratsblamed each otherfor the $85 billion in cuts to government programs that were implemented after Congress failed to agree on an alternative. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's representative to Congress, rattled off the list of cuts to agencies testifying before the hearing: $2 billion to the Agriculture Department, $551 million to the Commerce Department, and $17 million to the Federal Communication Commission and concluded: This hearing really should be entitled: 'Sequestration Oversight; What Were House Republicans Thinking.' Jordan responded to her speech by saying: The reason we support reducing spending in sequestration is because we have a debt larger than our entire annual economy. We do have to cut some spending around this place and were finally taking some modest first steps. Jordans point about the national debt being larger than the entire U.S. annual economy is becoming a familiar GOP talking point. A few days before Jordan spoke at the hearing, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan made avirtually identical statementin a speech at Washington, D.C.s Conservative Political Action Conference, saying Our debt is already bigger than our economy. PolitiFact has examined that statement and several other similar ones, noting that the politicians government debt tally included IOUs between government agencies, which dont affect the wider economy and credit markets as much as publicly held debt, which totals 75 percent of GDP. To find the size of the economy, PolitifFact national cited a Feb. 28, 2013 news release from The Bureau of Economic Analysis that put the GDP at just over $15.8 trillion. The governmentdefinesthe GDP -- gross domestic product -- as the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property within the country. As for the debt, the U.S. Treasury is the go-to source. As of March 14, 2013,total outstanding public debtwas $16,708,225,460,175.14. Thats broken down into two categories: debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings. Here are those dollar figures: Debt held by the public: $11.9 trillion Intragovernmental holdings: $4.8 trillion To explain the difference, well borrow from our PolitiFact Texas colleagues handiwork. Intragovernmental debt refers to money owed by agencies within government to other agencies -- basically an internal accounting issue. An example: Social Security surpluses that the government uses for other federal operations. Such money will have to be repaid, its presumed, but the demand is less pressing right now and it doesnt affect credit markets. In contrast, public debt reflects money borrowed from outside sources -- giving it more of a connection to the economy, Josh Gordon, an analyst with the anti-deficit Concord Coalition, told PolitiFact Texas. If your problem with the national debt is that you think its affecting the economy or interest rates or something like that, the only part of the national debt that affects the economy is the debt held by the public. Thats where the (U.S.) Treasury is borrowing money on the open market. Paul Van de Water, an economist with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, further explained why that matters. Debt held by the public is important because it reflects the extent to which the government goes into private credit markets to borrow. Such borrowing draws on private national saving and international saving and therefore competes with investment in the nongovernmental sector (for factories and equipment, research and development, housing, and so forth). Large increases in such borrowing can also push up interest rates and increase the future interest payments the federal government must make to foreign lenders, which reduces Americans income. Achieving a stable debt-to-GDP ratio is a key test of fiscal sustainability, Van de Water wrote in a memo. So, if we just consider debt held by the public -- which is what most affects the economy -- it totals about 75 percent of GDP -- which is not larger than the entire economy, as Ryan and Jordan stated. But the pair arent entirely off-base, especially since partisans tend to disagree about the importance of intragovernmental holdings. When you dig a bit deeper, you hit a partisan debate about the portion of the debt not held by the public, most of which is held by the government in trust funds. Republicans say that the trust funds are filled with IOUs, which eventually will have to be redeemed with other funds. Democrats say that the trust funds represent binding promises that government has made to tens of millions of Americans. Theyre both right, said William Galston, an expert with the Brookings Institution who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton. When we asked Jordans press secretary if there was additional information that PolitiFact Ohio should consider in evaluating her boss assertion, she replied: The facts are correct behind Rep. Jordans statement: economy - $15.8 trillion, debt - $16.7 trillion. Jordan claimed we have a debt larger than our entire annual economy. If you count debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings, the debt is roughly 105 percent of the economy, which makes his statement accurate. But the debt held by the public is more relevant to discussions about federal spending and the economy. With that clarification, we rate his statement Mostly True.

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A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations used various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020.

04/12/2021

With Republicans criticizing the corporate tax hike proposed by President Joe Biden to fund his infrastructure plan, Biden pushed back during remarks on his proposal, the American Jobs Plan. He framed the issue as one of fairness, arguing that big corporations are not paying their fair share. A new, independent study released last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations used various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020, Biden said in his April 7 remarks. "It's just not fair. It's not fair to the rest of the American taxpayers." Biden's statement is supported by a recently released study from a liberal group, though that study's methodology has its critics. President Joe Biden spoke during an event on the American Jobs Plan at the White House on April 7, 2021. We didn't hear back from the White House, but Biden's remarks make clear that he was referring to an April 2 study by the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That study, which received wide media coverage in recent days, found that at least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. The list of 55 companies includes well-known names such as FedEx, HP, Nike, Salesforce, and XCel Energy. Collectively, the study concluded, these companies earned $40.5 billion in pretax income in 2020 and would have paid taxes amounting to $8.5 billion had this income been taxed at the standard 21% corporate rate. In reality, the companies collectively received rebates from the federal government worth $3.5 billion. The study cited several tax laws that helped protect these companies' income from taxation, including those governing the tax treatment of executive stock options, research and experimentation, renewable energy, deductions for capital expenses, and the reallocation of losses to different tax years. Some observers told PolitiFact that they took issue with Biden's characterization of such laws as loopholes. "Reasonable people can disagree over the wisdom of a given tax provision, but they were deliberate policy choices, not rifle shots," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum. Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, agreed, stating, "The problem with that framing is that many of the provisions reducing tax rates are either built into the code to properly calculate net income—such as a 100% bonus depreciation, a pro-growth provision—or provisions created to incentivize preferred activity by policymakers, such as the research and experimentation tax credit." Still, even experts who are critical of the study's methodology told PolitiFact that Biden accurately portrayed the gist of the report's findings in his April 7 remarks. Notably, Biden's remarks also stopped short of blaming the companies for evading taxes; his comments suggest that his quarrel is with the tax system that allowed the companies to legally pay so little in taxes. The group's study is based on an analysis of annual financial reports filed by publicly traded companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index or the Fortune 500 list of companies with the largest revenue. However, while this data comes from federally required disclosures, critics argue that what is disclosed on these forms is calculated differently from these companies' actual tax filings, which are private. In other words, critics say, we don't really know whether these companies paid zero in taxes or not. Holtz-Eakin wrote that using Securities and Exchange Commission filings, as the study does, is tricky because the way income is counted on these forms departs substantially from the way taxable income is reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Notably, companies have some flexibility to determine their own fiscal years for financial disclosures, whereas the IRS requires a more rigid schedule for tax payments. Financial reports may not cover the same period of time as a tax return, he wrote. Meanwhile, the tax code allows companies to smooth out income by allowing losses to be carried forward or backward for a number of years, Holtz-Eakin wrote. As a result, a snapshot of the company in its single year of profitability is a necessarily distorted view, but one that some tax critics tend to highlight. Additionally, the rules governing the reporting of capital investments in the SEC disclosures may differ from what the IRS allows. Steve Wamhoff, director of federal policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said he disagrees with the methodological critiques. Wamhoff stated that his group's report focuses on what the companies affirm is their best calculation of taxes they have paid for the year. "It's very unlikely that the company's real-world income tax liability will be substantially different from this," he told PolitiFact. He added that the reallocation of losses to different tax years is reasonable in theory, but "we are finding that corporations are not paying taxes over a longer period." His report finds that many of these companies—26 that have been identified—paid nothing over a three-year period. William Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed that it can be difficult to infer a company's actual tax position from its SEC filings. However, he stated that the idea that many large corporations do pay zero in federal taxes is now well-established. The non-partisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has shown that in any given year for the past 15 years or so, about two-thirds of corporations with less than $1 billion in assets paid no federal corporate income tax, and one-third of corporations with assets greater than $1 billion paid no federal corporate income tax, Gale said. The committee, he noted, has access to corporations' actual tax returns. Biden said, "A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations used various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020." Biden is correct that a study had been released days earlier by a non-governmental group concluding that at least 55 large companies paid zero federal income taxes in 2020. However, it may be incorrect to call the tax provisions cited in the report loopholes, since many of them are deliberate attempts by the government to set incentives through the tax code and may, on their own, be broadly popular. Critics also argue that the financial disclosures used to compile the report are imperfect estimates of what the companies actually paid in taxes, since the accounting rules differ for the two types of filings. On the other hand, separate data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is based on actual tax returns, has supported the study's general point. We rate the statement Mostly True.

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Did ODNI Photoshop the Cover of a Diversity Report?

07/12/2021

Did ODNI Photoshop the Cover of a Diversity Report? One lesson that organizations should have learned by now is not to make groups appear to more diverse than they really are by digitally editing photographs since that type of manipulation is too easy to catch: digitally editing photographs https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/uw-booklet-student-added/ Unfortunately, that was one lesson the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) hadn't learned by mid-2021, when that office published their annual demographic report on Hiring and Retention of Minorities, Women, and Persons with Disabilities in the United States Intelligence Community." ODNI annual demographic report The cover to that report featured a photograph of a group of smiling, well-dressed professionals, including a woman in a wheelchair and a (presumably) visually impaired man wearing sunglasses and holding the leash to a guide dog: A press release about the report quoted the director of National Intelligence as stating the following: press release The Intelligence Community should reflect the diverse makeup of America and demonstrate that we are fostering an environment where every professional can succeed, said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion is fundamental to our democratic values and critical to meeting the ICs mission. This takes work every single day. We are committed to doing more to address this critical issue and accelerate our progress. There's one problem, though. The image used on the ODNI report cover was a stock photograph from the Shutterstock service, titled as representing "Portrait of Multi-Cultural Office Staff Standing in Lobby." Although the Shutterstock photo may have included women and minorities among the pictured group, it but it didn't include any persons with obvious disabilities: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-multicultural-office-staff-standing-lobby-174469094 As multiple social media users pointed out, rather than finding a more representative cover graphic to utilize for the report, someone at ODNI apparently utilized an altered version of the stock photo a version into which the figures of the woman in the wheelchair and the visually impaired man had been clumsily added via Adobe Photoshop (or some other digital editing program) to create the requisite appearance of diversity: The ODNI had not responded to our request for comment on the altered image at publication time, but we will update this story if we hear back.

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Fraudulent Scheme Involving Southwest Airlines Las Vegas Ticket Giveaway

02/06/2016

Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion. The name of Southwest Airlines, a major U.S. airline which is also the world's largest low-cost carrier, has frequently been invoked in various online "free ticket" giveaway scams in recent years. In February 2016, social media users encountered posts that appeared to be from Southwest Airlines, offering to give away four tickets to Las Vegas and $5,000 spending money to Facebook users who shared and liked a page. The primary type of free ticket fraud is the "sweepstakes scam," which intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print. The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by Southwest Airlines) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies: Similar phony free ticket lures are used to spread malware. In those versions of the scam, those who attempt to reach the URL provided for the purpose of claiming the free tickets are instead victimized by a Facebook "lifejacking" attack, a malicious script that takes over a user's Facebook profile without their knowledge and propagates itself to their friends' accounts as well. lifejacking Southwest Airlines has responded to such scams by issuing messages on Twitter that read: "Hey folks! There is a scam being passed around on Facebook about a free ticket offer from SWA. Please don't click or share the links!" As well, Southwest spokesperson Christi McNeill has said of these attempts to defraud that "We are aware of the scam for free tickets being spread across Facebook. This offer is in no way affiliated with Southwest Airlines and we are working with Facebook to get it removed."

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Einstein and Compound Interest

11/06/2006

Examples: [Sangillo, 2006] There's an urban legend that Albert Einstein once said compounding [interest] is the most powerful force in the universe. Whether or not he really said it, that line has become my financial motto. I strongly suggest you adopt it. [Hartgill, 1997] When asked to name the greatest invention in human history, Albert Einstein simply replied "compound interest." Origins: Many homeowners who have struggled to meet their mortgages month after month, only to find after years of making payments that most of their money has gone to cover interest charges, have felt like cursing whoever came up with the concept of compound interest. In that vein, around 1980 (when the neutron bomb and soaring interest rates were prominent news topics) Johnny Carson once quipped during a Tonight Show monologue that "Scientists have developed a powerful new weapon that destroys people but leaves buildings standing it's called the 17% interest rate." Perhaps that explains why many of us seem to recognize a kindred spirit in the declaration by one of the greatest intellects of our time, Albert Einstein, that compound interest is "the most powerful force in the universe" or "the greatest invention in human history." (Since no context is ever offered for this purported quote, readers might also fairly assume that its intent was to praise compound interest as a wonderful device that allows thrifty savers to realize a significant, low-risk return on their money.) compound But did the eminent physicist really ever say such a thing? The claim that he did appears dubious for a couple of significant reasons: The attribution of this sentiment about compound interest to Einstein doesn't seem to have existed during the scientist's lifetime, first appearing in print only several decades after his death, and always repeated as something he supposedly said in some indefinite time and place. (Albert Einstein died in 1955, but the earliest mention we could find of this item was in a 1983 New York Times blurb.) Just what Einstein reportedly said about compound interest varies quite a bit from source to source: That it was "the greatest invention in human history" (or "the greatest invention of mankind," or "the greatest invention of all," or "the most significant invention of the nineteenth century"), that it is "the most powerful force in the universe," or that it is "more complicated than the theory of relativity." (That last variation echoes another sentiment popularly attributed to Einstein which also began to appear only well after his death, to the effect that "preparing a tax return is more complicated than relativity theory" or "the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.") We suspect that this perspective on the power of compound interest is a fairly modern invention, one which has been retroactively placed into the mouth of a prominent dead person to give it more punch. Last updated: 19 April 2011 Calaprice, Alice. The New Quotable Einstein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-691-12074-9 (pp. 294-295). The New Quotable Einstein Dorfman, Dan. "Fundamental Advice, Phenomenal Success." USA Today. 2 August 1991 (p. B4). Hartgill, David. "Power of Compounding." The Advertiser. 15 September 1997. Havemann, Judith. "Uncle Sam's Dual Standards." The Washington Post. 23 January 1988 (p. A1). Langworthy, David. "Einstein Was Right So Is 'Wealthy Barber.'" The Houston Chronicle. 1 June 1998 (p. A20). Sangillo, Karen. "All About 'Free Money' and How to Earn It." Bucks County Courier Times. 5 November 2006. Shapiro, Fred R. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-300-10798-6 (pp. 230-231). The Yale Book of Quotations Topolnicki, Denise M. "How You Can Beat the Five Threats to Your Retirement." The Buffalo News. 8 November 1993 (p. 12).

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Pic of 'Unwell' Trump Is Deceptively Edited

06/16/2022

In June 2022, an image supposedly showing a particularly old, haggard, and "unwell" former President Donald Trump was circulated on social media: This photograph was deceptively edited to make Trump look particularly old and haggard. It was created by altering a real photograph of Trump that was posted by Andrew Giuliani, the son of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to Twitter on June 15: The genuine photo was subsequently digitally altered to create the viral version. For example, extra wrinkles were added to Trump's face, his hair was lightened, and the bags under his eyes were enlarged. Here's a comparison between the genuine photo (left) and the doctored one (right): This isn't the first time that a subtly edited image of Trump has gained traction online. In December 2020, an image went viral that added a few digital inches to Trump's waist. Similar subtle edits were made to an image of Trump's sons Eric and Trump Jr. image went viral that added a few digital inches to Trump's waist image of Trump's sons Eric and Trump Jr. You may also find our full collection of Trump photo fakery of interest. Trump photo fakery

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Fascism, Corporations, and Merriam-Webster

04/27/2018

The American corporation has long been a target of criticism and condemnation in online debates, sometimes well-founded and justified, but at other times irrelevant and misguided. According to a theory advanced by Academy Award-nominated director Adam McKay, there is a direct link between the modern corporation and 1930s-style fascism—one that Merriam-Webster even went so far as to censor from its definition of fascism following a corporate takeover in the 1980s. In April 2018, McKay's words were turned into a widely shared online meme published by the Facebook page "Americans Against Fascism": Benito Mussolini created the word "fascism." He defined it as "the merging of the state and the corporation." He also said a more accurate term would be "corporatism." This was the definition in Webster's up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster's and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations. The quote is taken word for word from a 2010 op-ed written by McKay for the Huffington Post, in which he offered a scathing criticism of large corporations and the recent Citizens United decision in the U.S. Supreme Court. McKay's account is riddled with errors. For one thing, the definition of fascism commonly attributed to Mussolini is "the merging of the state and corporate power," not "the corporation," as McKay presents it. Second, it is not clear that Mussolini—or even his ghostwriter, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile—ever actually gave this precise definition of fascism. Most importantly, though, the meme's central point revolves around a common misunderstanding of what "corporatism" was in Mussolini's fascism and a conflation with the modern capitalist "corporation," most likely borne out of the similarity between the words. Corporatism ("corporativismo" in Italian) was one of the cornerstone principles in Mussolini's fascism and had to do with the way society and the economy would be organized, with state power at the head of a system of guilds or corporations ("corporazione") representing each major industry. In his Dictionary of Political Thought, Roger Scruton describes corporatism in this way: the economy was divided into associations (called syndicates) of workers, employers, and the professions; only one syndicate was allowed in each branch of industry, and all officials were either fascist politicians or else loyal to the fascist cause. According to law, the syndicates were autonomous, but in fact, they were run by the state. The corporations united the syndicates in a given industry but made no pretense at autonomy from the state. This ultimate power and pervasive influence of the state (led by one man, of course) was famously summed up by Mussolini in a speech in 1927, in which he declared: "Everything in the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state." In the Doctrine of Fascism, in 1932, Mussolini (with the help of Gentile) wrote: "Fascism desires the State to be strong and organic, based on broad foundations of popular support. The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporative, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in their respective associations, circulate within the State." In other words, corporatism in Mussolini's fascism was not a free-market capitalist system. Far from it. It did not allow for the kind of competition, innovation, market entry, and research and development characteristic of modern capitalism, and it was closely ruled in every way by the state with Mussolini at its head. Anything that draws a direct link between what are now referred to as corporations (large, powerful private companies operating in a modern free-market capitalist system) and Mussolini's corporatism is founded on a misunderstanding most likely caused by the similarity between the words. As for the claim that Webster's dictionary censored its definition of fascism when it was taken over by a public relations-sensitive corporation in 1987: Merriam-Webster has in fact been owned by Encyclopedia Britannica Incorporated since 1964 and has operated as Merriam-Webster Incorporated since 1982; that claim is inaccurate.

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In Wisconsin, a woman only earns 80 cents for every $1 a man earns.

04/23/2014

Marking what President Barack Obamaproclaimedas National Equal Pay Day, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke uttered a claim that many politicians have made in one form another at the state or national level. Women deserve equal pay for equal work. It's just that simple, Burke, a Madison School Board member, said in an April 8, 2014news release. In Wisconsin, a woman only earns 80 cents for every dollar a man earns -- and pay discrimination doesn't just hurt our families, it hurts our economies, too. Let's take a look. Similar claims In rating a number of pay-gap claims, we and our PolitiFact colleagues have found that wording is crucial. Two of those fact-checks help put Burke's claim into perspective. Former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, while campaigning for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to challenge Walker in the 2012 recall election, said Wisconsin women are paid 81 cents to the dollar of a man doing the same job. The key phrase was same job. We rated the statementFalse, finding that Falk misquoted the very report she relied on. The report said that -- among all men and women in Wisconsin working all sorts of jobs -- women earned 81 cents for every dollar earned by men. Burke's claim, in contrast, is more similar to one made by Obama. You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, Obama said in his January 2014 State of the Union speech. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work. PolitiFact National rated Obama's statementMostly True. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, our colleagues found, women who worked full-time, year-round in 2012 made 77 cents for every $1 men earned across the country. The comparison includes all male and female workers regardless of occupation. Our colleagues noted, however, the existence of a pay gap doesnt necessarily mean the gap is caused by discrimination. Work by the Institute for Womens Policy Research, for example, found that one factor is that women more often choose lower-paying jobs such as receptionists, nurses and teachers, while men more often pursue paths as truck drivers, managers and computer software engineers. Wisconsin figures So what's the situation in Wisconsin? Three organizations -- the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the National Partnership for Women & Families and the American Association of University Women -- also cited 2012 census data as the latest available. Those figures show Wisconsin women earned 78 cents per $1 earned by men. The American Association of University Women said in a March 2014reportthat the median annualearningsfor Wisconsin women working full time year round was $36,535 -- 78 percent of the $46,898 earned by men. (The median is the middle number -- in other words, half of the workers earned more than that amount and half earned less.) Commenting on the pay gap at the national level, the association said career choices explain some of the pay gap. But even after accounting for college major, occupation, hours worked and other factors, the association said, 7 percent of the gap nationally between men and women college graduates remained unexplained one year after graduation. So, there is evidence that Wisconsin women earn 78 cents per $1 of what men earn, although the role discrimination might play is not clear. Our rating Burke said: In Wisconsin, a woman only earns 80 cents for every $1 a man earns. Her claim is slightly conservative, in that census data put the figure at 78 cents. It's worth noting that the gap is not necessarily due to discrimination -- a conclusion some might have drawn because Burke's statement made reference to pay discrimination. We rate the claim Mostly True.

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Is This a Photograph of a Dead Fairy?

05/07/2007

Most of the April Fool's pranks that appear on the Internet on or around April 1 have petered out by a day or two later; some of the more subtle satirical articles may continue to circulate for a few days longer before some readers recognize them as humor rather than genuine news stories. For whatever reason, though, a "mummified fairy" prank from 2007 was still going strong well after April 1 had come and gone, even though its creator had long since admitted to the hoax and the fictional tale had been exposed by major news outlets. Do fairies live at the bottom of your garden? Maybe not anymore, but a recent discovery would suggest that they probably did. What appear to be the mummified remains of a fairy have been discovered in the Derbyshire countryside. The 8-inch remains, complete with wings, skin, teeth, and flowing red hair, have been examined by archaeologists and forensic experts who can confirm that the body is genuine. X-rays of the fairy reveal an anatomically identical skeleton to that of a child. The bones, however, are hollow like those of a bird, making them particularly light. The puzzling presence of a navel even suggests that the beings reproduce in the same way as humans, despite the absence of reproductive organs. The mummified fairy supposedly found in Derbyshire by a dog walker at Firestone Hill near Duffield was the work of former Derbyshire resident Dan Baines, a prop maker. Baines posted an article (titled "Do Fairies Live at the Bottom of Your Garden?") presenting an elaborate backstory about the creature's discovery, along with several close-up photographs of the small, detailed fairy figure he created, on a website a few days before April Fool's Day 2007. The hoax was quite the hit for a few days as netizens debated its details and origins, and then on April 1, Baines confessed by appending the following message to his fairy article: "Thank you for the interest you have shown in my story. Even if you believe in fairies, as I personally do, there will always be an element of doubt in your mind that suggests the remains are a hoax. However, the magic created by the possibility of the fairy being real is something you will remember for the rest of your life. Alas, the fairy is fake, but my interest and belief have allowed me to create a work of art that is convincing and magical. I was also interested to see if fairy folklore is still a valid belief in modern society, and I am pleased to say that yes, it is! I have had more response from believers than I ever thought possible. As well as being an artist, I am also a magician, and you have been my fantastic audience. That spark of magic ignited your imagination and made your day more memorable and exciting. I believe fairies to be Earth spirits rather than physical beings, so my performance was slightly flawed. The question still begs to be answered, though: are they made of flesh and blood like you and I? I hope you have not been offended by the events of the past few days, but if you are, I sincerely apologize. It took 50 years for the Cottingley fairies to be revealed as a hoax; at least you've only had to endure a few days of mystery." The prank was even prominent enough to merit coverage by the BBC: "Photographs of a mummified fairy supposedly found in Derbyshire have been revealed as an April Fool's prank." Former Derbyshire resident Dan Baines, 31, who designs illusions for magicians, made the fairy as a prank. The site received 20,000 hits in one day from fairy believers. "Although I've said it's a hoax, people still believe that it's real," said Mr. Baines. "They believe this is just a cover-up, so let the illusion continue." He added that it had taken him four hours a day to answer all of his emails. "I've had all sorts of comments, including people who say they've seen exactly the same things and one person who told me to return the remains to the grave site as soon as possible or face the consequences," he said. The fairy is about eight inches long, with details such as a navel, ears, and hair added for authenticity. Mr. Baines added that he had now become addicted to April Fool's jokes and told people to "watch this space" for future pranks. Dan Baines later put his fairy figure up for auction on eBay, where it fetched a high bid of £280.00.

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Is This 'Good News' List About the COVID-19 Pandemic Accurate?

03/19/2020

Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. Things appeared pretty bleak in March 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus disease continued to spread across the globe. Businesses and restaurants were being shut down, people were asked to stay inside their homes, and the stock market was crashing. But, according to a viral list on social media, it wasn't all bad news. On March 16, a Facebook post that supposedly highlighted some "good news" about COVID-19 started to spread online: How about some good news? - China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them. - Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. A combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Ritonavir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. They are going to suggest the same medicine globally. - Researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus. - A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days in Wuhan, China. - Apple reopens all 42 stores in China. - Cleveland Clinic developed a COVID-19 test that gives results in hours, not days. - Good news from South Korea, where the number of new cases is declining. - Italy is hit hard, experts say, only because they have the oldest population in Europe. - Scientists in Israel are likely to announce the development of a coronavirus vaccine. - Three Maryland coronavirus patients have fully recovered and are able to return to everyday life. - A network of Canadian scientists is making excellent progress in COVID-19 research. - A San Diego biotech company is developing a COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Duke University and the National University of Singapore. - Tulsa County's first positive COVID-19 case has recovered. This individual has had two negative tests, which is the indicator of recovery. - All seven patients who were being treated at Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi have recovered. - Plasma from newly recovered patients from COVID-19 can treat others infected by COVID-19. So it's not all bad news. Let's care for each other and stay focused on the safety of those most vulnerable. We're not sure who wrote this Facebook post. The earliest version we could find was posted by Dr. James Fedich, but we've come across several other variations of the list across social media. We reached out to Fedich to confirm authorship, but we have not yet heard back. More importantly, this list appears to be generally accurate. Some of the statements are missing context, are a bit exaggerated, or appear to be little more than wishful thinking, so let's take a brief look at each of the claims individually: China has closed down its last coronavirus hospital. Not enough new cases to support them. China built several temporary hospitals to care for people sickened by COVID-19. On March 11, journalists reported that these hospitals were shut down as the spread of the disease started to slow. On March 19, China reported no new locally transmitted cases for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Doctors in India have been successful in treating Coronavirus. A combination of drugs used: Lopinavir, Ritonavir, Oseltamivir along with Chlorphenamine. The Economic Times reported that the combination of two anti-HIV drugs had proven crucial to the treatment of coronavirus patients. India's Union of Health Ministry revised its guidelines to recommend the use of "anti-HIV drug combinations Lopinavir and Ritonavir on a case-to-case basis depending upon the severity of the condition of a patient with a coronavirus infection." However, it's unclear how effective these drugs will end up being or if they will be implemented in treatment worldwide. Researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center claim to have found an antibody against coronavirus. The Dutch newspaper NL Times reported that "a team of ten scientific researchers from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and Utrecht University" discovered an "antibody capable of fending off an infection by the COVID-19 variant of coronavirus." This may prove to be a significant step in developing a vaccine for COVID-19. A 103-year-old Chinese grandmother has made a full recovery from COVID-19 after being treated for 6 days in Wuhan, China. The Independent reported on March 11 that a 103-year-old woman named Zhang Guangfen contracted the disease in Wuhan, China. Guangfen was treated for six days at the hospital before being released. Dr. Zeng Yulan told reporters that the centenarian's quick recovery was likely due to the fact that she had no underlying health conditions. Apple reopens all 42 stores in China. Although China was once the epicenter of this pandemic, the country managed to get a handle on the situation, and as of this writing, cases in the country continue to drop. On March 13, 2020, Apple announced that it was reopening all 42 of its stores in China. Cleveland Clinic developed a COVID-19 test that gives results in hours, not days. The MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, announced on March 16 that it can test COVID-19 samples at its laboratory and get the results in just two hours. These tests, however, were in very limited supply: MetroHealth CEO and President Akram Boutros, MD, FACHE, said: "Supplies are very limited, and testing at this time must be reserved for hospitalized patients who are critically ill and those who have had direct contact with them." Good news from South Korea, where the number of new cases is declining. While COVID-19 continues to spread in places like the United States, some other countries have managed to "flatten the curve" and suppress the spread of the disease. Science Magazine wrote on March 17: "Amid these dire trends, South Korea has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate. The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on February 29. And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control." One reason for South Korea's success, according to CNN, is that the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in a population of relatively young, non-smoking women. Italy is hit hard, experts say, only because they have the oldest population in Europe. While South Korea may have benefited from this disease impacting its young population first, Italy, on the other hand, has one of the oldest populations on earth. Wired reported: "Italy has been hit particularly hard, with some 2,000 deaths thus far. Overwhelmed hospital staffers have had to make devastating decisions about who to treat and who they must let perish. The reason why Italy is suffering so badly, write University of Oxford researchers in a new paper in the journal Demographic Science, may be twofold: The country has the second-oldest population on earth, and its young tend to mingle more often with the elderly, like their grandparents." Scientists in Israel are likely to announce the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Haaretz reported on March 18 that "scientists at Israel's Institute for Biological Research" have made a "significant breakthrough," and that they could announce in the next few days that they have completed the development of a vaccine. However, it will still be a while before this vaccine reaches a larger population. Three Maryland coronavirus patients have fully recovered and are able to return to everyday life. Fox 5 DC reported on March 14 that Maryland's first three coronavirus patients had all recovered and were returning to their homes. The news outlet wrote: "On Friday, Montgomery County's Chief Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles told FOX 5 the first three people to test positive for Coronavirus in the state of Maryland have recovered and are able to resume their normal lives." A network of Canadian scientists is making excellent progress in COVID-19 research. The Montreal Gazette reported on March 13 that the country's scientists were making progress on COVID-19 research as they were able to isolate a copy of the coronavirus. "A team of Canadian researchers from Ontario has isolated and grown copies of the coronavirus, the agent responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19 that has spread worldwide," the Gazette said. "The isolated virus will help researchers in Canada and across the world develop better diagnostic testing, treatments, and vaccines, and to gain a fuller understanding of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)." A San Diego biotech company is developing a COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Duke University and the National University of Singapore. A CBS TV station reported on March 12 that the San Diego biotech company Arcturus Therapeutics was working on a COVID-19 vaccine. The outlet reported: "As the race to develop a vaccine for coronavirus/COVID-19 continues globally, the San Diego-based biotech company, Arcturus Therapeutics, is working on creating one at its Torrey Pines lab ... The biotech company is working with Duke NUS- Medical School, a partnership between Duke University and the National University of Singapore." Tulsa County's first positive COVID-19 case has recovered. This individual has had two negative tests, which is the indicator of recovery. Tulsa World reported on March 12 that the county's first coronavirus case had fully recovered. The Tulsa Health Department reported the good news on Facebook. All seven patients who were being treated at Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi have recovered. The Hindu reported on March 14 that seven coronavirus patients at Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi had recovered from the disease, writing: "Safdarjung Hospital, which is treating a bulk of COVID-19 patients here in the Capital, has reported that seven of the positive cases currently admitted in the hospital have recovered but are yet to be discharged." Plasma from newly recovered patients from COVID-19 can treat others infected by COVID-19. The final item on this list refers to an experimental treatment. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn said that the FDA was experimenting with a new COVID-19 treatment involving the plasma from a person who recovered from the disease. Hahn also highlighted another experimental treatment possibility that the FDA is investigating: using plasma derived from blood taken from coronavirus patients who have recovered and injecting that into other patients in an attempt to potentially jump-start their own immune response. "There's a cross-agency effort about something called convalescent plasma," he said. "This is a pretty exciting area. And again, this is something that we have given assistance to other countries with as this crisis has developed, so the FDA has been working for some time on this. If you've been exposed to coronavirus and you're better, you don't have the virus in your blood. We could collect the blood now; this is a possible treatment. This is not a proven treatment, I just want to emphasize that, [but we would] collect the blood, concentrate that, and have the ability, once it's pathogen-free, that is virus-free, to be able to give that to other patients, and the immunoglobulins, the immune response could potentially provide a benefit to patients." In summary, the claims on the popular "good news" list are generally accurate and supported by credible news reports. The number of new cases in China and South Korea has dropped since the pandemic began, enough so that China has closed its temporary hospitals. A number of patients have also successfully recovered from the disease, and several organizations are working on vaccines for COVID-19. However, at the time of this writing (March 19, 2020), this "good news" should not be taken as proof that this pandemic is soon coming to an end. Health officials in the United States continue to urge citizens to practice "social distancing," and it's likely that we won't see a worldwide rollout of an effective vaccine until mid-2021.

