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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/federal-government-workers-30-days/
|
Can Federal Government Workers Be Fired After 30 Days of Shutdown?
|
Bethania Palma
|
01/17/2019
|
[
"The law varies depending on the type of shutdown."
] |
In mid-January 2019, a meme spread on social media that led some users to believe furloughed federal government employees could be fired if the government remains in an ongoing shutdown for 30 days. But that scenario of hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs in the current shutdown won't happen. hundreds of thousands Federal statute requires agencies to take reduction-in-force (RiF) action against employees who have been furloughed for 30 days or more, but that only applies in administrative furloughs, "a planned event by an agency which is designed to absorb reductions necessitated by downsizing, reduced funding, lack of work, or any budget situation other than a lapse in appropriations." statute Furloughs of federal workers as a result of lapses in appropriation are called emergency furloughs." According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, reduction-in-force regulations don't apply in such events: emergency furloughs don't apply "Reductions in force (RIF) furlough regulations and SES competitive furlough requirements are not applicable to emergency shutdown furloughs because the ultimate duration of an emergency shutdown furlough is unknown at the outset and is dependent entirely on Congressional action, rather than agency action. The RIF furlough regulations and SES competitive furlough requirements, on the other hand, contemplate planned, foreseeable, money-saving furloughs that, at the outset, are planned to exceed 30 days." As of this writing on 17 January 2019, the federal government is entering its 27th day of partial shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, and the result of an impasse reached between President Donald Trump and Democratic members of Congress over Trump's demand to include $5.7 billion in appropriations for new U.S.-Mexico border-wall construction. The shutdown has resulted in 800,000 federal employees going without pay, thousands of whom who have been ordered back to work anyway. thousands Haslett, Cheyenne."On Day 25 of Longest-Ever Government Shutdown, 800,000 Federal Employees Are Without Pay."
ABC News.15 January 2019. Haslett, Cheyenne."Tens of Thousands More Federal Employees Called Back to Work as Government Shutdown Reaches Day 27."
ABC News.17 January 2019. Pengelly, Martin, and Laughland, Oliver."Trump Rejects Lindsey Graham's Proposal to Reopen Government."
The Guardian.14 January 2019. U.S. Office of Personnel Management."Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs."
September 2015. U.S. Office of Personnel Management."Pay & Leave; Furlough Guidance." U.S. Office of Personnel Management."Workforce Restructuring; Reduction in Force."
|
[
"budget"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YEPUACmgZqbH1pHorSGI8Lp0rX_cPJ-0"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/Politics/day-walkup-recaps-tightly-top-things-stand-breaks/story?id=60376450"
],
"sentence": "But that scenario of hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs in the current shutdown won't happen."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force/"
],
"sentence": "Federal statute requires agencies to take reduction-in-force (RiF) action against employees who have been furloughed for 30 days or more, but that only applies in administrative furloughs, \"a planned event by an agency which is designed to absorb reductions necessitated by downsizing, reduced funding, lack of work, or any budget situation other than a lapse in appropriations.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/furlough-guidance/",
"https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/furlough-guidance/guidance-for-shutdown-furloughs.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Furloughs of federal workers as a result of lapses in appropriation are called emergency furloughs.\" According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, reduction-in-force regulations don't apply in such events:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/Politics/tens-thousands-federal-employees-called-back-work-government/story?id=60431671"
],
"sentence": "As of this writing on 17 January 2019, the federal government is entering its 27th day of partial shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, and the result of an impasse reached between President Donald Trump and Democratic members of Congress over Trump's demand to include $5.7 billion in appropriations for new U.S.-Mexico border-wall construction. The shutdown has resulted in 800,000 federal employees going without pay, thousands of whom who have been ordered back to work anyway."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/superman/
|
George Reeves Superman Death
|
David Mikkelson
|
05/09/1999
|
[
"Did the actor who played TV's Superman kill himself by trying to fly like his character?"
] |
Claim: The actor who portrayed Superman on television in the 1950s believed he had acquired the character's super powers and accidentally killed himself by trying to fly. Status: False. Origins: Tinseltown is full of tragic tales (of varying degrees of truthfulness) about beloved actors who, having succumbed to the illusion of their profession, ultimately became unable to separate their own personalities from those of the characters they portrayed. None of these stories has a more bizarre ending than the one told about George Reeves, TV's Superman, who allegedly met with an accidental death while attempting to duplicate a feat possible only by someone possessed of his character's super powers. George Reeves (born George Keefer Brewer in 1914) began his Hollywood career in a variety of bit parts in the late 1930s, including a small role in the epic film Gone with the Wind, and worked steadily (if unspectacularly) throughout the 1940s before landing the role that would finally make his name and face a familiar one in American households: Superman. The popular superhero had been featured in numerous comics, radio shows, and films during the 1940s before he was brought to the small screen in a syndicated television series that began production in 1951 with George Reeves in the title role. The series proved itself popular when it finally reached local stations in 1952, additional episodes were filmed from 1953 to 1957. Although the show's budget was quite limited, the series was tremendously popular for a program that did not appear on a network's prime time schedule, and George Reeves became the living embodiment of Superman to millions of American children. As plenty of actors have discovered over the years, fame sometimes exacts a high price from those who achieve it. Despite his being more popular and recognizable than ever, George Reeves became typecast as Superman and was unable to find work when production of The Adventures of Superman series ended in 1957. Despondent and depressed over his inability to secure other acting roles, the 45-year-old Reeves committed suicide on 16 June 1959, shooting himself in the head in the upstairs bedroom of his Beverly Hills home while a party was in progress in the living room below. (Many claims have been made that depict Reeves' death as a murder rather than a suicide. He was allegedly quite upbeat at the time of his death about hearing that the Superman series was going to resume production soon and thus had no reason to kill himself. Rumors also posited that the husband of a woman with whom Reeves had recently broken off a 10-year affair had hired a hitman to kill the actor. None of this speculation has any substantive evidence to back it up, however.) Shortly after Reeves' tragic death, the bizarre story that would stigmatize his untimely end even further began to circulate: Reeves, believing he possessed Superman's super powers, died when he jumped out the window of a multi-story building, expecting that he would fly as his superhero character did rather than plummet to the ground. (Alternate versions of the rumor had Reeves dying after attempting some other demonstration of super strength, such as having bullets or a cannon fired directly at his chest.) Reeves may have been depressed, and he may have been despondent that he was no longer needed for the only role Hollywood seemingly found him suitable for, but he was under no illusion that he was the character he played. The legend about his unusual manner of death likely began as a combination of attempts to rationalize his taking of his own life ("He was crazy" providing a more comprehensible explanation for suicide to many than the complex realities do, especially to people familiar only with a victim's public persona and not the details of his private life) and the apocryphal stories of children killing themselves in similar fashion that already been circulating for several years. (An even more unusual take on this legend had Reeves killing himself because he was despondent over the harm caused to all the kids who had donned Superman capes and jumped from heights, expecting to fly as they had seen Reeves do countless times on the TV show.) We all too often expect our heroes to be larger-than-life in everything, including their deaths. When the facts don't meet our expectations, we manufacture them. George Reeves may not have died a hero, but many of us have been led to believe that he died trying to be one, however misguided that attempt may have been. Last updated: 8 August 2007 Sources: Kashner, Sam. Hollywood Kryptonite. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. ISBN 0-312-14616-7. Hollywood Kryptonite Mitchell, Sean. "TV Confidential." TV Guide. 25 July 1998 (p. 12). Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh. Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. ISBN 0-345-42923-0 (pp. 18-19). Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows
|
[
"budget"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=16zL4w6xai7QhTh5G1dAcMHmCvJZAwJrm"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"../../sources/radiotv/superman.htm"
],
"sentence": " Sources: Kashner, Sam. Hollywood Kryptonite. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. ISBN 0-312-14616-7."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"../../sources/radiotv/tvprime.htm"
],
"sentence": " Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh. Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. ISBN 0-345-42923-0 (pp. 18-19)."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/book-bind/
|
Book Bind
|
Barbara Mikkelson
|
03/18/2006
|
[
"Is the New Orleans Public Library seeking book donations?"
] |
Claim: The New Orleans Public Library is soliciting book donations. Status: Multiple: New Orleans libraries are accepting book donations from the public: True. Donating books is the best way to help the New Orleans libraries rebuild: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2006] Seeking Book DonationsThe New Orleans Public Library(New Orleans LA) The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to: Rica A. Trigs, Public RelationsNew Orleans Public Library219 Loyola AvenueNew Orleans, LA 70112 If you tell the post office that they are for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the library rate which is slightly less than the book rate. Origins: The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina to the Gulf area included serious harm to the New Orleans Public Library (NOPL) system. Katrina damaged the main library and all 12 branches in the system, and as of March 2006 only the main library and four branches are open, and even those for only five hours a day. Until just recently, only 19 of the former 216 NOPL employees remained on the job, the rest having been laid off (partly because of city budget cuts). While another 21 workers have since been rehired (bringing the total up to 40), the libraries are not only physically damaged but are also badly understaffed. Which brings us to this March 2006 appeal for used books with which to restock the New Orleans Public Library system. While the NOPL will accept donated books, potential contributors should take into account the enormous staffing problem the NOPL is attempting to cope with. While on the surface it might seem a brilliant plan to ship off all one's unwanted volumes to answer the need for books to replace those lost or hopelessly damaged by the flooding, the public libraries in that beleaguered city haven't the staff to adequately receive, sort through, catalogue, and place on the shelves all of the public's kindhearted offerings. With so many of that area's libraries still physically unfit to be opened to the public, it's fair to say they currently lack even the shelves to put the books on. In response to this widely e-mailed appeal, the New Orleans Public Library has created a FAQ to aid those persons desirous of lending a helping hand to that institution. In a nutshell, they ask the public to donate money over books: FAQ Does the library accept book donations? Yes. However, due to storage and staff limitations, we ask that donors consider a few suggestions: If you are a publisher, please contact us in advance at wmascari@gno.lib.la.us before shipping large quantities of books. If you are an individual sending your own used books, please consider making a cash donation instead. As the NOPL states: What is the best way to help New Orleans Public Library? Monetary donations are the best way to help the library rebuild (link here to donate online). If you would rather mail your donation, please make your check payable to NOPL Foundation and send it to New Orleans Public Library Foundation, 219 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70112. (link here to donate online) While packaging up your old books and mailing them off might seem the perfect solution to the NOPL's problems, do trust that the library better knows its own needs. Keep in mind that a great many books donated to libraries everywhere prove to be non-useful to those institutions; so, if you are moved to help, send money instead. If you want to support the New Orleans libraries with your old books, you can best do so by selling them yourself and giving the proceeds to the NOPL. Barbara "send cash, not cache" Mikkelson Last updated: 18 March 2006 Sources: Associated Press. "Library Journal, American Library Assn Fixing Two N.O. Libraries." 11 March 2006.
|
[
"budget"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://nutrias.org/~nopl/foundation/donationsfaq.htm"
],
"sentence": "In response to this widely e-mailed appeal, the New Orleans Public Library has created a FAQ to aid those persons desirous of lending a helping hand to that institution. In a nutshell, they ask the public to donate money over books:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://nutrias.org/foundation/katrinafoundationdonation.htm"
],
"sentence": "Monetary donations are the best way to help the library rebuild (link here to donate online). If you would rather mail your donation, please make your check payable to NOPL Foundation and send it to New Orleans Public Library Foundation, 219 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70112."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/may/26/jeb-bush/saga-jeb-bushs-one-time-alias-veto-corleone/
|
Says he was known as Veto Corleone for cutting spending as Florida governor.
|
Joshua Gillin
|
05/26/2015
|
[] |
Former Gov. Jeb Bush has resurrected an infamous moniker from his days in Tallahassee on the campaign trail in an attempt to show he is the godfather of fiscal conservatism. During ameeting with business leaders in Portsmouth, N.H., on May 20, 2015, Bush pointed out he was well-known for using the line-item veto at his disposal as governor. They called me Veto Corleone, which was something I was quite proud of, Bush said, citing a reference to Marlon Brandos character inThe Godfather. He added that he vetoed 2,500 separate line items totaling $2 billion over his eight years. Bush has brought out that anecdote several times during the run-up to a presidential campaign, implying he would again focus on cutting wasteful spending. We wondered if he was accurate in claiming that nickname. We made our own inquiries and found that yes, pork projects really did sleep with the fishes. Offers hecouldrefuse Bush came into office in 1999 vowing to use his line-item veto on state spending he didnt like, and he followed through with a vengeance. He also wanted the state to focus on building reserves. That first year, he shocked lawmakers by slashing $313 million out of the $48.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature. It wasmore than double the previous veto recordof $150 million set by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988. The Senate was so angry about the cuts, theysued Bush over his partial vetoof funding for an extended school year. The Florida Supreme Court eventually ruled Bush defied the state Constitution by cutting $16 million out of a $40 million appropriation to keep schools open longer. They said he either had to cut all of the program or none of it. Media reports said John Thrasher, then speaker of the House, dubbed Bush Veto Corleone after the fictional mafia don (spelled Vito Corleone) for his liberal use of the power. Thrasher, who is now president of Florida State University, confirmed to PolitiFact Florida that he coined the nickname, which seemed to be something of a friendly dig. Thrashers collegial relationship with Bush was apparent in 2000, when Thrasher brought the budget to Bushs office whilewearing a white lab coat and a stethoscopeto make sure the governor has a heart. Bush answered by approving a couple of Thrashers pet projects, then chopping another $313.7 million out of appropriations. Heres a look at how much Bush vetoed from each years budget: Year Total state budget Amount Bush vetoed 1999 $48.6 billion $313 million* 2000 $51 billion $313.7 million 2001 $48.3 billion $288.8 million 2002 $50.4 billion $107 million 2003 $53.5 billion $33 million 2004 $57.3 billion $349 million 2005 $64.7 billion $180 million 2006 $73.9 billion $448.7 million * The state Supreme Court ruled a $16 million veto in 1999 unconstitutional. The first year of Bushs second term, in 2003, Bush cut a low of $33 million, but $7.2 million of that wasfunding for high-speed rail. Bush later led an effort to repeal a constitutional amendment requiring the creation of high-speed rail transit in the state. Bush also saved the most for last, hacking $448.7 million out of the 2006 budget, including a university tuition increase, spending on parks and police vehicles, as well as job training and education programs. That year state spending was up to $73.9 billion, a 52 percent increase from his first year in office. It's never easy, Bushsaid in 2006. You always hurt people's feelings. I don't enjoy that. And I'm always surprised that people are surprised. I've been consistent. There should be no surprises. And the people who really follow the budget knew that. We should note that if Bush wins the presidency, he likely wont get to whack as much. A president doesnt have a line-item veto and has to either accept or reject an entire piece of legislation. Our ruling Bush said they called me Veto Corleone as governor for his frequent use of the line-item veto. He did have a fondness for ruthlessly slashing projects he deemed wasteful or not in line with his agenda. Thrasher confirmed he nicknamed the governor after the fictional mobster. This is one favor we grant Bush. We rate the statement True.
|
[
"State Budget",
"Florida"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/jeb-bush-they-called-me-veto-corleone-448515139767"
],
"sentence": "During ameeting with business leaders in Portsmouth, N.H., on May 20, 2015, Bush pointed out he was well-known for using the line-item veto at his disposal as governor."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1999-05-28/news/9905271191_1_bush-killed-sound-principles-lawmakers"
],
"sentence": "That first year, he shocked lawmakers by slashing $313 million out of the $48.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature. It wasmore than double the previous veto recordof $150 million set by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1999-07-08/news/9907080072_1_senate-bush-s-vetoes-governor"
],
"sentence": "The Senate was so angry about the cuts, theysued Bush over his partial vetoof funding for an extended school year. The Florida Supreme Court eventually ruled Bush defied the state Constitution by cutting $16 million out of a $40 million appropriation to keep schools open longer. They said he either had to cut all of the program or none of it."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.sptimes.com/News/052000/news_pf/State/_Doc__Thrasher_delive.shtml"
],
"sentence": "Thrashers collegial relationship with Bush was apparent in 2000, when Thrasher brought the budget to Bushs office whilewearing a white lab coat and a stethoscopeto make sure the governor has a heart. Bush answered by approving a couple of Thrashers pet projects, then chopping another $313.7 million out of appropriations."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/062303/met_bush.shtml#.VV4nePlVhBc"
],
"sentence": "The first year of Bushs second term, in 2003, Bush cut a low of $33 million, but $7.2 million of that wasfunding for high-speed rail. Bush later led an effort to repeal a constitutional amendment requiring the creation of high-speed rail transit in the state."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006-05-26/news/0605251104_1_bush-s-vetoes-state-budget-jeb-bush"
],
"sentence": "It's never easy, Bushsaid in 2006. You always hurt people's feelings. I don't enjoy that. And I'm always surprised that people are surprised. I've been consistent. There should be no surprises. And the people who really follow the budget knew that."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/born-to-run/
|
Bush Jogs with One-Legged Soldier
|
David Mikkelson
|
05/03/2004
|
[
"Does a photograph show President Bush jogging with a serviceman who lost a leg in Afghanistan?"
] |
Claim: Photograph shows President Bush jogging with a serviceman who lost a leg in Afghanistan. . Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Attached is a picture of Mike McNaughton. He stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan Christmas 2002. President Bush came to visit the wounded in the hospital. He told Mike that when he could run a mile, that they would go on a run together. to his word, he called Mike every month or so to see how he was doing. Well, last week they went on the run, 1 mile with the president. Not something you'll see in the news, but seeing the president taking the time to say thank you to the wounded and to give hope to one of my best friends was one of the greatest/best things I have seen in my life. It almost sounds like a corny email chain letter, but God bless him. Origins: On 9 January 2003, 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Mike McNaughton of Denham Springs, Louisiana, a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard, was serving with the 769th Engineer Battalion in Afghanistan, scouting for land mines. Suddenly, according to Sgt. McNaughton, "I closed my eyes for a second going up in the air and then landing on the ground, and that's when I just I knew exactly what happened." Sgt. McNaughton had stepped on an anti-personnel mine, and in the resulting blast he lost his right leg, as well as themiddle and ring fingers of his right hand and a chunk of his left leg. Sgt. McNaughton was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for immediate treatment and later flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for follow-on care. In the months since his wounding, Sgt. McNaughton has undergone at least 11 separate operations as a result of his injuries and has been fitted with a thin, robotic prosthetic shaft to replace his right leg. While recuperating at Walter Reed, Sgt. McNaughton was honored to receive a visit from President Bush. One of the subjects of common interest they discussed was running, and the President extended an invitation to Sgt. McNaughton to come running with him once he was up and about. The President's invitation posed something of a dilemma for Sgt. McNaughton: "He said give him a call and we'll go running. How are you supposed to just call the president?" Fortunately, Sgt. McNaughton's doctor at Walter Reed was also a doctor for the President, and the two men were able to keep in touch through her. In April 2004, Sgt. McNaughton and his family made the trip to Washington, and true to his word the President went for a run with him. According to Baton Rouge television station WAFB, Sgt. McNaughton described his return visit with President Bush thusly: "It rained a little bit. I didn't care if it was storming or lightning all around, I didn't care. It was nice to run with him. "He has a weight room upstairs, in the White House. We worked out for about 45 minutes, we tried different equipment. He said I couldn't do it, so I had to prove him wrong. "This goes back to my military training. I never once stopped something and said I can't do it or quit. Just because I lost my leg, why should I start now?" Sergeant McNaughton says the president was more interested with his new leg than even his own children. McNaughton says the president couldn't stop looking at it or asking questions about it. Additional information: Wounded Guard Soldiers Visited (The Army National Guard) Last updated: 13 August 2007 Sources: Marshall, Peter. "P-769th Soldier." WBRZ-TV [Baton Rouge]. 5 August 2003. WAFB-TV [Baton Rouge]. "Denham Springs Man Goes Jogging with the President." 23 April 2004.
|
[
"interest"
] |
[
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"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1TqTCL0S7zCqNDPM8gtPiD7SvR0ymyNYW"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20030219011314/https://www.arng.army.mil/news/news_view.asp?nav_link_id=94&news_id=564"
],
"sentence": " Wounded Guard Soldiers Visited (The Army National Guard)"
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/letter-from-the-boss/
|
Letter from the Boss
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/20/2011
|
[
"Employer issued letter to employees that any further taxes on his business will result in his shutting it down?"