FMD_test_743

Does This Photograph Show a Misaligned Bridge?

06/01/2016

A photograph purportedly showing a misaligned bridge is frequently shared via blogs and social media as a picture of one of the "worst construction mistakes" of all-time: blogs What shall we call these, construction mistakes or errors or goof ups? What ever we call it, it won't change a thing and still these look hilarious. Its quite surprising to see these and we really wonder how the engineers and architects who were part of these constructions must have reacted seeing them. When we first saw this bridge, we thought it to be shopped. But later we knew how wrong we were: 'Survey-scale inaccuracy or positioning errors can lead to costly construction mistakes such as bridge misalignment. Image courtesy of Zurich U.S.' While the above-quoted article correctly cited a caption that accompanied the image on the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that caption has been misinterpreted by some readers who believed it to document the occurrence of a misaligned bridge mishap. But Bobbi Simmons of NOAA's National Geodetic Survey explained that this image was actually an illustration created by the Zurich American Insurance Company and not a photograph of an actual bridge under construction: caption The image of the broken bridge is an illustration, not a photograph. (A terrific illustration, at that!) We were given permission to use the illustration by the Zurich American Insurance Company. In past communication with a representative from Zurich American, they told us it was not necessary for NOAA to credit their company when using the image, however we prefer to do so as a courtesy, hence the reference. We like the image, as it portrays extremely well the value of the work we do here at NOAA's National Geodetic Survey. We provide the framework for all positioning activities in the Nation the foundational elements of latitude, longitude, elevation, and shoreline, and how they change over time. The image of the broken bridge is one we like to use to signify how accurate positioning contributes to informed decision making and how it impacts a wide range of important activities including: surveying, city planning, mapping and charting, navigation, flood risk determination, transportation, land use, and ecosystem management. Our authoritative spatial data, models, and tools are vital for the protection and management of both man-made and natural resources, and support the economic prosperity and environmental health of the Nation. This image has been online since at least 2007, when it was used by the NOAA in an article about the "Transcontinental Traverse" as part of the organization's 200th anniversary. NOAA explained that while angles can be accurately determined, measuring long distances occasionally leads to mistakes: Transcontinental Traverse From the earliest days of the C&GS, angles have been relatively easy to accurately measure using instruments called theodolites. Distances, however, have been very difficult to measure accurately, especially over long lines. This difficulty led to scale inaccuracy, the chief weakness of the nationwide triangulation network. If the scale is off, the distance between two survey points will be too long or too short and area measurements also will be incorrect. Therefore, anything constructed from these survey points, such as a bridge or a railroad, may not meet or align properly.

FMD_test_744

Princess Cruises Boycotts Israel

06/14/2010

Claim: Princess Cruises has ceased making stops in Israel. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2010] Yesterday, 6/2/2010, the Pacific Princess, carrying 700 passengers, canceled a stop at Ashdod, Israel . Instead, they informed the passengers they would stop in Egypt as an alternative. Princess is now bowing to pressure and boycotting Israel . Please pass this on to all Jewish Americans in order to let them know that there are alternatives to Princess. Origins: On 31 May 2010, Israeli commandos stormed the six-ship Freedom Flotilla in international waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip as it carried some 10,000 tons of aid and up to 700 human rights activists to the Palestinian enclave. In that melee, nine activists were killed and dozens were injured. Hundreds of those being conveyed on the flotilla were jailed and then deported. The attack on the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid convoy served to heighten tensions in that area of the world. In response to the potential for retaliatory attacks on Israel, Princess Cruises canceled the 2 June 2010 Pacific Princess call on the port of Ashdod, Israel. The 1 June 2010 call upon the Israeli port of Haifa went ahead as scheduled, providing passengers the opportunity for a full day of touring Galilee and Nazareth. Princess Cruises said of their decision that: Based on careful review of the situation and information provided by the US State Department and other sources, we were concerned about potential violence in Ashdod in reaction to the incident. We made the decision strictly in the best interest of the safety of our passengers and crew, to cancel the call in Ashdod the following day. Azamara Club Cruises also canceled a planned visit to that city, routing its Azamara Quest directly to Haifa rather than making the planned 7 June 2010 call upon Ashdod. Pacific Princess is scheduled to visit the ports of Haifa and Ashdod at the end of June 2010 during its 12-day Mediterranean East cruise (which departs from Venice on 20 June 2010). The line fully expects to maintain the published itinerary. Additional information: Statement from Princess Cruises (Princess Cruises) Last updated: 14 June 2010 Sloan, Gene. "Princess Cruises Cancels Call in Israel in Wake of Attack on Aid Flotilla." USA Today. 1 June 2010. JTA. "Princess Cruises Boycott Tale Is Debunked." 14 June 2010.

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Has Biden promised to get rid of the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Tax?

02/03/2021

In early 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of a widely shared social media post that purported to describe U.S. President Joe Biden's intention to eliminate a piece of tax law that allows taxpayers to benefit from selling a home inherited from their parents. The post, which was critical of Biden and the supposed plan, first emerged during the 2020 presidential election campaign but regained prominence after Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. It typically read as follows: "Did you know Biden wants to get rid of something called 'stepped-up basis'? How does this affect you? When your parents pass and leave you the family house, normally you would inherit that property at its current value. If you were to sell that house, you would only pay taxes on the gain from its current value and what it sells for. If Biden does away with 'stepped-up basis,' you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for it. If you decide to sell, you will pay taxes on the difference between the original purchase price and what it sells for today. Here is what this looks like: Current Policy Inherited House at Current Value - $200,000 Sells for $205,000 Taxable income = $5,000 Taxes Due - 20% of $5,000 = $1,000 Profit to you = $204,000 Biden Policy Inherited House at Original Purchase Price - $40,000 Sells for $205,000 Taxable income = $165,000 Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000 Profit to you = $172,000 If your parents had sold this property prior to passing, they would have paid no taxes because it was their primary residence. So much for helping the middle class get ahead. My educated guess would be that at least 95% of Americans don’t even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of additional tax dollars for the average person after inheritance! Wow, Google 'Biden stepped-up basis' and educate yourself because this is significant! Please share! The viral post accurately stated that Biden proposed getting rid of the 'stepped-up' basis for capital gains tax and correctly explained the potential practical consequences for an individual taxpayer who inherits a home. In fact, the tax burden for wealthier individuals would be even greater than the post stated, because Biden has also proposed doubling the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with income over $1 million. Here's how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office describes the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, which is the tax due on profits from the sale of an asset, such as shares or property: When people sell an asset for more than the price they paid for it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the asset's adjusted basis—generally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the asset's fair-market value at the time of the owner's death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the asset's value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the asset's value relative to the stepped-up basis. As a result, any appreciation in value that occurred while the decedent owned the asset is not included in taxable income and therefore is not subject to the capital gains tax. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama also proposed eliminating the stepped-up basis. Here's his administration's explanation of how it works: Suppose an individual leaves stock worth $50 million to an heir, who immediately sells it. When purchased, the stock was worth $10 million, so the capital gain is $40 million. However, the heir's basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when inherited, so no income tax is due on the sale, nor ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of the stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to eliminate the stepped-up basis. As first highlighted by Politifact, the Biden campaign presented the proposal as a partial way to pay for its proposed student loan reforms. In October 2019, ABC News reported that the plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt. Biden's policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who enter the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate debt relief per year for up to five years of service. Biden would also double the maximum amount of Pell grants available to students, including Dreamers, and would allow students making less than $25,000 a year to defer payments on their federal loans without accruing interest. Any student making more than $25,000 would pay 5% of their discretionary income toward their loans rather than the current 10% owed. The plan would be funded through the elimination of the stepped-up basis loophole, a type of break on inheritance taxes, and capping itemized deductions for wealthy Americans at 28%, according to the campaign. In June 2020, according to CNBC, Biden told potential donors: "I'm going to get rid of the bulk of Trump's $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that, but I'm going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis." On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): "The Biden plan for post-secondary education is a $750 billion investment over 10 years, aimed at developing a stronger and more inclusive middle class. It will be paid for by ensuring the super-rich pay their fair share. Specifically, this plan will be funded by eliminating the gap in our tax law known as the 'Stepped-up Basis Loophole' as well as reducing the itemized deductions that the richest Americans can make to 28%." Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only eliminating the stepped-up basis but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains—that is, profits from the sale of an asset owned for more than one year—for relatively wealthy taxpayers. Here's what the Biden-Harris campaign website stated, as part of the campaign's healthcare plan: "As President, Biden will make healthcare a right by getting rid of capital gains tax loopholes for the super wealthy. Today, the very wealthy pay a tax rate of just 20% on long-term capital gains... As President, Biden will roll back the Trump rate cut for the very wealthy and restore the 39.6% top rate he helped restore when he negotiated an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012. Biden's capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will ensure that those making over $1 million will pay the top rate on capital gains, doubling the capital gains tax rate on the super wealthy." The Facebook post shared widely in late 2020 and early 2021 accurately described Biden's stated intention to eliminate the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on an individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents before selling it. The tax hit for wealthier taxpayers would be even greater than the Facebook post outlined, since Biden has also proposed increasing the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with an income above $1 million. The Facebook post did not mention that Biden had stipulated he would use the money raised from eliminating the stepped-up basis to help pay for his healthcare and education plans. Snopes contacted the White House to ask whether the Biden administration still intended to push for the elimination of the stepped-up basis, but we did not receive a response in time for publication.

FMD_test_746

Is This the World's Smallest Cow?

07/08/2021

In July 2021, photographs and videos started circulating on social media that supposedly showed the world's smallest cow, a 51 centimeters (20 inches) tall dwarf cow in Bangladesh named Raani (possibly spelled Rani): photographs This is a genuine photograph of a very small cow in Bangladesh. It was taken by Munir Us Zaman, and is available via Getty Images with the caption: A dwarf cow named Rani (bottom), whose owners applied to the Guinness Book of Records claiming it to be the smallest cow in the world, walks next to a goat at a cattle farm in Charigram, about 25 km from Savar on July 6, 2021. While this is a genuine photograph of a dwarf cow, Raani has not yet been officially declared the world's smallest cow. But Raani's owner, Abu Sufian, has already filed paperwork with the Guinness Book of World Records. Sufian said: "Guinness has acknowledged our entry and will be doing an independent verification, but we are confident that Raani will get the award." Sufian said At the time of this writing, the official record holder for world's smallest cow (or world's shortest cow) belongs to Manikyam, a 61-centimeter-tall cow in India that has held the record since June 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=walK6YEmFUURaani is certainly smaller than Manikyam and it seems likely that this itty-bitty bovine will soon be crowned the world's smallest cow. Raani, a Bhutti or Bhutanese cow, is reportedly 23 months old. France 24 reports that the other Bhuttis on this farm near Charigram in Bangladesh are more than twice Raani's size. France 24 reports: reports Rani is a Bhutti, or Bhutanese, cow which is prized for its meat in Bangladesh. The other Bhuttis on the farm are twice Rani's size. "We did not expect such huge interest. We did not think people would leave their homes because of the worsening virus situation. But they have come here in droves," the manager said. Sajedul Islam, the government's chief vet for the region, said Rani is a product of "genetic inbreeding" and was unlikely to become any bigger. Raani has become a popular tourist attraction, with thousands of people flocking to this farm to catch a glimpse of potentially the world's smallest cow. Below is a video report from WION, a news outlet covering southern Asia: See also on Snopes: Are Cow Farts Causing Global Warming? Are Warning Signs About Parachuting Cows Real? Did a K-9 Dog Bite a Cow, Deputy Tase a K-9, Cow Kick a Deputy? Did a Cow Really Sit on the Hood of this Car?

FMD_test_747

Did the House Give Itself a $25M Raise in Coronavirus Aid Bill?

03/31/2020

Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. On March 27, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2.2 trillion economic relief package to assist Americans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill's most publicized feature was that the federal government would be sending $1,200 checks to every adult with an adjusted annual gross income of less than $75,000. While negotiations over CARES were underway, social media posts contended that members of Congress—or, more specifically, "[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the Democrats"—were attempting to sneak a $25 million pay raise for themselves into the bill. However, neither the bill as passed nor any previous version of it included a $25 million pay raise for members of Congress. That misperception appeared to arise from a portion of the bill labeled "HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES," which set aside $25 million for "Salaries and Expenses": HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Salaries And Expenses For an additional amount for Salaries and Expenses, $25,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2021, except that $5,000,000 shall remain available until expended, to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, to be allocated in accordance with a spend plan submitted to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives by the Chief Administrative Officer and approved by such Committee: Provided, That such amount is designated by the Congress as being for an emergency requirement pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A)(i) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. As Evan Hollander, a communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, explained, these funds were not allocated to provide pay increases to House members: "The $25 million funding is to support the House's capability to telework, including for the purchase of equipment and improvements to the network," he said. The allocation also provides money to cover the cost of paying the staff of the House Child Care Center, food service contracts, and paying the House sergeant-at-arms. None of the funds will go to member salaries, which are paid directly from the Treasury pursuant to the Constitution, Hollander verified. The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits any law from raising (or lowering) the salaries of members of Congress until after the next national election has taken place, so the House could only raise the pay of representatives elected in the November 2020 election or later (which, naturally, could include current House members who successfully sought reelection).

FMD_test_748

Is 'The Office' Returning to U.S. Television in 2018?

09/07/2017

On 5 September 2017, the web site Pagez.com published an article claiming that the cast of the hit NBC show The Officewould return for a new season in 2018: Pagez.com CONFIRMED: The Office US is returning in 2018! Last week we heard the news that NBC bosses have given writers the go ahead to create a new season of The Office US. Today, we hear the news that writer, Mindy Kaling is ready to write. This week has been full of Office news ever since star Jenna Fisher posted an old un-shot episode script on Instagram. Calling out the crew to get back together and shoot! This article was based on two other posts, an April Fool's Day joke on Medium.com and an Instagram post from actress Jenna Fischer, neither of which "confirmed" that the cast of The Office would reunite for a new season of the hit NBC show. Fischer's Instagram post, for instance, was posted in February 2017, not "this week" as alleged by this September 2017 article. Although Fischer's idea stirred up some fan interest in a reunion, neither NBC nor the show's creators had announced plans at that time to create new episodes of the program. Instagram The rest of the Pagez.com article was based on an April Fool's Day Joke published on Medium.com. In fact, the author of the Pagez article plagiarized an entire paragraph from the joke article on Medium. Here's a comparison of text from the joke article on Medium (left) and the fake news article on Pagez (right): Medium.c om Pagez.com later retracted their claim: retracted The other day we reported that The Office US would be hitting our screens again in 2018. Well, we were wrong. We all make mistakes and it seems that we got fooled by an April Fools joke from earlier this year. After our writers read the original article they got so excited they just had to tell everyone. They went ahead and published the story. So blame them. Not me. However, there is a real (albeit slight) possibility that NBC could reboot the hit series. NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt told Deadline in August 2017 that the network frequently talks about bringing back The Office (with a different cast), but added that a new season was not currently in the works: Deadline There had been a lot of chatter the past few weeks about NBC potentially bringing back Emmy-winning comedy The Office, with Greg Daniels who developed and ran the U.S. version of the British series at the helm and possibly a new cast. While Id heard some optimism around town that a new Office may be in the offing, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt did not indicate that a deal is in the works. We often talk about The Office, Ive talked to Greg four times over the past few years. Its always, maybe some day but not now, Greenblatt said in an interview with Deadline during NBCs portion of the TCA press tour. There is certainly an open invitation but we dont have anything happening right now. If he wants to do it, I would do it. Rumors of an Office revival kicked in again in December 2017, when TVLine reported (without confirmation from NBC) that plans were in the works for a "continuation" of the series: NBC is getting ready to put pen to paper on a revival of The Office. Sources confirm to TVLine exclusively that the Peacock network is eyeing a continuation of the beloved workplace comedy for the 2018-2019 season. The revival would once again be set at Dunder Mifflins Scranton, PA., branch, and feature a mix of new and old cast members. Steve Carell, who starred as the branchs regional manager, Michael Scott, for seven of the comedys nine seasons, will not be involved in the new series. The search for a new RM/boss is said to be already underway. NBC declined to comment on or confirm any details of this story. Andreeva, Nellie. "NBC Boss Revival Wish List: The Office, 30 Rock, The West Wing & ER" Deadline. 3 August 2017. Ausiello, Michael. "The Office Revival Eyed at NBC for 2018-2019 Season." TVLine. 18 December 2017.

FMD_test_749

Stay away from the weight loss scheme advertised on 'Shark Tank' that inaccurately guarantees '50lbs in 61 Days.'

06/30/2021

For years, readers have received unsolicited email messages about a weight loss product that purportedly appeared on the "Shark Tank" television show. Clicking the link in the email led to a product called Keto Burn. We previously reported on a similar scam involving a similarly named product: Keto Fit. The emails for Keto Burn were designed to look like a Fox News article, even though they appeared to have no affiliation with Fox News. This article did not come from Fox News; it was fake. It appears that a person or company used the Fox News logo without the company's permission. After clicking the link in the email, users were led through a number of questionable redirects, meaning that they were bounced from website to website before landing on a final page. On that final page was another misleading story on a website called Live Intelligence Outreach. The headline read: "50lbs in 61 Days: New No-Exercise Skinny Pill Melts Belly Fat. Why Every Judge On Shark Tank Backed This Product!" The article showed a screenshot that appeared to be from a Fox News Channel television show. However, this was also fake; it did not air on the Fox News Channel. One dead giveaway is that the font in the lower-third area looks amateurish. The email for the Keto Burn weight loss product claimed to come from "ABC - Shark Tank" and mentioned "Inc Magazine: Shark Tank Shocker." Clicking the link in the email led to a page that claimed: "It was the most-watched episode in 'Shark Tank' history when sisters Anna and Samantha Martin won over the 'Shark Tank' panel." However, we found no such episode. People named Anna and Samantha Martin never appeared on the show. The scam article also claimed: "The pair are the first contestants in the show's long duration to ever receive a standing ovation and offers of investment from all panel members. The sisters said they celebrated the success with champagne and cake when the episode wrapped." The story then displayed a picture of "Shark Tank" personalities with a cake, purportedly celebrating after an episode about a weight loss product. However, this picture had nothing to do with weight loss products and simply showed "Shark Tank" celebrating its 100th episode. This was confirmed on the Getty Images website. The celebration had nothing to do with Anna and Samantha Martin, Keto Burn, or any other weight loss offerings. In addition to "Shark Tank," the Keto Burn weight loss website also claimed the product was covered by The New York Times, "Today," O, The Oprah Magazine, People's Stylewatch, and Redbook. These publisher logos were misleading. However, we searched the content of all five publishers and did not find any coverage of a product called Keto Burn. This was highly misleading. In sum, a scam involving unsolicited emails, "Shark Tank," and a Keto Burn weight loss product led to an article that misled readers. We recommend that readers delete such emails and avoid following links to such websites.

FMD_test_750

Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State.

08/30/2013

Do dollars slip from state to state? Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested as much in aradio adaired in Missouri as he framed his case for businesses there to slip away to Texas. In the ad, posted online Aug. 21, 2013, Perry said: Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State. (He failed to say, 'Show Me' the money.) To our inquiry, Perry spokesman Josh Havens said the $40 million traces toan online application created byTravis H. Brown, CEO of a St. Louis public affairs and advocacy firm and author of the 2013 book,How Money Walks.Havens said clicking on Missouri on the app shows that between 1992 and 2010, more than $791 million was lost to the state of Texas. That equates to more than $40 million each year. We confirmed his figures on the Wealth Migration app, which indicates that Missouri lost an average of $1.38 billion in adjusted gross income from 1992 through 2010--with the net loss to Texas alone totaling $791.3 million.As definedby the Internal Revenue Service, adjusted gross income is a persons gross income minus adjustments. For most people, according to the app, adjusted gross income is the starting point in calculating their taxable income for federal tax purposes. At a glance, then, Perry's math seems to work. But is it accurate to say all those dollars annually leave Missouri for Texas? We failed to connect with Brown, but an analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which researches state and federal tax policy, told us the IRS annually makes available its data tallying changes in adjusted gross income across the country and state to state--also taking into account how many taxpayers have moved from one state to another since the previous years filings. For instance, the foundationsNick Kaspraksaid by phone, if a taxpayer in Missouri had adjusted gross income of $30,000 one year and then the next year filed a return from Texas showing $65,000 in such income, the IRS would record that as $30,000 moving to Texas--basing that on the adjusted gross income reported in Missouri in the first tax year. A foundation web page breaks down such IRS data for 1993 through 2010, the latest year of available data. Adjusted for inflation, according to the foundation, Texas netted $862 million in adjusted gross income from Missouri over the 17 years, or nearly $51 million a year on average. By email, Kasprak told us the net difference in raw dollars over the 17 years was $710 million, or an annual average of $42 million. This net shift in Texass favor exceeded $40 million in 11 of the 17 years, including every year from 2006 through 2010, as shown on a chart we generated. The year 2005 was the latest one in which there was less than a $40 million difference, according to the chart. The low point: In 2001, the difference was less than $7.4 million. Source: Web interactive,State to State Migration Data,the Tax Foundation (accessed Aug. 29, 2013) Per Perrys statement, Kasprak said it would be helpful to clarify that the cited adjusted gross income figures refer to how much money was made by residents of Texas in their previous year living in Missouri. That is not the same, he said, as saying that those exact earnings moved to Texas. Its not as if these people are literally carrying sacks of money over the border, Kasprak said. The only thing that is literally true is that if you add up all income of people who moved from Missouri to Texas versus people who moved from Texas to Missouri, this is the net difference in the tax year prior to their moves. Another expert, Art Hall, director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, agreed by phone that Perrys statement reflects only what individuals earned in the state they departed, either Missouri or Texas. We dont know if they got a wage increase or wage cut when they moved to Texas or vice versa, Hall said. Regardless, Hall said he considers Perrys statement in line with the IRS data as adjusted for inflation by the foundation. Our ruling Perry said: Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State. That assessment ties to IRS data on adjusted gross income for 1992 through 2010, but the results are more complex and admittedly clunky than this claim acknowledges. That is, Missouri residents who moved to Texas through those years earned more the year before they moved than all income-tax-filing Texas residents who moved to Missouri in those years. Still, adjusted for inflation, the annual difference averages about $50 million--more than Perrys unadjusted figure. Then again, this did not hold for every year. In six years--most recently 2005--there was less than a $40 million difference. On balance, we rate this claim as Half True. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HALF TRUE The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.

FMD_test_751

The median income of a middle class family went down $2,100 from 2001 to 2007.

11/18/2011

Vice President Joe Biden visited a New Hampshire university on October 20, 2011, to promote President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act before an audience he referred to as the 9/11 generation. Speaking to a full house inside Plymouth State University's lecture hall, Biden discussed the need to restore the middle class and bring jobs back to America. He stated that middle-income Americans have been under siege long before the economic recession hit. "In the previous decade, before the current recession, the middle class was getting killed," said Biden. During that period, between 2001 and 2007, productivity of American workers increased by 20 percent, but the median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100. "Did the median of middle-income households really take a $2,100 hit before the economy hit the fan?" We looked into Biden's claim to find out. First, we contacted Biden's staff to determine which figures they were using to arrive at the $2,100 decrease in the median income for middle-class households. Tobin Marcus, Biden's deputy economic policy adviser, informed us that the vice president was referring to real median household income for working-age households. "We're looking at the core wage-earning households as opposed to retirees," Marcus said. Working-age households are typically considered to be those headed by someone between the ages of 25 and 54, and the median income was chosen to represent middle-income wage earners. Biden's office cited the Census Bureau's Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Surveys for year-ending data for 2000 and 2007. They stated that they compared inflation-adjusted numbers using the annual average increase column of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. We examined their numbers, and their calculations checked out. To be sure, we contacted Dennis Delay, an economist with the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies and a New Hampshire State Forecast Manager for the New England Economic Partnership. He confirmed the calculations provided by Biden's campaign. "I looked at the data sources, and they appear to be correct, and the data calculated correctly," Delay said. Delay then pointed us to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, which used the same data. From 2000 to 2007, the Institute reported that the real median income of working-age households fell from $61,574 in 2000 to $59,460 in 2007, a decrease of $2,114. The White House Task Force on the Middle Class cited a weak labor market and anemic job growth of the 2000s as some of the problems that contributed to the approximately 3.4 percent decline in the median of middle-class incomes over the seven years leading up to the economic recession. "Clearly, median inflation-adjusted income fell much faster during the recession (2007 to present)," Delay said. "But the fall in that indicator during a period of economic expansion (2000 to 2007) is very troubling. I don't believe any other period of economic expansion saw a commensurate decline in median inflation-adjusted income." Our ruling: Vice President Biden stated that the median income of the middle class dropped by $2,100 from 2001 to 2007, and the numbers check out. We rate Biden's claim True.

FMD_test_752

How many concerts would Taylor Swift have to perform to pay off one day of interest on our national debt? She would have to perform every day for three years.

11/06/2015

Pop superstar Taylor Swift is known for being generous to her fans. But is she charitable enough to help Washington pay interest on the national debt? The#squadat the Republican Party of Florida asked (and answered) the question with a viral image on theirFacebook page on Oct. 29, 2015, the same week Swift was in the Sunshine State for concerts in Miami and Tampa. How many concerts would Taylor Swift have to perform to pay off one day of interest on our national debt? She would have to perform every day for three years, the post read. We just couldntshake it off. We wondered, would it take three years or more for the biggest pop star in the country to pay off the interest on the national debt, playing a concert every single night? We checked to see if it would be possible, even in ourwildest dreams. Because theres no telling just how much Swift is personally raking in these days (beyond, you know, a lot), theres going to be a lot of estimating here, possibly ablank spaceor two. But we do know the national debt is up over the $18 trillion mark these days, so shes got her work cut out for her. Just so we didnt cause anybad blood, we reached out to the state GOP and asked them how they were figuring Swifts tour schedule through 2019. They credited the stat to the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. We notedthe original version was slightly different: How long would it take Taylor Swift to pay off our debt? Forbes estimates that T. Swift earned around $80 million in 2015 and performed 55 concerts. She would have to perform every day for three years to pay for one day of interest that accrued on our debt. They also point out how hard other big names would have to work, like boxer Floyd Mayweather having to fight for every night for 331 years or Bill Gates having to fork over 229 lifetimes worth of personal income to pay the same bill. The foundation told us they figured out Swifts workload by calculating that she took home 28.6 percent of the gross receipts from her March 2013-June 2014 Red Tour, then stretched it out as if she played for 365 nights straight. That ends up being $526,000 per show, or $192 million for a whole year of Swift concerts (and a whole lot ofInstagrams). So how much is the daily interest on our national debt? Heritage used the 2015 estimate for interest from the Office of Management and Budget, which was$229.2 billionfor the year. One day of that is $628 million. Break that down and Swift would have to play every night for just more than 3 years to pay for one measly day of interest on an $18 trillion debt. Now, the Heritage Foundation told us they used the Red Tour because it has a full net estimate. But we here at PolitiFact Florida always like to note wheneverything has changed. Swift is a megawatt star these days, and she has been practically printing money since this years1989 World Tourbegan. The tour topped$185 millionbetween May and mid October. Thats about about 60 shows, give or take, with 20-plus to go until Swift can take a breather. ForbesandBillboarddo generally usea third of gross receiptsas a rough guideline remember, those tours have to pay for all sorts of things besides the artist, like sets and costumes and roadies. The$80 millionForbesestimatefor June 2014-June 2015 is hard to parse, because it includes all income, which could range fromt-shirts to albums to streaming royalties. Well note its really not possible to say what she makes from any given show, because every venue is different. The tour stood to make $2.75 million from herHalloween show in Tampa, with a $928,000 bonus if the show sold out. (We cant confirm whether it did, butreports make it soundlike it came close.) In any case, we figure these days it's fair to say Tay Tay is worth closer to a very rough average of $1 million per show, especially when she's playing bigger arenas. That would really help her put a dent in the nations outstanding bills. We could also cheat with some creative bookkeeping and use data from theFederal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which puts 2015 debt interest at a slightly lower $223.3 billion. That works out to $612 million per day. Do the simple math and our estimate knocks Swifts theoretical slate of shows down to about 612 nights. Thats a little over 1 years of concerts. But theres always the chance she wouldnt want to fork over all her earnings for the interest payments. She could use a little walking around money, you know? Also, she needs a little time to go home to catsMeredith GreyandOlivia Benson. Our ruling The Republican Party of Florida asked, How many concerts would Taylor Swift have to perform to pay off one day of interest on our national debt? She would have to perform every day for three years. This viral image was inspired by the Heritage Foundation, and while their math is based on old estimates, it stands up to scrutiny. Well note that Swift likely makes a lot more money these days, so she could probably pay the bill faster. But the point that it would take an inordinate amount of time to pay just a single days interest on the $18 trillion-plus national debt stands. We rate the statement Mostly True.