] |
Claim: An employer issued a missive to his employees stating that any additional taxes on his business would result in his shutting the company down. LEGEND Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child'sfuture. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy stupid" I'm telling you it isn't. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed,Your boss Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous "Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers." lay off The "To All My Valued Employees" letter quoted above is another of such ilk. In it, a boss threatens to shut down his company (thus wiping out the livelihoods of the 14 people who work there) if any more taxes are levied upon him, an outcome he views a virtual certainty under an Obama presidency. The piece is perhaps best viewed as an attempt to put into real-world terms the possible consequences to average folks if business is interfered with to the point of no longer being able to operate rather than as an actual letter sent by a real boss to his employees. Although our earliest sighting of this item dates to 3 November 2008, textual clues within the missive (such as"Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best" and "So, when you make decision to vote") indicate it was likely penned sooner than just the day before the 2008 presidential election. The original author of this piece is unknown to us. While some versions are merely signed "Your Boss," others are attributed to Michael A. Crowley of Wake Forest, North Carolina, via inclusion of his signature block at the end of the piece. Crowley himself denies authorship, saying: In reference to the "To all my valued employees" letter currently circulating the internet: This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague. While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. I forwarded it to the "John McCain Joe the Plumbers" email group prior to the election. Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter. I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message. Michael A. Crowley, PE While sometimes people looking to distance themselves from soapbox pieces they've penned subsequently claim they found such contentious items elsewhere on the Internet and merely forwarded them to others, that is not the case here. More than just Crowley's own words of denial support his claim of non-authorship, with the key to that proof lying in the very signature block that has worked to convince so many of his being the real "boss" behind the letter. That signature block identifies his firm as Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc., a now defunct business entity that (according to North Carolina's Secretary of State) was formed in May 2007. The missive so widely laid at Crowley's feet states "I started this company 12 years ago." Twelve years prior to 2008 was 1996. (His current firm, Crowley & Associates, Inc., was formed in October 2000.) Were Crowley the actual author, that line about when he began his company would have read "last year" or "8 years ago." The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here. here In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: "I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls." sent Last updated: 9 October 2012
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"sentence": "Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous \"Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency\" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers.\""
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"sentence": "In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: \"I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls.\" "
}
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false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/letter-from-the-boss/
|
Message from the Employer
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/20/2011
|
[
"Employer issued letter to employees that any further taxes on his business will result in his shutting it down?"
] |
Claim: An employer issued a missive to his employees stating that any additional taxes on his business would result in his shutting the company down. LEGEND Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child'sfuture. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy stupid" I'm telling you it isn't. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed,Your boss Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous "Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers." lay off The "To All My Valued Employees" letter quoted above is another of such ilk. In it, a boss threatens to shut down his company (thus wiping out the livelihoods of the 14 people who work there) if any more taxes are levied upon him, an outcome he views a virtual certainty under an Obama presidency. The piece is perhaps best viewed as an attempt to put into real-world terms the possible consequences to average folks if business is interfered with to the point of no longer being able to operate rather than as an actual letter sent by a real boss to his employees. Although our earliest sighting of this item dates to 3 November 2008, textual clues within the missive (such as"Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best" and "So, when you make decision to vote") indicate it was likely penned sooner than just the day before the 2008 presidential election. The original author of this piece is unknown to us. While some versions are merely signed "Your Boss," others are attributed to Michael A. Crowley of Wake Forest, North Carolina, via inclusion of his signature block at the end of the piece. Crowley himself denies authorship, saying: In reference to the "To all my valued employees" letter currently circulating the internet: This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague. While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. I forwarded it to the "John McCain Joe the Plumbers" email group prior to the election. Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter. I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message. Michael A. Crowley, PE While sometimes people looking to distance themselves from soapbox pieces they've penned subsequently claim they found such contentious items elsewhere on the Internet and merely forwarded them to others, that is not the case here. More than just Crowley's own words of denial support his claim of non-authorship, with the key to that proof lying in the very signature block that has worked to convince so many of his being the real "boss" behind the letter. That signature block identifies his firm as Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc., a now defunct business entity that (according to North Carolina's Secretary of State) was formed in May 2007. The missive so widely laid at Crowley's feet states "I started this company 12 years ago." Twelve years prior to 2008 was 1996. (His current firm, Crowley & Associates, Inc., was formed in October 2000.) Were Crowley the actual author, that line about when he began his company would have read "last year" or "8 years ago." The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here. here In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: "I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls." sent Last updated: 9 October 2012
|
[
"income"
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[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/business/layoff.asp"
],
"sentence": "Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous \"Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency\" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/info/crowley.asp"
],
"sentence": "The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected"
],
"sentence": "In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: \"I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls.\" "
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/letter-from-the-boss/
|
Communication from the superior.
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/20/2011
|
[
"Employer issued letter to employees that any further taxes on his business will result in his shutting it down?"
] |
Claim: An employer issued a missive to his employees stating that any additional taxes on his business would result in his shutting the company down. LEGEND Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child'sfuture. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy stupid" I'm telling you it isn't. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed,Your boss Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous "Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers." lay off The "To All My Valued Employees" letter quoted above is another of such ilk. In it, a boss threatens to shut down his company (thus wiping out the livelihoods of the 14 people who work there) if any more taxes are levied upon him, an outcome he views a virtual certainty under an Obama presidency. The piece is perhaps best viewed as an attempt to put into real-world terms the possible consequences to average folks if business is interfered with to the point of no longer being able to operate rather than as an actual letter sent by a real boss to his employees. Although our earliest sighting of this item dates to 3 November 2008, textual clues within the missive (such as"Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best" and "So, when you make decision to vote") indicate it was likely penned sooner than just the day before the 2008 presidential election. The original author of this piece is unknown to us. While some versions are merely signed "Your Boss," others are attributed to Michael A. Crowley of Wake Forest, North Carolina, via inclusion of his signature block at the end of the piece. Crowley himself denies authorship, saying: In reference to the "To all my valued employees" letter currently circulating the internet: This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague. While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. I forwarded it to the "John McCain Joe the Plumbers" email group prior to the election. Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter. I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message. Michael A. Crowley, PE While sometimes people looking to distance themselves from soapbox pieces they've penned subsequently claim they found such contentious items elsewhere on the Internet and merely forwarded them to others, that is not the case here. More than just Crowley's own words of denial support his claim of non-authorship, with the key to that proof lying in the very signature block that has worked to convince so many of his being the real "boss" behind the letter. That signature block identifies his firm as Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc., a now defunct business entity that (according to North Carolina's Secretary of State) was formed in May 2007. The missive so widely laid at Crowley's feet states "I started this company 12 years ago." Twelve years prior to 2008 was 1996. (His current firm, Crowley & Associates, Inc., was formed in October 2000.) Were Crowley the actual author, that line about when he began his company would have read "last year" or "8 years ago." The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here. here In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: "I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls." sent Last updated: 9 October 2012
|
[
"taxes"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/business/layoff.asp"
],
"sentence": "Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous \"Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency\" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/info/crowley.asp"
],
"sentence": "The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected"
],
"sentence": "In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: \"I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls.\" "
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/letter-from-the-boss/
|
Communication from the employer
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/20/2011
|
[
"Employer issued letter to employees that any further taxes on his business will result in his shutting it down?"
] |
Claim: An employer issued a missive to his employees stating that any additional taxes on his business would result in his shutting the company down. LEGEND Example: [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child'sfuture. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy stupid" I'm telling you it isn't. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed,Your boss Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous "Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers." lay off The "To All My Valued Employees" letter quoted above is another of such ilk. In it, a boss threatens to shut down his company (thus wiping out the livelihoods of the 14 people who work there) if any more taxes are levied upon him, an outcome he views a virtual certainty under an Obama presidency. The piece is perhaps best viewed as an attempt to put into real-world terms the possible consequences to average folks if business is interfered with to the point of no longer being able to operate rather than as an actual letter sent by a real boss to his employees. Although our earliest sighting of this item dates to 3 November 2008, textual clues within the missive (such as"Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best" and "So, when you make decision to vote") indicate it was likely penned sooner than just the day before the 2008 presidential election. The original author of this piece is unknown to us. While some versions are merely signed "Your Boss," others are attributed to Michael A. Crowley of Wake Forest, North Carolina, via inclusion of his signature block at the end of the piece. Crowley himself denies authorship, saying: In reference to the "To all my valued employees" letter currently circulating the internet: This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague. While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. I forwarded it to the "John McCain Joe the Plumbers" email group prior to the election. Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter. I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message. Michael A. Crowley, PE While sometimes people looking to distance themselves from soapbox pieces they've penned subsequently claim they found such contentious items elsewhere on the Internet and merely forwarded them to others, that is not the case here. More than just Crowley's own words of denial support his claim of non-authorship, with the key to that proof lying in the very signature block that has worked to convince so many of his being the real "boss" behind the letter. That signature block identifies his firm as Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc., a now defunct business entity that (according to North Carolina's Secretary of State) was formed in May 2007. The missive so widely laid at Crowley's feet states "I started this company 12 years ago." Twelve years prior to 2008 was 1996. (His current firm, Crowley & Associates, Inc., was formed in October 2000.) Were Crowley the actual author, that line about when he began his company would have read "last year" or "8 years ago." The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here. here In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: "I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls." sent Last updated: 9 October 2012
|
[
"economy"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/business/layoff.asp"
],
"sentence": "Origins: In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous \"Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency\" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"/politics/info/crowley.asp"
],
"sentence": "The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://gawker.com/5950189/the-ceo-who-built-himself-americas-largest-house-just-threatened-to-fire-his-employees-if-obamas-elected"
],
"sentence": "In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: \"I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls.\" "
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-30000-cows-freeze-to-death-in-a-winter-storm/
|
Did 30,000 Cows Freeze to Death in a Winter Storm?
|
Dan Evon
|
01/11/2017
|
[
"A story that thousands of cattle were left dead after a winter storm was from 2015, not 2017."
] |
In January 2017, a photograph purportedly showing a group of cows that had been apparently frozen solid was circulated on Facebook along with the claim that 30,000 animals had just died in a winter storm: Both the photograph displayed here and its accompanying claim are legitimate. However, while this meme appeared again (and was mistaken for current) in January 2017, this graphic actually references a winter storm that occurred at the end of December 2015. Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico: reported Dairy producers in Texas and New Mexico have estimated that the number of animals that died during the recent Winter Storm Goliath will climb to more than 30,000. The winds are believed to be the cause for many of the animals deaths. It created drifts as high as 14 feet and pushed animals into fenced corners where they suffocated, according to The Associated Press. "As Winter Storm Goliath wrapped up over the southern Plains, strong winds were associated with the storm's tightening pressure gradient," said weather.com meteorologist Quincy Vagell. "When combined with snow, the winds were strong enough to create dangerous blizzard conditions." Executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen Darren Turley said that an estimated 15,000 mature dairy cows died between Lubbock, Muleshoe and Friona, the primary impact area of the storm, AP also reports. This region includes the home of half the states top 10 milk-producing counties, which provide 40 percent of Texas milk. According to an agent with New Mexico State Universitys extension service, the state lost an estimated 20,000 cows. Like all agriculture, dairy producers always operate at the mercy of Mother Nature, said Turley. With Goliath, she dealt a particularly harsh and costly blow to the areas dairy producers, from the death of thousands of livestock they spend so much time caring for to a loss of milk production both over the weekend and in the future. The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road: Tri-State Livestock News The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody "felt the need" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the "Houston Chronicle" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm: report More than one foot of snow on December 27 surprised ranchers and dairy farmers in a region accustomed to a few inches of precipitation each winter. Unlike their northern peers, Texas cattle raisers rarely own four-walled barns designed to keep cattle warn, often opting instead for open structures meant to keep Texas cattle cool during the long, hot summers. Forecast warnings of a "historic blizzard" came too late. Voinis said some cattle raisers had tried to build shelters with hay bales and machinery, to little avail. Some cattle were buried in snowdrifts formed by gale force winds. Others froze to death in the open, died of frostbite in later days or just disappeared. Initial loss estimates increased greatly in the days following the storm. A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm: story Meteorologists sounded the first warnings about the storm some eight days before it hit on Dec. 26. Farmers prepared as best they could putting down extra bedding behind wind breaks, placing extra bales of hay in front of calf bungalows and in places where snow typically accumulates. But as the blizzard raged on, cows that had sought shelter behind windbreakers were buried alive by drifting snow. Others froze to death on open fields. Calves that had been nestled inside hutches went hungry because no one could reach them. Farmers who tried to rescue their animals became disoriented and lost on their own land. We did the best we could for our animals, Ms. Beckerink said. But as the storm worsened, saving them meant risking the lives of her workers a horrifying decision to make. The deaths of the cattle dramatically affected the livelihoods of farmers in both states. It is extremely unlikely that any farmer (dependent on their animals for money and food) would cavalierly leave their main source of income and food out in the snow to freeze to death, despite what this meme implies. Carr, Ada. "Dairy Cow Death Toll to Surpass 30,000 in Texas, New Mexico Due to Winter Storm Goliath." The Weather Channel. 5 January 2016. Maude, Heather. "Winter storm Goliath affects cattle producers in Texas, New Mexico." Tri-State Livestock News. 12 January 2016.
|
[
"loss"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aYYjpBZRxFfddfoDtCKJwXhhNYotcNNF"
},
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1nKfmfmVogYpd4933fpod0b3isnhBh7i8"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://weather.com/news/news/dairy-cows-winter-storm-goliath-texas-new-mexico?cm_ven=T_WX_AN_10116_14"
],
"sentence": "Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.tsln.com/news/winter-storm-goliath-affects-cattle-producers-in-texas-new-mexico/"
],
"sentence": "The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/20K-cattle-freeze-to-death-in-freak-Texas-blizzard-6738249.php"
],
"sentence": "The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody \"felt the need\" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the \"Houston Chronicle\" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/us/in-west-texas-hundreds-of-dairy-cows-killed-by-blizzard.html"
],
"sentence": "A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm:"
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-30000-cows-freeze-to-death-in-a-winter-storm/
|
Did 30,000 cows perish due to the extreme cold during a winter storm?
|
Dan Evon
|
01/11/2017
|
[
"A story that thousands of cattle were left dead after a winter storm was from 2015, not 2017."
] |
In January 2017, a photograph purportedly showing a group of cows that had been apparently frozen solid was circulated on Facebook along with the claim that 30,000 animals had just died in a winter storm: Both the photograph displayed here and its accompanying claim are legitimate. However, while this meme appeared again (and was mistaken for current) in January 2017, this graphic actually references a winter storm that occurred at the end of December 2015. Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico: reported Dairy producers in Texas and New Mexico have estimated that the number of animals that died during the recent Winter Storm Goliath will climb to more than 30,000. The winds are believed to be the cause for many of the animals deaths. It created drifts as high as 14 feet and pushed animals into fenced corners where they suffocated, according to The Associated Press. "As Winter Storm Goliath wrapped up over the southern Plains, strong winds were associated with the storm's tightening pressure gradient," said weather.com meteorologist Quincy Vagell. "When combined with snow, the winds were strong enough to create dangerous blizzard conditions." Executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen Darren Turley said that an estimated 15,000 mature dairy cows died between Lubbock, Muleshoe and Friona, the primary impact area of the storm, AP also reports. This region includes the home of half the states top 10 milk-producing counties, which provide 40 percent of Texas milk. According to an agent with New Mexico State Universitys extension service, the state lost an estimated 20,000 cows. Like all agriculture, dairy producers always operate at the mercy of Mother Nature, said Turley. With Goliath, she dealt a particularly harsh and costly blow to the areas dairy producers, from the death of thousands of livestock they spend so much time caring for to a loss of milk production both over the weekend and in the future. The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road: Tri-State Livestock News The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody "felt the need" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the "Houston Chronicle" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm: report More than one foot of snow on December 27 surprised ranchers and dairy farmers in a region accustomed to a few inches of precipitation each winter. Unlike their northern peers, Texas cattle raisers rarely own four-walled barns designed to keep cattle warn, often opting instead for open structures meant to keep Texas cattle cool during the long, hot summers. Forecast warnings of a "historic blizzard" came too late. Voinis said some cattle raisers had tried to build shelters with hay bales and machinery, to little avail. Some cattle were buried in snowdrifts formed by gale force winds. Others froze to death in the open, died of frostbite in later days or just disappeared. Initial loss estimates increased greatly in the days following the storm. A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm: story Meteorologists sounded the first warnings about the storm some eight days before it hit on Dec. 26. Farmers prepared as best they could putting down extra bedding behind wind breaks, placing extra bales of hay in front of calf bungalows and in places where snow typically accumulates. But as the blizzard raged on, cows that had sought shelter behind windbreakers were buried alive by drifting snow. Others froze to death on open fields. Calves that had been nestled inside hutches went hungry because no one could reach them. Farmers who tried to rescue their animals became disoriented and lost on their own land. We did the best we could for our animals, Ms. Beckerink said. But as the storm worsened, saving them meant risking the lives of her workers a horrifying decision to make. The deaths of the cattle dramatically affected the livelihoods of farmers in both states. It is extremely unlikely that any farmer (dependent on their animals for money and food) would cavalierly leave their main source of income and food out in the snow to freeze to death, despite what this meme implies. Carr, Ada. "Dairy Cow Death Toll to Surpass 30,000 in Texas, New Mexico Due to Winter Storm Goliath." The Weather Channel. 5 January 2016. Maude, Heather. "Winter storm Goliath affects cattle producers in Texas, New Mexico." Tri-State Livestock News. 12 January 2016.
|
[
"income"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1uIPY8MR-PfTyUVMkOuzpaN-6rVjeLpWA"
},
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1isDaDJRRu7UwqUnwRdAcp3MJgI-Z_lOF"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://weather.com/news/news/dairy-cows-winter-storm-goliath-texas-new-mexico?cm_ven=T_WX_AN_10116_14"
],
"sentence": "Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.tsln.com/news/winter-storm-goliath-affects-cattle-producers-in-texas-new-mexico/"
],
"sentence": "The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/20K-cattle-freeze-to-death-in-freak-Texas-blizzard-6738249.php"
],
"sentence": "The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody \"felt the need\" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the \"Houston Chronicle\" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/us/in-west-texas-hundreds-of-dairy-cows-killed-by-blizzard.html"
],
"sentence": "A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm:"
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-30000-cows-freeze-to-death-in-a-winter-storm/
|
Were 30,000 cows lost to death during a winter storm due to freezing temperatures?
|
Dan Evon
|
01/11/2017
|
[
"A story that thousands of cattle were left dead after a winter storm was from 2015, not 2017."
] |
In January 2017, a photograph purportedly showing a group of cows that had been apparently frozen solid was circulated on Facebook along with the claim that 30,000 animals had just died in a winter storm: Both the photograph displayed here and its accompanying claim are legitimate. However, while this meme appeared again (and was mistaken for current) in January 2017, this graphic actually references a winter storm that occurred at the end of December 2015. Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico: reported Dairy producers in Texas and New Mexico have estimated that the number of animals that died during the recent Winter Storm Goliath will climb to more than 30,000. The winds are believed to be the cause for many of the animals deaths. It created drifts as high as 14 feet and pushed animals into fenced corners where they suffocated, according to The Associated Press. "As Winter Storm Goliath wrapped up over the southern Plains, strong winds were associated with the storm's tightening pressure gradient," said weather.com meteorologist Quincy Vagell. "When combined with snow, the winds were strong enough to create dangerous blizzard conditions." Executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen Darren Turley said that an estimated 15,000 mature dairy cows died between Lubbock, Muleshoe and Friona, the primary impact area of the storm, AP also reports. This region includes the home of half the states top 10 milk-producing counties, which provide 40 percent of Texas milk. According to an agent with New Mexico State Universitys extension service, the state lost an estimated 20,000 cows. Like all agriculture, dairy producers always operate at the mercy of Mother Nature, said Turley. With Goliath, she dealt a particularly harsh and costly blow to the areas dairy producers, from the death of thousands of livestock they spend so much time caring for to a loss of milk production both over the weekend and in the future. The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road: Tri-State Livestock News The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody "felt the need" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the "Houston Chronicle" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm: report More than one foot of snow on December 27 surprised ranchers and dairy farmers in a region accustomed to a few inches of precipitation each winter. Unlike their northern peers, Texas cattle raisers rarely own four-walled barns designed to keep cattle warn, often opting instead for open structures meant to keep Texas cattle cool during the long, hot summers. Forecast warnings of a "historic blizzard" came too late. Voinis said some cattle raisers had tried to build shelters with hay bales and machinery, to little avail. Some cattle were buried in snowdrifts formed by gale force winds. Others froze to death in the open, died of frostbite in later days or just disappeared. Initial loss estimates increased greatly in the days following the storm. A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm: story Meteorologists sounded the first warnings about the storm some eight days before it hit on Dec. 26. Farmers prepared as best they could putting down extra bedding behind wind breaks, placing extra bales of hay in front of calf bungalows and in places where snow typically accumulates. But as the blizzard raged on, cows that had sought shelter behind windbreakers were buried alive by drifting snow. Others froze to death on open fields. Calves that had been nestled inside hutches went hungry because no one could reach them. Farmers who tried to rescue their animals became disoriented and lost on their own land. We did the best we could for our animals, Ms. Beckerink said. But as the storm worsened, saving them meant risking the lives of her workers a horrifying decision to make. The deaths of the cattle dramatically affected the livelihoods of farmers in both states. It is extremely unlikely that any farmer (dependent on their animals for money and food) would cavalierly leave their main source of income and food out in the snow to freeze to death, despite what this meme implies. Carr, Ada. "Dairy Cow Death Toll to Surpass 30,000 in Texas, New Mexico Due to Winter Storm Goliath." The Weather Channel. 5 January 2016. Maude, Heather. "Winter storm Goliath affects cattle producers in Texas, New Mexico." Tri-State Livestock News. 12 January 2016.
|
[
"loss"
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[
{
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"https://weather.com/news/news/dairy-cows-winter-storm-goliath-texas-new-mexico?cm_ven=T_WX_AN_10116_14"
],
"sentence": "Weather.com reported that more than 15,000 cows died during Winter Storm Goliath in Texas, while another 20,000 froze to death in New Mexico:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.tsln.com/news/winter-storm-goliath-affects-cattle-producers-in-texas-new-mexico/"
],
"sentence": "The photograph is also real, although we were not able to determine a definite source. An uncropped version of the image was published by Tri-State Livestock News shortly after the storm, which showed a group of frozen (or near-frozen) cattle on the side of the road:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/20K-cattle-freeze-to-death-in-freak-Texas-blizzard-6738249.php"
],
"sentence": "The other part of the meme heavily implied that the cows froze to death out of neglect, because nobody \"felt the need\" to bring them inside in the cold weather. The truth is, of course, more complicated. A January 5, 2016 report from the \"Houston Chronicle\" detailed efforts farmers undertook to protect their cattle from the freak storm:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/us/in-west-texas-hundreds-of-dairy-cows-killed-by-blizzard.html"
],
"sentence": "A similar story unfolded in New Mexico, which was swept by the same storm:"
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/celebrity-trump-obama-together/
|
Did Dolly Parton Say: 'Trump In One Year Is Already Better Than 16 Years of Bush, Obama Put Together'?
|
David Mikkelson
|
01/26/2018
|
[
"Celebrities say the most outrageous things, especially when it comes to politics! Or do they? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't."
] |
One of the several forms of political clickbait that has sprung up in the online world in recent years the false attribution of controversial and inflammatory political statements to various celebrities, a form that has already appropriated the name of notables such as Sandra Bullock, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Yet another expression of this misleading technique for generating clicks is attributing the sentiment that "Trump in one year is already better than 16 years of Bush and Obama put together" to celebrities ranging from actress Michelle Pfeiffer to singer Dolly Parton: Sandra Bullock Bruce Willis Demi Moore Neither of these women (nor any other prominent entertainer) gave voice to this thought; it was actually a paraphrase of an opinion expressed by Brett Decker, a former Wall Street Journal editor and the author of the book Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening Americas Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination, while discussing economic policy during a radio interview on 5 January 2018: expressed Decker rejected narratives crediting former President Barack Obamas economic policies with recently developing economic figures during Trumps presidential tenure, framing such assertions as absolutely crazy: You look at the unemployment numbers, and its 4.1 percent. I look at Obama and Bush kind of combined, when I look at this block of sixteen years. Anyone that says this is inheriting some kind of Obama economy, he had eight years, and in 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent, absolutely crazy ... This idea that it has anything to do with Obama is absolutely crazy. Trump in one year is already better than sixteen years of those guys [i.e., George W. Bush and Barack Obama] put together, said Decker, pointing to a current 17-year high in consumer confidence. Kraychik, Robert. "Brett Decker: Trump in One Year Is Already Better Than 16 Years of Bush, Obama Put Together."
Breitbart. 6 January 2018.
|
[
"economy"
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},
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Y-LUkOWuXkrIPsY5vMjnZjp95tR1ruTJ"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/sandra-bullock-trump-clinton/",
"https://www.snopes.com/does-trump-loving-celebrity-want-critics-to-move/",
"https://www.snopes.com/demi-moore-trump-supporters/"
],
"sentence": "One of the several forms of political clickbait that has sprung up in the online world in recent years the false attribution of controversial and inflammatory political statements to various celebrities, a form that has already appropriated the name of notables such as Sandra Bullock, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Yet another expression of this misleading technique for generating clicks is attributing the sentiment that \"Trump in one year is already better than 16 years of Bush and Obama put together\" to celebrities ranging from actress Michelle Pfeiffer to singer Dolly Parton:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.is/FElFc"
],
"sentence": "Neither of these women (nor any other prominent entertainer) gave voice to this thought; it was actually a paraphrase of an opinion expressed by Brett Decker, a former Wall Street Journal editor and the author of the book Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening Americas Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination, while discussing economic policy during a radio interview on 5 January 2018:"
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/mar/28/kamala-harris/kamala-harris-wrong-trump-isnt-raiding-money-milit/
|
Says Trump administration is raiding moneyfrom military service member pensions to pay for the border wall.
|
Chris Nichols
|
03/28/2019
|
[] |
California Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has sharply criticized President Trump for his plans to divert military funds to pay for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump in February declared a national emergency on the border to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build the wall. One of Harris recent attacks caught our attention: She claimed the Trump administration was raiding money from the military pensions of service members to pay for the barrier. Members of our military have already given so much. Raiding money from their pensions to fund the Presidents wasteful vanity project is outrageous. Our servicemembers deserve better, Harris said on March 8 onTwitterandFacebook. Is the Trump administration really planning to raid military pensions? FactCheck.org, along with some social media users who commented on Harris posts, described her claim as misleading or wrong. We decided to fact-check her provocative statement ourselves. Background on Trumps national emergency declaration Democratic leaders have called Trumps emergency declaration a power grab, and some Republicans also said it sets a dangerous precedent. The move allows the president to transfer $3.6 billion from military construction projects to the wall, according to the White House. It also gives him the ability to tap $2.5 billion from drug interdiction programs and $600 million from a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement in February: The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available. The House and Senate voted this month to block the declaration. Trump vetoed the joint resolution shortly after. A bid to override the veto failed this week in the House. Sixteen states, including California, have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Trumps authority to divert funds for the border wall. Examining Harris claim To support her statement, Harris linked in her social media posts to a March 7 Associated Pressarticle. Reading just the headline -- Pentagon may tap military pay, pensions for border wall -- Harris claim seems mostly accurate. But the first paragraph describes the money as leftover funds, casts a different light. The Pentagon is planning to tap $1 billion in leftover funds from military pay and pension accounts to help President Donald Trump pay for his long-sought border wall, a top Senate Democrat said Thursday. The money is available because the Army missed a recruitment goal by 6,500 enlistees. Additionally, fewer soldiers opted to take financial incentives for voluntary early retirement, according to the article. The Pentagon plans to move the extra money to its drug interdiction account, freeing it up to spend on border barriers, the AP reported. Experts say claim misses the mark To further assess Harris claim of raiding pensions, we spoke with three experts on federal defense budgets. Each said the senators statement was inaccurate. Its off-base, said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at theCenter for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization. He said the money is leftover in certain Army personnel accounts. Its a separate issue worth debating whether that money should be used for the border wall or should be used for other purposes within the military. But the fact that theyre moving money out of these accounts is not an indication that anyone is cutting military pay or cutting benefits or pension payments. Thats not the case. No military service members pension would be reduced, he said. Mark Cancian, who worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget on defense budget strategy during the Obama administration, agreed that Harris statement is wrong. The answer is, No. They are not raiding military pensions, Cancian said. Im sure the Army had some places they would have preferred to send that money. But they are not taking any money from pensions. Cancian is now a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Travis Sharp directs the budget program at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, which provides independent defense budget analysis. He also said Harris statement is flawed. This is another example of there being a lot of confusion about what it means to cut something in the budget, Sharp said. Transferring money after an agency overestimated how much something would cost is not the same as a cut, he said. The Department of Defense has to budget in advance for things that are unpredictable, Sharp said. The money thats leftover is what the Trump administration is trying to reallocate. Does that constitute a cut? In my opinion, no. Thats not a cut. When the Pentagon has funds remaining in one account, it can reprogram the money to others, such as a health care or fuel accounts that have a budget shortfall, Cancian said. If that doesnt happen, Congress will rescind that money and use it for other purposes, Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Harris campaign provided a written statement: The AP reported that money is being transferred from a fund dedicated to pensions of armed service members. The President is trying to circumvent Congress who refused to give him funding for this wall by diverting resources from other military funds. The spokesperson would not say whether the senator stood by the original claim. Our rating Sen. Kamala Harris claimed the Trump administration was raiding money from the military pensions of service members to pay for the wall. In reality, the Pentagon plans to move leftover pay and retirement funds that are available because fewer soldiers opted for an early retirement program and because the Army missed a recruitment goal by 6,500 enlistees. No service members would lose pay or retirement benefits as a result of the move, according to experts on federal defense budgets. The headline in the article Harris relied on did not make this clear. But its important for anyone, especially a public official, to read beyond a headline before making such a claim. The debate over whether the Trump administration should tap this money is a separate issue. Harris claim was off-the-mark. We rate it False. FALSEThe statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.
|
[
"Immigration",
"Congress",
"Military",
"Pensions",
"California"
] |
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{
"image_caption": "Members of our military have already given so much. Raiding money from their pensions to fund the Presidents wasteful vanity project is outrageous. Our servicemembers deserve better, Harris said on March 8 onTwitterandFacebook.",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1OwDEuk22vW6mxrE8yb-Q4NaCZ6Z1t9BW"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1104102015897124865"
],
"sentence": "Members of our military have already given so much. Raiding money from their pensions to fund the Presidents wasteful vanity project is outrageous. Our servicemembers deserve better, Harris said on March 8 onTwitterandFacebook."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/democrats-mislead-on-military-pay-pensions/"
],
"sentence": "FactCheck.org, along with some social media users who commented on Harris posts, described her claim as misleading or wrong. We decided to fact-check her provocative statement ourselves."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/politics/national-emergency-lawsuits-trump.html"
],
"sentence": "Sixteen states, including California, have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Trumps authority to divert funds for the border wall."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://apnews.com/ba6c2bc1fa024393801131bfbaa9cd89"
],
"sentence": "To support her statement, Harris linked in her social media posts to a March 7 Associated Pressarticle. Reading just the headline -- Pentagon may tap military pay, pensions for border wall -- Harris claim seems mostly accurate."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csis.org/programs/about-us"
],
"sentence": "Its off-base, said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at theCenter for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/nov/01/principles-politifact-punditfact-and-truth-o-meter/"
],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-little-rascals/
|
The Little Rascals and Bill Cosby
|
David Mikkelson
|
09/17/1999
|
[
"Did Bill Cosby buy up the rights to the 'Little Rascals' comedies to keep them off of TV?"
] |
Claim: Bill Cosby bought up the rights to The Little Rascals (or Our Gang) comedies in order to keep them off television because they depict racial stereotypes. . Origins: Spanky. Alfalfa. Buckwheat. Darla. Just a few of the easily recognizable names that were a fond part of the childhoods of generations of kids: beloved characters from the 221 Our Gang comedy shorts that Hal Roach produced between 1922 and 1944. Roach's approach was to make films featuring kids being kids, full of fun and spontaneity, not films full of precocious children acting like adults. With the advent of television, the Our Gang shorts (shown under the name The Little Rascals became standard after-school viewing fare for generation after generation of youngsters. The depiction of black characters in these films was generally standard for its time. Buckwheat, in particular, spoke and acted in a manner considered stereotypical of blacks, and in time the Our Gang comedies joined a long list of film works considered "racist" by some for containing such portrayals. When CBS brought the long-running and immensely popular radio program Amos 'N' Andy to television in 1951, the series lasted only two seasons, due in part to pressure from groups (primarily the NAACP) who objected to its portrayals of blacks. Nonetheless, old episodes of Amos 'N' Andy continued to run successfully in syndication for many years until another round of protests during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s finally prompted CBS to permanently withdraw it from syndication (and attempt to destroy the negatives) in 1966. Around 1989, the rumor began circulating that entertainer Bill Cosby had bought up the rights to The Little Rascals episodes for the express purpose of keeping them off of television because of their demeaning portrayal of blacks. This rumor has nothing to it, of course: King World Productions has owned and licensed the rights to The Little Rascals for over thirty years. The series has been syndicated to television many times and the video rights to some episodes were licensed to Cabin Fever Entertainment in 1997, but Bill Cosby has never owned any part of the rights to The Little Rascals. This rumor is similar to another claim that circulated in the mid-1990s: that Ted Turner had bought up the rights to the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard to keep it off of television because of its demeaning portrayal of Southerners. (The series is currently syndicated on TNN.) Neither rumor seems to have been based on anything more than a story concocted to explain the long absence of a favorite series from the TV screen, and perhaps a desire to poke a little fun at the "political correctness" movement. The connections are obvious: Bill Cosby is black, Ted Turner is from Atlanta; hence their alleged interest in protecting the reputations of the groups these programs supposedly besmirch. In Bill Cosby's case, the connection is a little stronger: Cosby was one of prominent names who campaigned to pressure CBS into withdrawing Amos 'N' Andy from syndication back in the 1960s. Last updated: 8 August 2007 Sources: Anderson, John. "Little Rascals in '90s World" Newsday. 5 August 1994 (p. B2). Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. ISBN 0-345-42923-0 (pp. 43-44). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows Feran, Tom. "'Rascals' Were Beloved in Their Time." The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer. 13 December 1992 (p. H9). Parham, Betty and Gerrie Ferris. "Q & A on the News" The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 18 August 1994 (p. B2). St. Petersburg Times. "Ask Monika." 12 March 1989 (TV; p. 45).
|
[
"interest"
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1lO_1nP8rMTcCjeoNcMof-m77LpPUZ14t"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"../../sources/radiotv/tvprime.htm"
],
"sentence": " Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. ISBN 0-345-42923-0 (pp. 43-44)."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/buzz-aldrin-tweeted-we-are-all-in-danger-it-is-evil-itself/
|
Buzz Aldrin Tweeted 'We are all in Danger, it is Evil Itself'?
|
Kim LaCapria
|
12/13/2016
|
[
"A conspiracy site claimed that the astronaut tweeted then deleted a dire warning that humanity was in \"danger\" from \"evil itself\" in Antarctica."