FMD_test_753

Strip on U.S. currency

02/05/2007

Claim: The plastic strip embedded in U.S. bank notes enable the Feds to tell how much money you have on you. Examples: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] This past weekend, a friend visiting our house told us that the anti-counterfeiting strip put in newly printed paper money can be used to determine how much cash you are carrying. She said that the ever-present "they" at the airport have a machine that can determine how much cash you have on your person or in your luggage, and if you are carrying a sufficiently large amount of cash, you will be detained by the police and interrogated until you confess your guilt as a drug smuggler. [Collected on the Internet, 2003] I did not get this in an e-mail but my bank teller in Kirksville, MO told me this one. Evidently there is an urban legend floating around that the new "security strip" in the new $20's can be read by satellites with the implication being the Govt. can beam a satellite on you and eventually, when all the bills in circ. will have these, be able to tell how much $ you are carrying around. This teller told me that she has had customers come in requesting "no new $20s" for this reason! We had a good laugh about it and we both agreed that the Govt. is going to be sorely disappointed if they turned this hypothetical satellite on us! Origins: The ongoing effort to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiters has led to the inclusion of a number of security features in U.S. currency. One countermeasure in particular has come to be the focus of a widely-believed bit lore: the embedded inscribed security thread. According to scuttlebutt, the purpose of the thread isn't really to make it more difficult for the ill-intentioned to introduce worthless currency into circulation by fooling its recipients into thinking it genuine, but instead to allow the government to know exactly how much money anyone is carrying at any particular moment. With the use of special scanners, or possibly a beam from a distant satellite, the Feds can quickly count the value of all bank notes being carried on or about one's person and thus track how much money is entering or leaving the country, and with whom. This knowledge, says the behind-the-hand whisperings, is used to finger drug dealers and smugglers. The rumor is bunk. The strip's sole purpose is the foiling of counterfeiters. It, along with a number of other security features worked into the nation's bank notes, make it far harder on the criminal element to produce phony bills that will be mistaken for the real thing. Other features include the microprinting of "The United States of America" within the rim surrounding the portraits on bills, a watermark displayed elsewhere on the bill of the figure in the portrait, and optically variable ink (OVI) which changes from green to black in the number in the lower right-hand corner of the bill when viewed from different angles. As for the suspect strip, it is made of polyester and is inscribed with the denomination of the bill. Nothing about the composition of these strips renders them detectable by scanner or satellite. In 2004, the false belief attaching to this security feature was enhanced by the claim of these bands containing RFID tags. As technology advanced, so did the rumor, leading many to microwave their $20 bills into ashen submission by falling for the canard that nuking their currency would disable these RFID tags transmitters. Yet the belief about governmental detection of concealed sums via a subterfuge worked into the currency even predates the polyester security threads. In the 1980s, those similarly worried about being tracked by Big Brother fretted over the ink with which bank notes were printed, muttering to themselves that the "magnetic ink" they believed to have been used rendered the bills somehow magnetic and thus detectable by machine. Back then, the concern was more that this magnetic money would serve to pinpoint the location of the person carrying it rather than it give away how much of it was being ported, but it is another form of the same belief. One confirmation that nothing in and of itself is detectable about the polyester strips embedded in bank notes arises out of the news about security technologies now used at some U.S. airports, including Chicago's O'Hare. Were caches of greenbacks already being ferreted out via their embedded threads, descriptions of the BodySearch scanner, a device that uses special "backscatter" X-rays to produce images of items that might be concealed under passengers' clothing, would not always impart the glad tidings that this gizmo reveals the presence of currency as well as narcotics, plastic explosives, and plastic weapons. While in the main, the "sneakily embedded technology allows for the surreptitious tracking of people or their assets" rumor attaches to currency and blames the government for the supposed spying, the belief also carries to other items and points fingers at other parties. [Kamradt, 2003] Some students have not picked up their new ID cards through the re-carding project, which ends today, because of a rumor that there is a locator chip inside the IDs so Purdue can track their whereabouts. "To dispel the transponder rumors, I was closely involved in developing the requirements for production of the ID cards and I can ensure students that no secret electronic devices were embedded in these cards," said Terry Schroeder, project manager for the Purdue ID Re-carding Project. "From my understanding, most of the group that met to discuss this issue (as a result of distributed flyers) were wearing aluminum foil beanies." [Mulkins, 2000] I heard that a person carrying a large number of $100 bills, going through the PikePass readers, could be detected and the exact amount of money determined. The authorities are using PikePass to detect drug dealers and then confiscating the money, even confiscating the money of innocent persons. (PikePass is a prepaid toll device containing a battery and a radio-frequency modulator placed on the windshield of a vehicle. As a car bearing one travels under a transmitter overhanging a turnpike lane, the device intercepts the signal being broadcast and returns a signal exclusive to that particular PikePass customer. The signal is read, and the toll is subtracted from the customer's account.) PikePass Whereas student ID cards and prepaid toll signalers do at least have a whiff of the enigmatic to their technology, which works to encourage belief that some of that incomprehensibility might be of nefarious intent (we mistrust what we don't understand, after all), this next expression of the rumor is even farther afield: [Collected on the Internet, 1999] I recently received an email telling me that I need to take the labels off my canned good and mark the bare cans with a marker, or at least black out the UPCs. Why? Well, it seems the government has helicopters equipped with scanners that can read the UPCs of the food you have stored. Ostensibly, the government is doing this so they can confiscate food for redistribution in the up coming Y2K breakdown of society. When asked to verify, the poster informed me she was told this by a 'family friend" who flies one of these scanner-equipped helicopters. Of course he doesn't want to be named for his own safety, but he risked telling his dear friends because he loves them. While most folks will laugh off the thought of their soup cans spying on them, the same cannot be said of the belief that their long green is being counted by surveillance satellites sent into orbit by a government intent upon keeping tabs on its citizens a great many appear to believe that. Barbara "watch your money, don't worry about your money watching you" Mikkelson Sightings: In a first-season episode of television's The X Files ("E.B.E.," original air date 18 February 1994), a member of a group that believes the government is up to any number of monstrous conspiracies takes a $20 bill from Agent Scully, holds it up to the light, rips the left side off, and pulls out its security strip, saying, "They use this magnetic strip to track you. Whenever you go through a metal detector at an airport, they know exactly how much you're carrying." Additional information: Inscribed Security Thread (Secret Service) Money Design Features (Secret Service) The Redesigned $20 Note (Bureau of Engraving) Last updated: 19 May 2011 Garber, Andrew. "New Airport Gadgets Strip, Sniff, Scan." The Seattle Times. 23 October 2001 (p. A1). Kamradt, Kori. "Officials Dismiss Rumors About New IDs." The [Purdue University] Exponent . 14 November 2003. Mulkins, Phil. "PikePass Can't Count Dope Dealers' Money." Tulsa World. 28 July 2000. Webb, Tom. "U.S. Currency to Get Makeover." The Denver Post. 14 July 1994 (p. A4). Zane, Maitland. "Counterfeit-Proof Cash Makes Its Debut." The San Francisco Chronicle. 26 July 1991 (p. A1). The Associated Press. "O'Hare Officials Install Scanner, Hoping to Replace Body Searches." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 23 November 1999 (p. B2).

FMD_test_754

Says Republican presidential candidate and Gov. John Kasich has spent 177 days out of state and used $350,000 in taxpayer money on his costly campaign.

04/19/2016

In recent weeks, the national media has poked fun at John Kasich for chomping through Italian subs and pasta in the Bronx and eating pizza in Queens with a knife and fork. Back home, Ohio Democrats discussed something else: the governor's out-of-state travel and what it costs taxpayers in the only state he has won. The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on its Facebook page on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasich's costly campaign, the image says, entails 177 days spent out of state and a tab of $350,000 to taxpayers. How did they calculate the days and dollars? We decided to look into it. The party's communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to a March 26 Columbus Dispatch story reporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. The Dispatch tally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement on July 21, 2015. An Associated Press story contains the $350,000 figure. By law, a special unit within the state department of public safety is assigned to protect the governor, and nine state troopers guard him 24/7. So when he goes to Mike's Deli, so do they. State funds from the public safety department's non-highway program, which includes the governor's security detail, are likely paying for rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, fuel, per diems, and overtime while Kasich crisscrosses the country chasing delegates. However, the Dispatch story describes how cagey state agencies are being with these specifics. Information that was public in the years before Kasich's run is now shielded. On payroll records, the governor's detail was previously listed as the executive protection unit. Officials told the Dispatch that this designation has been dropped to shield the troopers' identities. "To ensure safety and security, we do not discuss any of the resources used as part of the executive security detail," is the response repeated by agency spokespersons and the governor's campaign staff alike. The Associated Press used another tool to approximate the cost: an interactive, searchable checkbook of state spending hosted on the website of Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, part of his nationally recognized transparency initiative. We used the Ohio Checkbook to drill down into the data, which has been updated since the AP checked. Isolating the travel costs of the non-highway program, which currently shows expenditures from July 1, 2015, through February 2, 2016, the total now comes to $403,638. This chart shows how disproportionate the travel spending has been in 2016 so far compared to prior years. Most of the transactions shown through the Ohio Checkbook lack details (General Travel Expenses is a recurring line item), but there are some expenditures that coincide with Kasich's campaign stops. For example, a batch of hotel rooms was booked over a series of days in December at the Wynn Las Vegas, the Renaissance Des Moines, the Doubletree Salt Lake City, and the Hampton Inn of Waterloo, all around the time last December when Kasich bounced from a debate in Nevada to a town hall in Iowa, to a fundraiser in Utah, and back to Iowa. It's not a staggering total, though some taxpayers might argue that $403,638 could be better spent on other state services. Kasich has dismissed any suggestions that he should drop out of the race before the Republican National Convention in July, which means the total taxpayer share from his campaign travel could continue to swell. (The average monthly spending from this fund in fiscal year 2016 is about $57,663. By comparison, $57,562 was the total spent in all of fiscal year 2014.) Other governors who ran for president have also left taxpayers with hefty bills. Chris Christie's security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated $614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up $400,000 in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walker's security team $577,000 in overtime alone before he dropped out in September 2015. Walker reimbursed about $260,000 to the state for expenses his campaign incurred. So far, the Kasich campaign has refused to disclose details about his security detail or its resources, or whether he similarly intends to give taxpayers a refund. We did not hear a response from Kasich's campaign or spokesman Rob Nichols. Our ruling: The Ohio Democratic Party said that in 177 days on the campaign trail, Kasich's security detail cost taxpayers $350,000. Our analysis confirmed that $350,000 is most likely a conservative estimate. At the current rate, the total could be twice that by the RNC in July. Since neither state officials nor Kasich's camp will confirm any details on the governor's security, we have to rely on what we learned from the treasurer's open records data. We rate this claim True.

FMD_test_755

Most people in New Hampshire want to raise the minimum wage. (State Rep. Marilinda) Garcia opposes it.

10/03/2014

A gun reform group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, has turned its focus to New Hampshire, running a TV ad that criticizes Republican congressional candidate Marilinda Garcia not only on gun ownership, which is the group's main focus, but also on the minimum wage and equal pay for women. In a 30-second spot titled "Strange Ideas," Giffords' group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, asserts that Garcia holds views that differ from those of a majority of New Hampshire residents. Marilinda Garcia has some strange ideas. Most people in New Hampshire want to raise the minimum wage, but Garcia opposes it. Most people support guaranteeing women equal pay for equal work, yet Garcia is against that, too. Garcia even opposes closing the loophole that allows dangerous criminals to obtain a gun without a background check. Granite Staters deserve commonsense leadership, not Marilinda Garcia. PolitiFact New Hampshire decided to check the record on those claims. In this item, we'll examine Garcia's stance on a minimum wage increase. Garcia, a state representative, is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, a Democrat, for the 2nd Congressional District seat. The Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC unveiled the advertisement in September, just as it stopped airing a controversial TV ad that accused a congressional candidate in Arizona of opposing legislation aimed at preventing convicted stalkers from buying guns. On-screen, the New Hampshire ad cites a WMUR-TV poll from February that found three-quarters of New Hampshire residents supported raising the state minimum wage to $9 an hour. That provides support for the ad's claim, though it's worth noting that a federal proposal supported by President Barack Obama and other Democrats would push it higher, to $10.10 an hour. At the time the poll was conducted, the New Hampshire Legislature was considering a bill (HB1403) to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.25 in 2015, and then to $9 in 2016. The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, found that 59 percent of residents strongly supported the increase, and another 17 percent somewhat supported it. Eight percent strongly opposed it, and 5 percent somewhat opposed it. Another 11 percent were neutral or didn't know enough to say, according to WMUR. New Hampshire is the only state among its neighbors without a higher wage than the federal floor of $7.25, and it has the lowest minimum wage of any New England state. The minimum wage is $8.73 an hour in Vermont, $8 in Massachusetts, and $7.50 in Maine. All told, it is one of 18 states that have the same minimum wage as the federal minimum of $7.25, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. About a month after the poll, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to increase the state's minimum wage by a vote of 173-118. Legislators voted mostly along party lines, with five Democrats voting against it and four Republicans voting for it. We checked the roll call to see how Garcia voted, but on three successive votes on March 12, 2014, related to the minimum wage bill, Garcia did not cast a vote. Later, in May, the Republican-controlled State Senate killed the bill, with all 13 Republicans voting against it and 11 Democrats voting in favor of it, a process in which Garcia played no official role. An earlier legislative battle over the minimum wage in New Hampshire also sheds light on Garcia's record. In 2011, the New Hampshire legislature, with a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate, passed a bill that deleted the state's minimum wage, meaning that the state's lowest wage would be the federal minimum. At the time, New Hampshire's minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal amount, but critics said the bill was intended to keep the state's minimum wage as low as possible. In the House, Garcia was one of 236 legislators to vote in favor of that bill, HB133. After passing the state Senate, Gov. John Lynch vetoed the measure. Both the House and Senate overrode Lynch's veto, and Garcia was one of 261 members of the House to vote in favor of overriding the governor. So, while Garcia has no voting record on the 2014 minimum wage increase in New Hampshire, she did take a clear stand on the 2011 law tying the state's minimum wage to the federal one. As further evidence of Garcia's opposition to increasing the minimum wage, the ad cites an article from The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, which reported that Garcia opposes a minimum wage hike. That article, published June 9, introduced Garcia—then considered an underdog in the Republican primary against state Sen. Gary Lambert—to a national audience. The article reviews her record as a state legislator and points to how some GOP establishment figures had feared Garcia would be viewed as too conservative in a general election race. The article quotes Garcia as saying in a March interview that while increasing the minimum wage superficially seemed like a good idea, it wouldn't actually help anybody much more and could, in fact, hurt. "It actually has negative outcomes in many areas. One would be, if we're trying to encourage people to educate themselves further so they don't have to stay in a minimum-wage job anymore, raising [the minimum wage] lowers the incentive to do that," she said. Garcia's stance hasn't changed since then. In an email message to PolitiFact New Hampshire, Kenny Cunningham, the Garcia campaign's political and communications director, reinforced the position. "A one-size-fits-all minimum wage from Washington, D.C., is counterproductive. Economists agree it would increase unemployment, particularly among teenagers," Cunningham said. "Instead, Marilinda wants to reduce America's highest-in-the-world corporate tax rates and rein in job-killing regulations." Our ruling: An ad from the liberal Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC says most people in New Hampshire want to raise the minimum wage, but Marilinda Garcia opposes it. Polls from when the New Hampshire Legislature was considering raising the state's minimum wage showed that a majority of residents surveyed supported increasing the wage from the federal minimum of $7.25 to $8.25 and eventually to $9 an hour. And Garcia has gone on the record criticizing attempts to raise the minimum wage, saying its effects could be counterproductive and could lead to negative outcomes. She also cast several votes in 2011 that effectively kept the state minimum wage the lowest in the region. The claim needs a slight clarification. As backup for the assertion that most people in New Hampshire want to raise the minimum wage, the poll cited a poll that asked residents about a $9 minimum wage. It's not clear whether residents would support a hike to the higher level of $10.10, as the president and congressional Democrats are seeking. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.

FMD_test_756

Has Monica Lewinsky accumulated a substantial net worth?

12/29/2020

In late December 2020, a misleading online advertisement appeared, announcing that Monica Lewinsky was dead and that her net worth stunned her family. It read: "Monica Lewinsky's Net Worth Stuns Her Family At Age 47. Monica Lewinsky Leaves Behind A Net Worth That Will Boggle Your Mind." However, this was not true. She is alive, and despite what the ad claimed, there was no indication in the resulting story that her net worth shocked her family. The ad was sponsored by the Therapy Joker website and was hosted on the Yahoo! Gemini advertising service. Readers who clicked the ad were led to a 430-page story with the headline: "The Biggest Hollywood Celebrities & Their Incredible Net Worth: Can You Guess Who Has The Biggest Bank Account?" Lewinsky's net worth appeared on page 417, meaning that readers had to click "Next Page" 417 times to reach her section: "Monica Lewinsky: Activist and TV Personality - $500,000." Monica Samille Lewinsky is a woman of many skills. This popular American television personality is also a successful fashion designer, activist, and a former intern at the White House. The paparazzi constantly followed her, and she was a regular face in the media during her time at the White House. However, she decided to leave all that behind and pursue a different career. Additionally, she authored the book, "Monica: Her Story," which added to her fame. The London School of Economics and Political Science alumna is now 47 years old and remains a popular television personality. She rents a lavish apartment and enjoys a luxurious lifestyle. Her fleet of cars includes a Mini Cooper and a Cadillac. We hope she has a professional financial advisor to assist her with her banking needs. Currently, the media personality, activist, and fashion designer has retained her fame, and we hope Lewinsky continues to manage the money she has accumulated over the years. The page mentioned nothing about Lewinsky's purported death, nor did it present any information about her family being stunned by her net worth. The misleading advertisement and exceptionally lengthy article reflect a strategy known in the advertising world as "arbitrage." The Therapy Joker website's goal was to make more money from ads displayed on each of the 430 pages than it cost to lure readers with the initial "Monica Lewinsky's Net Worth Stuns Her Family" ad. The business and technology blog Margins defined "arbitrage" as "leveraging an inefficient set of systems to make a riskless profit, usually by buying and selling the same asset." Margins also referred to it as "the mythical free lunch that economics tells us does not exist." Lewinsky was a White House intern in the mid-1990s who became famous after her affair with former U.S. President Bill Clinton became a public scandal. In December 1998, Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. However, the Senate did not vote to convict and remove him from office, and he served the remainder of his second term in the White House. We previously covered similar misleading net worth stories for Sean Connery, Jaleel White, Richard Gere, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, and Alex Trebek. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with numerous pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads.

FMD_test_757

Video Does Not Show Thousands of US Marines Deboarding Plane in Israel in October 2023

10/27/2023

On Oct. 26, 2023, X user Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) a user who has a history of promoting misinformation created a post with a video that included the caption, "HAPPENING NOW: Thousands of U.S. Marines Just Landed in Israel. WW3 HIGH ALERT." history post The video showed uniformed U.S. military service members deboarding an airplane down a set of stairs. However, this video's caption was incorrect. The clip was recorded more than a year before Hamas' surprise attack in Israel launched the current Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023. surprise attack A longer version of the same video was previously posted on YouTube on June 29, 2022. The clip showed that the airplane displayed markings for Omni Air International as well as the letters and numbers "N828AX." video The captions for the original video provided by both the YouTube user and the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service said that it was recorded in Romania on June 28, 2022, and that it showed U.S. Army soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division, not U.S. Marines. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service 101st Airborne Division The YouTube caption read as follows: 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Soldiers arrive in Mihail Kogalniceanu, Romania, June 28, 2022. The 101st units are supporting V Corps mission to reinforce NATOs eastern flank and engage in multinational exercises with partners across the European continent to reassure their Nations Allies and deter further Russian aggression. Video by Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Connor 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) In light of the video being reposted on X a year later with misleading captions, the YouTube user ("Murphy") updated the video's description in October 2023 to add that the clip had "nothing to do with [the] events in Israel." The original versions of the video showed that the clip posted by Wallace had been horizontally mirrored. The act of horizontally mirroring a photo or video is a strategy that's sometimes employed in order to make it more difficult for anyone performing a reverse-image search. (A reverse-image search is a way of providing a search engine with a piece of media rather than words, in order to find past posts of the same content.) reverse-image search Wallace's misleading post has since been removed from X. According to two archived captures of the post, it was accessible for at least 14 hours. It received more than 2.7 million impressions, 4,761 reposts, 968 quotes, 13,900 likes and 410 bookmarks. archived captures We reached out to Wallace to ask if he had horizontally mirrored the video before posting it, or if he had found the clip already altered elsewhere online. We also asked if he expected to receive revenue from X for the post, even though it was deleted, seeing as he once boasted about making money from posting misinformation on the platform. This story will be updated if we receive answers. boasted While the video of the soldiers deboarding the airplane was old, separately, the Pentagon had made an announcement on Oct. 17 in regard to the war in Israel and Gaza that included U.S. Marines being sent into the region by sea. As The Associated Press noted in their own fact check of the same miscaptioned video, the Pentagon said that "the USS Bataan amphibious ready group, which consists of three ships carrying thousands of Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit," would be heading to the region in light of the situation in Israel and Gaza. The Associated Press We contacted the U.S. Marine Corps to ask if they would be able to share details about the group's ship movements. In response, they referred us to the Department of Defense. We reached out to a spokesperson for the department and will update this story if we receive anything further. 101st Airborne. The United States Army, https://www.army.mil/101stAirborne. 101st Airborne Division Arrive in Romania. YouTube, Murphy, June 29, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZwCps8soIo. 101st Soldiers Arrive in Romania. DVIDS, June 28, 2022, https://www.dvidshub.net/video/848509/101st-soldiers-arrive-romania. Evon, Dan. Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches. Snopes, March 22, 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/. Federman, Josef, and Issam Adwan. Hamas Surprise Attack out of Gaza Stuns Israel and Leaves Hundreds Dead in Fighting, Retaliation. The Associated Press, Oct. 7, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-11fb98655c256d54ecb5329284fc37d2. N828AX OMNI AIR INTERNATIONAL BOEING 777-200.Planespotters.net, https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-777-200-n828ax-omni-air-international/egx9gv. Phan, Karena. Old Video Shows US Army Arriving in Romania, Not Marines Landing in Israel. The Associated Press, Oct. 27, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-israel-hamas-war-military-aid-video-false-109820082794. @Shayan86. He Was Warned Not to Post This Video from Maui, Hawaii, Which It Turns out Is Actually an Explosion in Macul, Chile, in May. X, Aug. 14, 2023, https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1691040580090863616. USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group Heads toward Israel as US Grows Its Military Presence.13NewsNow.com, Oct. 10, 2023, https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/national/military-news/us-continues-to-send-ships-toward-israel-uss-bataan-amphibious-ready-group/291-646b9a8d-9f92-4540-9909-464137a2b903.

FMD_test_758

Is Wendy's Closing All Locations, as Announced in Late 2023?

11/24/2023

In October and November 2023, online advertisements were displayed to users on Facebook and Instagram, each featuring a photo of Wendy's fast-food restaurant founder Dave Thomas. Thomas became a household name in the U.S. in the 1990s while starring in hundreds of the company's TV commercials. The caption of the ads read, "Closing Time: All The Restaurant Chains Closing." They appeared to suggest that Wendy's would be closing down its entire restaurant chain, going bankrupt, or going out of business for other reasons. Two versions of the ads ran in late 2023. Users who clicked on the ads with the Wendy's-themed photo of Thomas were directed to one of two articles. In one lengthy, list-style article hosted by Investing.com, the headline read, "Last Call: You May See Fewer of These Restaurant Chains in 2023." Wendy's was mentioned in the story at number 44 out of 123 restaurants, with a paragraph that began with, "Wendy's itself is not going out of business." Wendy's Year Established: 1969 Headquarters: Dublin, Ohio, United States. While Wendy's itself is not going out of business, the restaurant's biggest franchisee operator, NPC International, sadly is. NPC International operates 385 Wendy's in the U.S., meaning that the future of those stores is now in serious jeopardy. NPC also operates over 1,225 Pizza Huts in America. NPC filed for Chapter 11 in July 2020, citing $903 million in debt. NPC attempted to sell off 900 Pizza Huts to Yum! Brands to pay off some of the debt, but Yum! Brands backed out of the deal, citing concerns that creditors would snatch the locations up before they had the chance to move in. The article ultimately revealed that a franchisee named NPC International had sold its Wendy's restaurants to another operator. The sale was approved by a judge in 2021, according to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com, indicating that this was old news. A second article linked to some of the Facebook and Instagram ads led to sportzbonanza.com. The story's headline read, "Classic Fast Food Restaurants That Are Gone for Good." However, Wendy's was not mentioned in the article. Additionally, the story was dated Oct. 14, 2020, which again made this article old news. The reason these kinds of ads exist on Facebook and Instagram, along with their lengthy articles, is usually due to something called advertising arbitrage. Advertising arbitrage is a strategy by which an advertiser hopes to make more money on ads displayed in a lengthy article than it would cost to display an initial clickbait ad meant to attract users to the article. Since both articles were at least two years old, we wouldn't be surprised to see these misleading ads continue to appear well into the 2024 calendar year, and perhaps beyond.

FMD_test_759

What a Great Idea - U.S. Presidency Outsourced to India

07/23/2009

Claim: The job of President of the United States is being outsourced to India. Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2009] Is this true? What a GREAT IDEA!!! Washington, DC June 11, 2009 Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States of America will be outsourced to India as of September 1, 2009. The move is being made to save the President's $500,000 yearly salary, as well as a record $750 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead that his office has incurred during the last three months. It is anticipated that $7 trillion can be saved by the end of the President's term. "We believe this is a wise financial move. The cost savings are huge," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-WA). "We cannot remain competitive on the world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted. Obama was informed by email this morning of his termination. Preparations for the job move have been underway for some time. Gurvinder Singh, a tele-technician for IndusTeleservices in Mumbai, India, will assume the office of President as of September 1, 2009. Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, NY, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month, but no health coverage or other benefits. It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job responsibilities without a support staff. Due to the time difference between the US and India, he will be working primarily at night. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day job at the Dell Computer call center," stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive interview. "I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be President." A Congressional spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully aware of all the issues involved in the office of President, this should not be a problem, as Obama had never been familiar with the issues either. Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using these canned responses, he can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying issues at all. "We know these scripting tools work," stated the spokesperson. "Obama has used them successfully for years, with the result that some people actually thought he knew what he was talking about." Obama will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final day of employment. Following a two-week waiting period, he will be eligible for $140 a week in unemployment for 26 weeks. Unfortunately, he will not be eligible for Medicaid, as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed limit. Obama has been provided with the outplacement services of Manpower, Inc. to help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition. According to Manpower, Obama may have difficulties securing a new position due to a lack of any successful work experience during his lifetime. A greeter position at WalMart was suggested due to Obama's extensive experience in shaking hands, as well as his 'special' smile. Origins: As we've noted on many occasions, really good satire hews a fine line between plausibility and absurdity, so it's not surprising we often receive "Is this true?" inquiries about satirical articles that circulate widely via e-mail. The receipt of an out-of-context, news-like article with a premise that seems vaguely credible with a quick read-through can easily leave readers confused about its authenticity. This humor piece about the U.S. presidency being outsourced to India is actually an updated version of a 2004 satirical article about President George W. Bush. Although the 2009 version's topical references—a weak economy, an updated growing budget deficit, and the looming threat of job outsourcing—might strike a chord with many Americans, and those who are no fans of the current U.S. president might appreciate its sly digs at Barack Obama, the reason we've received so many inquiries about this particular article is somewhat puzzling, as its premise isn't at all plausible: The U.S. Constitution and U.S. law have very specific provisions about the line of succession to the presidency, and that line does not encompass Congress arbitrarily bypassing the vice president (and everyone else in the chain of succession) to hand over the office of chief executive to an unelected foreign resident. Not to mention that if the U.S. presidency were really set to change hands within the next few months, that subject would be the dominant topic of every American news outlet, not an obscure bit of information spread solely via e-mail. If nothing else, the notion that the U.S. presidency would be given over to someone who would undertake it as a moonlighting job for $320 per month crosses the line from believability to absurdity. Last updated: 23 July 2009

FMD_test_760

Was it suggested by Senator Tom Cotton that drug testing should be required for individuals receiving Social Security benefits?

01/24/2018

Amid tense talks between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over the 2018 federal budget, the attention of many observers turned to each side's record on government spending, benefits and entitlements, and fiscal priorities. In that vein, a widely shared Facebook meme took aim at Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, accusing him of supporting a modified version of a long-standing liberal bugbear: drug testing for welfare recipients. On January 21, 2018, Facebook user Ken Stanley wrote, "Tom Cotton calls for every person who receives Social Security to be drug tested; those who test positive will lose benefits." This claim is false. We searched Cotton's speeches, op-eds, and press releases, as well as the Congressional Record and news archives, and found no evidence of the Senator ever having advocated such a policy. In an email, a spokesperson for Cotton told us the meme was "completely false": Senator Cotton does not support (nor has he ever supported) drug testing for Social Security recipients. Indeed, even those who call for drug testing for welfare recipients do not typically propose the same policy for Social Security. This is because Social Security is more widely regarded as an earned benefit (workers contribute to it through payroll taxes), while programs such as housing assistance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) are regarded as welfare. Senator Cotton does, however, have a record of making statements and advocating policies around welfare assistance that have raised eyebrows. In 2015, Salon and Raw Story headlines accused Cotton of "blaming" drug addiction on Social Security benefits and claiming that receiving Social Security disability benefits causes individuals to "spiral" into drug addiction. The articles, as well as Cotton's actual comments, were more nuanced. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Cotton advocated for reform of the Social Security disability system and drew a link between population decline and social ills (including drug addiction) in certain counties and regions, and rates of Social Security disability insurance uptake: "It's hard to say what came first or caused the other: population decline or increased disability usage. Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be, at least at the county and regional level, something like a disability tipping point. When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm. It becomes an acceptable way of life and an alternative source of income to a good-paying, full-time job... After a certain point, when disability keeps climbing and becomes endemic, employers will struggle to find employees or begin or continue to move out of the area. Population continues to fall, and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once-thriving communities into further decline. Not only that, but once this kind of spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime." In 2014, while running for the Senate, a Huffington Post writer accused Cotton of "calling food stamp recipients addicts." Again, his comments were much more nuanced than that description. According to a Huffington Post transcript of a virtual town hall hosted by Cotton in July 2014, the then-Congressman defended voting down a Democratic bill relating to agricultural payments and federal food aid on the basis that it did not sufficiently reform the food stamps program, including by requiring drug testing for applicants: "I don't think that we should be using farmers as a way to pack more welfare spending into Barack Obama's government," Cotton said. "Nor should we have a food stamp program that isn't reformed, that doesn't have job training and work requirements, that doesn't have drug testing requirements, so we can get people who are addicted the help they need. Or make sure that long-term addicts or recidivists are not abusing taxpayer dollars." In March 2017, Cotton joined with Republican Senate colleagues in voting to nullify an Obama-era Department of Labor rule that limited the circumstances under which states could conduct drug testing for individuals applying for unemployment insurance. President Donald Trump later formally reversed the guideline, effectively giving states greater powers in conducting drug screening for jobless benefits. So Senator Cotton has certainly supported drug testing for welfare programs but never for Social Security.