] |
On 7 December 2016, conspiracy web site SuperStation95 published a post reporting that 86-year-old astronaut Buzz Aldrin (who had just been evacuated from the South Pole due to health concerns) had mysteriously and alarmingly tweeted a photograph of a mountain along with a chilling comment: post evacuated His words: "We are all in danger. It is evil itself." and showed a photograph of a pyramid located at the South Pole as show here. Mr. Aldrin seems to be referring to this object, as seen in an serial photo from Google Earth ... As has been reported by worldwide media, US Secretary of State John Kerry recently traveled to the South Pole, allegedly to become better informed about "Climate Change." Kerry was the highest ranking US government official ever to visit the South Pole, and his visit struck many as unusual. Few saw any purpose whatsoever to sending America's top Diplomat to the farthest reaches of the earth to see ... ice. Now, with Buzz Aldrin's tweet, and its strange deletion, folks are wondering if sending America's top Diplomat to no-man's land, perhaps had something to do with Diplomacy after all. Is there some entity there with which we need Diplomatic contact? ... If so, why did Buzz Aldrin warn that we are all in danger? Why did he call it "Evil itself?" The blog post, which was a pparently inspired by a 6 December 2016 thread on the conspiracy forum Before It's News, cited two tweets as a first and second source for the photograph. One included an embedded video which referenced the SuperStation95 post as its source, making it useless as supporting confirmation: forum What did Buzz Aldrin mean and WHY did he delete this tweet? "We are all in danger. It is evil itself. pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk slone (@slone) December 7, 2016 December 7, 2016 Buzz Aldrin Warns "it is evil itself"https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y Christopher Horn (@NightHorn) December 9, 2016 December 9, 2016 Images of the purported tweet circulated widely after 7 December 2016, but there were a number of visual cues the graphic was altered: For contrast, here's a screenshot taken of a then-recent tweet sent via Aldrin's @TheRealBuzz account: The first tweet did not have a date, share count, number of replies, number of favorites, or number of retweets; all could be used to determine whether Twitter's archive backed the claims made by the sites. Additional irregularities existed in the background display of Aldrin's account: The suspect tweet didn't display in the same manner it did in our screenshot. Aldrin's account data was oddly arranged, and his blue verification checkmark was missing. SuperStation95 did not provide a date, time, or sturdy source for the screenshot of the tweet. Using Twitter's "advanced search" tool, we were able to determine that no retweets or "modified tweets" (a form of copying and pasting a retweet) existed anywhere on Twitter. The first verbal mention of the purported tweet appeared on 8 December 2016, one day after the blog post linked above. no retweets It wasn't just skeptics questioning the authenticity of the claim. YouTube's SecureTeam (the self-described "number one source for breaking news and exposure of the alien phenomenon") examined the claim, quickly dismissing it as a forgery: questioning After appearing in late 2015, Superstation95 began using what were often legitimate tragedies or unfortunate events (such as Buzz Aldrin's evacuation from Antarctica in December 2016) with falsified and often frightening details. Among the most prominent were claims that a large group of Muslim men had fired randomly upon campers and hikers in California, Fukushima radiation caused severe mutations in ocean-dwelling creatures, cargo ships mysteriously ground to a halt signaling nothing short of an imminent global economic catastrophe, a deadly Las Vegas strip car crash involved a driver shouting "Allahu Akbar," the San Bernardino shooting was provoked by pork served at a holiday party shortly before the massacre, the Earth's "magnetosphere" inexplicably collapsed for two hours, a (nonexistent) suicide note left by a genuinely deceased ICE agent revealed impending FEMA camp implementation and mass enslavement, and that articles about the Orlando shooting appeared on Google News hours before the attack. Although the pieces sometimes contained details of real-life events, the claims were always willfully distorted to peddle a false and upsetting conclusion. Muslim men Fukushima cargo ships Allahu Akbar San Bernardino magnetosphere ICE agent Orlando shooting Superstation95's opportunistic leveraging of tragedy has never borne out as the real thing, despite the innumerable grandiose claims made since the site's inception. However, despite them, no one has yet gone to FEMA camp, the global economy has not melted down, the magnetosphere caused no space-based catastrophes, and no hikers were reported injured or dead as a result of roving Muslim shooters.
|
[
"economy"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.is/Ju4Sc",
"https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/health/buzz-aldrin-hospital-released/"
],
"sentence": "On 7 December 2016, conspiracy web site SuperStation95 published a post reporting that 86-year-old astronaut Buzz Aldrin (who had just been evacuated from the South Pole due to health concerns) had mysteriously and alarmingly tweeted a photograph of a mountain along with a chilling comment: "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.is/pR65d"
],
"sentence": "The blog post, which was a pparently inspired by a 6 December 2016 thread on the conspiracy forum Before It's News, cited two tweets as a first and second source for the photograph. One included an embedded video which referenced the SuperStation95 post as its source, making it useless as supporting confirmation:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://t.co/tYb9IFCfZk"
],
"sentence": "\"We are all in danger. It is evil itself. pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/slone/status/806552107671257090"
],
"sentence": " slone (@slone) December 7, 2016"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y"
],
"sentence": "Buzz Aldrin Warns \"it is evil itself\"https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/NightHorn/status/807199406869086213"
],
"sentence": " Christopher Horn (@NightHorn) December 9, 2016"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=evil%20danger%20%40therealbuzz&src=typd&lang=en"
],
"sentence": "SuperStation95 did not provide a date, time, or sturdy source for the screenshot of the tweet. Using Twitter's \"advanced search\" tool, we were able to determine that no retweets or \"modified tweets\" (a form of copying and pasting a retweet) existed anywhere on Twitter. The first verbal mention of the purported tweet appeared on 8 December 2016, one day after the blog post linked above."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/102622143/"
],
"sentence": "It wasn't just skeptics questioning the authenticity of the claim. YouTube's SecureTeam (the self-described \"number one source for breaking news and exposure of the alien phenomenon\") examined the claim, quickly dismissing it as a forgery:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/muslims-open-fire-hikers/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fukushima-radiation-marine-photos/",
"https://www.snopes.com/cargo-ships-atlantic-map/",
"https://www.snopes.com/female-killer-las-vegas-shouted-allahu-akbar/",
"https://www.snopes.com/san-bernardino-shooting-pork-insult/",
"https://www.snopes.com/wordpress/nasa-reports-magnetosphere-collapse/",
"https://www.snopes.com/new-york-ice-agent-suicide-note/",
"https://www.snopes.com/google-orlando-pulse-shooting-advance/"
],
"sentence": "After appearing in late 2015, Superstation95 began using what were often legitimate tragedies or unfortunate events (such as Buzz Aldrin's evacuation from Antarctica in December 2016) with falsified and often frightening details. Among the most prominent were claims that a large group of Muslim men had fired randomly upon campers and hikers in California, Fukushima radiation caused severe mutations in ocean-dwelling creatures, cargo ships mysteriously ground to a halt signaling nothing short of an imminent global economic catastrophe, a deadly Las Vegas strip car crash involved a driver shouting \"Allahu Akbar,\" the San Bernardino shooting was provoked by pork served at a holiday party shortly before the massacre, the Earth's \"magnetosphere\" inexplicably collapsed for two hours, a (nonexistent) suicide note left by a genuinely deceased ICE agent revealed impending FEMA camp implementation and mass enslavement, and that articles about the Orlando shooting appeared on Google News hours before the attack. Although the pieces sometimes contained details of real-life events, the claims were always willfully distorted to peddle a false and upsetting conclusion."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/
|
This Cash App Email Scam About a Fake Deposit Could Cost You Thousands on Your Credit Card
|
Jordan Liles
|
05/19/2023
|
[
"Here's what you and your family members need to know about this very specific and deceptive type of scam."
] |
Consumers should be on the lookout for email and text message scams involving Cash App and other mobile payment services like PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle that claim there was "trouble" with sending you a large deposit. In this article, we'll take you through how falling for this deceptive email scam can eventually lead to charges of hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your credit card. The first step of this scam was an email that pretended to be from Cash App. The message claimed that a $500 Cash App deposit was owed to the recipient. However, the email did not come from an address ending with @cash.app, @square.com, or @squareup.com. (A page on the Cash App website says that its correspondence will only come from email addresses with these domain names.) Cash App page The scam email read, "We're having some trouble to deliver your $500.00 To Your CashApp Account. Please complete your contact info to make sure is properly delivered to you. We will contact you using this information." Upon clicking the "Confirm here" button, we were quickly led through several automatic website redirects. The route began with astorage.googleapis.com link, then went throughaworldnewssh.info and umiddleway.com. The redirects ended withmediansquare.com. Next, on mediansquare.com, we were presented with a survey scam. The website claimed that all we needed to do was take a 30-second survey in order to claim a $90 prize. (For whatever reason, the original promise of $500 in a Cash App deposit had changed to a $90 reward.) After clicking through the survey in less than 30 seconds, the website presented pictures of several products, none of which was from recognizable brands. The page claimed that we could pick one of the items for free and that all we would need to do is pay shipping and handling. We selected the robot vacuum named RoBoKleen Vacuum, a product the website claimed was normally worth $299.99. On ezrobotvacuum.com (a website that apparently has no homepage) we were presented with a form that asked forour mailing address and a credit card number. According to the checkout page, the grand total only for shipping and handling would be $5.99. Not mentioned anywhere on the checkout page was the fact that there was a hidden subscription fee that would charge paying customers$71.97 every month until they found a way to cancel. These fees were only described in the fine print on the separate page for terms and conditions. Nowhere on the checkout page did we find any mention of the subscription fees, nor did we see a box to check that would indicate a customer agreed to abide by the terms and conditions. According to the terms and conditions, the purchase of the robot vacuum was "a welcoming gift for joining the best consumer gadgets club on the web" that would provide a "$125 Gift Card to the best consumer gadgets club on the web." (Some websites often refer to these sorts of purported clubs as a "VIP membership" or "savings" offer.) On top of the $71.97 monthly charge, the terms and conditions also said that it would bill customers for an additional $39.99 for a "Fitness program that is bundled with EZRobot Vacuum." This second monthly charge would begin "after the 45-day trial period is over," the page said. The contact page on the website showed the email address support@ezrobotvacuumsupport.com. We reached out to the company and will update this article if we receive a response. Other than the robot vacuum,mediansquare.com claimed to offer eight more products that could be obtained for "free." These, too, had hidden subscription fees that were not described anywhere on the product or checkout pages. Also, yet again, there was no box for customers to check that would have indicated that they agree to the terms and conditions. Several of the products were hosted oncaptivatinggadgetessentials.com, another website that apparently had no homepage. Those items included AutoShield DashCam, TurboVac Portable Vacuum, TechProPlus Smart Watch, RoadRunner Radar Detector, and MixMate Blender. According to the terms and conditions, customers who purchased these products would eventually be charged a monthly fee of$89.85 and receive a monthly "$199 gift card" for the "Exclusive Gadget Warehouse Direct store." On top of the $89.95 monthly fee, customers would also be charged $82.45 every month for usage of an "Elite Force Fit App," the terms said. The phone number for captivatinggadgetessentials.com showed as 866-979-9572. We called and were automatically put on a long, silent hold. No human being ever joined the call. Also, the email address, support@exclusivegadgetwarehousedirects.com, was not active. "Address not found," the automatic reply read. The remaining three products that could be selected from on mediansquare.com were Keto Ascend ACV Gummies (orAdapt Slim Keto Gummies), SureShot Innovations Light Bulb Camera, and Multi Drill King. The only product that did not mention subscription fees in the terms and conditions was the Multi Drill King. However, that product might still come with the same fees reflected on the pages for other products. If any readers went through the process of being scammed by any of the above scams or any similar ones, we recommend reaching out to any phone numbers or email addresses that were associated with the offers. If calling and emailing doesn't quickly produce any help or answers, we advise a call to your credit card company to try to get a refund and to block any future recurring charges from the seller. Also, generally, if any readers believe they have been the victim of fraud, we recommend filing a report with the FTC. filing a report with the FTC Always remember with online scams that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. "How to Avoid Scams and Keep Your Money Safe with Cash App." Cash.App, https://cash.app/help.
|
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[
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"hrefs": [
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"https://cash.app/help/us/en-us/6482-recognize-scams"
],
"sentence": "The first step of this scam was an email that pretended to be from Cash App. The message claimed that a $500 Cash App deposit was owed to the recipient. However, the email did not come from an address ending with @cash.app, @square.com, or @squareup.com. (A page on the Cash App website says that its correspondence will only come from email addresses with these domain names.)"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/"
],
"sentence": "Also, generally, if any readers believe they have been the victim of fraud, we recommend filing a report with the FTC."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/06/bill-clinton/bill-clintons-college-debt-claim-mostly-true/
|
A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/06/2016
|
[] |
Former President Bill Clinton raised a hot-button issue while stumping for his wife in Los Angeles this week: Americas mounting student loan debt. Student debt in the United States has reached $1.3 trillion, which trails only the amount Americans owe on their mortgages. Its often blamed for preventing young people from buying houses and cars, which fuels the countrys economy. Undergraduates in the class of 2015 finished school with anaverage of $35,000in student loan debt, the most in history, according to Edvisors.com, a financial aid website. If elected president in November, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would remove a unique barrier related to college loans, the former president claimed. A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down, Bill Clinton said, speaking at a recent campaign rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. We wondered: Is refinancing really off-limits for all college loans? With student loan debt such a big issue this election year, we decided to check the facts. Past efforts at change Both Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have pledged to allow student loans to be refinanced. But they werent the first to call for this change. In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejectedlegislationby Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have let student borrowers refinance their federal loan debt. Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in aWashington Post news articleat the time. Republicans said they were not convinced the legislation would have resulted in lower borrowing costs, and labeled it an election stunt. The bill would have let people with federal and private loans issued prior to 2010 refinance at 3.86 percent, the article said. It added that the Obama administration estimated that the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 each over the lifetime of their loans, or $50 billion. Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign stop for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, at the West End Community Development Center in Greenville, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Our research As theyve campaigned across the country, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders have each pledged to allow for refinancing of college loan debt. What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are talking about is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account forabout 90 percentof all student borrowing. We turned to the nonprofit college planning group American Student Assistance for some advice. They and other groups say federal student loans can be refinanced into private loans. But doing so can remove federal protections such as fixed interest rates and the ability to pause repayments. Also, private student loans can be refinanced into new lower-interest private loans. But theres no provision in federal law allowing the refinancing of a federal loan to another, lower-interest federal loan. There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers. PolitiFact Texasexamined a similar claimin 2014 and rated it Mostly True. They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income. Jarvis added that refinancing federal loans with a private loan is risky. The borrower gives up important protections that accompany federal loans (like flexible repayment and discharge provisions). Students repaying federally backed loans, Jarvis said, are effectively barred from refinancing opportunities because federal law makes no provision for the government to make such offers. Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan. Our ruling Former President Bill Clinton said at a recent campaign rally in Los Angeles: A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down. Borrowers of federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of student loans, cannot refinance those into lower-interest federal loans. Congress sets the interest rate on these loans, and theres no provision in federal law that allows for them to be refinanced. Depending on factors such as income, some borrowers can refinance their federal loans into lower-interest private loans, though they risk losing their federal loan protections. Clinton most likely was referring only to federally backed loans when he made his statement, but a clarification about private loans would have helped. We rated his claim 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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[
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"hrefs": [
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],
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},
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"sentence": "There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers."
},
{
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"sentence": "They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income."
},
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"sentence": "Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan."
},
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"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/06/bill-clinton/bill-clintons-college-debt-claim-mostly-true/
|
A college loan is the sole type of loan in the United States that cannot be refinanced when interest rates decrease.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/06/2016
|
[] |
Former President Bill Clinton raised a hot-button issue while stumping for his wife in Los Angeles this week: Americas mounting student loan debt. Student debt in the United States has reached $1.3 trillion, which trails only the amount Americans owe on their mortgages. Its often blamed for preventing young people from buying houses and cars, which fuels the countrys economy. Undergraduates in the class of 2015 finished school with anaverage of $35,000in student loan debt, the most in history, according to Edvisors.com, a financial aid website. If elected president in November, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would remove a unique barrier related to college loans, the former president claimed. A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down, Bill Clinton said, speaking at a recent campaign rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. We wondered: Is refinancing really off-limits for all college loans? With student loan debt such a big issue this election year, we decided to check the facts. Past efforts at change Both Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have pledged to allow student loans to be refinanced. But they werent the first to call for this change. In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejectedlegislationby Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have let student borrowers refinance their federal loan debt. Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in aWashington Post news articleat the time. Republicans said they were not convinced the legislation would have resulted in lower borrowing costs, and labeled it an election stunt. The bill would have let people with federal and private loans issued prior to 2010 refinance at 3.86 percent, the article said. It added that the Obama administration estimated that the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 each over the lifetime of their loans, or $50 billion. Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign stop for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, at the West End Community Development Center in Greenville, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Our research As theyve campaigned across the country, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders have each pledged to allow for refinancing of college loan debt. What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are talking about is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account forabout 90 percentof all student borrowing. We turned to the nonprofit college planning group American Student Assistance for some advice. They and other groups say federal student loans can be refinanced into private loans. But doing so can remove federal protections such as fixed interest rates and the ability to pause repayments. Also, private student loans can be refinanced into new lower-interest private loans. But theres no provision in federal law allowing the refinancing of a federal loan to another, lower-interest federal loan. There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers. PolitiFact Texasexamined a similar claimin 2014 and rated it Mostly True. They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income. Jarvis added that refinancing federal loans with a private loan is risky. The borrower gives up important protections that accompany federal loans (like flexible repayment and discharge provisions). Students repaying federally backed loans, Jarvis said, are effectively barred from refinancing opportunities because federal law makes no provision for the government to make such offers. Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan. Our ruling Former President Bill Clinton said at a recent campaign rally in Los Angeles: A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down. Borrowers of federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of student loans, cannot refinance those into lower-interest federal loans. Congress sets the interest rate on these loans, and theres no provision in federal law that allows for them to be refinanced. Depending on factors such as income, some borrowers can refinance their federal loans into lower-interest private loans, though they risk losing their federal loan protections. Clinton most likely was referring only to federally backed loans when he made his statement, but a clarification about private loans would have helped. We rated his claim 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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},
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"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/06/bill-clinton/bill-clintons-college-debt-claim-mostly-true/
|
In the United States, a college loan stands out as the only type of loan that is not eligible for refinancing when interest rates decrease.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/06/2016
|
[] |
Former President Bill Clinton raised a hot-button issue while stumping for his wife in Los Angeles this week: Americas mounting student loan debt. Student debt in the United States has reached $1.3 trillion, which trails only the amount Americans owe on their mortgages. Its often blamed for preventing young people from buying houses and cars, which fuels the countrys economy. Undergraduates in the class of 2015 finished school with anaverage of $35,000in student loan debt, the most in history, according to Edvisors.com, a financial aid website. If elected president in November, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton would remove a unique barrier related to college loans, the former president claimed. A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down, Bill Clinton said, speaking at a recent campaign rally at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. We wondered: Is refinancing really off-limits for all college loans? With student loan debt such a big issue this election year, we decided to check the facts. Past efforts at change Both Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have pledged to allow student loans to be refinanced. But they werent the first to call for this change. In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejectedlegislationby Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have let student borrowers refinance their federal loan debt. Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in aWashington Post news articleat the time. Republicans said they were not convinced the legislation would have resulted in lower borrowing costs, and labeled it an election stunt. The bill would have let people with federal and private loans issued prior to 2010 refinance at 3.86 percent, the article said. It added that the Obama administration estimated that the bill could have helped 25 million borrowers save $2,000 each over the lifetime of their loans, or $50 billion. Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign stop for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, at the West End Community Development Center in Greenville, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Our research As theyve campaigned across the country, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Sanders have each pledged to allow for refinancing of college loan debt. What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are talking about is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account forabout 90 percentof all student borrowing. We turned to the nonprofit college planning group American Student Assistance for some advice. They and other groups say federal student loans can be refinanced into private loans. But doing so can remove federal protections such as fixed interest rates and the ability to pause repayments. Also, private student loans can be refinanced into new lower-interest private loans. But theres no provision in federal law allowing the refinancing of a federal loan to another, lower-interest federal loan. There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers. PolitiFact Texasexamined a similar claimin 2014 and rated it Mostly True. They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income. Jarvis added that refinancing federal loans with a private loan is risky. The borrower gives up important protections that accompany federal loans (like flexible repayment and discharge provisions). Students repaying federally backed loans, Jarvis said, are effectively barred from refinancing opportunities because federal law makes no provision for the government to make such offers. Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan. Our ruling Former President Bill Clinton said at a recent campaign rally in Los Angeles: A college loan is the only loan in the United States that you cannot refinance when interest rates go down. Borrowers of federally backed student loans, which account for about 90 percent of student loans, cannot refinance those into lower-interest federal loans. Congress sets the interest rate on these loans, and theres no provision in federal law that allows for them to be refinanced. Depending on factors such as income, some borrowers can refinance their federal loans into lower-interest private loans, though they risk losing their federal loan protections. Clinton most likely was referring only to federally backed loans when he made his statement, but a clarification about private loans would have helped. We rated his claim 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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] |
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"https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2292/text"
],
"sentence": "In June 2014, Senate Republicans rejectedlegislationby Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that would have let student borrowers refinance their federal loan debt."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/11/elizabeth-warrens-bill-to-refinance-student-loans-dies-in-senate-now-what/"
],
"sentence": "Homeowners are refinancing. Small businesses are refinancing. We just want young people who got an education to have their shot, Warren was quoted as saying in aWashington Post news articleat the time."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/total-federal-and-nonfederal-loans-over-time"
],
"sentence": "What they, and apparently Bill Clinton, are talking about is refinancing federally backed student loans, which account forabout 90 percentof all student borrowing."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/student-loan-ranger/2015/04/29/4-things-to-think-about-when-refinancing-student-loans"
],
"sentence": "There is no federal refinancing. Congress sets the interest rate for federal student loans, and most of these rates are fixed by law, no matter how solid your credit or income becomes post-graduation, American Student Assistanceadvisespotential borrowers."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/jun/09/pete-gallego/pete-gallego-equates-average-student-loan-debt-pri/"
],
"sentence": "PolitiFact Texasexamined a similar claimin 2014 and rated it Mostly True."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://askheatherjarvis.com/about"
],
"sentence": "They spoke withHeather Jarvis, a North Carolina attorney specializing in student loan law, who told them some graduates may be able to refinance student loans at lower rates through private lenders. But, she said, this would only happen in cases in which borrowers have substantial income."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://trends.collegeboard.org/student-aid/figures-tables/total-federal-and-nonfederal-loans-over-time"
],
"sentence": "Asked about the former presidents statement, Bill Clintons press secretary said in an email its very safe to say that the vast majority of students with debt have federaldebt. She pointed tostatistics from the College Boardshowing federal loans account for about 90 percent of student borrowing. She said a small percentage of borrowers can refinance a federal student loan by making it a private loan."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/"
],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/seniors-medicare-immigrants/
|
Do Seniors on Social Security Have to Pay for Medicare While 'Illegal Immigrants' Get It Free?
|
Bethania Palma
|
06/19/2019
|
[
"It's a familiar trope on the internet but remains factually challenged."