FMD_test_761

Manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft

01/02/2012

Claim: The U.S. government unfairly excluded Hawker Beechcraft from bidding to supply military aircraft for Afghanistan. Examples: [Collected via e-mail, December 2011] "Any president whose actions so consistently refute his own words must have deep contempt for the intelligence of the American public." The obama administration told U.S. owned Hawker Beechcraft earlier this week they are being excluded from bidding on the US Air Force contract for a light attack aircraft. That leaves Brazilian owned Embraer as the likely recipient of the lucrative deal. I found this one hard to believe so I did a little research. It was tough because this was completely ignored by the main stream media. This is a double slap in the face of the United States. At a time when jobs, the economy, and security are the most critical priorities for our country, the Obama administration decides to send a defense contract to a foreign owned company. This has to be the stupidest thing this administration has done to date. This is not just a dumb decision, it is a perfect example of why this president is such a poor leader. He talks about wanting jobs. He says we need to force companies to repatriate billions of dollars that Americans keep overseas. He wants to raise taxes so he can spend billions on stimulus that does nothing to stimulate anything. And when it's time to act, he sends our tax dollars overseas at the expense of American jobs and income for an American company. This is nothing more than a Chicago-style political pay back; but this time it is at the expense of our national security. How much more damage will obama be allowed to do in the next 14 months? One of the lead stories in the media this week blasted congress for insider trading. If this contract goes to Embraer it will be a huge pay off to another George Soros company. When will the 4th estate do it's constitutionally protected job and expose the real obama to the American people? Origins: On 30 December 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it had awarded a $355 million contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) for 20 light air-support/single-engine turboprop aircraft that will serve as both trainers and ground-attack planes for Afghanistan's air force. Wichita-based aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft (HBDC) had hoped that their AT-6 aircraft, an armed version of their T-6 trainer which is currently used by the U.S. military, would be chosen for the contract, but the U.S. Air Force (USAF) excluded the AT-6 from the running, leaving the A-29 Super Tucano built by Sierra Nevada Corp. in partnership with Brazil-based Embraer as the lone eligible supplier. Hawker Beechcraft Corp. has since filed suit against the U.S. government over the exclusion, maintaining that the Air Force had not provided them with sufficient detail about the reasons behind their exclusion and that Embraer had been unfairly favored: The suit alleges the exclusion was "arbitrary and capricious" and seeks to prevent the government from awarding a contract until Beechcraft can make its case in court. "This is yet another example of the Air Force's lack of transparency throughout this competition," said Bill Boisture, Hawker Beechcraft chairman and CEO, in a statement. "With this development, it now seems even clearer that the Air Force intended to award the contract to Embraer from early in this process." "We think we were wrongfully excluded from the competition," Boisture said. "We don't understand the basis for the exclusion, and frankly, we think we've got the best airplane. "So we're going to take every avenue available to us to make sure our product is fully evaluated and recognized for what it is. There are several issues here that just, frankly, don't make sense." The Air Force maintains that the process was fair, that Hawker Beechcraft was excluded because "multiple deficiencies and significant weaknesses found in HBDC's proposal make it technically unacceptable and results in unacceptable mission capability risk," and that the company failed to respond to its notice of exclusion in time to request a debriefing or file a protest: respond Lt. Col. Wesley Miller, an Air Force spokesman, said the contest "was conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations" and that the evaluation of the aircraft "was fair, open and transparent." In dismissing Hawker Beechcraft Corp from the competition, the Air Force found Hawker Beechcraft's bid "technically unacceptable," one that would result in an "unacceptable mission capability risk." The Air Force said the company missed a three-day deadline to file a request for a debriefing and a 10-day deadline to file a protest. It is not possible at this point to definitively determine why the USAF excluded Hawker Beechcraft from the Light Aircraft Support (LAS) bidding, as ongoing litigation prevents the Air Force from releasing information regarding the competition, but according to industry observers the primary issue behind Hawker Beechcraft's disqualification was that the LAS contract called for a non-developmental, production-ready aircraft, and Hawker Beechcraft's AT-6 was still a developmental aircraft. observers According to SNC's own statement on the issue: statement In its Request for Proposal, the Air Force specifically sought a non-developmental, in-production aircraft so that warfighters in-theater could have an advanced solution quickly and so that American taxpayers would not have to pay development costs. The plane proposed by SNC's competitor is a developmental aircraft that is not in production and has never been used for light air support or any other purpose. The AT-6 is a developmental aircraft. With only two prototypes in existence, it has never been in production. In contrast, the aircraft selected by the Air Force and to be provided by SNC, Embraer's A-29 Super Tucano, is a light air support aircraft that is currently in use with six air forces around the world. Unlike the AT-6, the A-29 Super Tucano has more than seven years of real-world combat and training experience behind it. This means that its operational costs are known and that all costly development issues related to weapons load, maneuverability and operations have already been worked out. Only the A-29 Super Tucano has actually flown in combat. More significantly, only the A-29 was built from the ground up to perform counterinsurgency and light air support operations. The A-29 is larger in size allowing it to make full use of the 1,600-hp engine without power limitations due to torque. It sits higher off the ground and has a broader stance, increasing stability on unprepared airfields. The A-29's longer tail section increases longitudinal stability and provides exceptional accuracy for the delivery of weapons. Only the A-29 delivery system is specifically designed with the five NATO hard points for external stores, translating into maximum operational flexibility for the war fighters in the theater. The AT-6 carries no munitions in its native configuration. This is a critical difference. The A-29 also is munitions-certified with over 130 operational external load configurations. The AT-6 is not yet munitions-certified. In February 2012, the Air Force announced it was canceling the contract with Sierra Nevada Corp. pending an investigation of the award: General Donald Hoffman, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command, has started an investigation, Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force Spokeswoman, said. She said she didn't know whether the contract would be re-opened for competition and didn't elaborate on the reason for the cancellation. "While we pursue perfection, we sometimes fall short, and when we do we will take corrective action," Michael B. Donley, the Air Force secretary, said in a statement. "Since the acquisition is still in litigation, I can only say that the Air Force Senior Acquisition Executive, David Van Buren, is not satisfied with the quality of the documentation supporting the award decision." The awarding of the Air Force contract to a partner of Brazil-based Embraer did not necessarily mean that all the jobs connected with the contract would be sent overseas, as Embraer said that its partner, Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp., would build the turboprops in Jacksonville, Florida, if it won the contract: The A-29 Super Tucano will be built in America. Embraer will make the plane at a new production facility in Jacksonville, Fla. Over 88 percent of the dollar value of the A-29 Super Tucano comes from components supplied by U.S. companies or countries that qualify under the Buy America Act. No new jobs are being created in Brazil as a result of this contract. Despite the claim made in the example text reproduced above that the subject of Hawker Beechcraft's exclusion was "completely ignored by the mainstream media," it has in fact received widespread news coverage in a variety of media sources, including at least five of the nine highest-circulation newspapers in the U.S. (The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, the New York Post, and the Chicago Tribune). widespread Also, we found no evidence to support the claim that "If this contract goes to Embraer it will be a huge pay off to another George Soros company," as we turned up no information indicating that George Soros holds an ownership stake in Embraer. The closest connection we found between George Soros and Embraer seems to be that the former is one of the leading shareholders in China's Hainan Airlines Group (HNA), and HNA bought ERJ-145 jets from Harbin Embraer, a partnership between Embraer and the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation of Harbin, China. However, that connection makes Soros a customer of Embraer, not an owner, and therefore does not put him in a position to profit from the awarding of an Air Force contact to Embraer. shareholders Last updated: 5 March 2012 Hodge, Nathan. "Hawker Beechcraft Sues Over Air Force Bidding." The Wall Street Journal. 28 December 2011. Hodge, Nathan. "Embraer Hits Defense Barrier." The Wall Street Journal. 11 January 2012. Ivory, Danielle. "Air Force Cancels Contract to Sierra After Hawker Protest." San Francisco Chronicle. 1 March 2012. McMillin, Molly. "Hawker Requests GAO Review of Air Force Deal." The Wichita Eagle. 22 November 2011. McMillin, Molly. "Hawker Beechcraft Files Suit Over Air Force Contract." The Wichita Eagle. 28 December 2011. Associated Press. "Hawker Beechcraft Sues Over Air Force Contract." 28 December 2011. Associated Press. "Air Force Temporarily Halts Work After Hawker Beechcraft Lawsuit." The Washington Post. 5 January 2012.

FMD_test_762

We've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

08/27/2012

When it comes to taxing businesses, the United States is leading the world, according to Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Kyrillos. As he looks to unseat Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez this November, Kyrillos has refused to sign an anti-tax pledge but maintained in an Aug. 20 interview on WOR-AM that he is looking to lower tax rates. "We've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world," said Kyrillos, a state senator representing Monmouth County. "So, I'm about reducing tax rates." As far as the corporate tax rates on the books, Kyrillos' claim is accurate. However, when you factor in various tax breaks, the rate actually paid by U.S. businesses has been among the highest in the world, but not in first place, studies show. For this fact-check, we are focusing on two different types of corporate tax rates: statutory and effective rates. To back up Kyrillos' claim, a spokeswoman pointed to the top statutory corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent in the United States. That figure represents a combination of federal, state, and local tax rates imposed by law before any tax breaks. Once Japan reduced its combined corporate tax rate in April, the U.S. rate became the highest among industrialized nations, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a pro-business group. So, Kyrillos' claim about a first-place finish is accurate in terms of statutory rates. But the United States does not necessarily lead the world when you consider the effective tax rates paid by U.S. businesses. Due to various tax breaks, those rates are typically lower than the top statutory rate. In a September 2011 report, the Tax Foundation summarized the findings of the latest 13 studies of effective corporate tax rates across the world. Due to different methodologies, those studies determined U.S. effective tax rates ranging from 23 percent to 34.9 percent, according to the report. The United States did not rank first in any of those studies, but in 10 of them, U.S. effective rates ranked among the top five highest for the countries analyzed, the report states. However, the effective rate in Japan will likely drop, possibly moving the United States to the top spot in future studies. Apart from that Tax Foundation report, it's worth noting that a separate analysis found thirty Fortune 500 companies, including General Electric, didn't pay any federal corporate income taxes over the 2008-2010 period. That study was done by the left-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice along with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. So, what's the better measure -- statutory or effective rates? According to Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge, statutory rates make for better comparisons. Effective rates are unpredictable and vary across different industries, but the statutory rates are fixed, Hodge told us. "The effective tax rate will differ from industry to industry and business to business, whereas the list price is what it is and everyone starts at that point," Hodge said. But Joseph Rosenberg, a research associate at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, argued that effective tax rates provide the best measure of comparison for overall tax burdens. Aparna Mathur, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, added in an email that both are equally valid measures of looking at the burden of the corporate income tax. Our ruling: In a radio interview, Kyrillos claimed, "We've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world." It's accurate that, at 39.2 percent, the United States has the highest statutory corporate tax rate among industrialized nations. But with various tax breaks, U.S. effective corporate tax rates range anywhere from 23 percent to 34.9 percent, studies show. Those effective tax rates may not land in first place, but they're still among the highest in the world. We rate the statement Mostly True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com.

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Americans spend 6.1 billion hours a year on tax preparation.

04/15/2014

Tax day has come around again, bringing with it a startling claim about the amount of time Americans spend doing their taxes each year. According to U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., it takes United States taxpayers a total of 6.1 billion hours to file their taxes, which adds up to more than 695,000 years. "6.1 billion hours a year, just to figure out how much money the government is going to take," she said in a post on Twitter. We had to check to see if this number could possibly be accurate. According to Foxx's office, the figure comes from the Taxpayer Advocate Service's 2013 report to Congress, which addressed the complexity of the U.S. tax code. In 2012, the National Taxpayer Advocate designated the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) as one of the most serious problems facing taxpayers, the report states. The existing code, by our count, has reached nearly four million words and imposes an unconscionable burden on taxpayers. Our analysis of IRS data indicates that individuals and businesses spend about 6.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. It's important to note that the report arrives at this number by calculating the estimated combined time businesses and individuals spend filing taxes, not just that of private citizens. The Taxpayer Advocate Service is an independent group within the Internal Revenue Service that is tasked with helping taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS and recommending changes to prevent such issues. The number was calculated by multiplying the number of times each type of tax form was filed in 2010 by the amount of time the IRS estimates it takes to complete each form, according to Ken Drexler, a media relations officer at the Taxpayer Advocate Service. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 requires federal agencies to estimate the amount of time it takes to fill out a given piece of paperwork. "It's the best number you can come up with, but it's not necessarily a number you would take to the bank," Drexler said, noting that it would take longer for someone unfamiliar with a form to complete it than for someone who has done so many times before. Accountants and tax professionals, for example, could fill out the forms faster than an average filer. In other words, the estimate might have flaws, but it is the best guess as to the time it takes for businesses and individuals to fill out tax paperwork. In a 2011 report, the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics further broke down the 6.1 billion hour figure, finding that individuals spend 3.16 billion of those hours filling out tax forms, while businesses account for 2.94 billion hours. The estimate has remained the same since 2010. In 2009, the Taxpayer Advocate Service concluded that Americans spent a staggering 7.6 billion hours completing the forms. Our ruling: Foxx said, "6.1 billion hours a year, just to figure out how much money the government is going to take." The number came from the Taxpayer Advocate Service's 2013 report to Congress, which stated that individuals and businesses spent 6.1 billion hours preparing their taxes. It's important to note that the figure is an estimate. It is derived from taking the number of tax forms filed in the last year and multiplying it by the IRS's estimate of the time it takes to prepare the forms. Foxx's larger point, that it takes a very long time for Americans to comply with filing their federal taxes, is accurate. The number is an estimate, but it comes from a credible, independent report. We rate this statement True.

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Did Mark Zuckerberg Announce His Resignation from Facebook?

03/14/2017

In March 2017, an advertisement disguised as a news story appeared, reporting that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was leaving the company to sell skin care products. The hoax report was published on the website GetInkNews.co. Neither Katy Perry nor any of the other mentioned celebrities endorsed this product, and the website used unrelated images of Zuckerberg and various celebrities (the image of Katy Perry was taken in 2011) to create the illusion that they had endorsed Zuckerberg's skin care line together. The advertisement also claimed that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were giving away free samples of the product (as long as customers paid for shipping and handling): ZUCKERBERG GIVES PRODUCTS AWAY FOR FREE! So, what if you aren't rich or famous? Chan and Zuckerberg don't care. After all, they are already worth more than $556 billion. "We aren't in this to make a fortune," Chan told a friend recently. "We have already amassed a fortune. I just want to help people." That is why she is now offering readers the opportunity to experience the joys of younger-looking skin for FREE! The only cost to you is a $4.95 shipping and handling fee, so you can try the EcoMaxx Ageless Moisturizer and EcoMaxx Ageless Eye Revitalizer, which will be delivered right to your front door. Simply click on the link here for ordering details. This is a relatively new form of ubiquitous fake news: an advertisement designed to mimic a genuine news item in order to convince people to buy a skin care product. At the very bottom of this webpage, below the comments section, below several links to purchase this product, and below several fake celebrity endorsements, appears a disclaimer: THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE. This website is not intended to provide medical advice or to replace medical advice and treatment from your personal physician. Visitors are advised to consult their own doctors or other qualified health professionals regarding the treatment of medical conditions. The author shall not be held liable or responsible for any misunderstanding or misuse of the information contained on this site or for any loss, damage, or injury caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, by any treatment, action, or application of any food or food source discussed on this website. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated the statements on this website. The information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. MARKETING DISCLOSURE: You should know that the owner of this website has a monetary connection to the products and services advertised and provided. The owner receives payment whenever a qualified lead is referred. All of the information regarding the goods and services mentioned on this website is provided by the owner. ADVERTISING DISCLOSURE: This website is an advertisement and not a news publication. Any photographs of persons used on this site are models. Any photographs of before/after images used on this site are not real and are only used to illustrate the results some may achieve. Many of the articles featured on this site are what is commonly referred to as an advertorial, a combination of advertisement and editorial written in an editorial format as an independent news story. However, unlike an independent news story, an advertorial may promote a particular product or interest. Advertorials take factual information and report it in an editorial format to allow the author, often a company marketing its products, to enhance or explain certain elements to maintain the reader's interest. A familiar example is an airline's in-flight magazine that provides editorial reports about travel destinations to which the airline flies. In 2018, the same conceit of Facebook's head announcing that he was stepping down was used as fodder for an April Fool's Day joke. Last year in June, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the company a new mission statement, it was too late for him to try to change how things worked at Facebook's offices. While it wasn't made public, Cambridge Analytica had already used data from millions of users for voter profiling and other purposes. In the wake of the recent data misuse revelation, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has resigned from the company. While demands were already being made for his resignation, this has come as a big surprise to many. Zuckerberg publicly informed the world via a post on Facebook. Altus, Celeste. "But Did He Friend Her?" AdWeek. 21 January 2011. Get Ink News. "Mark Zuckerberg Disgusted with Social Media; Set to Leave Facebook Later This Year." Retrieved 13 March 2017.

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Is Starbucks Offering Coupons for Black Customers Only?

04/18/2018

After the Starbucks coffee chain announced that they would be closing their stores on 29 May 2018 to conduct racial-bias education following the controversial arrest of two black men at one of their locations in Philadelphia, an image purportedly showing a Starbucks coupon offered exclusively to customers of African-American heritage began to circulate on social media: announced controversial The "apology" coupon was fake that was not released by Starbucks and was not redeemable at any of the chain's locations -- it was a race-based hoax that was likely created (and certainly spread) by users of the 4chan internet forum. A spokesperson for Starbucks told Business Insider that "This [coupon] is completely false and [is] in no way associated with Starbucks." Business Insider Although we have not yet pinpointed the exact origins of this fake flyer, we did find several threads on 4chan promoting the dissemination of this hoax in an attempt to spread racial discord: threads 4chan promoting 4chan users also implored each other to share this fake coupon with the hashtag #FreeBlackCoffee in threads filled with racial slurs. In fact, the QR code in the above-displayed coupon spells out the word "n**ger" when scanned. 4chan has a history of creating fake coupons with the intent of mocking Starbucks' "liberal" positions. When the company announced their support for Dreamers and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, trolls on the forum created mock-ups for a fake Starbucks "Dreamer Day" coupon. announced Similar fake flyers for a "Welcome Refugees" promotion were posted to the r/The_Donald section of reddit after Starbucks announced in 2017 that they would be hiring over 10,000 displaced peoples over the following 5 years. Welcome Refugees announced Taylor, Kate. "Free Starbucks Is a Hoax from 4Chan." Business Insider. 18 April 2018.

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Trump proposed enacting the largest tax increase in American history.

09/02/2015

Republican candidates continue to attack Donald Trump on his past positions, claiming he is not the conservative he says he is today. Jeb Bush picked up the attack by criticizing Trump over tax policy. "I cut taxes every year," Bush said at an Aug. 20 rally in New Hampshire. "He's proposed the largest tax increase in mankind's history, not just our own country's history." The next day, Bush reiterated this claim in a fundraising email: "Trump proposed enacting the largest tax increase in American history." This seems like something worth fact-checking. A spokesman for Bush told us that the former Florida governor was referring to Trump's 1999 proposal to raise taxes on the rich. Trump, who at the time was considering a run for president under the Reform Party, proposed a one-time tax on individuals and trusts with a worth of $10 million or more. Trump stated that the one-time tax of 14.25 percent would raise $5.7 trillion and eliminate the debt. He mentioned that if the wealthy were having trouble liquidating their assets, they could pay off their tax over 10 years. The New York Daily News featured a photograph of Trump with the words, "SOAK THE RICH." Experts at the time criticized Trump's plan as economically and politically unviable. "I don't think the plan makes much economic sense," said Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, in a 1999 interview with the New York Times. "The fact is that most people's wealth that has been built up over 10, 20, or 50 years is wealth that has already been taxed." Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in 1999, described Trump's plan as "the lunacy of this idea is almost indescribable." He raised concerns about the economic consequences, including that households would shift assets overseas to try to avoid confiscation. Trump calculated that 1 percent of Americans would pay the Trump tax. He proposed that half the savings would go toward middle-class tax cuts and the other half for Social Security. A spokeswoman for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Hope Hicks, wouldn't tell us if Trump still supports that plan and said that he would release his current tax plan later in September. However, in 2011, talk show host George Stephanopoulos asked Trump if he still supported that tax, and Trump said it was no longer viable. "Well, at a time, it would have paid off the deficit. I mean, you wouldn't have a deficit at that time," Trump said (though he confused debt and deficit). "Unfortunately, the world has changed; today you can't do it. Today, and I'm very strongly against tax increases." When Stephanopoulos asked, "So, you're no longer for that tax?" Trump replied, "No, no. I'm no longer for that tax, no." Would Trump's tax have broken records? Many tax experts told us that indeed Trump's plan would have been record-breaking in terms of revenue, but they said it was never going to happen and lacked major details. "It certainly would have been the biggest ever simply because of its sheer size -- it was trillions of dollars," said Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center. "However, it's a totally crazy idea... I don't think anybody was taking it seriously -- it was Donald Trump being Donald Trump." The United States gross domestic product in 1999 was $9.7 trillion, so if Trump's tax had raised $5.7 trillion, that would have been 59 percent of GDP, said Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute. Federal tax hikes typically are no more than 1 percent of GDP, Edwards noted. The Bush 1990 hike and Clinton 1993 hike were less than 1 percent of GDP over five years, whereas Trump's tax would have been 59 percent one time in one year, Edwards said. PolitiFact previously looked into the largest tax increases as a percentage of GDP. Topping the list from 1940-2006 was the Revenue Act of 1942, which was about 5 percent of GDP. Richard Phillips, an expert at the Citizens for Tax Justice research group, which aims to require the wealthy to pay their fair share, said that Trump's one-time tax proposal can't be compared to conventional tax reform, which typically refers to taxes collected annually. His estimate was based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the total wealth of individuals with over $10 million in assets multiplied by the 14.25 percent rate, he said. "There are very real questions as to whether you could plausibly tax all forms of wealth and whether wealthy individuals would be able to take action to shield large swaths of their wealth from taxation." Additionally, Trump proposed repealing the estate tax and enacting other tax cuts using the revenue that the federal government would save by no longer paying interest on the national debt. "It's not clear how much those tax cuts would have cost and how much of the tax they would offset over time," Phillips said. Our ruling: Bush said, "Trump proposed enacting the largest tax increase in American history." Yes, in 1999, Trump proposed a historically large one-time tax increase. Trump said the tax would have raised $5.7 trillion and wiped out the national debt. It would have applied only to the wealthiest Americans. This claim rates True.

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Was President Trump able to pressure Qatar into rescuing Jared Kushner financially?

10/18/2018

In October 2018, social media users shared a meme posted by the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats reporting a series of events involving Gulf states were the result of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner "using American foreign policy to enrich themselves": Although the sequence of events referenced in the meme is described accurately according to reputable news reports, the motives, connections, and causality the meme ascribes to those events have not been proved. It is true that Jared Kushner, who is married to President Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, was in need of over a billion dollars to cover the mortgage on 666 Fifth Avenue, a 41-story Manhattan building he purchased for $1.8 billion in 2007, as the New Yorker reported on 2 March 2018: reported Kushner Companies co-owns 666 Fifth Avenue with another developer, Vornado Realty. In 2007, at Jared Kushners urging, the company paid $1.8 billion for the building -- at the time, the highest price ever paid for a New York office tower. The property occupies a prime spot between Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets, but it was built in 1957 and needed extensive upgrades. It still has many vacancies, and the $1.2 billion mortgage, which reportedly has ballooned to almost $1.5 billion, is due in February, 2019. Right now, it is not entirely clear whether Kushner Companies is in a position to repay or refinance the loan. The company hoped to knock the building down and put up another, twice as tall and far more luxurious, in its place, Bloomberg reported. It sought funds from investors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, South Korea, Israel and France. No investors were announced for the plan, described by many as prohibitively expensive. That same day, The Intercept reported that in April 2017, Kushner's father Charles, who runs the family's real estate firm Kushner Companies, had made a direct appeal for financing to Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi, which was followed shortly afterwards by the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar: reported The 30-minute meeting, according to two sources in the financial industry who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the potential transaction, included aides to both parties, and was held at a suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. A follow-up meeting was held the next day in a glass-walled conference room at the Kushner property itself, though Al Emadi did not attend the second gathering in person. The failure to broker the deal would be followed only a month later by a Middle Eastern diplomatic row in which Jared Kushner provided critical support to Qatars neighbors. Led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a group of Middle Eastern countries, with Kushners backing, led a diplomatic assault that culminated in a blockade of Qatar. Kushner, according to reports at the time, subsequently undermined efforts by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to bring an end to the standoff. Middle Eastern diplomatic row subsequently undermined In May 2017, Qatar's Gulf neighbors commenced a blockade of that country, and within days President Trump tweeted his support of the blockage despite the fact that Qatar is home to Al Udeid Air Base, a key U.S. military installation: commenced tweeted During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017 June 6, 2017 In May 2018, the New York Times reported that the Kushner family was close to reaching a bailout deal for 666 Fifth Avenue with a company possessing Qatari government ties: reported Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it. Brookfield is a publicly traded company, and its real estate arm, Brookfield Property Partners, is partly owned by the Qatari government, through the Qatar Investment Authority. And, the Trump administration around that time reversed course with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling the Saudis in April 2018 that it was time to end the blockade against Qatar. telling It's likely the meme gained momentum on social media in October 2018 due to scrutiny over Kushner and Trump's relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in light of the gruesome murder of Jamal Kashoggi. scrutiny Kashoggi, a Saudi national and columnist for the Washington Post, went missing on 2 October 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul seeking documents he needed to get married. According to reports citing Turkish government and U.S. intelligence sources, the Virginia resident never left the consulate, where he was ambushed by Saudi agents, tortured and murdered, and his body dismembered. ambushed Trump has resisted calls by U.S. lawmakers to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the journalist's apparent death, comparing global condemnation of the Gulf kingdom to accusations of sexual misconduct leveled against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Trump told the Associated Press: "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned." calls told Cassidy, John. "Jared Kushners Conflicts of Interest Reach a Crisis Point." The New Yorker. 2 March 2018. Swisher, Clayton and Ryan Grim. "Jared Kushner's Real Estate Firm Sought Money Directly from Qatar Government Weeks Before Blockade." The Intercept. 2 March 2018. Bagli, Charles V. and Jesse Drucker. "Kushners Near Deal with Qatar-Linked Company for Troubled Tower." The New York Times. 17 May 2018. Kirkpatrick, David D. and Carlotta Gall. "Audio Offers Gruesome Details of Jamal Khashoggi Killing, Turkish Official Says." The New York Times. 17 October 2018.

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Ideas Worth Shedding

07/27/2015

FACT CHECK: Was Nick Hanauer's 2012 TED Talk about income inequality banned because it was "too politically controversial" to release? Claim: A 2012 TED Talk video featuring wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer speaking on the subject of income inequality was banned because it was deemed "too politically controversial." Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2015] There are several articles that claim "TED Banned This Billionaire For Exposing Capitalism's Biggest Lie" or similar wording. This refers to the speech of Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist. The sensational language of this claim makes me suspicious, as does the unlikelihood of the assertion. Is it true? What is the source of the rumor? Origins: On 1 March 2012, Seattle-based venture capitalist and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer participated in the global conference series of "TED Talks." The video of his six-minute talk, widely circulated since its release, captured him addressing a range of issues pertaining to income inequality and capitalism from the perspective of a very wealthy individual. Not long after Hanauer's March 2012 talk was filmed, rumors began circulating that TED had deliberately suppressed the clip due to its potentially offensive nature (to wealthy individuals). On 16 May 2012, National Journal published an article contending that TED's organizers had quashed the groundbreaking talk because its content was simply too controversial to release, an odd assertion considering the 2011 emergence of a well-known protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. The article noted that TED organizers invited Hanauer, the first non-family investor in Amazon.com, to give a speech on March 1 at their TED University conference. Inequality was the topic, specifically Hanauer's contention that the middle class, and not wealthy innovators like himself, are America's true "job creators." "We've had it backward for the last 30 years," he said. "Rich businesspeople like me don't create jobs. Rather, they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich." You can't find that speech online. TED officials initially told Hanauer they were eager to distribute it. "I want to put this talk out into the world!" one of them wrote to him in an e-mail in late April. But early this month, they changed course, telling Hanauer that his remarks were too "political" and too controversial for posting. In the years since 2012, Hanauer's TED clip has paradoxically been viewed millions of times while remaining the focus of articles describing it as "banned," "too controversial," or the speech TED "doesn't want you to see." While it's difficult to determine the accuracy of statements about its online availability in March 2012, the clip clearly became widely available and was frequently viewed on sharing sites such as YouTube shortly thereafter, and it has remained popular ever since. However, in 2015, many social media users continued to assert that Hanauer's talk was banned. In late May 2012, a contributor to TED's forums specifically asked why Hanauer's talk had been "banned," prompting a lengthy discussion during which individuals affiliated with TED linked to a statement issued by TED curator Chris Anderson explaining why Hanauer's talk had not been promoted. The service by which Anderson published the explanation (Posterous) shuttered in April 2013, taking Anderson's remarks with it. However, a cached version revealed the date (17 May 2012), title ("TED and inequality: The real story"), and content of Anderson's rebuttal. Anderson opened by stating that "TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us." He described an ensuing "firestorm of outrage" on sites including Reddit and Huffington Post, wherein TED was "accused of being cowards ... in the pay of our corporate partners ... [and] the despicable puppets of the Republican party." Anderson's account of the decision not to release Hanauer's talk differed dramatically from the circulating rumors: Here's what actually happened. At TED this year, an attendee pitched a 3-minute audience talk on inequality. The talk tapped into a really important and timely issue. However, it framed the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan. (The talk explicitly attacked what he called an article of faith for Republicans. He criticized Democrats too, but only for not also attacking this idea more often.) It included a number of arguments that were unconvincing, even to those of us who supported his overall stance, such as the apparent ruling out of entrepreneurial initiative as a root cause of job creation. The audience at TED who heard it live (and who are often accused of being overly enthusiastic about left-leaning ideas) gave it, on average, mediocre ratings—some enthusiastic, others critical. At TED, we post one talk a day on our home page. We're drawing from a pool of 250+ that we record at our own conferences each year and up to 10,000 recorded at various TEDx events around the world, not to mention our other conference partners. Our policy is to post only talks that are truly special. We try to steer clear of talks that are bound to descend into the same dismal partisan head-butting people can find every day elsewhere in the media. We discussed internally and ultimately told the speaker we did not plan to post. He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted, he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined, and this time I wrote to him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed. He then forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter, and the National Journal duly picked up the story. As Anderson noted, income inequality was the subject of at least one TED Talk video in 2011. Much of the rumor regarding Nick Hanauer's purportedly banned TED Talk segment hinged upon the differing assertions made by TED and Nick Hanauer at the time of the controversy in 2012. However, Anderson's claims (that TED curators are tasked with promoting only the most impactful clips) weren't implausible or suggestive of a cover-up. It would be difficult to determine whether Hanauer or anyone working on his behalf threatened a public relations offensive, but TED maintained that quality and not content was behind the decision not to feature the video (which clearly was not "banned" from public view but was simply not promoted by TED). Since the time of the initial debate over whether or why the TED talk was "banned," the clip has been distributed both by TED and other outlets and widely viewed by a large online audience. In August 2014, Hanauer returned for a TED Talk titled "Beware, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks are coming." While it's true that TED opted not to promote Hanauer's initial appearance (during which he discussed income inequality), his segment was not banned, and the organization cited his lack of substantive content alongside his primary reliance on partisan ideas as the reason it was not curated alongside other featured TED Talks. At no point during the immediate controversy did TED appear to deny the existence of the video, remove it from the Internet, interfere with its distribution, or otherwise thwart the ideas advocated by Hanauer from spreading. The group simply chose initially not to promote the clip (as they do for a large number of TED Talks) in favor of other content selected by their curators. Last updated: 27 July 2015 Originally published: 27 July 2015

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Does This Photograph Show President Trump Visiting a WWI Cemetery in the Rain?

11/13/2018

President Trump was widely criticized over Veterans Day weekend in November 2018 after he skipped an event at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I due to inclement weather. Social media users chided Trump for bowing out of the scheduled event, which was attended by other world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron, sharing photographs of "real presidents" who had previously honored veterans while standing in the rain. President Trump took issue with this coverage, however, and on 13 November 2018, he took to Twitter to explain his absence (asserting that his helicopter couldn't fly because of the rain) and proclaim that he had delivered a speech in the "pouring rain" the following day but that the event was "little reported" by the "fake news." President Trump's explanation for missing the memorial at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery might have been regarded as questionable, but he truly did deliver a speech in the rain (although we might quibble with the assertion that it was "pouring") at the American Cemetery of Suresnes, as NBC News reported. President Donald Trump paid tribute on Sunday to Americans who fought in the two world wars, saying the nation is forever in their debt during a visit to a cemetery in France where more than 1,500 of them are buried. "It's been a wonderful two days we spent in France, and this has certainly been the highlight of the trip," Trump said in remarks that capped a weekend in Paris where he and more than 80 other world leaders marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Standing at the presidential podium under a steady rain without an umbrella, Trump joked to six World War II veterans about their enviable position keeping them dry. "You look so comfortable up there under shelter as we're getting drenched," Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. "Very smart people. You look like you're in very good shape, all of you," he added. "I hope I look like that someday. America is forever in your debt." The ceremony in Suresnes certainly drew less attention on social media than Trump's absence at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery the previous day did, but it isn't accurate to say that his visit to the Suresnes Cemetery was "little reported." In addition to the aforementioned NBC News report, Trump's speech was also covered by outlets such as CNN, USA Today, CBS News, and Time magazine. Despite this coverage, a number of social media users seemed surprised when they came across a photograph posted to Facebook by Dan Scavino, the White House Director of Social Media, which showed President Trump standing solemnly in the rain at a cemetery. Social media users took to the comments section to claim that this image was fake and that Trump had been digitally inserted into the picture. While it's possible that Scavino applied some sort of filter to this photograph (Trump's outline is surprisingly crisp), a number of similar pictures can be found via news outlets such as NBC News and photography agencies such as Getty Images.

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Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle class families.

10/13/2020

A new ad for President Donald Trump's reelection campaign paints Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as eager to raise the average voter's taxes. "What would Joe Biden's plan do for you?" the ad asks. Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle-class families. Eighty-two percent of Americans would pay more, and Biden's plan gives illegal immigrants amnesty and health care. Joe Biden is a career politician who has spent decades raising taxes. So what would the Biden plan do for you? Raise your taxes? That's it. Would Biden really raise taxes by 14% on middle-income families? There's zero evidence of that. (The 82% statistic is also incorrect.) Biden's proposed changes would repeal provisions in President Donald Trump's tax law for taxpayers earning over $400,000. Specifically, Biden would: increase the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%; raise the top individual federal income tax rate to 39.6%; place a 12.4% Social Security tax on incomes above $400,000; and tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for very high earners. All of this is targeted toward the highest earners, those earning $400,000 or more per year. So where does the alleged 14% tax hike on middle-income Americans come from? That's unclear. A screenshot from the Trump campaign's recent ad shows this claim. The Trump campaign did not respond to inquiries for this article. The ad footnotes the assertion with a reference to an article from the financial website MarketWatch on March 4, 2020, when Biden was still in the thick of his party's presidential primary. The MarketWatch article provides no support for the 14% assertion in the Trump ad. The only mention of 14% in the article refers to the plan offered by one of Biden's primary opponents, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The article stated that Warren would assess a 14.8% high-income Social Security tax on the top bracket. However, not only was that provision not part of Biden's plan, but it was also specifically targeted at the top tax bracket, not middle-income Americans. Taking a step back from the MarketWatch article, we also see no evidence that Biden's plan would produce such a significant tax hike on middle-income taxpayers. Several independent groups of varied ideologies assessed the impacts of Biden's tax plan earlier this year. They projected that some of the burden of Biden's tax increases would fall on people making less than $400,000 in the form of lower wages or investment returns. This would be a result of Biden's proposal to hike the corporate tax rate. Unlike direct changes to individual tax rates and income thresholds, the impact of the corporate tax rate on ordinary Americans' tax returns is indirect and difficult to measure. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that is hawkish on the federal budget deficit, stated that overall, Biden's tax plan would make the tax code more progressive, with the vast majority of increased tax burdens and the entirety of direct tax increases falling on high-income households. The group summarized four other groups' assessments of how Biden's tax plan would affect members of the lowest, second-lowest, middle, second-highest, and highest income quintiles. The four analyses were conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Tax Foundation, the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. As the following chart shows, no quintile—even the top one—would see anything close to a 14% tax increase due to the Biden plan. Only the top 1% of earners would see anything approaching that degree of increase. According to the Tax Policy Center's analysis, the lowest income group would see their incomes drop by $30. The next would see a drop of $110; the middle would see a drop of $260; and the second-highest, with incomes up to $170,000, would see a loss of $590. Meanwhile, Biden has also proposed a number of tax cuts that were not included in the analyses above. Here are some of the bigger cuts being proposed by the campaign: a temporarily expanded child tax credit, worth $3,000 per child for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6. Biden would make the credit fully refundable; a $15,000 permanent tax credit for first-time homebuyers that could be advanced to the claimant rather than waiting until the following tax year; a refundable tax credit for health insurance premiums; and up to $8,000 in tax credits to help pay for child care. It's entirely possible that these proposed cuts would wipe out the increases from the corporate tax hike, making the assertion in Trump's ad even more incorrect. The initial analysis does not provide support for Trump's claim that Biden's plan will raise taxes by 14% for middle-class families, said Eric Toder, a fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. "Not even close." The Trump ad claimed that Biden's plan is a 14% tax hike on middle-class families. There is no evidence for this assertion. The article cited in the ad says nothing about this, and analyses by independent think tanks found a much smaller indirect hit from the corporate tax hike, one that could well be reversed by larger-scale tax cuts that Biden has proposed and that are currently being analyzed. We rate the statement False.

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80 percent of North Carolinians are for the living wage

04/28/2016

In the rallies against North Carolina's new LGBT law, commonly known as HB2, protesters represented not just gay and transgender activists. Also present on Monday for the rallies outside the legislature were Latino activists and supporters of the Black Lives Matter and Rise Up for $15 movements. The law doesn't just ban transgender people from using the bathroom of the gender they identify with; it also prohibits local governments—cities and counties—from raising the minimum wage that businesses within their boundaries would have to pay workers. Rev. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP, stated that the crowds of protesters were more diverse than just LGBT activists because of the wage issue. In a speech just days before Monday's protests, he claimed that the bathroom issue was actually a Trojan Horse of sorts for what he deems the real intent of the law: stopping cities from raising the minimum wage, as cities like Seattle and Los Angeles have recently done. "Eighty percent of North Carolinians are for the living wage," Barber said. "So if North Carolina's legislature and the governor had just put on the table a straight bill to prohibit living wages, they would have been going against 80 percent of North Carolinians." A higher minimum wage is often opposed by Republican politicians. But if Barber is correct, a higher minimum wage is a true bipartisan issue—something that four out of five people support in a state where four out of ten are Democrats. What is a living wage? Polling on this issue is inconsistent. There are many ways to ask the question. Some polls provide a specific number for approval; some allow respondents to choose a number; some simply ask whether the minimum wage should be higher; others inquire who should have the power to make that decision. But first, perhaps we should define "living wage," the phrase Barber used in place of "higher minimum wage." It's not just a political catchphrase; there are actual methods for calculating it. In 2004, an MIT professor of economic geography and regional planning created what she called the Living Wage Calculator. Accounting for location-specific factors such as the cost of food, childcare, housing, transportation, and taxes, the tool determines the living wage as well as the poverty wage for states, counties, and metro areas. It provides numbers in both wage categories for single adults or couples, and households with zero to three children. It also assumes full-time employment of 2,080 work hours per year (40 hours a week for 52 weeks). For the purposes of this report, we'll look at the wage for a single person with no children. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, although some states and cities have set higher rates. North Carolina has not, and as Barber accurately stated, the state has now forbidden any individual city or county from raising it. In Wake and Mecklenburg counties—the two largest in North Carolina—the Living Wage Calculator indicates that a living wage would be approximately $11 an hour. The state average is $10.53, and 13 of 14 metropolitan areas are above $10. A person working full-time for $10.53 an hour would earn $21,902.40 a year. At the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, that same person would make $15,080 a year—a difference of more than $6,800. Now that we know what a living wage is, we can examine whether Barber is correct about 80 percent support. The topic isn't surveyed much at the state level, but fortunately, two polls have addressed this issue in the last month. They are from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling and the more centrist Elon University Poll. A spokesman for the state's main right-leaning polling firm, The Civitas Institute, stated that there is no record of Civitas ever having polled people on the topic of minimum wage. Public Policy Polling found that 76 percent of North Carolinians support a minimum wage of at least $10 an hour. That isn't an exact confirmation of Barber's claim, since it's slightly lower than 80 percent and the living wage is $10.53, not $10, but it's fairly close. However, the Elon poll found less support for a $10 or higher minimum wage, at 65 percent. It also arrived at that number differently than PPP. PPP provided five choices, asking people whether they thought there shouldn't be a minimum wage, if it should remain at $7.25, or if it should increase to $10, $12, or $15. Elon asked respondents to name whatever they thought the minimum wage should be. A plurality (27 percent) said $10. In total, 65 percent said $10 or higher. That's certainly less than the 80 percent claim Barber made or the 76 percent that PPP found. However, complicating matters, Elon also found less support than PPP for keeping the current minimum wage. The difference is that many in the Elon Poll (23 percent) named a number between $7.26 and $9.99—an option that PPP didn't provide. So while the Elon poll found only 65 percent support for wages that could be classified as a living wage under the MIT definition, it did find 88 percent support for raising the minimum wage at least a little. Barber framed his claim in the context of the state's Republican leaders trying to avoid backlash for imposing restrictions on a higher minimum wage. Therefore, we decided to examine how Republicans feel about the subject. Just as they phrased their questions differently, PPP and Elon also asked about party affiliations in different ways. PPP found that 63 percent of people who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 also support at least a $10 minimum wage, as do 92 percent of Barack Obama voters and 65 percent of others. The Elon poll found that 46 percent of self-identified Republicans support a $10 or higher minimum wage, compared with 86 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of others. It's impossible to say for certain that a full 80 percent of North Carolinians want a living wage in North Carolina, as Barber stated. However, it does appear that a vast majority support the idea, including about half of Republicans and nearly all Democrats. One recent poll found 76 percent support for a $10 or higher minimum wage. With a margin of error of 3.4 points, Barber's 80 percent claim would be well within reason if this were the only recent poll. But another recent poll found just 65 percent support. The average of the two polls is 70.5 percent. We rate this claim Mostly True.

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Incorrect, the former NFL quarterback John Elway is not financially destitute.

01/05/2022

In January 2022, an online advertisement displayed a picture of former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway alongside the words, "Iconic NFL Players Who Went Broke." The ad was misleading clickbait, leading to a slideshow article on MoneyWise.com that again featured the same photograph of Elway. The headline read, "These Iconic NFL Players Lost It All." It wasn't until the last page of the lengthy article that Elway was mentioned; however, it said nothing about him running out of money or going "broke." Instead, it referenced that, in 2010, Elway fell victim to a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by a hedge fund manager named Sean Michael Mueller. The Associated Press reported that "he and a business partner gave Mueller $15 million," and that Mueller was later sentenced to 40 years in prison. The last page of the MoneyWise.com article also mentioned an ABC News article from 2016, which reported that Elway missed out on a potentially huge investment opportunity in 1998. Had he signed a deal with the Broncos to buy an ownership stake in the team, his investment might have been worth around $388 million by 2015, potentially yielding a "646 percent return on the 1998 investment, adjusted for inflation." As of early 2022, the former NFL great was employed as the president of football operations for the Broncos and had previously held the title of the team's general manager. There was no evidence that Elway was broke, nor did the lengthy MoneyWise.com article mention any such thing. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with numerous pages. This practice is known as advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to earn more money from ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that attracted viewers.

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Says Mitt Romney flip-flopped on a taxpayer protection pledge.

11/29/2011

On Nov. 28, 2011, the Democratic National Committee released two videos designed to paint Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as a serial flip-flopper. The shorter,30-second versiongives a taste of the attack, specifically citing abortion and health care, and directs viewers to a website with afour-minute versionthat offers alleged flip-flops on a variety of other issues. For this item, well check one of the claims from the four-minute version -- specifically, whether Romney has changed his position on signing a taxpayer protection pledge. We're looking at other aspects of the ad in separate items. Heres the relevant portion from the DNC ad: Screen text: Will not sign pledge Audio ofCandy Crowley: Republican Mitt Romney says he will not sign a no-new-taxes pledge. Screen text: Then he did Audio from Romney radio ad: Im proud to be the only major candidate for president to sign the tax pledge. The first clip refers to an announcement during Romneys 2002 gubernatorial campaign that he would not sign a pledge circulated by Citizens for Limited Taxation, a Massachusetts-based anti-tax group. Heres how theBoston Globecovered the news: In a break with Acting Governor Jane Swift and her GOP predecessors, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney is refusing to rule out tax increases and said yesterday he will not sign a no new taxes pledge, the newspaper wrote. Romney said that while he opposes all tax increases in principle, he will not make such a pledge in writing. The article went on to quote Romney saying, I am not in favor of increasing taxes. At this stage, I am inclined to make that position as clear as I can but not to enter into a written pledge of some kind, and that's true on this and other issues. TheGlobecited another comment by Romney that had been reported by theUnion-Newsof Springfield, Mass. I'm against tax increases, Romney told attendees of Western Massachusetts GOP meeting, according to theUnion-News. But I'm not intending to, at this stage, sign a document which would prevent me from being able to look specifically at the revenue needs of the Commonwealth. Barbara Anderson, an official with Citizens for Limited Taxation, was unhappy with Romney's refusal to sign, which came after hed met with her for half an hour. He's thinking like an independent businessman who doesn't sign pledges, she suggested to theGlobe. Meanwhile, theBoston Heraldquoted then Romney deputy campaign manager Eric Fehrnstrom saying, Mitt Romney doesn't have to sign a piece of paper to have a position on an issue. He's pledged to oppose any tax increase, he doesn't support them, his position on taxes is clear. In an interview with theGlobe, Fehrnstrom was even more dismissive, calling the pledge government by gimmickry, the newspaper reported. Put it all together and you have a candidate who didnt just decide against signing a pledge but who cast doubt on the propriety of such pledges in general. Now well fast-forward a few years, when Romney, having finished a term as governor of Massachusetts, was running for president. On Dec. 31, 2006, Romney became the first major candidate for the 2008 election to sign a taxpayer protection pledge offered by Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist. In signing the pledge, Gov. Romney firmly commits himself in writing to fiscal discipline and economic common sense, Norquist said in anews release. Mitt Romney has told taxpayers in no uncertain terms that he plans to look out for their interests. Romney hardly signed the Norquist pledge covertly. On Jan. 4, 2007, he issued apress releasetouting his action, and on Oct. 5, 2007, he released aradio adspotlighting it. Thats where the DNC got the clip used in its ad. For years, conservative candidates for president signed their name on the dotted line pledging to oppose tax increases, Romney said in the ad. I'm Mitt Romney. I'm proud to be the only major candidate for president to sign the tax pledge. The others have not. I signed the tax pledge because I want everyone to know where I stand. We've got to get taxes down and grow our economy. I believe it's not fair that you have to pay taxes when you earn your money, when you save your money and when you die. That's why I'll kill the death tax once and for all and roll back tax rates across the board. And savings? When I'm president, for every middle class American, the new tax rate on your interest, dividends, and capital gains will be absolutely zero. I stood firm to roll back taxes as governor. I'll roll back taxes as president. In this case, then, Romney not only signed a written pledge but actively broadcast it to the electorate. Its worth noting that the two pledges are not exactly the same. One addressed the state context and one the federal context. The Massachusetts text is a pledge to ... all the people of this state, that I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes. The Norquist pledge, to which Romney is still a signatory, requires the signer to oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses and oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates. Still, despite the differences in wording, we think the pledges are equivalent in their underlying requirements. Our ruling In 2002, Romney refused to make a pledge in writing on taxes. Four years later, he signed one and touted it as a selling point for his candidacy. In our book, thats a clear flip-flop. We rate the DNCs charge True.

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Does Louisiana Textbook Teach Civil War from Perspective of Wealthy, White Slave Owner?

06/15/2021

In mid-June 2021, thousands of Twitter users circulated the tweet displayed below, which included images purportedly taken from an eighth-grade textbook in Louisiana that introduces the Civil War through the perspective of Kate Stone, a 20-year-old wealthy white woman whose family owned more than 100 slaves. "There are two approved Louisiana history textbooks for the state's 8th graders," read the tweet authored by Joshua Benton, the founder of Harvard University's Neiman Lab. "This is how one of them introduced the Civil War: as tough times for a poor young white woman whose family owned 120 slaves." Benton added to clarify his point: that clarification was largely true. State law allows local school systems to establish required textbooks for students since, according to the Louisiana Department of Education, educators "closest to students are best positioned to decide which instructional materials are appropriate for their district and classrooms." For the purpose of this fact check, we focused on Benton's underlying claim: that the Louisiana Department of Education reviewed a textbook called "Louisiana Our History, Our Home" for eighth-grade teachers to possibly include in social studies classes, and that this piece of literature introduces readers to the Civil War via the perspective of a wealthy white woman whose family owned more than 100 slaves. Under Louisiana law, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education oversees teams of teachers who regularly review textbooks submitted by publishers to determine if, or to what extent, they meet the state's teaching objectives in core subjects (English language arts, math, science, and social studies). A document outlining that process states: The Department conducts the review of instructional materials. This process supports local school systems and educators in making informed decisions regarding which materials to adopt and purchase locally. The state does not recommend or adopt textbooks or instructional materials. [...] There are no requirements to use any of the textbooks and instructional materials that have been state-reviewed. Pending the outcome of the state reviews, the state Department of Education lists the textbooks on its website for local school boards to consider while creating curricula, or for parents and students to see. The list ranks the books on a three-tiered scale, with a "Tier I" label for learning materials that are of "exemplary quality and meet all criteria" and a "Tier III" designation for resources that "do not meet the non-negotiable criteria." A financial incentive exists for local school systems that opt for books with the state's highest rating. Administrators can buy "Tier 1" materials using state funding; however, they must come up with local dollars to help cover the cost of "Tier 3" resources, according to state records. Additionally, school systems can forgo the state's review process altogether and rely on their own ratings of textbooks, or they can adopt a combination of state-reviewed and locally-reviewed materials. As of this writing, the state department's list of "Instructional Materials Reviews" indeed included the textbook to which Benton referred in his viral tweet, titled "Louisiana Our History, Our Home," published by Clairmont Press in 2015. Also, as Benton correctly stated, just one other textbook exclusively designed for eighth-grade social studies classes was similarly reviewed. Considering that evidence, it was true that the Louisiana Department of Education reviewed the book for eighth-grade teachers to possibly use in classrooms and made that fact known on the department's website, despite the fact that local school districts ultimately decide what students read on a community-by-community basis. Furthermore, the state department rated "Louisiana Our History, Our Home" with a "Tier III" label, citing a range of issues from its sourcing to interactive activities for students. Ted Beasley, the agency's director of communication, elaborated in an email to Snopes: "This Clairmont Press resource is Tier III, which is the lowest rating we have. This is the lowest possible rating we can give a resource. We rate all resources submitted by publishers. Tier 3 signifies materials that do not represent quality. We do not have data on the number of systems or schools utilizing the referenced textbook." The state's review of the controversial book, however, did not explicitly note anything about the purported introduction to the Civil War via the story of Kate Stone, a 20-year-old white woman whose family operated a plantation in northeast Louisiana and at one point owned more than 100 slaves. (She documented the war's impact on them in diaries, and publishers later compiled those writings to create "Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone.") Next, we investigated whether the textbook indeed included the pages shown in Benton's tweet. Firstly, we attempted to contact Benton to learn how he made his alleged discovery. We were waiting for his response as of the initial publication of this report. Beasley told Snopes the state department was unable to confirm the authenticity of the pages. So, we reached out to Clairmont Press, as well as the textbook's listed author, Alecia Long, with the following questions: We have not received responses from them, but we will update this report when, or if, that changes. In sum, until we uncover verified evidence to corroborate the images in Benton's tweet thread, we cannot give this claim a traditional Snopes rating, so we therefore rate it "Research in Progress." In follow-up tweets, Benton elaborated on his purported discoveries within the textbook, including a chapter that aimed to tell the story of Louisiana's post-war years by first sharing the experience of a Confederate soldier who eventually served as Louisiana's governor, Francis R. T. Nicholls. As of this writing, his biography on the state's Secretary of State website described Nicholls as a politician who considered the Antebellum Period "a golden age in Louisiana" with the "planter approach to less government—low taxes, few official services, and little involvement by Blacks in the political processes."

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Radiation from Fukushima leads to a 100% death rate of infant Orca whales.

09/26/2016

Fear-mongering articles claiming that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (triggered by the tsunami that followed the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011) caused a 100% infant mortality rate among orca whales born since then have circulated online for several years. The website Humans Are Free renewed interest in this rumor in September 2016 when it published an article with the clickbait title "Radiation from Fukushima Now Causes 100% Infant Mortality Rate in West Coast Orcas." This piece was sourced from an article by the disreputable Natural News website, which employed a similarly misleading title ("West Coast Orcas Experiencing 100% Infant Mortality Rate as Radiation from Fukushima Drifts Across Ocean"), even though the text of that article plainly admitted that there was no proven connection between the Fukushima disaster and the mortality of infant orcas. No one has yet proven a direct link between the 100% mortality rate seen among orca infants and the effects of radiation contamination in the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima reactor leak in Japan, but it certainly can't be ruled out as a possibility. Natural News listed several sources about whale deaths at the bottom of its article, but none of those sources mentioned radiation from Fukushima as a likely or definitive cause. Quotes from Ken Balcomb, executive director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington, were also misleadingly reproduced out of context by Natural News to bolster a claim that Balcomb's statements did not support. The recent discovery of a carcass off the coast of British Columbia, that of a 19-year-old orca female believed to be in the late stages of pregnancy, is just one example of the recent orca deaths that have scientists and conservationists worried. Ken Balcomb stated, "Her death doesn't bode well for the southern resident population and certainly not for that matriline. Her mother died young. Her aunt had two sons, and she's probably post-reproductive. She hasn't had any babies in the last 12 years. So there's no future." Balcomb also remarked, "We haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years. We have had stillborns and newborns die and a number of whales that appear to be pregnant but didn't ultimately produce any calves. It's like zero survival in birth rate here." While Balcomb did say that "we haven't had any survivals in babies for a couple of years," he was referring only to the local Puget Sound orca whale population, and he did not connect a 100% infant orca mortality rate to radiation from Fukushima. His quotes originated from a story published by the Seattle Times in December 2014 about a baby orca whale that had died in Puget Sound. While the exact cause of that whale's death was unclear, Balcomb suggested that the whale likely died due to a diminished food supply (and not radiation). He noted that two of the whales' three biggest problems—the buildup of pollutants such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls in their blubber, and disturbance by marine traffic—appear to be worsened by a third issue: a reduction in available prey. These whales can eat sockeye and halibut but overwhelmingly prefer fatty chinook from Puget Sound and Canada's Fraser River, distinguishing them from other fish by using sonar to sense differences in the animals' swim bladders. However, Puget Sound chinook numbers have dropped to about 10% of their historic high, and they, too, are listed for protection under the ESA. For Balcomb, the loss of J32 suggests it's time to consider drastic measures, such as a ban or steep curtailment in chinook fishing, even though fishing is likely the least of the threats chinook face. "It's a wake-up call—we know what the problem is, whether it's dams or fishing or habitat destruction," he said. "It's just what happens when millions of people move into the watershed. (But) stopping fishing, at least for a while, is something we can do immediately." The reality is that the basic problem is food, Balcomb said. Although apparently no baby orcas survived long after birth in Puget Sound in 2013 or 2014, that wasn't the case in the immediately following years, as 2015 saw nine successful orca births in Puget Sound. In just over a year, Puget Sound welcomed nine baby Southern-resident orcas to the fold, as the pod continued to rebound from the 30-year-low numbers reported at the end of 2014. While radiation from the Fukushima disaster did have a major impact on marine life, the leak of radioactive material from the plant did not cause a proven "100% infant mortality" rate among orca whales. Moreover, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration do not list nuclear radiation (from any source) among the threats currently facing the world's whale population.

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Travis Allen, the Republican candidate running for Governor of California, contributed campaign funds to Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and Barbara Boxer.

05/25/2018

DidTravis Allen, arguably the most conservative candidate for California governor, donate campaign money to three of the states leading liberal Democrats? Thats the Republican-on-Republican attack levied by John Coxs campaign for governor in arecent TV adthat goes after Allen, an Orange County assemblyman whos positioned himself as a GOP populist. Heres the full text of the ad, which includes three attacks on Allen: Narrator: For Republicans, the race for governor is crystal clear: Theres conservative businessman John Cox, leading the opposition to Jerry Browns Sanctuary State and chairman of the initiative campaign to repeal the gas tax. Then theres career politician Travis Allen. He gave campaign donations to Jerry Brown. Gavin Newsom and Barbara Boxer. And on the floor vote, Allen refused to join Republicans opposing driver licenses for illegal aliens. The conservative choice is clear: John Cox for governor. The ad was paid for by John Cox for Governor 2018. Well examine the other two attacks on Allen in future fact-checks. In this piece, well focus on the claim he donated to top Democrats. Background on GOP rivals Recent polls show growing support for Coxs campaign for governor, less than a week after President Trumpendorsedthe San Diego businessman. A surveyreleased Wednesday nightfrom the Public Policy Institute of California shows Newsom, the states lieutenant governor, leading Cox, 25 percent to 19 percent. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was third, at 15 percent, followed by Allen with 11 percent, State Treasurer John Chiang at 9 percent and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin with 6 percent. Coxand Allen have sparred at campaign events over who is the most conservative candidate. Theyve both criticized Californias Democratic leadership over the gas tax increase and sanctuary state protections. The top two candidates in the June 5 primary, regardless of party affiliation, will move on to the November runoff. Donating to Democrats? The ad accuses Allen of donating to three of the states top Democrats. The irony, of course, is that Allens run for governor has centered on criticizing those same politicians, particularly Brown and Newsom. We found clear evidence supporting the claim, though Coxs ad ignores the fact that the contributions took place nearly a decade ago, before Allen ran for elected office, and that he also donated to Republicans. Campaign finance records show that in October 2010, Allen donated $1,000 to Jerry Brown for Governor, through Wealth Strategies Group, his wealth management firm in Huntington Beach. In August 2010, Allen gave $100 to Gavin Newsom for Lieutenant Governor. And, in October 2010, he donated $250 to Barbara Boxer for Senate. SOURCE: Campaign finance records from the California Secretary of State'swebsite. Asked about this, a spokeswoman for Allens campaign said in an email that the contributions took place before Travis was an elected official, as a businessman, he purchased tickets to some events. A November 2017 Mercury-Newsarticlesummarized these and additional donations Allen made to Democrats in 2010 and 2011. He told the paper at that time: As a businessman I was invited to some events by friends, and I purchased tickets to these events. Attending these events, however, opened my eyes to the damage the Democrats were doing to California, and brought about my decision to do everything in my power to stop them, including running for public office. Similar claim In April 2016, PolitiFact California ratedMostly Truea similar claim about then Presidential candidate Donald Trump donating to Democrats. Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, at the time Trumps rival for the Republican presidential nomination, claimed Trump has given $12,000 to Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris. Campaign finance data showed the claim was accurate, though we noted Cruz left out that the donations took place long before Trump announced his run for president. The contribution to Jerry Brown took place in 2006, while the donations to the other Democrats took place in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Our ruling In a recentTV ad, John Coxs campaign for governor claimed rival GOP candidate Travis Allen donated to three of Californias top Democrats. Campaign records prove the claim, though the contributions took place a decade ago, before Allen entered politics. The statement is accurate but needs this clarification. We rate it Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.