] |
In May and June 2019, a misleading but widely seen meme about immigrants and Medicare benefits continued to circulate on Facebook: Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading. common one generally misleading Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it."The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons."Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research. undocumented persons "In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it." The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue. rejecting A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. 2017 study PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons." Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Frazee, Gretchen. "4 Myths About How Immigrants Affect the U.S. Economy."
PBS News Hour. 2 November 2018. Hirschfeld Davis, Julie, and Somini Sengupta. "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees."
The New York Times. 18 September 2017. Congressional Budget Office. "The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments."
December 2007. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. "The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration."
2017.
|
[
"economy"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15j6otQxs4ikUIWWxuYdqOjsTYJb6KAo6"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/18-million-illegal-immigrants-checks-shutdown/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/43-percent-food-stamps-illegal/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/illegal-immigrant-benefits/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-for-illegal-aliens/"
],
"sentence": "Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html",
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html",
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.\"In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them,\" Wallace told us by phone. \"So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it.\"The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that \"In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons.\"Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html"
],
"sentence": "The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/seniors-medicare-immigrants/
|
Must senior citizens receiving Social Security pay for Medicare while unauthorized immigrants receive it at no cost?
|
Bethania Palma
|
06/19/2019
|
[
"It's a familiar trope on the internet but remains factually challenged."
] |
In May and June 2019, a misleading but widely seen meme about immigrants and Medicare benefits continued to circulate on Facebook: Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading. common one generally misleading Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it."The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons."Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research. undocumented persons "In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it." The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue. rejecting A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. 2017 study PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons." Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Frazee, Gretchen. "4 Myths About How Immigrants Affect the U.S. Economy."
PBS News Hour. 2 November 2018. Hirschfeld Davis, Julie, and Somini Sengupta. "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees."
The New York Times. 18 September 2017. Congressional Budget Office. "The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments."
December 2007. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. "The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration."
2017.
|
[
"taxes"
] |
[
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Syl3L0xKvRTZiH0IwFhtdEo9ZeWpfqUW"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/18-million-illegal-immigrants-checks-shutdown/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/43-percent-food-stamps-illegal/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/illegal-immigrant-benefits/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-for-illegal-aliens/"
],
"sentence": "Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html",
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html",
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.\"In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them,\" Wallace told us by phone. \"So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it.\"The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that \"In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons.\"Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html"
],
"sentence": "The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/seniors-medicare-immigrants/
|
Must elderly individuals receiving Social Security make payments for Medicare while 'Illegal Immigrants' receive it at no cost?
|
Bethania Palma
|
06/19/2019
|
[
"It's a familiar trope on the internet but remains factually challenged."
] |
In May and June 2019, a misleading but widely seen meme about immigrants and Medicare benefits continued to circulate on Facebook: Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading. common one generally misleading Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it."The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons."Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research. undocumented persons "In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them," Wallace told us by phone. "So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it." The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue. rejecting A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration "has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. 2017 study PBS News Hour reported that "In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons." Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money. Frazee, Gretchen. "4 Myths About How Immigrants Affect the U.S. Economy."
PBS News Hour. 2 November 2018. Hirschfeld Davis, Julie, and Somini Sengupta. "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees."
The New York Times. 18 September 2017. Congressional Budget Office. "The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments."
December 2007. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine. "The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration."
2017.
|
[
"economy"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WlzvXpbFBtLeXpvn0TXI4RA9Ot_41LUE"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/18-million-illegal-immigrants-checks-shutdown/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/43-percent-food-stamps-illegal/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/illegal-immigrant-benefits/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-security-for-illegal-aliens/"
],
"sentence": "Although the trope that undocumented immigrants are cashing in on U.S. government-funded public benefits for free is a common one, it's generally misleading."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html",
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html",
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.\"In reality, undocumented immigrants paying into these programs actually are helping to subsidize them,\" Wallace told us by phone. \"So its the other way around -- its not that they're draining the system. They're actually subsidizing it.\"The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue.A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.PBS News Hour reported that \"In general, more people working means more taxes and thats true overall with undocumented immigrants as well. Undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.6 billion a year in taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy. Immigrants are also less likely to take public benefits than the native-born population for two reasons.\"Those two reasons, according to PBS, are that undocumented persons aren't eligible to receive federal public benefits, and many of the ones who are authorized to be here aren't eligible because they earn too much money."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Eligibility-and-Enrollment/OrigMedicarePartABEligEnrol/index.html"
],
"sentence": "Contrary to what the meme asserts, undocumented persons do not qualify to receive Medicare. Additionally, because many undocumented persons acquire fake Social Security numbers so that they can work, they pay billions of dollars into the system but never reap those benefits, said Steven Wallace, professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director of UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html"
],
"sentence": "The impacts of immigration on the economy and public benefits are political flashpoints in a larger national debate. For example, in September 2017 the Trump administration was criticized for rejecting a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that concluded refugees have an overall positive effect on government revenue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration"
],
"sentence": "A 2017 study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reported that immigration \"has an overall positive impact on the long-run economic growth in the U.S. In the short term and on the local and state government levels, new immigrants do have a negative revenue impact largely due to costs associated with educating children, health care and law enforcement. But in the long term, they are a net positive on revenue due to higher incomes of their descendants who are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kkk-march-trump-pence-sign/
|
Did the KKK March With a Trump-Pence Sign?
|
Dan Evon
|
01/13/2020
|
[
"This photograph is not all you need to know before you vote in 2020. "
] |
In January 2020, a photograph supposedly showing a group of KKK members marching behind a presidential campaign sign for Donald Trump and Mike Pence was circulated on social media, along with a message saying "This is all you need to know about why you should vote Blue in 2020": This is not a genuine photograph of KKK members holding a Trump-Pence sign. This a digitally manipulated image created from a photograph that originally featured a "Fraternal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" sign. The original photograph was taken in July 2009 and showed members of the Klan marching through Pulaski, Tennessee, in honor of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general who led the KKK in the 1860s: The original picture was taken by Spencer Platt and is available via Getty Images with the following caption: Getty Images Members of the Fraternal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan participate in the 11th Annual Nathan Bedford Forrest Birthday march July 11, 2009 in Pulaski, Tennessee. With a poor economy and the first African-American president in office, there has been a rise in extremist activity in many parts of America. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2008 the number of hate groups rose to 926, up 4 percent from 2007, and 54 percent since 2000. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and played a role in the postwar establishment of the first Ku Klux Klan organization opposing the reconstruction era in the South. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) While the photograph of the KKK holding a Trump-Pence sign is fake, Trump did receive some support from the infamous group during the 2016 election. The official newspaper of the KKK, The Crusader, endorsed Trump for president. But the Trump campaign publicly rejected the Crusader's endorsement: "Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign. rejected Sakuma, Amanda. "KKK Paper 'The Crusader' Backs Trump; Campaign Rejects It."
NBC News. 2 November 2016.
|
[
"economy"
] |
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Na7NoKXztKL2dbusm6p3b839e9H7GI4e"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-fraternal-white-knights-of-the-ku-klux-klan-news-photo/88983622"
],
"sentence": "The original picture was taken by Spencer Platt and is available via Getty Images with the following caption:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/kkk-paper-crusader-backs-trump-campaign-rejects-backing-n676686"
],
"sentence": "But the Trump campaign publicly rejected the Crusader's endorsement: \"Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/412-pound-deer-killed-in-nebraska/
|
412-Pound Deer
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/10/2006
|
[
"Photographs shows a 412-lb. deer killed in Nebraska."
] |
Claim: Photographs shows a 412-lb. deer killed in Nebraska. Partly true. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006] For all you deer hunters; How about this deer? Could you imagine! 412 pound deer killed along Clarion River in North West PennsylvaniaGood GOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is one big deer...Deer was killed in Clarion County, Pa. , weighed 412 lbs. Supposedly could be the heaviest whitetail ever taken.Cabala's HERE WE COME Origins: Three common characteristics of just about every set of Internet-circulated photos purporting to document someone's having killed a very large (if not the largest) example of a particular species are: The photographs will circulate in multiple versions, each stating a different locale where the killing supposedly took place. Viewers will debate the authenticity of the photographs, picking on small details such as shadowing, coloring, and proportion as evidence that the images have been digitally manipulated. Hunters, wildlife experts, and others will maintain that the animal pictured is significantly smaller and/or lighter than claimed in the accompanying text. All of these characteristics apply to the above-displayed photographs of a claimed 412-lb. white-tailed buck deer killed by a hunter. The earliest versions of these e-mailed pictures said the deer was taken in Nebraska, but later versions changed the site of the kill to "along Clarion River in North West Pennsylvania." Internet pundits maintained that the images were faked because the deer's coloration appeared inconsistent and/or its antlers looked too small. Media skeptics asserted that the deer was far smaller than claimed, as exemplified by this excerpt from a Utica Observer-Dispatch article: Some readers have been kind enough to send me photos of the 412-pound buck from Nebraska that is making the rounds on the internet. It's a big deer, to be sure, but it is not 412 pounds or anywhere close. Camera angles and advantageous poses make the buck appear to be much larger than it is.I contacted Kit Hams at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and he said their staff has seen this photo many times. Hams doubts its authenticity, for the same reasons I do. He said he was told the hunter was from Truman, Arkansas. The commission came up with a name, but was unable to identify that person as a permit holder in Nebraska. A guy kills the biggest, fattest whitetail almost anyone has ever heard of and his name isn't plastered all over the country? Not very likely. Hams said he believes the biggest deer he's ever checked in his state weighed in about 250 pounds field dressed. That would be a shade over 300 on the hoof, and that is a very, very big deer. And a Toledo Blade columnist suggested the photographs were outright fakes: Call it a cabin-fever buck the photographs of a supposed 412-pound white-tailed buck deer circulating among e-mails of late, that is. The thing, in a classic bowhunting "success" pose with hunter and buddies, is so big that it pushes the envelope of credibility to the breaking point. It could simply be a dead-of-winter-and-there-ain't-no-ice-fishin' prank. It could be the clever work of photo-doctoring, which is so easy to do these days, even on a PC at home. A copy will not be printed with this column simply because it could encourage too many viewers of the photo to jump to conclusions. In January 2006, Dennis Anderson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote a column expressing skepticism about these photos similar to that contained in the newspaper articles excerpted above. A few weeks later Anderson reported that he had been contacted by anArkansas resident named Stan Whitt, who said that he had killed the deer while bow hunting on a Nebraska Indian reservation in November 2005 (and that the deer was taken on an Indian reservation explained why Nebraska state wildlife officials were unaware of it). Whitt provided Anderson with all sorts of detail about where and how and he had killed the animal: Whitt says he was hunting on the reservation last November with three friends from Arkansas. He says he and his friends hunt with bows only and that he has hunted deer and other big game in about 20 states. He shot the deer on a Saturday morning as it moved from water to a bedding area, Whitt said. "I killed him at five paces," he said, from a portable stand about 25 feet high in a tree. Whitt said he had to hold his bowstring (he shoots a Mathews bow) back 10 minutes while the deer approached. He said he shot the deer virtually straight down, the shot striking behind the left shoulder and 3 inches from the spine. His arrow carried a 100-grain Simmons broadhead. The animal disappeared in the far distance, Whitt said, losing the arrow as he ran. Four hours later, Whitt began his search for the deer. He said he looked alone until dark without finding the animal. The next morning one of his friends joined the search, as well as a reservation game warden and another man. Whitt said his friend found the deer in a draw or ravine about noon that day, a Sunday. However, the true size of the deer is questionable and unconfirmable. Whitt admitted that the animal was "somewhat bloated" by the time they found it the following day, and that he did not actually have it weighed. Instead, he took the deer to the reservation wildlife office, where its live weight was estimated at 412 lbs. from a procedure that involved measuring its girth behind its front legs. Although the procedure used supposedly has only a 6% margin of error, the 412-lb. is nonetheless only an estimate, andone possibly subject to inflation due to the "somewhat bloated" condition of the deer. Last updated: 10 November 2006 Sources: Anderson, Dennis. "Bigger or Byte-Sized?" [Minneapolis] Star Tribune. 22 January 2006 (p. C18). Anderson, Dennis. "Claim Staked on Huge Deer That Caused Internet Stir." [Minneapolis] Star Tribune. 11 February 2006 (p. C18). Pitarresi, John. "Buck Unlikely to Be 412 Pounds." [Utica] Observer-Dispatch. 29 January 2006. Pollick, Steve. "Authorities Don't Buy Photos of 400-Pound Deer." The [Toledo] Blade. 31 January 2006.
|
[
"inflation"
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{
"hrefs": [
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"sentence": "For all you deer hunters; How about this deer?"
}
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true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-fairness-doctrine/
|
Did Ronald Reagan Pave the Way for Fox News?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
01/26/2018
|
[
"A Facebook meme gets some facts right about the demise of the Fairness Doctrine but ignores important distinctions between broadcast and cable television."
] |
Political polarization in the news media is a growing concern for Americans, one that liberals often blame on the conservative movement, with the rise of right-wing talk radio and Fox News over recent decades. Case in point, the Christian Left Facebook page posted an interesting set of claims about Ronald Reagan in January 2017, in the form of a meme that has been widely shared over the past couple years. meme It reads: The Father of Fake News Ronald Reagan's FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine which, since 1949, required media to present both sides' opinions in the rare event they weren't just reporting straight news. A Democrat-controlled Congress passed a bill to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Reagan vetoed the bill. Fox News followed in the 1990s. America is now more polarized and misinformed than ever. The meme was originally created by K. Scott Schaeffer, a self-described "moderate Democrat" and "theologically-moderate Christian" who runs the Rescuing Religion from Republicans Facebook page. created Much of the account in the meme is accurate, but it leaves out important distinctions between broadcast and cable television, and is ultimately misleading in claiming that the demise of the Fairness Doctrine cleared a path for the creation of Fox News. In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a report that recommended what came to be known as the "Fairness Doctrine." As explained by the Congressional Research Service, the doctrine "consisted of two basic requirements" for anyone given a TV or radio broadcast license: Congressional Research Service (1) that every licensee devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion and consideration of controversial issues of public importance; and (2) that in doing so, [the broadcaster must be] fair that is, [the broadcaster] must affirmatively endeavor to make ... facilities available for the expression of contrasting viewpoints held by responsible elements with respect to the controversial issues presented. And there were additional requirements, under the Fairness Doctrine: The personal attack rule stated that when personal attacks were made on individuals involved in public issues, the broadcaster had to, within one week of the broadcast, notify the person attacked, provide him with a copy of the broadcast (either script or tape), and allow him an opportunity to respond over the broadcasters facilities. The political editorial rule required that when a broadcaster endorsed a particular political candidate, the broadcaster was required to provide the other qualified candidates for the same office (or their representatives) the opportunity to respond over the broadcasters facilities. Part of the rationale behind the doctrine was the scarcity of television and radio frequencies available, especially in the middle of the 20th century. The government had a duty to regulate the operation of scarce frequencies, the argument went, and therefore had a right to use the public interest as the main criterion in granting and renewing broadcast licenses. And because so few companies licensed a frequency, it was important to ensure that the viewing and listening public were exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints on important issues. However, the rise of cable and satellite television channels like CNN and HBO, especially in the 1980s, changed the American broadcasting landscape. Traditionally, broadcast (or "terrestrial") television involved the distribution of content between broadcast towers and household antennas or tuners, on particular frequencies. For several decades up to the 1980s, television was dominated by the "big three" networks ABC, CBS and NBC which were free to watch. By contrast, cable television programming was distributed via cables, and satellite television via satellites orbiting the earth. Unlike watching broadcast television, viewers had to pay for cable and satellite subscriptions. These new methods of distribution undermined the "scarcity" principle that underpinned the Fairness Doctrine. Cable and satellite television offered a new, wider range of programming and viewpoints and later, so did the internet. They did not ensure heterogeneity or a universally open "marketplace of ideas," though. Exposure to cable and satellite television was confined to those who could afford to pay for it. Those who could not were still limited to the broadcast networks. By 1987, amid growing criticism, Reagan's FCC came to believe the Fairness Doctrine should be abandoned, because it believed that "the doctrine chilled the speech of broadcasters and inhibited free and open debate on the public airwaves," as the Congressional Research Service put it. In an effort to pre-empt such a repeal, Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings introduced the Fairness in Broadcasting Act in March 1987, which would have fully enshrined the Fairness Doctrine in law. The Senate was split 55-45 in favor of the Democrats at the time, and the bill passed the Senate by 59-31. A similar bill was passed by 302 votes to 102 in the Democrat-controlled House in June, but President Reagan vetoed it. bill bill The Facebook meme is somewhat muddled when it comes to the sequence of events, here. The vote in Congress was not an attempt to "re-instate" the Fairness Doctrine, it was a pre-emptive effort to fully codify the existing doctrine before the FCC could abolish it later in 1987 (which it duly did.) Likewise, Reagan's veto did not prevent the re-instatement of the doctrine, it prevented the doctrine from being fully codified. In August 1987, the FCC put an end to the Fairness Doctrine by a unanimous vote. vote But did the the abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine clear the way for Fox News, as the meme implies? Not really. As we've outlined, the Fairness Doctrine applied to broadcast licensees. Fox News is a cable TV channel which launched in 1996. The distinction between broadcast and cable TV is crucial, here. As the Congressional Research Service wrote: It does not appear that the Fairness Doctrine may be applied constitutionally to cable or satellite service providers. The Supreme Court has held that content-based restrictions on the speech of cable and satellite providers are subject to strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny requires that the restriction at issue advance a compelling government interest and that the restriction be the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. Content-based regulations of speech in the print media are accorded strict scrutiny. The Supreme Court has recognized that regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine, when applied to the print media, are not constitutional. If regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine could not withstand strict scrutiny when applied to the print media, it appears unlikely that similar regulations would withstand such scrutiny when applied to cable or satellite providers. So even if the Fairness Doctrine had persisted until the era of Fox News, the FCC would, in all likelihood, have been restricted to regulating the content of public broadcasters, leaving Fox News to its own devices, like hundreds of other cable and satellite channels. Ruane, Kathleen Ann. "Fairness Doctrine: History and Constitutional Issues."