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Is this video depicting refugees stealing from a café in Spain?

08/16/2018

Another video seemingly intended to malign refugees began to spread online in August 2018. This video purportedly showed a group of dark-skinned individuals smashing glass cases and stealing food from a small café. The video was captioned "Refugees Welcome to Spain," an apparent nod to the "Refugees Welcome" sign that had been hung on Madrid City Hall a few years prior. However, this video does not feature refugees, was not recorded in Spain, and does not depict a recent incident. The footage was actually taken in a cafeteria at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa, in November 2015. At that time, students at several South African universities were engaged in protests against fee hikes and inadequate funding. The South African Independent Online (IOL) news outlet reported that 16 protesting students at two Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) campuses were arrested for the incident depicted in this video and were released the following day. The Gencor Hall, the main exam center at the South campus, along with the information center and two security vehicles, were torched. The protests took an ugly turn when students vandalized a cafeteria at the South campus. That same day, police arrested 16 students in connection with the violence but released them a day later. South African History Online provided context for the student protest: student protests at public universities and colleges over financial exclusions speak directly to the issue of inadequate governmental and other funding for education in South Africa. An estimated R900 million per annum for student funding is needed for TUT to function as an institution that still serves qualifying students requiring financial aid. NSFAS, a loan and bursary scheme the government introduced in 1999 to provide financially disadvantaged students access to university education, offers only a portion of this amount to students who need financial aid at TUT. For example, in 2014, the state scheme funded half of the university students who qualified for its loans and bursaries at TUT. Despite obtaining an additional allocation of R1 billion for that year, NSFAS was still unable to fund an estimated 10,000 students across TUT's campuses who needed and qualified for financial aid in 2014, of which R270 million was allocated for TUT. In 2015, the situation worsened as the NSFAS allocation excluded that portion. The 2015 SRC estimated that over 20,000 returning students across the university's six campus regions were excluded that year. Many of these students had been funded by NSFAS in 2014 but were left out in 2015 and were not allowed to register without an upfront payment; they were also barred from receiving their results without settling their debt. Students at institutions including the Vaal University of Technology, the University of Johannesburg, the University of Venda, and Walter Sisulu University faced similar issues around the same time. Academic activities at the university were suspended for the remainder of the school year after the protests turned violent in November 2015. YouTuber Arphalia Meyer contemporaneously posted a series of videos of the protesters looting the campus, with the video that formed the basis of the later viral "Refugees Welcome to Spain" clip being uploaded on 23 November 2015. That original video was accompanied by the caption "Security cam footage of the mob looting Kantina, the tuck shop on campus at TUT PTA. It's clear enough that this was premeditated and they are no strangers to it." This footage was taken at a university in South Africa and shows a group of students vandalizing a cafeteria amidst protests in 2015 against inadequate school funding. It has nothing to do with Spain or refugees, and it was nearly three years old when it was re-captioned and circulated online.

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Comparison of Hiroshima and Detroit

08/11/2016

The photo montage displayed above is one of dozens circulating online since 2009, purporting to demonstrate that 50-plus years of rule by the Democratic Party wrought a level of destruction on Detroit comparable to that caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Some versions have sought to make the case verbally, as well. For example:What has caused more long term destruction - the A-bomb, or Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them? Japan does not have a welfare system. Work for it or do without. These are possibly the 5 best sentences youll ever read and all applicable to this experiment: 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it! 5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation. The comparison of 2010 Detroit to 1945 Hiroshima is grotesquely forced, however, as is the implication that Democratic policies are wholly to blame for the Detroit's decline since World War II. We'll start our analysis with the images, some of which are inaccurately labeled. Beginning with the upper left-hand photo, it is, in fact, an aerial view of the hypocenter (ground zero) of the atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, taken a few months after the fact. Here's a larger view of the image: hypocenter Working clockwise, the next image in the set supposedly depicts modern-day Hiroshima except that it doesn't. It's actually a snapshot taken from the Landmark Tower Sky Garden in Yokohama, Japan much like this one from Flickr: Flickr That having been pointed out, it's true that Hiroshima was rebuilt from its ashes and is now a beautiful and modern city. Nor is it too terribly hard to find an actual photo of it. rebuilt photo The photo at bottom-right though taken in 2013, not 2010 does show a dilapidated building (of which there are plenty) on the east side of Detroit. It's the former Packard Automotive Plant, which closed in the late 1950s: plenty closed However, the thing to note about the use of this image to portray Detroit as a locus of Hiroshima-like devastation is that all we actually see is one long-abandoned, crumbling building. It doesn't make the case. Lastly, we're shown a photo supposedly depicting Detroit in its mid-1940s heyday except that it was taken in the mid-1930s. It's an aerial view of Navin Field (later Tiger Stadium): Navin Field Granted, for the purposes of argument it doesn't really matter whether the above photo was taken in the '30s or '40s the point remains that Detroit once had a teeming population, abundant jobs, and a booming economy. In 1950 it was the fourth-largest city in the United States, but no longer. The question is, who was responsible? There's no simple explanation (and therefore no single scapegoat at whom to point fingers) for Detroit's long, slow descent to bankruptcy. Scott Martelle, author of Detroit: A Biography, offered this capsule summary in an op-ed column published in 2011: column The collapse of Detroit has roots in intentional de-industrialization by the Big Three automakers, which in the 1950s began aggressively spider-webbing operations across the nation to produce cars closer to regional markets, and to reduce labor costs by investing in less labor-friendly places than union-heavy Detroit. Their flight was augmented by government policies that, in the 1970s and 1980s particularly, forced municipalities and states to compete with each other for jobs by offering corporate tax breaks and other inducements to keep or draw business investments, a bit of whipsawing that helped companies profit at the expense of communities. Another summary of Detroit's decline cited issues such as the city's dependence on a single industry (i.e., automobiles), decades of racial tensions, shortcomings of leadership (stretching back to the 1930s), and the lack of an efficient transit system. decline Did Democrats and Democratic policies play some role in the fall of Detroit? Surely they did. Every Detroit mayor since 1962 has been a Democrat, after all. But Republicans held the seat for the 12 years prior to that, from 1950 through 1961. The Packard plant whose hollowed-out remains were displayed above closed its doors during that time. Whatever blame is to be allotted to politicians must be shared by both Democrats and Republicans on the national level, as well. Detroit's decline since World War II took place during periods when both parties held the presidency and/or controlled Congress. Finally, the specific suggestion that Detroit's downfall was an unintended consequence of the spread of social welfare programs while Hiroshima's dramatic recovery is at least partially attributable to the lack of same in Japan is based on misinformation. Japan has maintained strong public health care and social welfare programs in one form or another since the 1920s. Yet Hiroshima was rebuilt and flourished just the same. maintained Drury, Flora."A City Rebuilt from the Ashes." Daily Mail Online.5 August 2015. Martelle, Scott."The Collapse of Detroit." Los Angeles Times.27 March 2011. "Anatomy of Detroit's Decline." New York Times.8 December 2013. "Zombieland: The Abandoned Buildings of Detroit." Beaumont Enterprise.18 July 2013.

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If Wisconsin's governor cuts perquisites as much as he plans to do, it would still leave (workers) better off than their private sector counterparts.

02/21/2011

With national attention focused on a showdown in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to reduce state worker benefits, the issue led to some spirited back-and-forth between union-backer Donna Brazile and conservative columnist George Will during the round-table discussion on ABC'sThis Week.Brazile called the workers who have flooded the state capitol to back union workers an organic movement.Just like the Tea Party went out there and grabbed the microphone, what you have is grassroots people out there saying, 'No more,' no more budget cuts on the back of working people. Brazile said.Will responded, Donna, what you call the grassroots is a tiny minority of this tiny minority of Wisconsin people who work for the government. Three hundred thousand public employees in Wisconsin went to work -- while the teachers were clutching their little signs that say it's all about the kids, they're abandoning their classrooms, lying to their supervisors, saying they were sick, and going off to protest in defense of perquisites, which if the governor cuts them as much as he plans to do, would still leave them better off than their private sector counterparts.We decided to check Will's claim that perks or non-wage compensation such as health and retirement benefits) -- if cut as much as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has proposed -- would still leave public employees better off than those in the private sector.Walker's plan would require state workers to pay 5.8 percent of their pension contributions and to double their share of health premiums to 12.6 percent.Our colleagues at PolitiFact Wisconsin have been all over many of the issues in this contentious debate, and back on Feb. 8, they fact-checked a claim Gov. Walker made in his firststate of the stateaddress,that most state employees could pay twice as much toward their health care premiums, and it would still be half the national average.Here's some of what our friends at PolitiFact Wisconsin found:* AKaiser FamilyFoundationstudy that concluded that employees nationally -- public and private -- pay an average of 29 percent of the cost of the premiums. Among just state and government workers nationwide, the average was 25 percent for family coverage. * A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics2010 health care benefitssurveythat put the employee share at 32 percent for family coverage. Its 21 percent for single coverage. * Astudy by The Segal Co., a private benefits firm, that looked just at state government workers and found that a majority pay between 20 percent and 60 percent of their premium costs for family coverage.In other words, no matter how you slice it, the 12.6 percent share of health care premiums that Walker proposes employees pay is well below what most pay in the private--and public--sectors.That gets us halfway there. The second piece is pensions. Again, Walker's plan would require state workers to pay 5.8 percent of pension contributions. This one is a little more difficult to compare. Most public employees have a pension plan. But fewer than one in five private-sector employees has access to a pension plan. And those who do typically don't contribute anything to it. Much more often, private employees have access to employer-sponsored retirement benefits (such as 401(k) plans), rather than pensions. And a third of the private sector workforce has no access to an employer sponsored retirement plan at all.The 401(k) has become the de facto retirement benefit in the private sector, said Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.Typically, Brainard said, employers will match about 3 percent to 5 percent of an employee's salary. Employeesmaycontribute to their 401(k), but they aren'trequiredto contribute.So Wisconsin public employees may berequiredto contribute more to the their retirement plan than those in the private sector, but that doesn't mean they're at a disadvantage compared to the private sector. In fact, experts say theywillbe better off.According to a survey prepared by Brainard in October 2009, The retirement security of working Americans presently appears shaky outside the public sector, due not only to the nations heavy use of a retirement plan model that has been found to be undependable in its ability to provide reliable retirement income, but also due to low relative rates of participation in employer-sponsored retirement plans. Conversely, For most states and local governments, retirement security of retired workers is a policy that is being achieved.As always, Brainard said, there are exceptions, such as for those government employees who don't work long enough to become vested in a pension.But Will's comment, as it relates to pension is largely accurate, Brainard said. Overall, the retirement plan typically provided to Wisconsin public employees --whether or not they are contributing 5.8 percent -- provides a larger retirement benefit than private sector employees get.We'd like to cite one more survey, one by theWisconsin Legislative Councilwhich found that even among major public employee retirement systems, most required employee contributions of more than 5 percent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for government workers with a required plan contribution, the average contribution is 6.3 percent of earnings. So Walker's proposal is in line with the norm for government workers.Now, we'd like to drop one big disclaimer into this whole analysis. Many experts contend that while state workers get better benefits, they get paid less than folks in the private sector. PolitiFact Wisconsin took a closer look at that issuehere. The point is that it's important to consider an employee's total package of wages and benefits when comparing public and private sector compensation. But that's not the issue before us here. Will clearly stated that he was talking about just the benefits side of the equation. And with regard to the changes Walker has proposed -- requiring greater employee contributions to pension and health care -- Will is right that they would still leave public employees better off than those in the private sector. We rate Will's comment True.

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Did an Ohio Gubernatorial Candidate Accept $20,000 from a Pro-Assad Group?

04/23/2018

On 17 April 2018, Dennis Kucinich, a former U.S. representative from Ohio who is seeking to become the Democratic nominee for the state's upcoming gubernatorial election, filed paperwork disclosing that he had received thousands of dollars in speaking fees from an organization that supports Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is widely considered a war criminal. According to a supplemental disclosure filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission, Kucinich received $20,000 from the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees, a California-based non-profit organization that operates several projects, including the Syria Solidarity Movement. That organization describes itself as dedicated to "Syrian sovereignty" and opposes military intervention in the ongoing civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died. The Ethics Commission sent us a copy of the disclosure, which was signed by Kucinich. The Syria Solidarity Movement's website contains a range of stories that promote the talking points of the Assad regime and its Russian allies, including stories that seek to raise doubts about a deadly 7 April 2018 attack on civilians, in which it is widely suspected that chemical weapons were used, and that cast unfounded suspicions upon the camera-toting rescue organization broadly known as the White Helmets, who regularly document war crimes in rebel-held regions. Articles about the payment spread on social media, prompting some readers to ask whether a blurb taken from the liberal news site Huffington Post and shared on Facebook alongside the story was true (it is): "The former congressman is seeking the Democratic nomination in Ohio's gubernatorial race and recently revealed he accepted $20,000 from a pro-Assad group." In response, Kucinich's spokesman, Andy Juniewicz, told the Associated Press that the event at which Kucinich spoke was pro-peace, and that the former congressman, who has personally met Assad several times, has pressured the embattled Syrian president to admit he used chemical weapons on civilians and to abide by international law. The bloody Syrian civil war is now in its seventh year. On 13 April 2018, the U.S., France, and the U.K. launched a missile strike against the Assad regime in response to their attack on Douma, where scores of people died and hundreds were injured. The aftermath shed light on an ongoing and disorienting disinformation campaign promulgated by so-called Western "anti-imperialists" who support the Assad regime and help spread propaganda to an English-speaking audience. According to the Syria Solidarity Movement's "About" page, the organization has its roots in a 2012 email listserv started by Eva Bartlett, a Canadian blogger who regularly makes reality-challenged statements, such as claiming that child war victims are actors being "recycled" in attacks staged by the White Helmets, and that Al Quds, a hospital in Aleppo that was bombed in 2016, was in fact never bombed, citing only false Russian government statements as proof.

FMD_test_781

Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter by a large margin, even though he was behind by 6% in the polls.

10/23/2016

Two and a half weeks before the 2016 presidential election, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump trailed behind Democrat Hillary Clinton by an average of 6% in national polls, a statistic that buoyed Clinton supporters yet failed to rattle diehard supporters of Trump, who had managed, as The Guardian put it, to "confound expectations" all year. As the smoke cleared from weeks of political bombardment, White House watchers were convinced the only questions now were how big Hillary Clinton's win would be and whether the Democrats could take Congress, too. Those Republicans still loyal to Trump clung to the hope that all the polls were wrong and that in barely two weeks' time, angry voters would again stun the world. Over and over, Donald Trump repeated one word: Brexit. "We will win," he told a rally in Pennsylvania on Friday. "We will shock the world. This is going to be Brexit-plus." Hubris aside, some of his supporters remained worried about voter defections in the wake of the Trump "groping" scandal, prompting calls for an eleventh-hour get-out-the-vote drive, not to mention homebrew efforts to rally people to the polls, like the image macro below: groping drive. The Internet meme was accurate insofar as public opinion polls taken in October 1980 showed Democrat Jimmy Carter holding as much as an eight-point lead over Republican Ronald Reagan (a Gallup poll two weeks before the election had Carter at 47% and Reagan at 39%); yet Reagan won a landslide victory in the general election, beating Carter 489 to 49 in electoral votes and by almost 10% in the popular vote. (It should be noted that 6.6% of the popular vote also went to a third-party candidate, John Anderson.) To conclude from that single example that polls simply ought not to be believed is a stretch, however. The 1980 upset was anomalous, the polling organization Gallup says, and based on factors unique to that year's campaign. Reagan's late-breaking surge that year is generally attributed to the only presidential debate between Carter and Reagan, held one week before the election on October 28, which seemed to move voter preferences in Reagan's direction, as well as the ongoing Iran hostage crisis, which reached its one-year anniversary on Election Day. After trailing Carter by 8 points among registered voters (and by 3 points among likely voters) right before their debate, Reagan moved into a 3-point lead among likely voters immediately afterward, and he won the November 4 election by 10 points. By contrast, in 2016, the two major party candidates had already faced off in three head-to-head debates, all held well before Election Day, which resulted in little or no improvement in Trump's underdog position in the polls. Among the many issues and challenges facing America, none loomed in the forefront the way the Iranian hostage crisis (and the Iranian Revolution in general) did throughout the final year of Jimmy Carter's presidency. As Jonathan Chait noted back in 2012 when Republican challenger Mitt Romney found himself in a similar underdog position against incumbent president Barack Obama in that year's campaign home stretch: "In 1980, the economy cratered (nothing remotely comparable has occurred this year), and then the Iranian hostage crisis, after an initial rally-around-the-flag blip, steadily corroded Carter's popularity." No equivalent of those factors can be seen yet today, and pinning your hopes on a scenario where your campaign suddenly picks up ten points in the final month seems to be either an act of self-delusion or a ploy to keep anxious conservatives at bay. John Sides similarly observed when commenting on the 2012 presidential race that the notion President Carter held a polling lead over Ronald Reagan in 1980 right up until the very end of the campaign is something of a misconception: "1980 is a poor comparison with 2012 for many reasons. One is simply that the economy is not as bad in 2012 as it was in 1980. But there is another apparent misconception in the Romney campaign, which Nate Silver rightly picked up on: Carter didn't lead Reagan for much of the campaign. The [poll tracking] plot shows what Chait describes, which is the ebbing of Carter's poll standing throughout 1980. Indeed, Reagan didn't need his convention bump—which he certainly got—to put him in the lead. The Democratic convention helped erode Reagan's lead, but it never closed it altogether. At the end of the campaign, Reagan did surge, but this only increased his lead. His surge appears to have been brought on first by the debate, and then perhaps by several other events in the final week of the campaign: 'On Friday of that week, the final economic indicator of the campaign showed inflation still seriously on the rise. And on Sunday morning, November 1, the Iranian parliament announced their conditions for freeing the American hostages. Jimmy Carter immediately abandoned campaigning and appeared on national television in the early evening to repeat much of what the public had been hearing all day. It was a week, in effect, with much that could affect the choices made by voters.'" Carter's pollster, Patrick Caddell, believed that Iran's rebuff doomed Carter, saying, "It was all related to the hostages and events overseas." Harry Enten of the statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight confirmed that in ordinary circumstances, October public opinion polls are usually reliable and highly predictive of final election results: "In most years, the early-October polls [since 1952] were pretty close to the mark, with a correlation of +0.96 between the polls and the final result. Ten of the 16 elections featured errors of 3 percentage points or less, and in all but three campaigns, the polls were within 5 percentage points of the final outcome. Even in 2012, when Mitt Romney closed his deficit against President Obama after the first debate, the polls at this point still showed Obama leading. At this point in the election cycle, the average error of polls for all elections is just 3.3 percentage points (much lower than the 4.7-point error we found for just after the conventions), and every candidate who's been ahead in the popular vote in mid-October went on to win the election." Given the rarity of last-minute upsets, did Enten think Donald Trump still had a chance to stage a comeback and win the general election despite lagging 6% in the polls? "It's possible," he wrote. "But it would be basically unprecedented." Is that an excuse for anyone, regardless of party affiliation, not to turn out to vote? No, it is not.

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Monsanto Protection Act

03/27/2013

Claim: The Monsanto Protection Act creates a "precedent-setting limitation onjudicial review of genetically-engineered crops." Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2013] I received an email regarding The Monsanto Protection Act is this true? On March 21st, Congress passed The Monsanto Protection Act that was slipped into a short term budget resolution. This dangerous rider found in Section 735 of the bill would create a precedent-setting limitation on judicial review of genetically-engineered crops, allowing them to be planted without federal safeguards in place that protect our environment,family farmers and citizens. Call President Obama today; tell him to strike section 735 from the 2013 Continuing Resolution. Add your voice to the groundswell in response to this dangerous bill! Together we WILL be setting right this gross imbalance! Origins: On 26 March 2013, President Obama signed into law a bill passed by the House and Senate earlier that month known as the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013" to provide funding for various federal agencies through the end of the 2013 fiscal year. One of the provisions included in that bill in the section for "Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and related agencies" was Section 735, variously dubbed the "Farmer Assurance Provision" or the "Monsanto Protection Act," an inclusion which reignited a clash between the agribusiness industry and food safety groups. The former maintains that the Farmer Assurance Provision prevents activists from manipulating the court system to force farmers to abandon or destroy genetically modified (GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) crops that have already received U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) safety approval; the latter assert that Congress kowtowed to big business by sneaking into an appropriations bill a provision that allows large biotech companies like Monsanto to do an end run around the court system and avoid legitimate legal challenges to the safety of their products: bill Not only has anger been directed at the Monsanto Protection Act's content, but the way in which the provision was passed through Congress without appropriate review by the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees. The biotech rider instead was introduced anonymously as the larger bill progressed little wonder food activists are accusing lobbyists and Congress members of backroom dealings. The Food Democracy Now and the Center for Food are directing blame at the Senate Appropriations Committee and its chairman, Sen. Barbara Mikulski. According to reports, many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the "Monsanto Protection Act" even existed within the spending bill, HR 933; they voted [for the bill] in order to avert a government shutdown. The "Farmer Assurance Provision" is not new to 2013: it was also part of the initial draft of a FY2013 Agriculture Appropriations bill in June 2012. The text of the provision (Section 735) states that: bill In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the Secretarys evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner: Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary's authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant ProtectionAct. The provision directs the Secretary of Agriculture to grant temporary deregulation status to allow growers to continue the cultivation of biotech crops that had previously been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) while legal challenges to the safety of those crops are underway, and it prevents courts from interceding in the review process a situation which critics contend unconstitutionally bars the court system from taking part in ensuring the safety of food products: The "Monsanto Protection Act" effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of controversial genetically modified (aka GMO) or genetically engineered (GE) seeds, no matter what health issues may arise concerning GMOs in the future. The advent of genetically modified seeds which has been driven by the massive Monsanto Company and their exploding use in farms across America came on fast and has proved a huge boon for Monsanto's profits. But many anti-GMO folks argue there have not been enough studies into the potential health risks of this new class of crop. Well, now it appears that even if those studies are completed and they end up revealing severe adverse health effects related to the consumption of genetically modified foods, the courts will have no ability to stop the spread of the seeds and the crops they bear. The American Soybean Association (ASA) and other major agricultural associations expressed support for the provision in 2012, stating that it "addresses a costly vulnerability in the regulatory process for biotechnology that is discouraging innovation in agriculture and unnecessarily putting farmers at financial risk" by allowing biotech opponents to mount challenges to GE crop approvals based on procedural, rather than scientific, issues: support Opponents of agricultural biotechnology have repeatedly filed suits against USDA on procedural grounds in order to disrupt the regulatory process and undermine the science-based regulation of such products. These lawsuits have also created tremendous resource constraints for USDA and have resulted in significant delays in approval of new, innovative products that will help growers provide Americans with an abundant and economical food supply while remaining competitive in the world market. [This provision] provides certainty to growers with respect to their planting decisions. If enacted, growers would be assured that the crops they plant could continue to be grown, subject to appropriate interim conditions, even after a judicial ruling against USDA. The inclusion of [this provision] is a positive step to ensure that U.S. farmers and our food chain are shielded from supply disruptions caused by litigation over procedural issues unrelated to sound science or the safety of biotech crops. This legislative solution ensures that national agricultural policy is not being decided by the court system while providing a level of certainty that is critical to ensure that our agricultural producers continue to lead the world. Dozens of food and consumer groups opposed the provision on the grounds that it was unnecessary and undermined the judiciary's authority to regulate the growing of genetically engineered crops: opposed Reeling from federal court decisions that have found approvals of several genetically engineered (GE) crops to be unlawful, the biotech industry has quietly slipped a policy rider into the FY 2013 Agriculture Appropriations bill now being debated in the House Appropriations Committee. The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards. Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks. Far from safeguarding farmers, the only parties whose interests are "assured" by this rider are those of GE crop developers. The "farmer assurance provision" has very little to do with farmers and everything to do with the developers of GE crops. It would strip the Judiciary of its authority to fully adjudicate violations of law by USDA and compel USDA to take actions that might harm farmers and the environment all to "assure" the profits of a handful of biotech companies, including Monsanto, Dow and Bayer CropScience. Every court that has reversed a USDA decision to approve a GE crop has carefully weighed the interests of all affected farmers, as is already required by law. No farmer has ever had his or her crops destroyed. USDA already has working mechanisms in place to allow partial approvals, and the Department has used them, making this provision completely unnecessary. The provisions of this bill (including the "Monsanto Protection Act") were originally to remain in effect for six months, until the end of the fiscal year on 30 September 2013. The bill was later extended to expire on 15 December 2013. Last updated: 13 September 2013 Sheets, Connor Adams. "Furor Growing Against Obama Over 'Monsanto Protection Act.'" Interntional Business Times. 27 March 2013. Sheets, Connor Adams. "Monsanto Protection Act." Interntional Business Times. 27 March 2013.

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Was a significant trade agreement signed between Mexico and Argentina in response to Trump's proposals for a border wall?

11/01/2017

Two of Donald Trump's most prominent 2016 campaign pledges were to build a border wall along the Mexican border (or rather, to reinforce and extend it; a wall already exists along hundreds of miles of the international border), and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 arrangement between the United States, Canada and Mexico which he called "the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country." exists arrangement called In October 2017, left-wing Facebook page "The Other 98%" posted a widely-shared meme which claimed that Mexico had in retaliation for Trump's border wall plans signed a major agricultural trade agreement with Argentina, which would have very harmful effects on American farmers: meme They're trying to distract us from the fact that Mexico retaliated against the border wall by establishing an agricultural agreement with Argentina. Starting next year Mexico will be buying 100% of their corn, rice, wheat and soy from Argentina duty free. In exchange Mexico will ship cars to Argentina duty free. This will take away at least $13 billion annually from American farmers. As of 1 November 2017, Mexico and Argentina have not signed an agreement like the one described by "The Other 98%", but the two countries have held talks about a more limited (though still significant) trade deal involving grains and cars. Furthermore, the main catalyst for the negotiations has been the uncertainty caused by Donald Trump's vow to renegotiate NAFTA rather than his plans to build a border wall. The source cited by "The Other 98%" is a September 2017 article by Daily Kos, which reported: Daily Kos Mexico already retaliated against Trump and his insults earlier this year by establishing an agricultural agreement with Argentina. Starting next year Mexico will be buying 100% of her corn, rice, wheat and soy from Argentina duty free. In exchange Mexico will ship cars to Argentina, duty free. This will taken [sic] away $13 billion annually from American farmers. It's not clear what the source of these claims is, but a similar meme appeared online earlier in 2017, which read: meme Mexico has retaliated against Trump's racial profiling and insistence that Mexico will pay for his border wall. Beginning in 2018, Mexico will be buying its corn, rice, wheat and soy from Argentina. Not America. American farmers stand to lose $13 billion. The ripple effect will be even more devastating. The fact that this announcement was made during Trump's Made in America week, is just karmic icing. "Made in America Week" took place from 17-24 July 2017; we found no evidence of any deal between Mexico and Argentina being announced during that time period. However, talks have been ongoing between the two countries. place In the spring of 2017, Mexico's Deputy Economy Minister Juan Carlos Baker made several comments in interviews about his country's negotiations with Argentina and Brazil. On 26 March 2017, the Financial Times reported: Financial Times Mexico, the worlds biggest buyer of US corn, is considering offering duty-free access to Brazilian and Argentine maize as an alternative to American imports in a move that could have big consequences for US farmers worried about Donald Trumps trade and tax agenda. [...] "I am pretty optimistic about the possibility of having a deal with these countries soon," Juan Carlos Baker, Mexicos deputy economy minister, told the Financial Times in an interview. "Were pretty far advanced with Brazil...Argentina is a few steps behind," he said.... The following month, Baker told Reuters that a deal with Argentina could be finalized by the end of 2017: Reuters Mexico, seeking closer ties with the rest of Latin America, expects to finish negotiations on a trade deal with Argentina involving cars and agricultural products around the end of the year, Mexicos deputy minister for foreign trade said in an interview on Tuesday. [...] Under the deal, Argentina could gain part of the lucrative grains market in Mexico, Latin Americas No. 2 economy, Baker told Reuters. In 2015 Mexico imported $2.3 billion worth of U.S. corn and $1.4 billion of U.S. soy. But Baker said those numbers will likely decrease under a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement called for by Trump. "The potential is there," Baker said. "The Argentine exporters could find attractive conditions in Mexico." Mexico, in turn, could export cars to Argentina, he said. "We have a very strong manufacturing industry and Argentina is an important market for us," Baker said. A trade deal between Mexico and Argentina may be in the works, but it has not yet been announced as of 1 November 2017. However, assuming a deal goes ahead to shift Mexico's importation of certain products from the United States to Argentina, the numbers are significant but not as dramatic as they are in the meme. According to United States Grain Council statistics, the United States exported $2.5 billion worth of corn to Mexico in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, the United States exported $2.9 billion worth of soy products to Mexico, according to the U.S. Soybean Export Council (page 19.) According to Global Agricultural Trade System statistics for 2016, exports of wheat and rice were worth $612 million and $274 million, respectively. Grain Council page 19 Global Agricultural Trade System This yields a total of $6.3 billion in U.S. exports to Mexico of corn, rice, wheat and soy the four products specified in the above meme. So even if Mexico did decide to stop importing all these products from the U.S., the likely annual financial cost to the American agriculture industry would be extremely significant, but still only around half the $13 billion claimed. It's not entirely clear where the figure of $13 billion came from, but it might have originated in an October 2017 letter sent to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and signed by dozens of food and agriculture companies and industry associations, warning Ross about the dangers, as they see them, of withdrawing from NAFTA. letter According to a study by ImpactECON, if Canada, Mexico, and the United States return to most favored nation (MFN) tariff rates upon any withdrawal from NAFTA, the negative impact on the United States will far outweigh any benefits from higher U.S. tariffs, including a net loss of 256,000 U.S. jobs, a net loss of at least 50,000 jobs in the U.S. food and agriculture industry, and a drop in GDP of $13 billion from the farm sector alone. The study mentioned here was an August 2017 working paper produced by the economic consulting firm ImpactECON. It did not actually mention any figure of $13 billion. Rather, it projected that over the course of two to three years after a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA, real GDP in the United States would fall by as much as 0.09 percent. working paper Gross domestic product, or GDP, is the combined market value of all goods and services produced in a particular geographic area (in this case, the United States.) It is a calculation commonly used to measure the total size of an economy. Real GDP is gross domestic product adjusted for inflation - meaning, roughly speaking, the size of the economy in relation to the cost of living. As of the third quarter of 2017 (when the ImpactECON report was published), the real GDP of the United States was $17.01 trillion, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. A 0.09 percent decline in that would amount to a $15.3 billion loss not far off the $13 billion posited by the food and agriculture industry, in their letter. figures There are a couple of things to note here: firstly, the 0.09 percent decline estimated in the ImpactECON report relates to the entire U.S. economy, and not "the farm sector alone," as mentioned in the letter. In fact, the working paper projects a very small increase in production for the crops and forestry sector (0.04 percent, page 20), accompanied by a significant boost to production in the sugar sector (5.11 percent), but it also projects production declines of between one and two percent in the meat, food and livestock and fishing sectors. page 20 Secondly, this real GDP declined is projected to happen "in the next 2-3 years", so if the meme is using the letter to Wilbur Ross as the source of its $13 billion figure, it is misrepresenting the decline as happening "annually." projected Politico. "Full Transcript: First 2016 Presidential Debate." Politico. 27 September 2016. Webber, Jude. "Mexico Eyes Duty-Free Corn Deals to Counter Trump." Financial Times. 26 March 2017. Misculin, Nicolas. "Mexico, Looking South, Sees Trade Deal With Argentina Around Year's End." Reuters. 18 April 2017. U.S. Soybean Export Council. "2015 Annual Report." U.S. Soybean Export Council. 27 October 2015. NAFTA Food and Ag Trade Working Group. "Letter to Wilbur Ross." NAFTA Food and Ag Trade Working Group. 25 October 2017. Bureau of Economic Analysis. "Gross Domestic Product: Second Quarter 2017 (Advance Estimate.)" U.S. Department of Commerce. 28 July 2017. Walmsley, Terry; Minor, Peter. "Reversing NAFTA: A Supply Chain Perspective." ImpactECON. August 2017. Update [2 November 2017]: Added possible source of the $13 billion figure in the meme.