Congressional Research Service.& nbsp; 13 July 2011. Hollings, Sen. Ernest F. "S. 742 -- Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987."
Congressional Record. 12 March 1987. Dingell, John D. "H.R. 1934 -- Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987."
Congressional Record. 2 April 1987. Hershey Jr., Robert D . "F.C.C. Votes Down Fairness Doctrine in a 4-0 Decision."
The New York Times. 5 August 1987.
|
[
"interest"
] |
[
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"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=18J1ivfOAZ55jRFxrizaqpJli6HTF6NkG"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/TheChristianLeft/photos/a.111187555570057.11714.109200595768753/1339597469395720/?type=3&theater"
],
"sentence": "Case in point, the Christian Left Facebook page posted an interesting set of claims about Ronald Reagan in January 2017, in the form of a meme that has been widely shared over the past couple years. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/rescuingreligionfromrepublicans/photos/a.291695627651857.1073741829.287680178053402/742602895894459/?type=3&theater"
],
"sentence": "The meme was originally created by K. Scott Schaeffer, a self-described \"moderate Democrat\" and \"theologically-moderate Christian\" who runs the Rescuing Religion from Republicans Facebook page. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40009.pdf"
],
"sentence": "In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a report that recommended what came to be known as the \"Fairness Doctrine.\" As explained by the Congressional Research Service, the doctrine \"consisted of two basic requirements\" for anyone given a TV or radio broadcast license:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/742",
"https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/1934"
],
"sentence": "In an effort to pre-empt such a repeal, Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings introduced the Fairness in Broadcasting Act in March 1987, which would have fully enshrined the Fairness Doctrine in law. The Senate was split 55-45 in favor of the Democrats at the time, and the bill passed the Senate by 59-31. A similar bill was passed by 302 votes to 102 in the Democrat-controlled House in June, but President Reagan vetoed it."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/05/arts/fcc-votes-down-fairness-doctrine-in-a-4-0-decision.html"
],
"sentence": "In August 1987, the FCC put an end to the Fairness Doctrine by a unanimous vote. "
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gun-deaths-wars/
|
Do U.S. Gun Deaths Since 1968 Outnumber Deaths in All American Wars?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
10/12/2017
|
[
"A popular claim about gun-related fatalities revitalized after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting is fundamentally accurate, with some allowance for imprecision."
] |
In the aftermath of the 1 October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the American public attempted to come to grips with the scale of gun violence in the United States. One oft-cited statistic posted in social media by "The Other 98%" maintained that 1.3 million Americans had been killed in all the wars in U.S. history, while 1.5 million Americans had been killed by firearms (in non-military use) since 1968 alone: The Other 98% NBC News reported similar figures: NBC News More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history. Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history, according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs and iCasualties.org, a website that maintains an ongoing database of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. iCasualties.org Different versions of this claim have been prominently offered in recent years by sources such as New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof in 2015, and PBS Newshour contributor and commentator Mark Shields in 2012. All these claims contain casual uses of the qualifier "Americans" in reference to gun deaths, which is somewhat confusing because not everyone who has been killed by firearms in the United States was an American citizen, and official sources for gun death statistics do not offer breakdowns by nationality. Therefore, we assume that "Americans" is used here for rhetorical effect, rather than as a functional statistical category, and deal with the total number of gun deaths occurring in the United States since 1968. Similarly, according to the historian Don H. Doyle, the U.S. Civil War saw around 543,000 foreign-born (i.e., immigrant) soldiers fighting on the Union side alone, so a significant number of Civil War deaths might have involved non-American citizen combatants, but we'll count them all as "Americans." (Indeed, non-U.S. citizens have likely served and died fighting for the U.S. side in every American military conflict since the Revolutionary War, but probably in much greater numbers during the Civil War than any other.) Don H. Doyle Support for this claim often uses sources that relate only to combatant deaths in wars and do not include civilian or other non-combatant deaths (the latter being figures which might also include non-U.S. citizens). One could argue that civilian deaths in wars should be included (although estimates of these deaths are much less reliable than for fatalities among military personnel), but we are limiting our analysis to include only combatant deaths in military conflicts. We'll break this analysis into two parts: the total number of deaths in the United States involving firearms since 1968, and the number of deaths in the U.S. and among American combatants across all wars in American history. Gun deaths The estimated total number of firearms-related deaths from 1968-2016 is 1.58 million. The official number for 1968-2015 is 1.55 million, and we have assumed the number of deaths in 2016 as being the mid-point between the two previous years (2014 and 2015). In most cases, the source of these figures is the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). For figures from 1968 to 1991, we consulted the CDC directly WISQARS Deaths in wars For combatant fatalities, our main source is an April 2017 summary published by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which lists the following figures: summary The Civil War Trust, a non-profit organisation primarily dedicated to preserving American battlefields, estimates that around 6,800 people died in battle during the Revolutionary War, with an additional 17,000 deaths caused by disease, and between 8,000 and 12,000 more deaths occurring among those held as prisoners of war. The upper end of this estimate range, then, would put the total number of deaths associated with the American Revolutionary War at 26,800. estimates Similarly, the Civil War Trust estimates that around 15,000 Americans died during the War of 1812, a significantly higher number than the 2,260 battle deaths estimated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. estimates The Civil War is an interesting case. Based on from the work of two late 19th and early 20th century historians, the widely accepted figure for deaths in this conflict was reckoned as 618,222 for about a century. In 2011, however, J. David Hacker ( then of Binghamton University) published a significant upwards revision of that total, estimating that the likely death toll was between 650,000 and 851,000. Taking the mid-point in this estimate range assumes about 750,000 combatant deaths for the Civil War. Because of the enhanced statistical sophistication involved in Hacker's research, and what appears to be acceptance and support of his estimate among historians, we are going to use 750,000 as the estimated death toll among combatants in the Civil War. late 19th early 20th century combatant deaths acceptance and support Figures for the Global War on Terror are taken from the Department of Defense's Defense Casualty Analysis System and are valid as of October 2017. Defense Casualty Analysis System Afghanistan war: Iraq war: If we rely on the Department of Veterans Affairs summary, while accepting J. David Hacker's 750,000 estimate for the Civil War, the total number of deaths among American combatants in all U.S. military conflicts, using high estimates for each, is thus 1,481,862 about 100,000 less than the total number of firearms-related fatalities in the U.S. between 1968 and 2016. So even using the higher end of available estimates for war deaths throughout American history, the grand total of those deaths is still lower than the total of firearms-related fatalities since 1968, a period of just 49 years. Although this disparity between war deaths and gun deaths is smaller than the gap claimed by the Other 98% (200,000) or NBC News (300,000), the imprecision of casualty estimates (especially for the Civil War era) allows for a considerable margin of error. Bailey, Chelsea. "More Americans Killed by Guns Since 1968 Than in All U.S. Wars Combined."
NBC News. 4 October 2017.
Doyle, Don H. "The Civil War Was Won by Immigrant Soldiers."
Time. 29 June 2015. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. "America's Wars."
April 2017. Fox, William F. "Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865."
Hathi Trust, 1898. Livermore, Thomas L. "Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865."
Retrieved from Archive.org, dated 1900. Hacker, J. David. "Recounting the Dead."
The New York Times. 20 September 2011.
Gugliotta, Guy. "New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll."
The New York Times. 2 April 2012. McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.
Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-195-03863-0.
|
[
"profit"
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[
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}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/photos/a.115969958413991.17486.114517875225866/2048112031866431/?type=3&theater"
],
"sentence": "In the aftermath of the 1 October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the American public attempted to come to grips with the scale of gun violence in the United States. One oft-cited statistic posted in social media by \"The Other 98%\" maintained that 1.3 million Americans had been killed in all the wars in U.S. history, while 1.5 million Americans had been killed by firearms (in non-military use) since 1968 alone:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/las-vegas-shooting/more-americans-killed-guns-1968-all-u-s-wars-combined-n807156"
],
"sentence": "NBC News reported similar figures:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://icasualties.org/"
],
"sentence": "More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history. Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history, according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs and iCasualties.org, a website that maintains an ongoing database of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://time.com/3940428/civil-war-immigrant-soldiers/"
],
"sentence": "All these claims contain casual uses of the qualifier \"Americans\" in reference to gun deaths, which is somewhat confusing because not everyone who has been killed by firearms in the United States was an American citizen, and official sources for gun death statistics do not offer breakdowns by nationality. Therefore, we assume that \"Americans\" is used here for rhetorical effect, rather than as a functional statistical category, and deal with the total number of gun deaths occurring in the United States since 1968. Similarly, according to the historian Don H. Doyle, the U.S. Civil War saw around 543,000 foreign-born (i.e., immigrant) soldiers fighting on the Union side alone, so a significant number of Civil War deaths might have involved non-American citizen combatants, but we'll count them all as \"Americans.\" (Indeed, non-U.S. citizens have likely served and died fighting for the U.S. side in every American military conflict since the Revolutionary War, but probably in much greater numbers during the Civil War than any other.)"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/DataRestriction_inj.html"
],
"sentence": "In most cases, the source of these figures is the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). For figures from 1968 to 1991, we consulted the CDC directly"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf"
],
"sentence": "For combatant fatalities, our main source is an April 2017 summary published by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which lists the following figures:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/american-revolution-faqs"
],
"sentence": "The Civil War Trust, a non-profit organisation primarily dedicated to preserving American battlefields, estimates that around 6,800 people died in battle during the Revolutionary War, with an additional 17,000 deaths caused by disease, and between 8,000 and 12,000 more deaths occurring among those held as prisoners of war. The upper end of this estimate range, then, would put the total number of deaths associated with the American Revolutionary War at 26,800."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/war-of-1812-faqs"
],
"sentence": "Similarly, the Civil War Trust estimates that around 15,000 Americans died during the War of 1812, a significantly higher number than the 2,260 battle deaths estimated by the Department of Veterans Affairs."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$c16512;view=1up;seq=1",
"https://ia902700.us.archive.org/26/items/numbersandlosse00livegoog/numbersandlosse00livegoog.pdf",
"https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/recounting-the-dead/",
"https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html"
],
"sentence": "The Civil War is an interesting case. Based on from the work of two late 19th and early 20th century historians, the widely accepted figure for deaths in this conflict was reckoned as 618,222 for about a century. In 2011, however, J. David Hacker ( then of Binghamton University) published a significant upwards revision of that total, estimating that the likely death toll was between 650,000 and 851,000. Taking the mid-point in this estimate range assumes about 750,000 combatant deaths for the Civil War. Because of the enhanced statistical sophistication involved in Hacker's research, and what appears to be acceptance and support of his estimate among historians, we are going to use 750,000 as the estimated death toll among combatants in the Civil War."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties.xhtml"
],
"sentence": "Figures for the Global War on Terror are taken from the Department of Defense's Defense Casualty Analysis System and are valid as of October 2017."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facts-about-slavery/
|
9 'Facts' About Slavery 'They Don't Want You to Know'
|
David Emery
|
08/16/2016
|
[
"A widely circulated list of historical \"facts\" about slavery dwells on the participation of non-whites as owners and traders of slaves in America."
] |
One of the less well knownaspects of the history of slavery is how many and how oftenpeople of color owned and traded slaves in earlyAmerica. Free Black slave holders could be found at one time or another "in each of thethirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery," historian R. Halliburton Jr. observed. That Black people bought and sold other black people raises "vexing questions" for 21st-centuryAmericanslikeAfrican American writerHenry Louis Gates Jr., who writes that it betraysclass divisions that have always existed within the Black community. For others, it's an excuseto deflect the shared blame for the institution of slavery in America away from white people. Henry Louis Gates Jr. In the latter vein, a "9 Facts About Slavery They Don't Want You to Know" meme laysouta mixture of true, false and misleading historical claims. We'll address each one in turn below: The first legal slave owner in American history was a Black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson. Possibly true. The wording of the statement is important. Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in American history, but he was, according to historians, among the first to have his lifetime ownership of a servant legally sanctionedby a court. sanctioned A former indentured servant himself, Anthony Johnson was a so-called "free negro" who owned a 250-acre farm in Virginia during the 1650s, withfive indentured servantsunder contract tohim. One of them, a Black man named John Casor, claimed that his term of servicehad expired years earlier and Johnson was holding himillegally. In 1654, a civil court found that Johnson in fact owned Casor's services for life, an outcome historian R Halliburton Jr. calls "one of the first known legal sanctions of slavery other than as a punishment for crime." John Casor North Carolina's largest slave holder in 1860 was a Black plantation owner named William Ellison. False. William Ellison was a very wealthy Black plantation owner and cotton gin manufacturerwholivedin South Carolina (not North Carolina). According to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as "Ellerson"), he owned 63 Black slaves, making him the largest of the 171 Black slaveholders in South Carolina, but far from the largest overall slave holder in the state. William Ellison census American Indians owned thousands of Black slaves. True. Historian Tiya Miles provided this snapshot of the Native American ownership of Black slaves at the turn of the 19th century forSlatemagazine in January 2016: snapshot Miles places the number of enslaved people held by Cherokees at around 600 at the start of the 19th century and around 1,500 at the time of westward removal in 1838-9. (Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, she said, held around 3,500 slaves, across the three nations, as the 19thcentury began.) "Slavery inched its way slowly into Cherokee life," Miles told me. "When a white man moved into a Native location, usually to work as a trader or as an Indian agent, he would own [African] slaves." If such a person also had a child with a Native woman, as was not uncommon, the half-European, half-Native child would inherit the enslaved people (and their children) under white law, as well as the right to use tribal lands under tribal law. This combination put such people in a position to expand their wealth, eventually operating large farms and plantations. In 1830 there were 3,775 free Black people who owned 12,740 Black slaves. Approximately true, according to historian R. Halliburton Jr.: There were approximately 319,599 free blacks in the United States in 1830. Approximately 13.7 per cent of the total black population was free. A significant number of these free blacks were the owners of slaves. The census of 1830 lists 3,775 free Negroes who owned a total of 12,760 slaves. Many Black slaves were allowed to hold jobs, own businesses, and own real estate. Somewhattrue. There were exceptions, but generally speaking especially after 1750, by which time slave codes had beenentered into the law books in most of the American colonies Black slaves were not legally permittedto own property or businesses. From theOxford Companion to American Law (2002): Under these early codes, slaves had virtually no legal rights IN most areas they could be executed for crimes that were not capital offenses for whites. Their testimony was restricted in legal cases and could not be used either for or against whites. Trials of slaves were usually by special courts. Slaves could not own property, move about without consent of their owners, or legally marry. Brutal Black-on-Black slavery was common in Africa for thousands of years. True, in the sense that the phenomenonof human beings enslaving other human beings goes back thousands of years, but not just among Blacks, and not just in Africa. Most slaves brought to America from Africa were purchased from Black slave owners. Sort of true. Historian Steven Mintz describes the situation more accurately in the introduction to his bookAfrican-American Voices: ADocumentary Reader, 1619-1877: Apologists for the African slave trade long argued that European traders did not enslave anyone: they simply purchased Africans who had already been enslaved and who otherwise would have been put to death. Thus, apologists claimed, the slave trade actually saved lives. Such claims represent a gross distortion of the facts. Some independent slave merchants did in fact stage raids on unprotected African villages and kidnap and enslave Africans. Most professional slave traders, however, set up bases along the west African coast where they purchased slaves from Africans in exchange for firearms and other goods. Before the end of the seventeenth century, England, France, Denmark, Holland, and Portugal had all established slave trading posts on the west African coast. Yet to simply say that Europeans purchased people who had already been enslaved seriously distorts historical reality. While there had been a slave trade within Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans, the massive European demand for slaves and the introduction of firearms radically transformed west and central African society. A growing number of Africans were enslaved for petty debts or minor criminal or religious offenses or following unprovoked raids on unprotected villages. An increasing number of religious wars broke out with the goal of capturing slaves. European weapons made it easier to capture slaves. Slavery was common for thousands of years. True, as noted above though how "common" slavery has been and what the specific nature of that slavery was has varied according to time and place. White people ended legal chattel slavery. It's rather self-serving to claim that "white people" ended legal chattel slavery in the United States (much less ended chattel slavery, period), given that the overwhelming majority of Blacks in the U.S. could not vote, could not run for political office, and, in every other way conceivable, were excluded from institutional power. Moreover, even as some white people were laboring to put an end to slavery, many other white people were fighting to preserve it. Slavery was eliminated in America via the efforts of people of various ethnicities, including white people, who took up the banner of the abolitionist movement. The names of the white leaders of that movement tend to be better known than those of the Black leaders, among whom were David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, and many others. When Congress passed (and the states ratified) the 13th Amendment in 1865, it was the culmination of many years of work by that multi-racial movement. efforts abolitionist 13th Amendment work Davis, J.B. "Slavery in the Cherokee Nation." Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 11, No. 4. December 1993. Gates Jr., Henry Louis. "Did Black People Own Slaves?" The Root. 4 March 2013. Gates Jr., Henry Louis. "How Many Slaves Landed in the U.S.?" The Root. 6 January 2014. Hall, Kermit L. The Oxford Companion to American Law. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2002. ISBN 0-195-08878-6. Halliburton Jr., R. "Free Black Owners of Slaves: A Reappraisal of the Woodson Thesis." The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 76, No. 3. July 1975. Johnson, Michael P. and Roark, James L. Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. ISBN 0-393-30314-4. Mintz, Steven. African-American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619-1877. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. ISBN 1-444-31077-1. Onion, Rebecca. "America's Other Original Sin." em>Slate. January 2016. Rodriguez, Junius P. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1997. ISBN 0-874-36885-5. Russell, John Henderson. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913. ISBN 1-480-03049-X. Walton, Hanes and Smith, Robert C. American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom. London: Routledge, 2015. ISBN 1-317-35045-6.