FMD_test_784

Says Texas U.S. Rep. John Culberson was caught using campaign cash on collectibles, including Civil War memorabilia and fossils.

11/03/2018

As the 2018 campaign comes to a close, the political arm of the Environmental Defense Fund has sent a mailer to homes in Texas 7th Congressional District saying that John Culberson, a Republican congressman, is wrong for Houston. As partial proof, it said he was caught using campaign cash on collectibles, including Civil War memorabilia and fossils. Caught is an interesting word, since the nine-term incumbent, now challenged by Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, disclosed the memorabilia purchases, which he says he gave as gifts from his campaign. As for the fossils, his campaign insisted there were no such purchases -- and said it only bought books and maps from a business that happens to also sell fossils. Critics have made a false assumption, the Culberson campaign told us initially. Well look at both parts of the claim but will give away a bit of what we found right here: He bought fossil replicas. If you wonder why an environment group would care about fossils and Culberson, the group noted that Culberson said in late summer that his purchases were for research into such things as paleoclimatology, or the study of climates before instrumental records were widely available, to help him better understand climate change. Environmental Defense Fund Action says that for all this studying, Culberson still refuses to accept scientific research on the matter. Culberson has said humans played a role in climate change but, ashe toldthe Los Angeles Times in 2015, We just dont have enough data or accurate data to say with certainty what that effect has been. Lets take fossils first. The congressmans critics based their claim on a mention in a 2012 campaign finance report that Culbersons campaign made two purchases from a South Dakota organization, the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. The institute sells fossils, replicas and other things, and Culberson spent $309.66 altogether there, Federal Election Commission records show. The purchase was part of a broader set of Culberson expenses being questioned by Texas Democrats -- a set of questions we are not addressing fully here because we are looking specifically at campaign ads and claims. But for a bit of perspective, theHouston Chroniclewrote in August that Texas Democrats were challenging nearly $50,000 in Culberson campaign spending since 2004. Focusing just on fossils, PolitiFact asked Culbersons campaign what it bought from the Black Hills Institute. We were told it bought books and maps, not fossils, the same explanation the campaign has given since August. Only in politics does a person get attacked for trying to be better at their job, Culberson campaign spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. The mailer from the Environmental Defense Action Fund is factually wrong. The congressman never bought fossils with campaign contributions and all other purchases are acceptable under House and FEC rules. Culberson is a voracious reader, and has spent thousands of dollars from his campaign account for books and materials, including some on paleoclimatology, that his campaign says were related to his job. In just the 2011-12 campaign season, Culbsersons campaign spent $9,848 on research or research materials, most of it from vendors such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, FEC records reviewed by PolitiFact show. Culberson chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees spending on science and such agencies as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The research material helps him better understand the changing levels of carbon dioxide in the climate, his campaign says. Asked about records that would show he was buying books and maps, not fossils, from the Black Hills Institute, his campaign said the 2012 records for such specific purchases no longer exist. PolitFact, however, called the Black Hills Institute. They pulled the invoices from Culberson's two separate orders and sent us copies. This is what the campaign paid for, excluding shipping charges: Three large wall charts showing extensive histories of the Earth and matter, dating back 4.5 billion years. The charts have columns showing tectonic maps, changes in the earth such as mountain formation, major volcanic eruptions, glacial epochs, craters from asteroids and comets and extensive information on fossils, invertebrates and vertebrate lifeforms, as well as their extinction. These cost $19.95 apiece. One desktop model of a Triceratops. It cost $84.05. Two large -- 4.5 inches -- fossil replicas of a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth. Each cost $40. The FEC gives pretty wide latitude to the purchase of books and other materials that a candidate or officeholder might use in his or her official capacity, Brendan Fischer, an expert on campaign finance law at the Campaign Legal Center, told us. But what about a Triceratops model and replicas of a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth fossil? Id like to hear their explanation for it, he said. Its hard to see how it would pertain to their official duties. We told the campaign what we found, and it asked what our proof was. So we sent the campaign the invoices for the congressmans purchases. The response from Kelly, the spokeswoman: The invoices confirm that the congressman never bought actual fossils, and every purchase from the Black Hills Institute is considered acceptable under House and FEC rules. Asked why the congressman bought the replicas and the model at all, Kelly said, While these purchases were more than six years ago and now being used as part of a coordinated partisan hit job, the congressman believes these particular purchases were gifts, which is completely acceptable under FEC and House rules. The mailer from Environmental Defense Fund Action also mentioned Culbersons use of campaign money to buy collectibles and Civil War memorabilia. This, too, originated from the Democrats complaint referenced in the Houston Chronicle. Culberson is a Civil War history buff, collector and sometime-seller of memorabilia. But when it comes to his campaign funds, the purchases were for items such as stamps and coins the congressman got in order to give out as gifts, his campaign said. Congress members frequently use campaign money to buy gifts for constituents and volunteers, and the Culberson campaign said the Texas Republican was doing nothing different from what House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has done when buying white orchids. The FEC allows candidates and officeholders to buy and give as gifts items of nominal value as long as they are not given to family members, Fischer said. FEC reports show only what a candidate or officeholder pays, not the value of the each item. For example, in 2014, Culbersons campaign spent $3,631 on coins from an antique coin seller. In 2009 and 2010, the campaign spent $4,181 on antiques and coins for gifts, includinghat stars(an emblem worn on soldiers hats) and Texas Centennial and Republic of Texas coins, FEC records show. Culbersons campaign said the value of each coin was about $25, and the value of stamps was about $10. For a broader view, we downloaded FEC data showing all federal candidate purchases -- those for everyone with a federal campaign account -- of items listed as gifts just since January 2017. The total reached $1.8 million, for everything from model airplanes to a quilt to gift baskets. Environmental Defense Fund Action said Texas U.S. Rep. John Culberson was caught using campaign cash on collectibles, including Civil War memorabilia and fossils. Caught seemed strong to us at first, given the campaigns denials. But with a phone call and email, it turned out that Culberson had in fact used campaign funds -- not for fossils, but for replicas and a desktop model. Our ruling comes down to perspective. The mailers spin seemed a little strong at first, especially knowing that gift purchases, whether for Civil War trinkets or not, are allowable if considered of nominal value. But the insistence of the campaign that Culberson did not buy fossils -- and that he had only bought books and maps -- is a factor as well. OK, he didnt buy fossils. He bought fossil replicas. We rate the claim Mostly True.

FMD_test_785

Did Keanu Reeves Say 'The Road to Heaven Isn't Through Your Yard'?

02/09/2021

In February 2021, social media users enthusiastically shared a meme that attributed the following quotation to the actor Keanu Reeves: shared "I don't care how much you don't like me. The last time I checked, the road to heaven wasn't through your yard." It's very unlikely Reeves ever uttered or wrote those words, but we cannot rule out that possibility. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven," for now. The quotation itself has been around since 2018 at the latest, and appeared in numerous widely-shared memes that year. In the intervening years, it has appeared on T-shirts, and in various online forums devoted to "inspirational quotes." numerous appeared T-shirts online forums Only more recently has it been attributed to Reeves, a clear indication (though not definitive proof) that he did not come up with it. We found instances of its attribution to the actor as early as August 2019, and social media users continued to share it in 2020. For reasons that are not clear, the meme enjoyed a resurgence in February 2021. August 2019 2020 February 2021 We could not find any evidence to support the attribution of the quotation to Reeves, despite checking a news archive that stretches back several decades. The meme strongly appears to feature a generic, unattributed quotation of the kind that is widely shared on social media, which was belatedly linked to Reeves online. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that Reeves wrote or uttered those words in some source that has since become obscure. As a result, for now, we're issuing a rating of "Unproven."

FMD_test_786

Says more than $3.5 billion in state revenue that is supposed to be dedicated to basic needs and functions is being diverted to make the books look balanced.

12/04/2010

State Sen. Kirk Watson says he's going to fight budgetary gambits when lawmakers confront an expected shortfall in state budget revenue in the legislative session starting in January.In a Nov. 15 speech outlining his self-titled honesty agenda, the Austin Democrat names among his concerns a tendency by past legislatures to balance the budget by dipping into state income that's supposed to fund specific needs and functions.The result, Watson said, has diverted billions of dollars that had been promised to roads, parks, hospitals, clean air, utility bill relief, and other necessities using it instead as a special piggy bank to make the books look balanced. In fact, over $3.5 billion of what people pay to support specific, basic needs and government functions is (currently) being diverted in this way. That's a lot of promises made and then broken. And this practice has grown -- more than doubled -- over the past decade.Watson mentioned the budget-balancing strategy again in aninterview excerptedin the Nov. 28 Austin American-Statesman and in a Nov. 30 talk at the University of Texas where he listed three of the affected funds, saying: Folks, I could go on (listing them) all day.The lege gets blamed for lots of things; has it really been taking funds dedicated to necessities to make the books look balanced?History: The Texas Constitution forbids the state from running in the red. Lawmakers who write each two-year budget must satisfy the state comptroller that budgeted expenditures won't exceed what the state gathers in revenue. That's what it means to balance the budget.Watson spokesman Steve Scheibal responded to our request for back-up evidence by sharing a spreadsheet prepared by the state comptroller's office. According to the spreadsheet, since the 1993 session, lawmakers have balanced budgets by tapping special accounts that collect money for specific purposes. Money taken from such accounts increased steadily through eight of the last nine budget periods, reaching more than $3.7 billion for fiscal 2010-11, which runs through August. All told, money spent in this fashion totals $18 billion.So, Watson's $3.5 billion-plus number sticks.According to the spreadsheet, more than 25 different accounts took hits from the 2009 Legislature. A category broadly termed All Other GR Dedicated Certification Accounts accounted for the largest single amount, $840 million. Next highest: nearly $671 million from the System Benefit Fund, which consists of proceeds from a tax on some utility bills intended to help low-income residents pay utility bills; $515 million from the Emissions Reduction Plan, which funds grants in targeted counties to address polluting heavy vehicles and equipment; and $331 million from an account called Designated Trauma Facility and EMS, which helps hospitals recover costs of uncompensated trauma care.An August 2009 news article in The Houston Chronicle quotes Dale Craymer, a veteran budget watcher who's president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, saying of such transfers: It's kind of like having your (household) budget laid out and spending part of your food money on entertainment, or vice versa.Finally, we turned to the tail of Watson's statement--that shifting money from such funds make the books look balanced as opposed to actually balancing the budget.For expert perspective, we contacted consultant Billy Hamilton of Austin. He was the deputy comptroller when then-State Comptroller John Sharp recommended that the 1991 Legislature -- then facing a $4 billion-plus revenue shortfall -- consolidate more than 300 state funds. That change laid the groundwork for lawmakers to use accumulated cash balances to help balance future budgets.The comptroller's July 1991 Texas Performance Review report, Breaking the Mold, anticipated criticism of the funds' consolidation as an accounting trick. It says: The truth of the matter is that under the state's constitutionally mandated cash-basis budgeting system, there is no trickery involved. Bond rating agencies, for example, see funds consolidation as a component of prudent fiscal management; the one-time revenue gain from such consolidation is a valid and immediate benefit of improving the structure of fiscal management.As it turned out, the one-time revenue gain gave lawmakers a budget-balancing tool they have wielded ever since. In an interview, Hamilton said subsequent legislatures used it to balance budgets while avoiding major tax changes, save a 2006 overhaul of the state's largest business tax and a hike in cigarette taxes.Per Watson's statement, Hamilton said, As a matter of sound public policy, if you agree that the Legislature in the past has set up these dedicated accounts to accomplish certain public policy goals, they're certainly not being accomplished because the money is being effectively used for other purposes. Then again, Hamilton said, just because (lawmakers) set up a fund, that doesn't mean there's an inherent requirement that they spend the money (on that purpose); the Legislature has the power to appropriate most state funds as desired.Strolling into wonk territory, we also interviewed Craymer, who said the legislative practice of tapping special-purpose accounts doesn't mean the accounts won't someday recover money spent on other budget items. For instance, future legislatures could vote to replenish the funds from other sources and/or quit draining their dollars.Craymer continued: Lawmakers are not spending the dedicated revenue, they're spending cash balances the revenue creates. Say what? It's a distinction only an accountant could appreciate.Separately, R.J. DeSilva, spokesman for the comptroller's office, agreed that dollars made available from the special-purpose accounts actually helped balance the 2010-11 budget, rather than just making the books look balanced.Maybe so, Watson acknowledged, but conversely, if lawmakers spent the dollars taken from a so-called dedicated account on its intended purpose, then they couldn't make the books look balanced because they wouldn't be -- meaning funding would fall short somewhere else in the budget. And Watson reminded that once money from such accounts is spent on other items, the dollars aren't available to pay for the needs they were originally intended to support.Watson also noted that on May 27, 2009, Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told his Senate colleagues that the Legislature was unable to write an appropriations bill that would serve the needs of this state without relying to a fairly significant extent on surplus balances in our general-revenue dedicated funds.Ogden also said that a review of the practice would belong in a comprehensive assessment of the state's finances. At the end of the story, Ogden said, the obvious answer is a tax overhaul in the state of Texas. We really have a pretty rickety system right now.Bottom line: Watson accurately recaps the amount of money allocated from specific-purpose accounts for the 2010-11 state budget. But the shifting of funds doesn't just look like a book-balancing; it's for real.We rate Watson's statement Mostly True.

FMD_test_787

Says Austin is creating more jobs than any other city in the country.

05/16/2018

Austins mayor made a best-in-the-nation claim about local job gains that made us wonder. Steve Adler,who seeks a second termin November 2018, was askedon KLBJ-AMs morning May 8, 2018, Todd and Don Show about ending the red tape and paperwork that businesses have to go through just to expand in this city. Adlerreplied: You ought to minimize the bureaucracy as much as you can. But were doing something right in this city, you guys have to admit, right? Were creating more jobs than any other city in the country. We have an economy thats on fire. I mean, were doing something right, Adler said, going on to agree that he also wasnt trying to take personal credit for the gains. Some background:We recently found accuratean Adler tout of Austins jobless rate. From January through March 2018, Austins unemployment rate ran shy of 3 percent; the rate had mostly stayed under 3 percent since the start of 2017. So, we wondered, is Austin flat-out growing more jobs than any other city in the country? Mayor cites local sort of federal data By email, Adler spokesman Jason Stanford told us the mayor made his job growth claim by drawing on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Stanford included in his reply a chart from the Austin Chamber of Commerce indicating that between March 2017 and March 2018, the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metropolitan area--which takes in five Austin-area counties--saw greater percentage gains in nonfarm payroll jobs than nine other high-growth areas: SOURCE:Web post,APRIL 24, 2018 - JOB GROWTH & UNEMPLOYMENT,Austin Chamber of Commerce, April 24, 2018 The Austin area was home to 1,060,200 jobs in March 2018, the chart says, and that count was up 36,800 jobs, or 3.6 percent, from March 2017. Listed as metro areas with the next-most percentage gains: Orlando (3.5 percent); Phoenix, Seattle and Riverside, Calif. (3.2 percent each); Jacksonville and Dallas (3.1 percent each). We noticed, though, that the Austin area ranked sixth among the selected regions in raw jobs gained. According to the chart, the Dallas area had 78,400 more jobs in March 2018 than in March 2017; the Phoenix area had 65,600 more jobs than before; the Seattle area had 53,200 more jobs than before; the Riverside area had 45,900 more jobs than before; and the Orlando area had 43,700 more jobs than before. To our inquiry, a chamber expert, Beverly Kerr, pointed out the chambers April 2018web postshowing Austins No. 1 rank. Kerr also commented: The mayor might better have said Austin is creating jobs faster than any other major metro, rather than creating more jobs, since some slower growing much larger metros are bound to actually be creating a larger number of jobs. Job gains in more metro areas We sought to look over the figures. So Kerr emailed us what she described as herfull fetch of job changes within 426 U.S. metro areas for the selected months, enabling us to conduct our own shake-outs. We sorted all the figures by percentage gains in jobs--finding that Austins 3.6 percent growth placed the area in a national tie with the Idaho metros of Idaho Falls and Pocatello and behind 28 similarly less populous areas, including three in Texas. From March 2017 to March 2018, the Midland area saw a nationally leading 9.9 percent bump, gaining 8,900 jobs; the adjoining Odessa area had a gain of 6.6 percent, 4,700 jobs; and the College Station-Bryan area saw an increase of 4.3 percent with 5,100 jobs gained, the figures indicate. We also sorted the provided figures by limiting our focus to the nations 49 metro areas that were home to 1 million jobs or more in March 2017. Among those areas, the Austin areas 3.6 percent growth rate as of March 2018 placed it No. 1, we found, though 14 other areas recorded greater raw job gains. Next, we queried the BLS directly about the mayors claim and backup information. By email, Dallas-based economist Cheryl Abbot confirmed that the figures behind Adlers claim were rooted in the bureaussupplemental tableposted online gauging over-the-year job changes from March 2017 to March 2018 in total nonfarm employment in metro areas with a population of 1 million residents or more as of 2010. Among the 51 areas clearing the declared population hurdle, Abbot wrote, the Austin area ranked No. 1 in percentage job growth. And even on a net change basis, Austin ranked 11th on our table (jobs up by 36,800), competing with the likes of NYC, LA, DFW, and Atlanta, among others, Abbot said. A national analysis We also consultedAaron M. Renn, an economist with theManhattan Institute for Policy Research. Asked to provide a long perspective on the Austin areas job gains, Renn emailed usa chartbased on BLS figures showing that the Austin area topped 52 other metro areas--leaving out many--with a 51 percent uptick in nonfarm jobs from 2000 to 2017; Californias Riverside area placed second with a 46 percent increase. But among the selected metro areas, the Austin areas raw gain of nearly 350,000 jobs over those years placed the area 10th nationally behind the metro areas of New York, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Houston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Riverside, Phoenix and Atlanta, according to the chart. Our ruling Adler told the morning radio hosts that Austin is creating more jobs than any other U.S. city. To the contrary, federal figures show the five-county Austin metropolitan area (not Austin alone) trails some other U.S. metros including the No. 1 Midland area for its pace of jobs gained and it lags more than 25 metro areas in raw jobs gained. It would be accurate to say the Austin area lately has enjoyed greater percentage job gains than other metro areas of 1 million residents or more. We rate this Adler claim False. FALSE The statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.

FMD_test_788

Does this online joke show evidence of racial prejudice in cases of tax evasion prosecutions?

03/15/2019

One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks. However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples, not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion, so widely spaced in time and differing in circumstances as to be unhelpful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with or imprisoned for non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity. The investigation, which took place in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2003, led to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, who was a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated at the time. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine, a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest. Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue; the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, so they took what was then a novel approach: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, "They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money." He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction, he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. In a literal sense, Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected, as well as the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities. Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative, we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons—maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advice, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of cases and will instead work with offenders to facilitate payment of their back debts, rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them. At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who, along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley, owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties to avoid paying immense sums of taxes. Some of Helmsley's luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987, a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year, Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn., a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsley's bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt—the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the money owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances, as well as liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for in unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though. Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the IRS that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to the National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again that his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report. During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. "We're talking about old taxes," he said, adding, "We're not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if I'm not paying taxes while I'm doing whatever I'm doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true." The accuracy of Mr. Sharpton's assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharpton's assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoing spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions.

FMD_test_789

Purchasing SpaceX shares ahead of its public offering is a scam.

10/10/2022

On Oct. 10, 2022, a paid ad on Facebook promoted a fake investment opportunity with the words, "How To Buy SpaceX Stock Before It Goes Public." The ad showed a picture of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and directed users to chat with a person on Messenger, who then told users to visit a WhatsApp group chat named "Stock Learning Group 28." But none of this was legitimate. It was all a scam to steal users' money. Stock Learning Group 28 The full scam post that promised a way to "buy SpaceX stock before it goes public" read as follows: Bullish on the future of space travel? See how to invest in SpaceX before it goes Public! We help you pre-buy stocks in the latest up-and-coming companies, before most retail investors. Getting in on the best companies before they go public is how you can get the returns like recent IPOs such as: AirBnB - 130% return in 7 months.Palantir - 226% return in 10 months.Snowflake - 331% return in 10 months. We do one thing very well.....get you access to the most popular companies before the public market has a chance. Click the Learn More button now and well show you how to invest in SpaceX before the public This post appeared to follow the same playbook we had seen before with numerous crypto scams. In those scams, users were also led from one social media platform to another, where they were told that their money would be invested in a special crypto opportunity. However, it was all a lie. Just like the scam post about SpaceX, some of the crypto scams featured photos of Musk as a way of trying to create trust. crypto scams featured photos of Musk The Facebook account that hosted the ads showed up as a personal profile and not a page. It was named Tut Pro 1 38801324. The profile picture showed an image that said "Half Price Books," a company that had absolutely nothing to do with the scam. We asked the account about the strange profile photo. They responded, "This event is sponsored by Mr. Nino, a senior stock analyst. Join Mr. Nino's stock research group now and receive a stock book when you join the group." The crypto scams we covered in the past also claimed to feature a specialist who could help deliver on the scam's promise. In the crypto scams, the scammers called this person "the teacher." We asked the user if this "Mr. Nino" was "the teacher." The account responded, "Yes." If the strange account name weren't enough of a red flag, the profile also once featured two seemingly random pictures of young girls. According to TinEye.com, a handy reverse image search website, at least one of the photos was traced to websites that were managed in Vietnam. This may have indicated that the scam was being operated from Southeast Asia. TinEye.com reverse image search As for the reality of SpaceX going public in the future, CNBC previously reported that Musk told employees the company was not likely to go public until 2025 or later. reported Evon, Dan. Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches. Snopes.com, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/. Sheetz, Michael. Elon Musk Says an IPO of SpaceXs Starlink Satellite Internet Business Is Still 3 or 4 Years Away. CNBC, 7 June 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/spacex-starlink-ipo-elon-musk-says-offering-is-3-or-4-years-away.html. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. Tut Pro 1 38801324. Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084130714561. On Oct. 18, 2022, we added a note that said a real company named Half Price Books had nothing to do with the scam.

FMD_test_790

Did Astronaut Mark Kelly Say the 'Space Force' Was a 'Dumb Idea?'

08/13/2018

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's August 2018 announcement of plans for the creation of a sixth branch of the U.S. military dubbed "Space Force" drew mixed reactions from pundits, politicians, and Trump administration supporters and critics. Retired astronaut Mark Kelly was one of those who supposedly chimed in on the issue, as reflected in a meme circulated by social media users that quoted him as opining that the proposed Space Force was a "dumb idea": This is a genuine quote from Mark Kelly, who flew several missions on NASA's Space Shuttle from 2001 to 2011. The wording was taken from a tweet the former astronaut posted in June 2018 shortly after President Trump directed the Pentagon to "begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces": directed This is a dumb idea. The Air Force does this already. That is their job. Whats next, we move submarines to the 7th branch and call it the under-the-sea force? https://t.co/S1urOuJBe6 https://t.co/S1urOuJBe6 Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) June 19, 2018 June 19, 2018 Kelly elaborated on his position in an interview with MSNBC which took place shortly after Vice President Pence's announcement, saying that he stood by his "dumb idea" remark and that a Space Force would be redundant: Former astronaut Mark Kelly on President Trump's "Space Force" effort: "The only person that Ive heard say this is a fantastic idea is the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States. Everybody else says its redundant, its wasteful." https://t.co/5WNNuWy4v4 pic.twitter.com/e1c5uocTgv https://t.co/5WNNuWy4v4 pic.twitter.com/e1c5uocTgv MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 9, 2018 August 9, 2018 Michael Dodge, an assistant professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, noted Space.com that while other branches of the military (such as the U.S. Air Force) also started out as sectors of larger branches, the existence of the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) would not necessarily be redundant because it would "free up the Air Force to focus on what it does best": Space.com President Donald Trump's administration is pushing to form a U.S. Space Force, a new military branch, but how would that agency differ from the Air Force Space Command, which already oversees much of the country's defense assets in space? The early version of the U.S. Air Force existed as the U.S. Army Air Corps, an aerial warfare sector of the U.S. Army. But as planes continued to advance technologically and find their way into mainstream travel, "Congress decided they needed to have a new branch of the military," Dodge said. The country needed a branch that could "address issues unique to this domain." The Air Force became the fifth branch of the U.S. armed forces in 1947. The Space Force would essentially serve the same purpose, but for space. Dodge said it would "free up the Air Force to focus on what it does best," as the new branch addressed issues unique to space. Dodge noted that this space-oriented, sixth military branch makes the most sense now. " [O]ur assets are so critical in outer space and everything that we do is so dependent on outer space that we need a new force capable of focusing on that domain by itself," he said." Another former astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, offered a different reaction to the new military branch. The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot was in attendance in June 2018 when President Trump announced his intention to create a Space Force and later tweeted that the idea was "one giant leap" in the right direction: One giant leap in the right direction. #SpaceForce https://t.co/3ZAvB2Oex4 #SpaceForce https://t.co/3ZAvB2Oex4 Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) August 10, 2018 August 10, 2018 Davenport, Christian. "Pence Details Plan for Creation of Space Force in What Would be the Sixth Branch of the Military." The Washington Post. 9 August 2018. Gohd, Chelsea. "Trump Wants a Space Force But We Have an Air Force Space Command." Space.com. 10 August 2018. Greshko, Michael. "Would a U.S. Space Force Be Legal? Get the Facts." National Geographic. 9 August 2018. Stewart, Phil. "Going Where No President Has Gone Before, Trump Wants Space Force by 2020." Reuters. 9 August 2018.

FMD_test_791

Are These the Last Words of Billionaire Steve Gouves?

01/07/2019

In December 2015, we examined a piece of text being shared on social media that was said to represent the final words of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. We hoped our article would help to dispel that false rumor, but in January 2019, a nearly identical speech was circulated again, this time attributed to a different billionaire with an eerily similar name: Steve Gouves. The "Steve Gouves deathbed speech" was shared by many social media users in January 2019, with one of the most popular postings coming from Joshua Feuerstein, an evangelical internet personality known for spreading misinformation and perhaps most famously for criticizing Starbucks' Christmas cups. Feuerstein's post included a photograph of a bearded man, presumably Mr. Steve Gouves, along with the following text: "From my friend David Norrie: Steve Gouves dies a billionaire, with a fortune of $7 billion, at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer, and here are some of his last words: In others' eyes, my life is the essence of success, but aside from work, I have little joy, and in the end, wealth is just a fact of life to which I am accustomed. At this moment, lying on the bed, sick and reflecting on my life, I realize that all my recognition and wealth are meaningless in the face of imminent death. You can hire someone to drive a car for you, make money for you—but you cannot rent someone to carry the disease for you. One can find material things, but there is one thing that cannot be found when it is lost—'life.' Treat yourself well and cherish others. As we get older, we become wiser, and we slowly realize that a watch worth $30 or $300 shows the same time. Whether we carry a purse worth $30 or $300, the amount of money in our wallets is the same. Whether we drive a car worth $150,000 or a car worth $30,000, the road and distance remain the same; we reach the same destination. If we drink a bottle of wine worth $300 or one worth $10, the experience will be the same. If the house we live in is 300 square meters or 3,000 square meters, the loneliness is the same. Your true inner happiness does not come from the material things of this world. Whether you're flying first class or economy class, if the plane crashes, you crash with it. So, I hope you understand that when you have friends or someone to talk to, this is true happiness! Five Undeniable Facts: 1. Do not educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so when they grow up, they will know the value of things, not the price. 2. Eat your food as medicine; otherwise, you will need to eat your medicine as food. 3. Whoever loves you will never leave you, even if they have 100 reasons to give up. They will always find one reason to hold on. 4. There is a big difference between being human and a human being. 5. If you want to go fast, go alone! But if you want to go far, go together! And in conclusion, the six best doctors in the world are: 1. Sunlight 2. Rest 3. Exercise 4. Diet 5. Self-confidence 6. Friends. Keep them in all stages of life and enjoy a healthy life. 'Love the people God sent you; one day, He'll need them back.' Something worth sharing! The man in this photograph is not "Steve Gouves" but rather James R. Kirouac, a "Level 2 Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique Practitioner" with the company "Leading Edge Thought," who, as best we can tell at the time of this writing, is still very much alive. The first half of this text (everything preceding "Treat yourself well and cherish others") is a nearly verbatim copy of the fake deathbed speech falsely attributed to Steve Jobs back in 2015. That speech appears to have originated on a random blog and was never connected to Jobs in any real way. The second half of this text has been circulating independently from the first since at least September 2015, when it was posted to a Chinese language blog at xuite.net. That posting was not attributed to Jobs, Gouves, or any other billionaire, and it was not shared as if it were a deathbed speech. The fake Steve Jobs deathbed speech started making its way around the web in November 2015, and readers have apparently revised and expanded it over the years. At some point, the text posted to xuite.net was tacked onto the end of the original fake speech, Jobs' name was changed to Gouves, and an image of an unrelated bald man was used to depict the fictional billionaire. In short, Steve Gouves did not make this speech on his deathbed because Steve Gouves does not exist. Much of this text was previously attributed to Steve Jobs, but the Apple co-founder did not utter those words on his deathbed either.