|
[
"debt"
] |
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{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1S4up5wyalcU27ap-6p-KOtGNImxnMixs"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist/"
],
"sentence": "One of the less well knownaspects of the history of slavery is how many and how oftenpeople of color owned and traded slaves in earlyAmerica. Free Black slave holders could be found at one time or another \"in each of thethirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery,\" historian R. Halliburton Jr. observed. That Black people bought and sold other black people raises \"vexing questions\" for 21st-centuryAmericanslikeAfrican American writerHenry Louis Gates Jr., who writes that it betraysclass divisions that have always existed within the Black community. For others, it's an excuseto deflect the shared blame for the institution of slavery in America away from white people."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Court_Ruling_on_Anthony_Johnson_and_His_Servant_1655"
],
"sentence": "Possibly true. The wording of the statement is important. Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in American history, but he was, according to historians, among the first to have his lifetime ownership of a servant legally sanctionedby a court."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://books.google.com/books?id=QzB2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false"
],
"sentence": "A former indentured servant himself, Anthony Johnson was a so-called \"free negro\" who owned a 250-acre farm in Virginia during the 1650s, withfive indentured servantsunder contract tohim. One of them, a Black man named John Casor, claimed that his term of servicehad expired years earlier and Johnson was holding himillegally. In 1654, a civil court found that Johnson in fact owned Casor's services for life, an outcome historian R Halliburton Jr. calls \"one of the first known legal sanctions of slavery other than as a punishment for crime.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/african-americans/William-Ellison-bio.htm",
"https://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ajac/nchalifax.htm"
],
"sentence": "False. William Ellison was a very wealthy Black plantation owner and cotton gin manufacturerwholivedin South Carolina (not North Carolina). According to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as \"Ellerson\"), he owned 63 Black slaves, making him the largest of the 171 Black slaveholders in South Carolina, but far from the largest overall slave holder in the state."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/01/native_american_slavery_historians_uncover_a_chilling_chapter_in_u_s_history.html"
],
"sentence": "True. Historian Tiya Miles provided this snapshot of the Native American ownership of Black slaves at the turn of the 19th century forSlatemagazine in January 2016:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://books.google.com/books?id=q9W9CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA95#v=onepage&q&f=false",
"https://abolition.e2bn.org/people.html",
"https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html",
"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/african-americans-and-emancipation/essays/allies-for-emancipation-black-abolitionists"
],
"sentence": "Slavery was eliminated in America via the efforts of people of various ethnicities, including white people, who took up the banner of the abolitionist movement. The names of the white leaders of that movement tend to be better known than those of the Black leaders, among whom were David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Dred Scott, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, and many others. When Congress passed (and the states ratified) the 13th Amendment in 1865, it was the culmination of many years of work by that multi-racial movement."
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/apr/04/jerry-brown/jerry-browns-mostly-true-claim-about-tremendous-jo/
|
Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/04/2017
|
[] |
Gov. Jerry Brown frequently touts Californias overall job growth when telling what hes called the states comeback story. He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years. We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue. Later in the same interview, the shows host Chuck Todd asked Brown about inland Californias struggles, leading to another claim that caught our attention: Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there. Gov. Brown:The Inland Empire, the Central Valley, they have a harder time. But they, too, are experiencing tremendous job growth. Brown makes his jobs claim at about the 2:05 minute mark in the video above. Californias job growth is normally associated with coastal hubs like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So, we wondered whether Brown had his facts right when he said these inland regions had really experienced tremendous job growth, too. We set out on a fact-check. Inland Empire Home to about 4.5 million people, Riverside and San Bernardino counties make up whats known as the Inland Empire, a sprawling set of communities east of Los Angeles. The economists we spoke with say Browns case for tremendous job growth here is a strong one. The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership. During that year, it added 47,500 jobs, which was more than the 35,700 created in the Santa Clara metro area, considered the heart of Silicon Valley, Husing said. This area is a real growth engine, he added, listing construction, logistics and transportation among the growing sectors. Over the past five years, as the region has recovered from the Great Recession, it added jobs at a rate of 22.3 percent. That trailed only the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco metro areas 22.7 percent rate among large metros. A spokesman for the Brown Administration cited the same statistics backing up the governors claim. Colin Strange of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce said San Bernardino is seeing job growth, but mainly in blue-collar jobs that pay about $15 per hour including fork-lift operators and truck drivers. Husing, who has studied the regions wages, said the Inland Empire has a lower share of high-paying administrative jobs compared with the state as a whole. He said, however, that the region is outperforming the state in its share of middle-class jobs that pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Central Valley The Central Valley stretches about 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding. It includes urban cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno, vast farmland and a diverse economy, making job growth trends for the overall region more complex. Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help. That report shows the 8-county San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the central and southern portions of the Central Valley, experienced a 1.56 percent job growth rate in 2016; a 1.86 percent rate in 2015 and 1.80 percent in 2014. Those averages trailed the states overall job growth average, which measured 3 percent in 2015 and about 2 percent last year. But it beat the 8-county regions 1.23 percent historical average job growth rate. SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1 Within its own limits, the Valley has consistently grown. But it hasnt been a home run, Gokce Soydemir, an economics professor at Stanislaus State, said of job growth in that portion of the Central Valley. Jeffrey Michael, director of the University of Pacifics Center for Business and Policy Research in Stockton, added by email: Central Valley areas have also done very well in recent years with the exception of Bakersfield, where recent economic fluctuations are tightly connected to the oil industry. Bakersfields job growth rate was flat, at 0.1 percent, over the past year. Meanwhile, Sacramento, the biggest metro area in northern portion of the Central Valley, saw 1.8 percent growth over the past year, close to the statewide average. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth. Economists say Brown is right about the Inland Empire. That region experienced the fastest job growth rate among the states large metro areas over the past year, and added more jobs than the Santa Clara metro area, the heart of Silicon Valley, during that period. Job growth in the Central Valley, while its outperformed its historical benchmark in much of the diverse region, hasnt kept up with the overall state average. The governors argument here needs this key clarification. In the end, we rate his overall claim 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.
|
[
"Economy",
"Jobs",
"California"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": "Meet the Press",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1vTUEe2Wc5vCtMBtmUkdj6wNqZgLjujkK"
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{
"image_caption": "Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there.",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qiTPJo6m-hMwKe4Y1Sl9FKdR1AbrGhG8"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/gov-jerry-brown-trump-you-don-t-want-mess-california-n738636"
],
"sentence": "He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/mar/29/jerry-brown/fact-checking-jerry-browns-claim-california-has-cr/"
],
"sentence": "We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.johnhusing.com/John_Husing.htm"
],
"sentence": "The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/"
],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/apr/04/jerry-brown/jerry-browns-mostly-true-claim-about-tremendous-jo/
|
The Central Valley and Inland Empire in California are currently seeing significant increases in employment opportunities.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/04/2017
|
[] |
Gov. Jerry Brown frequently touts Californias overall job growth when telling what hes called the states comeback story. He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years. We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue. Later in the same interview, the shows host Chuck Todd asked Brown about inland Californias struggles, leading to another claim that caught our attention: Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there. Gov. Brown:The Inland Empire, the Central Valley, they have a harder time. But they, too, are experiencing tremendous job growth. Brown makes his jobs claim at about the 2:05 minute mark in the video above. Californias job growth is normally associated with coastal hubs like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So, we wondered whether Brown had his facts right when he said these inland regions had really experienced tremendous job growth, too. We set out on a fact-check. Inland Empire Home to about 4.5 million people, Riverside and San Bernardino counties make up whats known as the Inland Empire, a sprawling set of communities east of Los Angeles. The economists we spoke with say Browns case for tremendous job growth here is a strong one. The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership. During that year, it added 47,500 jobs, which was more than the 35,700 created in the Santa Clara metro area, considered the heart of Silicon Valley, Husing said. This area is a real growth engine, he added, listing construction, logistics and transportation among the growing sectors. Over the past five years, as the region has recovered from the Great Recession, it added jobs at a rate of 22.3 percent. That trailed only the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco metro areas 22.7 percent rate among large metros. A spokesman for the Brown Administration cited the same statistics backing up the governors claim. Colin Strange of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce said San Bernardino is seeing job growth, but mainly in blue-collar jobs that pay about $15 per hour including fork-lift operators and truck drivers. Husing, who has studied the regions wages, said the Inland Empire has a lower share of high-paying administrative jobs compared with the state as a whole. He said, however, that the region is outperforming the state in its share of middle-class jobs that pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Central Valley The Central Valley stretches about 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding. It includes urban cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno, vast farmland and a diverse economy, making job growth trends for the overall region more complex. Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help. That report shows the 8-county San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the central and southern portions of the Central Valley, experienced a 1.56 percent job growth rate in 2016; a 1.86 percent rate in 2015 and 1.80 percent in 2014. Those averages trailed the states overall job growth average, which measured 3 percent in 2015 and about 2 percent last year. But it beat the 8-county regions 1.23 percent historical average job growth rate. SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1 Within its own limits, the Valley has consistently grown. But it hasnt been a home run, Gokce Soydemir, an economics professor at Stanislaus State, said of job growth in that portion of the Central Valley. Jeffrey Michael, director of the University of Pacifics Center for Business and Policy Research in Stockton, added by email: Central Valley areas have also done very well in recent years with the exception of Bakersfield, where recent economic fluctuations are tightly connected to the oil industry. Bakersfields job growth rate was flat, at 0.1 percent, over the past year. Meanwhile, Sacramento, the biggest metro area in northern portion of the Central Valley, saw 1.8 percent growth over the past year, close to the statewide average. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth. Economists say Brown is right about the Inland Empire. That region experienced the fastest job growth rate among the states large metro areas over the past year, and added more jobs than the Santa Clara metro area, the heart of Silicon Valley, during that period. Job growth in the Central Valley, while its outperformed its historical benchmark in much of the diverse region, hasnt kept up with the overall state average. The governors argument here needs this key clarification. In the end, we rate his overall claim 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.
|
[
"Economy",
"Jobs",
"California"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": "Meet the Press",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1g4smUaWBjwFzwIp__ETBsPUfSjD7UJAh"
},
{
"image_caption": "Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there.",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1B6t6-buW20NWMrsX9k-7y3DnOfMJLd-E"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/gov-jerry-brown-trump-you-don-t-want-mess-california-n738636"
],
"sentence": "He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/mar/29/jerry-brown/fact-checking-jerry-browns-claim-california-has-cr/"
],
"sentence": "We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.johnhusing.com/John_Husing.htm"
],
"sentence": "The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/"
],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/apr/04/jerry-brown/jerry-browns-mostly-true-claim-about-tremendous-jo/
|
California's Central Valley and Inland Empire are undergoing significant growth in employment opportunities.
|
Chris Nichols
|
04/04/2017
|
[] |
Gov. Jerry Brown frequently touts Californias overall job growth when telling what hes called the states comeback story. He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years. We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue. Later in the same interview, the shows host Chuck Todd asked Brown about inland Californias struggles, leading to another claim that caught our attention: Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there. Gov. Brown:The Inland Empire, the Central Valley, they have a harder time. But they, too, are experiencing tremendous job growth. Brown makes his jobs claim at about the 2:05 minute mark in the video above. Californias job growth is normally associated with coastal hubs like Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So, we wondered whether Brown had his facts right when he said these inland regions had really experienced tremendous job growth, too. We set out on a fact-check. Inland Empire Home to about 4.5 million people, Riverside and San Bernardino counties make up whats known as the Inland Empire, a sprawling set of communities east of Los Angeles. The economists we spoke with say Browns case for tremendous job growth here is a strong one. The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership. During that year, it added 47,500 jobs, which was more than the 35,700 created in the Santa Clara metro area, considered the heart of Silicon Valley, Husing said. This area is a real growth engine, he added, listing construction, logistics and transportation among the growing sectors. Over the past five years, as the region has recovered from the Great Recession, it added jobs at a rate of 22.3 percent. That trailed only the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco metro areas 22.7 percent rate among large metros. A spokesman for the Brown Administration cited the same statistics backing up the governors claim. Colin Strange of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce said San Bernardino is seeing job growth, but mainly in blue-collar jobs that pay about $15 per hour including fork-lift operators and truck drivers. Husing, who has studied the regions wages, said the Inland Empire has a lower share of high-paying administrative jobs compared with the state as a whole. He said, however, that the region is outperforming the state in its share of middle-class jobs that pay between $45,000 and $60,000. Central Valley The Central Valley stretches about 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding. It includes urban cities like Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno, vast farmland and a diverse economy, making job growth trends for the overall region more complex. Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help. That report shows the 8-county San Joaquin Valley, which makes up the central and southern portions of the Central Valley, experienced a 1.56 percent job growth rate in 2016; a 1.86 percent rate in 2015 and 1.80 percent in 2014. Those averages trailed the states overall job growth average, which measured 3 percent in 2015 and about 2 percent last year. But it beat the 8-county regions 1.23 percent historical average job growth rate. SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1 Within its own limits, the Valley has consistently grown. But it hasnt been a home run, Gokce Soydemir, an economics professor at Stanislaus State, said of job growth in that portion of the Central Valley. Jeffrey Michael, director of the University of Pacifics Center for Business and Policy Research in Stockton, added by email: Central Valley areas have also done very well in recent years with the exception of Bakersfield, where recent economic fluctuations are tightly connected to the oil industry. Bakersfields job growth rate was flat, at 0.1 percent, over the past year. Meanwhile, Sacramento, the biggest metro area in northern portion of the Central Valley, saw 1.8 percent growth over the past year, close to the statewide average. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown recently claimed Californias Central Valley and Inland Empire are experiencing tremendous job growth. Economists say Brown is right about the Inland Empire. That region experienced the fastest job growth rate among the states large metro areas over the past year, and added more jobs than the Santa Clara metro area, the heart of Silicon Valley, during that period. Job growth in the Central Valley, while its outperformed its historical benchmark in much of the diverse region, hasnt kept up with the overall state average. The governors argument here needs this key clarification. In the end, we rate his overall claim 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.
|
[
"Economy",
"Jobs",
"California"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": "Meet the Press",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zrUOoQdvGqAk1m6vUl-6UDwSux9gokbZ"
},
{
"image_caption": "Chuck Todd:But there are parts of your state that are struggling. You have rural counties, ones that dont touch the ocean, struggling. Housing prices are up there, while jobs dont go there.",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1NC6bExXzTJD8-Kl4ng5jI-tCY6Ckc9-A"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/gov-jerry-brown-trump-you-don-t-want-mess-california-n738636"
],
"sentence": "He claimed recently on NBCsMeet the Pressthat California has added 2.1 million jobs in the last six or seven years."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/mar/29/jerry-brown/fact-checking-jerry-browns-claim-california-has-cr/"
],
"sentence": "We checked the numbers and rated that claimTrue."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.johnhusing.com/John_Husing.htm"
],
"sentence": "The regions 3.2 percent job growth rate was the fastest among the states large metro areas from February 2016 through February 2017, saidJohnHusing, chief economist for the InlandEmpire EconomicPartnership."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Areport by Stanislaus State Universityin the Central Valley city of Turlock offers some help."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/groups/College%20of%20Business%20Administration/documents/2016_business-forecast-report_vol6-iss1.pdf"
],
"sentence": "SOURCE: Stanislaus State University, College of Business Administration,2016 Business Forecast Report,Volume VI, Issue 1"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/feb/21/principles-truth-o-meter/"
],
"sentence": "Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/melted-wind-turbine-texas/
|
No, This Wind Turbine Didn't Melt in Texas Heat
|
Bethania Palma
|
06/17/2021
|
[
"It's certainly hot in Texas, but not quite that hot."
] |
In mid-June 2021, Snopes readers inquired about memes posted to social media that purportedly showed a wind turbine that had melted in scorching Texas heat (some versions sent in by readers claimed the turbine was melted in Nebraska). Texas heat National Weather Service Houston tweeted an image of the turbine in question on June 14, 2021. The turbine, located in Wadsworth, a community southwest of Houston, was damaged by powerful winds during a storm in the area. Claims about turbines failing during extreme weather events in Texas have been a topic of interest in the past. In February 2021, conservative commentators and legislators falsely claimed that frozen turbines played a major role in the loss of power to millions of Texans as they experienced record cold temperatures. falsely claimed As we reported at that time, half of Texas' wind turbines went offline during the cold snap, but only accounted for a small fraction of the power outage, which was mostly caused by failure of systems producing power from natural gas, coal, and nuclear sources.
|
[
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"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15e8lPDyouI-dGLHrgfiEQKmGx6LFpg0T"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ac-or-aoc-ercot-texas-option/"
],
"sentence": "In mid-June 2021, Snopes readers inquired about memes posted to social media that purportedly showed a wind turbine that had melted in scorching Texas heat (some versions sent in by readers claimed the turbine was melted in Nebraska)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-turbines-texas-power-outages/"
],
"sentence": "Claims about turbines failing during extreme weather events in Texas have been a topic of interest in the past. In February 2021, conservative commentators and legislators falsely claimed that frozen turbines played a major role in the loss of power to millions of Texans as they experienced record cold temperatures."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/laphonza-butler-work-for-uber-airbnb/
|
Did Laphonza Butler, Feinstein's Senate Replacement, Work for Uber and Airbnb?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
10/02/2023
|
[
"Butler has been active in Democratic party politics for many years."