FMD_test_792

Is This Bizarre Costume a 'Siberian Bear-Hunting Suit'?

07/20/2021

In recent years, internet users and fans of historical curiosities have marveled at a bizarre, even sinister-looking costume covered from head to toe in spikes, which is most commonly described as a "Siberian bear-hunting suit from the 1800s." Enthusiasts have repeatedly posted largely the same distinctive black-and-white photograph of the outfit on the popular online forum Reddit in 2019, 2018, and 2014. The posts always refer to the object as a "Siberian bear-hunting suit" and largely date it to the 19th century, as shown in the examples below: 2019, 2018, 2014. The remarkable photograph, along with its description as a Siberian bear-hunting suit from the 19th century, enjoyed a boost online in 2012 after it was featured on the popular, now-defunct website Retronaut. It has even inspired a song entitled "Bear Hunting Armor," released by the Prague-based indie band Ending in 2018. The music video, whose imagery clearly borrows heavily from the now-famous photograph, can be watched below. The band itself described the song as having been "inspired by a Siberian bear hunting armor from the 1800s." In reality, conclusive evidence is not available regarding the precise origins of the costume, its purpose, creation date, or the geographical and cultural milieu from which it emerged, although it is a real historical artifact and the widely shared photograph of it is authentic. Moreover, good reasons exist to doubt the accuracy of the "Siberian bear-hunting" explanation that has become popular. As such, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven." If decisive evidence emerges, we will update this fact check accordingly. The picture in question appears to have been taken by Malcolm Kirk, a renowned New York-based photographer. In 2012, the Victorian Adventure Enthusiast blog wrote about the artifact, claiming to have confirmed with Kirk's representatives that he did indeed take the photograph. As of July 2021, the suit itself was housed at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, a museum that contains the private art and artifact collection of the French-American de Menil family. The museum's website features various photographs of the costume, which is on display as part of the "Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision" exhibit. The Menil Collection describes the exhibit, which first opened in 1999, as follows: This unique installation presents a culturally heterogeneous collection of more than 150 objects from the Menil's permanent collection or on long-term loan from members of the de Menil family. Ritual and everyday objects, primarily from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands and the Americas—which the Surrealists believed to be witnesses to the universality of their own visual and literary artistic practices—are exhibited alongside 19th-century European astrolabes, anamorphoscopes, and other devices that offer alternative ways to perceive and understand reality. So we know the suit is real, who owns it, and where it has been on display for the past 20 years, and we know that the widely shared photograph of it is authentic, as well as the name of the photographer who captured it. However, the precise origins of the costume remain elusive. In her 2014 master's thesis, available in full here, Kristen Strange at Arizona State University wrote at length and in considerable detail about "Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision." As part of her research, she examined records relating to the acquisition of the costume, which was also frequently referred to as "Wildman," as well as correspondence involving Dominique de Menil, a co-founder of the museum along with her husband, John; their daughter, Adelaide de Menil; and Edmund Carpenter, Adelaide's husband and an American anthropologist who initially curated the exhibit. Despite her extensive examination of those documents and records, Strange found no evidence to definitively pin down the exact origins of the suit but did discover some interesting background information and clues that the outfit might actually have originated in 18th or 19th century Germany or Switzerland, rather than 19th century Russia. She wrote: The Wildman, an essential object in the early planning stages of the exhibition, was referred to as the porcupine man in correspondence between Dominique de Menil and Edmund Carpenter. Carpenter was likely drawn to the uncanny appearance and narrative of the Wildman and displayed this costume in his office for many years before its inclusion in Witnesses. There has been some uncertainty over this object's culture of origin and its originally intended purpose. While it is now thought to have originated in 18th- or 19th-century Germany or Switzerland, this costume presumably represents a folk figure seen in the Vogel Gryff Festival in Basel, but it has also been considered a bear hunting costume. Its provenance dates back to a December 6, 1974 auction at the Palais Galliera in Paris, where it was purchased by Adelaide de Menil and Carpenter. The file provides further documentation and explains that this costume came with a handwritten note stating that it formerly belonged to the collection of Adamson (naturalists) who gave their name to surreal seashells. While the true origins of The Wildman remain uncertain, it appears that it was being described as a bear-hunting suit as early as 1998, and possibly before that. In November of that year, the renowned conservator Barbara Appelbaum wrote an email to her colleagues at the Global Conservation Forum, looking for advice on the use of Beva, a specialist adhesive popular among conservators. In her email, she described the artifact she was working on at that time in terms that strongly suggest it was The Wildman, especially since her email came just months before the "Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision" exhibit first opened at the Menil Collection. However, it should be noted that in her email, Appelbaum cast doubt on the "bear-hunting" description of the item: The object is being called a Siberian bear-hunting suit, but I suspect it is more likely to be for bear baiting than hunting, since I can't imagine anyone could run around the woods in it. It consists of leather pants and a jacket (and an iron helmet) studded all over with 1-inch iron nails about 3/4 in. apart. The nails are held in place by a second layer of leather lining the whole thing and quilted into place between the nails. In areas of wear and flexing, like around the ankles and the crotch, the inside layer of leather is worn through, so the nails are falling out.

FMD_test_793

Did 'The Simpsons' Predict Apple's Vision Pro?

02/05/2024

In early February 2024, Apple released the long-awaited Vision Pro headset. As Reuters reported, the headset "blends three-dimensional digital content with a view of the outside world." While some commentators claimed the device represented a "new tech dystopia," others suggested that it was predicted by the TV series "The Simpsons." released reported claimed On Feb. 5, 2024, a video went viral on Reddit, with the caption "The Simpsons predicted the Apple Vision Pro." The same claim was also spread on other social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and TikTok. video X YouTube TikTok The Simpsons predicted the Apple Vision Pro. byu/adityapixel inBeAmazed The Simpsons predicted the Apple Vision Pro. u/adityapixel BeAmazed The topic was also covered in the Daily Mail, New York Post, and The Independent. "The Simpsons predicted revolutionary $3,500 Apple Vision EIGHT years before fans flocked to buy newest tech and show them off in everyday life," Daily Mail headline read. Daily Mail New York Post The Independent In short, although the clip really is from the series, the claim that "The Simpsons" predicted the Apple Vision Pro is false. The clip originated from "The Simpsons" Episode 2 of Season 28, Friends and Family, aired in October 2016 (the in-question scene starts about 20:00 in the episode). originated First of all, virtual reality (VR) is not a new concept. By 2016, when the Friends and Family episode aired, companies such as Oculus VR had introduced their VR headsets to the market, so the concept of people using such devices was not a novel prediction by "The Simpsons." The show, known for its satirical take on societal trends and technological advancements, was merely reflecting the growing interest in VR technology that was already present at the time. Thus, attributing the anticipation of Apple's Vision Pro to "The Simpsons" series overlooks the fact that the technology was already known to the public and evolving rapidly at the time. virtual reality Oculus VR (Olaf Carlson looks up during a press demonstration at The Village event space in San Francisco, California, on March 15, 2016. Getty Images) We have covered similar dubious "Simpsons" Predictions in the past. For instance, we investigated whether an episode predicted the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In September 2023, we also debunked a claim that the series predicted the Tesla Cybertruck. "Simpsons" Predictions investigated debunked Friends and Family. The Simpsons, directed by Mike B. Anderson and Lance Kramer, 2 Oct. 2016. Friends and Family - The Simpsons (Series 28, Episode 2) - Apple TV (OM). AppleTV, 2 Oct. 2016, https://tv.apple.com/om/episode/friends-and-family/umc.cmc.5gyk9l73m6w6rqb32aji5hue3?showId=umc.cmc.1kfo3z1jtaj8ff6wsh9cvxbwu. Heres When You Can Buy Oculuss Long-Awaited Virtual Reality Headset. TIME, 11 June 2015, https://time.com/3918081/oculus-rift-release-date-microsoft/. Kasprak, Alex. The Simpsons Predicted Teslas Cybertruck? Snopes, 8 Sept. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/simpsons-predicted-cybertruck/. Nellis, Stephen, and Dawn Chmielewski. Vision Pro Headset Is Apples next Mac and TV Combined. Reuters, 3 Feb. 2024. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/technology/vision-pro-headset-is-apples-next-mac-tv-combined-2024-02-03/. Virtual Reality (VR) | Definition, Development, Technology, Examples, & Facts | Britannica. 1 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/technology/virtual-reality. Wrona, Aleksandra. The Simpsons Predicted 9/11 Attack on World Trade Center? Snopes, 11 Sept. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/simpsons-predicted-wtc/.

FMD_test_794

Minnesota Vikings Open Their Stadium to Shelter the Homeless

12/19/2016

On 18 December 2016, Twitter user David Dellanave posted a message claiming that the Minnesota Vikings football team had opened up U.S. Bank Stadium to shelter the homeless on a particularly cold winter night: posted Although Dellanave is not a reporter or a spokesperson for the Minnesota Vikings, his message was picked up and reported as fact by several news outlets, including Yahoo News and CBS Sports: Yahoo News CBS Sports The Minnesota Vikings are embracing the Christmas spirit early and helping out the community on Sunday night. According to David Dellanave, U.S. Bank Stadium will be open to the local homeless population during a night with crazy cold temperatures. The Minnesota Vikings, however, did not open U.S. Bank Stadium on 18 December 2016 to shelter the homeless. Dellanave eventually deleted his original tweet and posted follow-up messages claiming that he had posted the false information as an attempt to draw attention to a social issue: Tweet deleted. Point was to highlight a social issue and waste of taxpayer money that could help people instead of make private profits 1/3 David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 Zero interest in retweets or followers, have never cared and never will. 2/3 David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 But most importantly if I thought for a second someone in need would take it seriously, wouldn't be worth the potential good. 3/3 David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 I'm sorry if this obviously misguided attempt at highlighting a social issue hurt anyone. Didn't think a tweet would go so far & I regret it David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016

FMD_test_795

Did Alex Smith Die at Age 26 Because He Couldn't Afford Insulin?

09/24/2018

An Associated Press analysis published in late September 2018 warned that prescription drug prices in the United States were still rising precipitously despite President Trump's vow to reduce them. During the first seven months of the year, the report said, prescription drug prices saw 96 increases for every cut. analysis vow The human cost of runaway prescription drugs prices was dramatically illustrated in a meme shared on the Occupy Democrats Facebook page on 18 September: This is Alex Smith. He died this year at age 26 because he couldn't afford insulin in America. He made $35,000 a year as a restaurant manager, and couldn't afford his $450 a month health insurance with a $7,600 out-of-pocket deductible. The insulin he needed for diabetes was $1,300 a month. When he turned 26 and was kicked off his mom's insurance, he started rationing his life-saving insulin. He died a month later. The text is mostly accurate, although it has Smith's given name wrong (it was Alec, not Alex), and he died in 2017, not "this year" as claimed in the 2018 meme. died According to local news reports, Alec Raeshawn Smith's lifeless body was found in his apartment on 27 June 2017, 27 days after his coverage under his mother's health insurance policy had lapsed due to his age. The cause of death was diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication of diabetes that occurs when the body produces excess blood acids (called ketones) because it lacks enough insulin. news reports ketoacidosis In a piece contributed to Truthout.org in February 2018, Smith's mother, Nicole Smith-Holt, wrote that even though Alec had a full-time job, it did not come with employer-provided health coverage: wrote For Alec, this meant that his insulin and supplies cost almost $1,300 a month. He and I together researched for months in advance about his health insurance options. They werent good. The best plan we found would cost him $450 a month for the premium with a whopping $7,600 deductible. That deductible meant he would be paying out-of-pocket for his medicine for many months anyway, so he decided to go without the plan until he could find a different job with benefits. The prohibitive cost drove Smith to ration his insulin use to try to make his supply stretch to the next payday. "I have since learned that this is not uncommon," Smith-Holt wrote, and is indicative of a worsening health care crisis: Globally, half of the people who need insulin cant reliably get access to it. With 6 million people in the US insulin-dependent, and nearly 40 percent of Americans uninsured or facing high deductibles that leave their medicine costs uncovered, the crisis is occurring right here, too. Endocrinologists here in the US report that as many as one in five of their patients are not able to afford their insulin. For many persons with diabetes, that means they land in the emergency room with diabetic ketoacidosis. For others, like Alec, they never get there. Just 27 days after his coverage under my insurance ended, I received the call no parent ever wants to get. The American Diabetes Association released a report in March 2018 estimating that the total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States had risen 26 percent in the previous five years: report People with diagnosed diabetes incur average medical expenditures of $16,752 per year, of which about $9,601 is attributed to diabetes. People with diagnosed diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures approximately 2.3 times higher than what expenditures would be in the absence of diabetes.... People with diabetes who do not have health insurance have 60% fewer physician office visits and are prescribed 52% fewer medications than people with insurance coverage but they also have 168% more emergency department visits than people who have insurance. In November 2017, we confirmed the similar case of Shane Patrick Boyle, an uninsured type 1 diabetic who died of ketoacidosis shortly after starting a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise enough money for a one-month supply of insulin. Shane Patrick Boyle Haavik, Emily. "Mother Calls for Lower Insulin Prices in Wake of Son's Death." WTSP-TV [Tampa/St. Petersburg]. 13 May 2018. Karlin-Smith, Sarah. "Trump Says Drug Industry 'Getting Away with Murder." Politico. 11 January 2017. Olson, Jeremy. "Son's Death Pushes Minnesota Mom Into Fight Against High, Rising Drug Prices." [Minneapolis] Star Tribune. 11 May 2018. Smith-Holt, Nicole. "I Had to Bury My 26-Year-Old Son Because He Couldn't Afford Insulin." Truthout.org. 1 February 2018. Symons, Xavier. "U.S. Insulin Price Hikes Prove Fatal for Diabetics." BioEdge. 8 September 2018. American Diabetes Association. "The Cost of Diabetes." 30 April 2018. Mayo Clinic. "Diabetic Ketoacidosis." Accessed 24 September 2018.

FMD_test_796

Is This Greenland Shark Nearly 400 Years Old?

08/21/2020

In August 2020, a widely shared image claiming to depict a 392-year-old shark resurfaced on social media, garnering thousands of shares on both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook Twitter This was a variation of a familiar meme, which we identified as "false" in December 2018. We are rating the newer variation as "mixture" because the image that circulated in 2020 was, indeed, a photograph of a Greenland shark. However, we were unable to determine the exact age of the shark in question, though the age of a given Greenland shark can be estimated by its length (more on that later). December 2018 Both viral memes originated from a study published in the journal Science in August 2016. In the study, researcher Julius Nielsen, who was then a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen, set out to define the life history of the Greenland shark, scientifically known as Somniosus microcephalus. These deep ocean fish have been described as an "iconic species of the Arctic seas" and remain one of the most enigmatic creatures on Earth (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picture below), mainly due to their unique ability to survive at depths of at least 7,200 feet. Science Julius Nielsen at least 7,200 feet When the research was first announced in 2016, many mainstream media publications picked up the study and declared that the Greenland shark was the longest-lived vertebrate known on the planet. In the years following the publication of the study, various iterations of the photograph's subject and its age have recirculated in different forms. A reverse-image search found 56 results, dating back to as far as 2018. Following another round of social media virality, Nielsen took to Instagram in December 2017 to address misleading claims related to the age of the shark in question: media publications declared everse-image search Instagram Social media are going beserk over old Greenland sharks these days?? All of this is just the same story coming to life from August 2016 and please note that we have not found any sharks to be 600 or 500 yr old.... we have ESTIMATED (meaning that it has not been verified) that one shark was AT LEAST 272 yr old or in more detail that this shark was between 272-512 yr old with 95.5% certainty (the later also being an unverified estimate). Over the course of a three-year project to study the biology of the Greenland shark, the team used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 specimens that had been accidentally caught as by-catch over several years. The findings concluded that the slow-maturing species grows by about .4 inches each year, and can reach lengths stretching to over 16 feet. The largest shark analyzed in the study was measured at nearly 16.5-feet long, and was believed to have been around 392 years old in 2016 which would make her about 396 in August 2020. However, radiocarbon dating studies typically determine age ranges rather than point to a specific age. Based on the analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks each of which measured between 2.5 and 16.5 feet long the study authors estimated an average species lifespan of at least 272 years. If the estimates followed the annual growth of .4 inches to a tee, then one might calculate the largest shark to be 502 years old. Range estimates, on the other hand, showed that the largest shark was likely 392 years old, give or take 120 years. A University of Copenhagen news release published at the time of the study described Greenland sharks as "among the largest carnivorous sharks on the planet," whose role as an apex predator in the Arctic ecosystem is "completely overlooked." Greenland sharks can reach lengths of up to 24 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds. news release What remains unclear is whether the shark featured in the meme was that same large shark mentioned above, or another one photographed as part of the research. So, while the photograph does, in fact, depict an individual, long-lived Greenland shark, the exact age of the specimen is not made readily clear in the research. Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know Nielsen, Juilius, et al. "Eye Lens Radiocarbon Reveals Centuries of Longevity in the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus)." Science. 12 Aug 2016. Morelle, Rebecca. "400-Year-Old Greenland Shark Longest-Living Vertebrate." BBC. 12 Aug 2016. Bates, Mary. "272-Year-Old Shark Is Longest-Lived Vertebrate on Earth." National Geographic. 11 Aug 2016. "Greenland Sharks Live For Hundreds of Years." University of Copenhagen. 11 Aug 2016. Putterman, Samantha. "Viral Photo Does Show Longest-Living Shark Species, But Exact Age Is Unclear." PolitiFact. 28 Jan 2016.

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Do Tulsa Trump Rally Attendees Have To Sign COVID-19 Waiver?

06/16/2020

As the number of confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease surpassed 2 million in early June 2020, the campaign to reelect U.S. President Donald Trump ended its monthslong pause on large, in-person events and announced it would host a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the coming weeks. COVID-19 coronavirus disease Despite public health officials' recommendations at the time to avoid group gatherings and crowds to limit the spread of COVID-19, the Trump campaign announced on June 10 that it would host a rally at the Bank of Oklahoma Center, which seats almost 19,200 people, on June 19. Trump told reporters at the White House: public health officials told reporters Were going to start our rallies back up now. Weve had a tremendous run at rallies...The first one, we believe, will be probably were just starting to call up will be in Oklahoma in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A beautiful, new venue brand-new. And were looking forward to it. Theyve done a great job with COVID, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma. Beyond the event's potential threat to attendees' health, critics including high-profile Democrats and historians saw the announcement as a call to white supremacists during a national reckoning over racism following the death of George Floyd for two reasons: Tulsa is home to one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history the 1921 Tulsa race massacre and the event's originally scheduled date of June 19, or Juneteenth, is a day in many communities that traditionally celebrates the end of U.S. slavery in 1865. So two days after the initial announcement from the Trump campaign, the president yielded to that backlash and said he would delay the event and instead hold it on June 20. He tweeted: Democrats George Floyd Tulsa race massacre Juneteenth He tweeted But as critics pointed out, the massive gathering still held the potential to expose large numbers of people to COVID-19. As if to confirm the danger, reports appeared saying the Trump campaign was asking attendees to agree in advance not to hold the campaign liable for coronavirus exposure: To investigate the claim that attendees were asked to agree to a liability waiver, we went through the steps of reserving a spot at the Tulsa rally in the days before the event. To receive a digital ticket for the event, attendees had to complete the following form: At the bottom of the registration page, the following text appeared: registration page By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury. In other words, to reserve an entry ticket for the Tulsa rally, people had to agree that they would "assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19" and agree not to sue Trump or any organizers of the event if they got sick. That agreement essentially clears the campaign of any responsibility should attendees catch the virus. At first, campaign leaders declined to elaborate on their plans to protect attendees' health once they were at the event. Then, on June 14, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that attendees should wear masks. And campaign manager Brad Parscale said the following day that event organizers will hand out hand sanitizer and face masks (though they're not necessarily required) and check attendees' temperatures for fevers. He tweeted: Larry Kudlow should wear masks. said tweeted Still unclear is if, or to what extent, the event will promote social distancing. It's possible people will stand or sit less than six feet apart from each other, despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to avoid that close of contact with people to prevent the virus' spread. Additionally, as of June 16, the CDC urged everyone to wear cloth face coverings when they leave their homes, stating on its website: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Considering the ongoing health risks due to COVID-19 and an upward trend in cases statewide, Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart said he would rather the president hold the event at a later date. He told Tulsa World: an upward trend in cases statewide Tulsa World I think its an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic...Im concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and Im also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well. As of June 15, Oklahoma had tallied 359 deaths and 3,417 non-fatal cases due to the virus. The Trump campaign had last held a big rally on March 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina, before much of the country shut down to curb the pandemic. In sum, given the substantiating evidence that, in order to receive a ticket for the Tulsa event, people must click a box agreeing they would not hold the Trump campaign or event organizers liable should they catch COVID-19 at the June 20, 2020, rally, we rate this claim "True". Fox, Joe, et. al. "At Least 112,000 People Have Died from Coronavirus in the U.S." The Washington Post. Accessed 12 June 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "How to Protect Yourself & Others." Accessed 12 June 2020. Sprunt, Barbara. "Upcoming Trump Rally In Tulsa Faces Backlash Over Race, Coronavirus." National Public Radio. 11 June 2020. Bierman, Noah. "Trump Says He Will Resume Campaign Rallies June 19 in Tulsa." Los Angeles Times. 10 June 2020. White House. Remarks by President Trump in Roundtable Discussion. 10 June 2020. Oklahoma State Department of Health. "Current Situation." Accessed 12 June 2020. Chiacu, Doina. "Trump Economic Adviser Urges Wearing of Masks at Tulsa Rally." Reuters. 14 June 2020.

FMD_test_798

Paul Allen Letter About Mormons

03/31/2006

Claim: Paul Allen of Microsoft wrote a letter to a Santa Clarita newspaper in defense of Mormons. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] Comment: I recieved the email below and want to know if it is truely from Paul Allen or not: Paul Allen's Editorial on the "Mormons". Paul Allen is the owner of the Seattle Seahawks. He is also theowner of the Portland Trail Blazers NBA basketball team and is aco-partner with Bill Gates in Microsoft. His letter to the editor waspublished in the Santa Clarita, California newspaper. Editor: I have heard and seen enough! I have lived in the West all my life. I have worked around them. They have worked for me and I for them. When I was young, I dated their daughters. When I got married they came to my wedding. Now that I have daughters of my own, some of their boys have dated my daughters. I would be privileged if one of them were to be my son-in-law. I'm talking about the Mormons. They are some of the most honest, hard-working people I have ever known. They are spiritual, probably more than most other so-called religious people I have encountered. They study the Bible and teach from it as much as any Christian church ever has. They serve their religion without pay in every conceivable capacity. None of their leaders, teachers, counselors, Bishops or music directors receive one dime for the hours of labor they put in. The Mormons have a non-paid ministry a fact not generally known. I have heard many times from the pulpits of others how evil and non-Christian they are and that they will not go to heaven. I decided recently to attend one of their services near my home to see for myself. What a surprise! What I heard and saw was just the opposite from what the religious ministers of the day were telling me. I found a very simple service with no fanfare. I found a people with a great sense of humor and a well-balanced spiritual side. There was no loud music. Just a simple service, with the members themselves giving the several short sermons. They urge their youth to be morally clean and live a good life. They teach the gospel of Christ, as they understand it. The name of their church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Does that sound like a non-Christian church to you? I asked them many questions about what they teach and why. I got answers that in most cases were from the New Testament. Their ideas and doctrines did not seem too far fetched for my understanding. When I read their "Book of Mormon" I was also very surprised to find just the opposite from what I had been told I would find. Then I went to another church's pastor to ask him some of the same questions about doctrine. To my surprise, when he found out that I was in some way investigating the Mormons, he became hostile. He referred to them as a non-Christian cult. I received what sounded to me like evil propaganda against those people. He stated bluntly that they were not Christian and that they did not fit into the Christian mold. He also told me that they don't really believe the Bible. He gave me a pile of anti-Mormon literature. He began to rant that the Mormons were not telling me the truth about what they stand for. He didn't want to hear anything good about them. At first I was surprised and then again, I wasn't. I began to wonder. I have never known of a cult that supports the Boy Scouts of America. According to the Boy Scouts, over a third of all the Boy Scout troops in the United States are Mormon. What cult do you know of that has a welfare system second to none in this country? They have farms, canneries and cattle ranches to help take care of the unfortunate ones who might be down and out and in need of a little help. The Mormon Church has donated millions to welfare causes around the world without a word of credit. They have donated thousands to help re-build Baptist churches that were burned a few years ago. They have donated tons of medical supplies to countries ravaged by earthquakes. You never see them on TV begging for money. What cult do you know of that instills in its members to obey the law, pay their taxes, serve in the military if asked and be a good Christian by living high moral standards? Did you know that hundreds of thousands of Mormon youth get up before high school starts in the morning to attend a religious training class? They have basketball and softball leagues and supervised youth dances every month. They are recruited by the FBI, the State Department and every police department in the country because they are trustworthy. They are taught not to drink nor take drugs. They are in the Secret Service those who protect the President. They serve in high leadership positions from both parties in Congress and in the U.S. Senate, and have been governors of several states other than Utah. They serve with distinction and honor. If you have Mormons living near, you will probably find them to be your best friends and neighbors. They are Christians who try to live what they preach. They are not perfect and they are the first to admit this. I have known some of them who could not live their religion, just like many of us. The rhetoric which is spread around against them is nothing more than evil propaganda founded in untruths. (Others) had successfully demonized them to the point that the general public has no idea what they actually believe and teach. If you really want to know the truth, go see for yourself. You, also, will be surprised. When I first moved here some 25 years ago there were five Mormon wards in Santa Clarita. Now there are 15. They must be doing something right. Paul AllenSanta Clarita, Calif. Origins: The above-quoted letter to the editor by one Paul Allen was indeed published on the opinion page of the Santa Clarita Valley (California) Signal on 24 November 2000. Within five months, someone had re-typed the letter (because the Signal didn't then publish letters to the editor on its web site) and started it circulating on the Internet via e-mail forwards (most of which erroneously stated that it had first been published on 25 April 2002). However, the Paul Allen who wrote this piece was not (as claimed in the example above) the Paul Allen who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates (and regularly ranks high on lists of the world's wealthiest people) he was simply a local resident with the same name. Paul Allen wealthiest Nonetheless, after the e-mail version of Paul Allen's editorial had been making the rounds for only a month, the Signal had received such a deluge of messages inquiring whether they had ever really published such a letter that the newspaper's general manager, Tim Whyte, saw fit to reprint it along with an editorial explaining its origins and the phenomenon it had become: At first, I didnt think much of the e-mails. I answered each as carefully and completely as I could. Little did I know, within a week I would go from being managing editor of The Signal to being "The Guy Who Answers E-mails From Curious Members of the LDS Church Throughout the World Who Want to Know if we REALLY Published a Letter from Paul Allen Praising the Mormons." I have tried to remain professional and helpful to those making the queries, but to be quite frank, it has become a bit overwhelming. I haven't counted, but suffice to say the number of inquiries is easily in the several hundreds. The e-mails and phone calls have come to me from all over Utah, of course, but also a wide array of states ranging from Hawaii to the Beast Coast, and several out of Canada, from Toronto to the remote reaches of Manitoba. (Brrr.) Other nations have been represented, too, including Australia and New Zealand. Apparently, members of the Mormon faith get beat up a lot in the court of public opinion around the nation and world. You wouldn't know it here in Santa Clarita. And again, when I think "Mormon," I still tend to think, "Cute Girls." But there is an almost-sad level of disbelief in these e-mails I receive from people, literally from across the globe, who apparently feel as if their religion is marginalized and ostracized. The people who have sent me notes are invariably incredulous, as if its unlikely that a letter complimentary to the Mormon faith would be penned by someone outside the faith, and then, in turn, published by a community newspaper: Can you please confirm that this letter was really published? Well, yes. It really was. And here, on this page, accompanying this column, is a copy of the original letter. No, I don't have tearsheets available for those who want original copies, but well post this version on our web site making an exception to our typical policy under which one must actually buy the newspaper to read letters to the editor so LDS church members worldwide can copy the text of the letter and get the confirmation they seek, right here in this column. Yes, the letter is complimentary to Mormons. Yes, we really published it-nearly two years ago, but thanks to Internet wizardry and LDS members' skepticism, it's all the rage on Planet Earth and in cyberspace right now. And now, back to your regularly scheduled community newspaper. Well over five years after its initial publication, Paul Allen's letter is still the subject of inquiry (here at snopes.com and at The Signal as well), hence its inclusion here. Last updated: 31 March 2006 Sources: Whyte, Tim. "Have Faith: Letter Was Really Published." The [Santa Clarita Valley] Signal. 26 May 2002.

FMD_test_799

Were These Monstrous Paws Photographed in Alabama?

04/02/2018

A somewhat disturbing image of an unknown animal's feet has been circulating online for several years, alongside a variety of claims about its origins. In March 2018, the photograph was re-purposed and shared as if the creature whose prints it captured had been spotted recently on a game trail in Cleburne County, Alabama: photograph We have not been able to identify the source of this photograph. However, the claims made in recent Facebook posts about it are false: This picture was not taken in March 2018, and the animal it captured traces of (if any) did not destroy a trail camera or kill an Alabama farmer's livestock. This image has been online since at least as far back as October 2015, when it was shared on Instagram along with a story about a sailor in Oman who was "shocked" to find the image on his camera. This photograph has also been used to illustrate similar stories about a strange creature that was supposedly found in India, Brazil, andHawaii. Needless to say, we're skeptical that this exact same photograph was pulled from cameras in so many different locations and times. Instagram India Brazil Hawaii So what does this picture actually show? While this image is frequently claimed to depict evidence of a lobisomem, South America's version of a werewolf, we're fairly certain that this is a dog (or another extant species) suffering from mange: "Mange (demodicosis) is an inflammatory disease in dogs caused by various types of the Demodex mite. When the number of mites inhabiting the hair follicles and skin of the dog become exorbitant, it can lead to skin lesions, genetic disorders, problems with the immune system and hair loss (alopecia)." mange In fact, the paws in this viral photograph closely resemble a 2014 photograph taken by the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham, UK, of a dog suffering from a severe case of sarcoptic mange: photograph