] |
Following the death of Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California on Sept. 29, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would replace her with long-time political operative Laphonza Butler. At the time of his announcement, Butler was president of Emily's List, a political action committee (PAC) aimed at electing pro-choice female, Democratic candidates to office. death announced president Active in Democratic politics for years, she was a senior adviser to Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential primary campaign and a partner at the firm SCRB Strategies, a well-known political and business consulting group that handled Harris' campaign, Newsom's fight against recall efforts, and several other high-profile Democratic causes. Prior to her consulting work, she was the president of the largest labor union in California a healthcare and homecare workers union Service Employees International Union (SEIU)Local 2015. fight against president With this background, claimswent viral after Newsom's announcement that Butler had advised Uber during its fight against labor protections for drivers and had worked on political issues for the vacation rental company Airbnb: claims (Twitter) Both assertions are factual. As journalist Lee Fang reported, Uber paid SCRB at least $183,000 in the time period in which Butler worked for the firm, which is now named Bearclaw Strategies. Back in 2019, Bloomberg labor reporter Josh Eidelson reported on Butler's work for Uber, specifically writing: reported reported One asset for Uber is Laphonza Butler. She was president of one of the SEIU's largest local unions until last year and is now a partner at SCRB Strategies, a California-based business and political consulting firm. There, Butler has advised and represented Uber in its dealings with organized labor on employment issues and also serves as an adviser to the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic senator from California. An Uber spokesman said Butler brings a valuable perspective to the company's efforts to improve work for drivers, and a spokesman for Harris declined to comment. Butler and her firm didn't respond to requests for comment. It is also public knowledge that Butler left SCRB strategies to work in the policy arm of Airbnb in September of 2020, taking the title "North American Policy Director." As reported by Politico in 2020: reported Laphonza Butler, a partner at a leading California political consulting firm that has helped guide the campaigns of Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown, is leaving to join the vacation rental company Airbnb, she confirmed to POLITICO. In that role, she advocated policy positions favorable to Airbnb to the U.S. Congress. She was the author, for example, of a letter to congressional leaders advocating Airbnb's "strong support for the necessary federal funding to implement sustainable, long-term policy solutions for broadband deployment throughout our country in order to provide more opportunity in every city, state and territory of the United States. a letter Because both Uber and Airbnb have publicly confirmed that Butler worked with them, and in the case of the latter was directly employed by the company, we rate the claim as Airbnb Letter on Rural Broadband 8 Jun 2021. 8 June 2021, https://news.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/06/Airbnb-letter-on-Rural-Broadband-8-Jun-2021.pdf. Fang, Lee. Governor Newsom Selects Political Operative Laphonza Butler to Replace Sen. Feinstein. https://www.leefang.com/p/governor-newsom-selects-political. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. "Key Kamala Harris Political Consultant Heads to Top Airbnb Post." POLITICO, 4 Sept. 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/kamala-harris-political-consultant-airbnb-409154. "Leadership." EMILYs List, https://emilyslist.org/our-leadership/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023. Marinucci, Carla. "Here's the Political Team Newsom Has Assembled to Fight the Recall." POLITICO, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.politico.com/states/story/2021/03/17/heres-the-political-team-newsom-has-assembled-to-fight-the-recall-1368535. "Teamsters Union Splits From Uber and Lyft on California Worker Rights Law." Bloomberg.Com, 25 July 2019. www.bloomberg.com, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-25/union-splits-from-uber-and-lyft-on-california-worker-rights-law.
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}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feinstein-final-vote-death/",
"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/10/01/governor-gavin-newsom-appoints-laphonza-butler-senate/",
"https://archive.ph/HEMam"
],
"sentence": "Following the death of Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California on Sept. 29, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would replace her with long-time political operative Laphonza Butler. At the time of his announcement, Butler was president of Emily's List, a political action committee (PAC) aimed at electing pro-choice female, Democratic candidates to office."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politico.com/story/2021/03/17/heres-the-political-team-newsom-has-assembled-to-fight-the-recall-1368535",
"https://archive.ph/HEMam"
],
"sentence": "Active in Democratic politics for years, she was a senior adviser to Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential primary campaign and a partner at the firm SCRB Strategies, a well-known political and business consulting group that handled Harris' campaign, Newsom's fight against recall efforts, and several other high-profile Democratic causes. Prior to her consulting work, she was the president of the largest labor union in California a healthcare and homecare workers union Service Employees International Union (SEIU)Local 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.ph/H50Ma"
],
"sentence": "With this background, claimswent viral after Newsom's announcement that Butler had advised Uber during its fight against labor protections for drivers and had worked on political issues for the vacation rental company Airbnb:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.leefang.com/p/governor-newsom-selects-political",
"https://archive.ph/ie3Ex#selection-3531.0-3531.658"
],
"sentence": "Both assertions are factual. As journalist Lee Fang reported, Uber paid SCRB at least $183,000 in the time period in which Butler worked for the firm, which is now named Bearclaw Strategies. Back in 2019, Bloomberg labor reporter Josh Eidelson reported on Butler's work for Uber, specifically writing:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/kamala-harris-political-consultant-airbnb-409154"
],
"sentence": "It is also public knowledge that Butler left SCRB strategies to work in the policy arm of Airbnb in September of 2020, taking the title \"North American Policy Director.\" As reported by Politico in 2020:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://news.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/06/Airbnb-letter-on-Rural-Broadband-8-Jun-2021.pdf"
],
"sentence": "In that role, she advocated policy positions favorable to Airbnb to the U.S. Congress. She was the author, for example, of a letter to congressional leaders advocating Airbnb's \"strong support for the necessary federal funding to implement sustainable, long-term policy solutions for broadband deployment throughout our country in order to provide more opportunity in every city, state and territory of the United States."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/nov/15/kent-conrad/kent-conrad-says-federal-spendings-share-gdp-60-ye/
|
Federal spending is the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years (and) revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years.
|
Louis Jacobson
|
11/15/2010
|
[] |
With the rise of the fiscally conservative tea party and the recent release of a draft report by the presidentially appointed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the nation's fiscal challenges have rocketed up the list of urgent agenda items in Washington. We'll take a look at two comments on federal spending made on the Nov. 14, 2010, Sunday talk shows -- one by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the other by Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky. We'll address Conrad's here.In an interview on ABC'sThis Week With Christiane Amanpour, Conrad -- who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the presidentially appointed panel -- said, If you look at our spending, it's the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, so we're going to have to work both sides of the equation.Let's take a look at Conrad's numbers.As we did with Paul's item, we turned to a historicaltablefrom the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP -- essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole.In 2009, the last full year available, federal spending accounted for 24.7 percent of GDP. That's higher than it's been in any year since 1949 -- 60 years prior. You have to go back to 1946 to find a higher percentage -- 24.8 -- and that was a year in which the nation was winding down high rates of spending for World War II. (From 1943 to 1945, the height of the war, federal spending ranged from 41 percent to 43 percent of GDP. )Clearly, recessions have an impact on how high this percentage gets. The only other years since 1946 in which federal spending exceeded 23 percent of GDP came in 1982 and 1983, with 23.1 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. That was during and immediately after the 1981-82 recession -- the last one that rivaled today's in severity. Economic downturns tend to affect this statistic because theyslowGDP growth and increase the demand for government services. Even without special stimulus measures, spending goes up for mandatory items such as food stamps.Either way, Conrad is correct on spending. What about tax revenue as a percentage of GDP?In 2009, tax receipts accounted for 14.8 percent of GDP. According to the table, tax receipts as a share of GDP were always higher all the way back through 1950, when they accounted for 14.4 percent of GDP. That would be 59 years -- not quite 60, but very, very close.The recession factors into the tax revenue statistic as well. Both the 2008 stimulus package under President George W. Bush and the 2009 stimulus under President Barack Obama included tax breaks as a major component.Because the statistics show a number so close to 60 years -- and because Conrad was speaking during a television interview rather than a prepared speech or written statement -- we'll give him some leeway and rate the statement True.
|
[
"National",
"Economy",
"Federal Budget",
"This Week - ABC News",
"Taxes"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/hist01z2.xls"
],
"sentence": "We'll take a look at two comments on federal spending made on the Nov. 14, 2010, Sunday talk shows -- one by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the other by Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky. We'll address Conrad's here.In an interview on ABC'sThis Week With Christiane Amanpour, Conrad -- who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the presidentially appointed panel -- said, If you look at our spending, it's the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, so we're going to have to work both sides of the equation.Let's take a look at Conrad's numbers.As we did with Paul's item, we turned to a historicaltablefrom the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP -- essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole.In 2009, the last full year available, federal spending accounted for 24.7 percent of GDP. That's higher than it's been in any year since 1949 -- 60 years prior. You have to go back to 1946 to find a higher percentage -- 24.8 -- and that was a year in which the nation was winding down high rates of spending for World War II. (From 1943 to 1945, the height of the war, federal spending ranged from 41 percent to 43 percent of GDP.)Clearly, recessions have an impact on how high this percentage gets. The only other years since 1946 in which federal spending exceeded 23 percent of GDP came in 1982 and 1983, with 23.1 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. That was during and immediately after the 1981-82 recession -- the last one that rivaled today's in severity. Economic downturns tend to affect this statistic because theyslowGDP growth and increase the demand for government services. Even without special stimulus measures, spending goes up for mandatory items such as food stamps.Either way, Conrad is correct on spending. What about tax revenue as a percentage of GDP?In 2009, tax receipts accounted for 14.8 percent of GDP. According to the table, tax receipts as a share of GDP were always higher all the way back through 1950, when they accounted for 14.4 percent of GDP. That would be 59 years -- not quite 60, but very, very close.The recession factors into the tax revenue statistic as well. Both the 2008 stimulus package under President George W. Bush and the 2009 stimulus under President Barack Obama included tax breaks as a major component.Because the statistics show a number so close to 60 years -- and because Conrad was speaking during a television interview rather than a prepared speech or written statement -- we'll give him some leeway and rate the statement True."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-car-giveaway/
|
Facebook Car Giveaway
|
David Mikkelson
|
12/12/2014
|
[
"You cannot win a new Audi, Mercedes, Range Rover, Camaro, or other car by liking a Facebook page or post and sharing it with friends."
] |
In December 2014, a number of Facebook pages using car brand names such as Audi, Range Rover, Mercedes, and Camaro (among others) posted directives similar to the messages quoted above. The pages claimed that Facebook was giving away cars. Among the cars offered in the giveaways were Audi R8s, Range Rovers, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGs, and Chevrolet Camaro SS models. Almost all the scams followed the same format: they instructed users to like a separate page, like the original post, and share the post on their own Timeline (thereby validating its legitimacy and enticing others to do the same).users were eligible to win one of two available vehicles in the winner's choice of color simply by liking a separate Facebook page, liking and sharing a post, and waiting for an inbox message confirming the winners. In April 2016, the scam reappeared, this time with a Range Rover as the car offered in the giveaway: The first clue the giveaways following this format were not on the up-and-up was the pages to which Facebook users were directed, pages that had been created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only were the secondary Facebook pages involved always new, they were also not linked with car companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure; however, no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment was discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims. The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise. Costco Kroger Amazon The pages to which users were directed carried all the hallmarks of "like farming" operations intended to quickly build and sell popular Facebook pages. Even if the page creators' intent were only to build an audience, users' participating in the scam created a larger incentive for employing future fakery of the same description to crowd Facebook feeds. Scammers could also exploit a large audience by mining varying levels of personal data from those who have liked a page of dubious origin. So Facebook users who participate in such fake giveaways not only unwittingly help spammers pollute the social network with scams, they may also risk being exposed to malware, clickjacking, or other unpleasantries (such as finding their names and identities endorsing a scam, hate page, or other undesirable activity). Giveaways, particularly of high-value merchandise, are generally rare and almost always conducted through brands' official channels or the social media accounts of related large companies.
|
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"/inboxer/nothing/costco.asp",
"/inboxer/nothing/krogercard.asp",
"/inboxer/nothing/amazongiftcard.asp"
],
"sentence": "The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-car-giveaway/
|
Facebook Car Giveaway can be rephrased as "Car giveaway hosted on Facebook."
|
David Mikkelson
|
12/12/2014
|
[
"You cannot win a new Audi, Mercedes, Range Rover, Camaro, or other car by liking a Facebook page or post and sharing it with friends."
] |
In December 2014, a number of Facebook pages using car brand names such as Audi, Range Rover, Mercedes, and Camaro (among others) posted directives similar to the messages quoted above. The pages claimed that Facebook was giving away cars. Among the cars offered in the giveaways were Audi R8s, Range Rovers, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGs, and Chevrolet Camaro SS models. Almost all the scams followed the same format: they instructed users to like a separate page, like the original post, and share the post on their own Timeline (thereby validating its legitimacy and enticing others to do the same).users were eligible to win one of two available vehicles in the winner's choice of color simply by liking a separate Facebook page, liking and sharing a post, and waiting for an inbox message confirming the winners. In April 2016, the scam reappeared, this time with a Range Rover as the car offered in the giveaway: The first clue the giveaways following this format were not on the up-and-up was the pages to which Facebook users were directed, pages that had been created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only were the secondary Facebook pages involved always new, they were also not linked with car companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure; however, no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment was discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims. The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise. Costco Kroger Amazon The pages to which users were directed carried all the hallmarks of "like farming" operations intended to quickly build and sell popular Facebook pages. Even if the page creators' intent were only to build an audience, users' participating in the scam created a larger incentive for employing future fakery of the same description to crowd Facebook feeds. Scammers could also exploit a large audience by mining varying levels of personal data from those who have liked a page of dubious origin. So Facebook users who participate in such fake giveaways not only unwittingly help spammers pollute the social network with scams, they may also risk being exposed to malware, clickjacking, or other unpleasantries (such as finding their names and identities endorsing a scam, hate page, or other undesirable activity). Giveaways, particularly of high-value merchandise, are generally rare and almost always conducted through brands' official channels or the social media accounts of related large companies.
|
[
"share"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1T08agIYGimLlJDPrqf7idgSCdO-XUkIn"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"/inboxer/nothing/costco.asp",
"/inboxer/nothing/krogercard.asp",
"/inboxer/nothing/amazongiftcard.asp"
],
"sentence": "The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-car-giveaway/
|
Facebook Car Giveaway – A car is being given away on Facebook.
|
David Mikkelson
|
12/12/2014
|
[
"You cannot win a new Audi, Mercedes, Range Rover, Camaro, or other car by liking a Facebook page or post and sharing it with friends."
] |
In December 2014, a number of Facebook pages using car brand names such as Audi, Range Rover, Mercedes, and Camaro (among others) posted directives similar to the messages quoted above. The pages claimed that Facebook was giving away cars. Among the cars offered in the giveaways were Audi R8s, Range Rovers, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGs, and Chevrolet Camaro SS models. Almost all the scams followed the same format: they instructed users to like a separate page, like the original post, and share the post on their own Timeline (thereby validating its legitimacy and enticing others to do the same).users were eligible to win one of two available vehicles in the winner's choice of color simply by liking a separate Facebook page, liking and sharing a post, and waiting for an inbox message confirming the winners. In April 2016, the scam reappeared, this time with a Range Rover as the car offered in the giveaway: The first clue the giveaways following this format were not on the up-and-up was the pages to which Facebook users were directed, pages that had been created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only were the secondary Facebook pages involved always new, they were also not linked with car companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure; however, no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment was discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims. The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise. Costco Kroger Amazon The pages to which users were directed carried all the hallmarks of "like farming" operations intended to quickly build and sell popular Facebook pages. Even if the page creators' intent were only to build an audience, users' participating in the scam created a larger incentive for employing future fakery of the same description to crowd Facebook feeds. Scammers could also exploit a large audience by mining varying levels of personal data from those who have liked a page of dubious origin. So Facebook users who participate in such fake giveaways not only unwittingly help spammers pollute the social network with scams, they may also risk being exposed to malware, clickjacking, or other unpleasantries (such as finding their names and identities endorsing a scam, hate page, or other undesirable activity). Giveaways, particularly of high-value merchandise, are generally rare and almost always conducted through brands' official channels or the social media accounts of related large companies.
|
[
"insurance"
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"hrefs": [
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"sentence": "The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-car-giveaway/
|
Facebook car giveaway can be rephrased as "Car giveaway promotion on Facebook"
|
David Mikkelson
|
12/12/2014
|
[
"You cannot win a new Audi, Mercedes, Range Rover, Camaro, or other car by liking a Facebook page or post and sharing it with friends."
] |
In December 2014, a number of Facebook pages using car brand names such as Audi, Range Rover, Mercedes, and Camaro (among others) posted directives similar to the messages quoted above. The pages claimed that Facebook was giving away cars. Among the cars offered in the giveaways were Audi R8s, Range Rovers, Mercedes-Benz E63 AMGs, and Chevrolet Camaro SS models. Almost all the scams followed the same format: they instructed users to like a separate page, like the original post, and share the post on their own Timeline (thereby validating its legitimacy and enticing others to do the same).users were eligible to win one of two available vehicles in the winner's choice of color simply by liking a separate Facebook page, liking and sharing a post, and waiting for an inbox message confirming the winners. In April 2016, the scam reappeared, this time with a Range Rover as the car offered in the giveaway: The first clue the giveaways following this format were not on the up-and-up was the pages to which Facebook users were directed, pages that had been created just days before the giveaway posts begin to appear. Not only were the secondary Facebook pages involved always new, they were also not linked with car companies or other interests one might imagine could reasonably be expected to offer up a car in exchange for social media advertising (such as automobile dealerships, insurance companies, or large retailers). Were a legitimate company to engage in such a high-ticket contest giveaway, the incentive would be exposure; however, no corresponding promotional return on advertising investment was discernable in these Facebook giveaway claims. The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise. Costco Kroger Amazon The pages to which users were directed carried all the hallmarks of "like farming" operations intended to quickly build and sell popular Facebook pages. Even if the page creators' intent were only to build an audience, users' participating in the scam created a larger incentive for employing future fakery of the same description to crowd Facebook feeds. Scammers could also exploit a large audience by mining varying levels of personal data from those who have liked a page of dubious origin. So Facebook users who participate in such fake giveaways not only unwittingly help spammers pollute the social network with scams, they may also risk being exposed to malware, clickjacking, or other unpleasantries (such as finding their names and identities endorsing a scam, hate page, or other undesirable activity). Giveaways, particularly of high-value merchandise, are generally rare and almost always conducted through brands' official channels or the social media accounts of related large companies.
|
[
"investment"
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],
"sentence": "The tactics were similar to recent scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure price tag attached to some of the vehicles involved in the Facebook car giveaway posts proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, not all of whom questioned whether sharing a page presented any negative consequence should it later turn out to be a prank, hoax, or other false promise."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/not-my-dog/
|
Mistaken Dog
|
Barbara Mikkelson
|
12/05/2002
|
[
"A hilarious tale about a badly behaved dog."
] |
Claim: A badly behaved dog wreaks havoc while two fellows stand by silently, each thinking it's the other guy's pooch. LEGEND Examples: [Brunvand, 1989] A woman is invited to call at the home of a woman who is wealthier than she is. From the moment she is invited, the caller is unsure about how to behave how to sit, how to take tea, etc. And matters are made worse when the time of the visit arrives. A large, lively, dirty, beast of a dog is sitting in the front yard, and when the hostess welcomes the caller into the house, the dog follows her inside. While the caller tries to respect the social amenities, that darn dog does not. It tracks mud about the room, sniffs the cookies, and paws the furniture. The caller makes small talk, but the conversation becomes strained. Still, both parties keep a stiff upper lip, observing proper etiquette. Finally, the visit comes to an end. As the caller rises to leave, the hostess, with one eye on the wreckage, remarks icily, "And don't forget to take your dog!" "My dog?" the caller says. "I thought it was yours!" [Regis, 1987] In January 1946 Bigelow came down to Princeton for an interview with Von Neumann. He was a couple of hours late . . . Julian Bigelow got out of the car and walked up to the house. "Von Neumann lived in this elegant lodge house on Westcott Road in Princeton," Bigelow says. "As I parked my car and walked in, there was this very large Great Dane dog bouncing around on the front lawn. I knocked on the door and Von Neumann, who was a small, quiet, modest kind of a man came to the door and bowed to me and said, 'Bigelow, won't you come in,' and so forth, and this dog brushed between our legs and went into the living room. He proceeded to lie down on the rug in front of everybody, and we had the entire interview whether I would come, what I knew, what the job was going to be like and this lasted maybe forty minutes, with the dog wandering all around the house. Towards the end of it, von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann being a diplomatic, middle European type person he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end." [Mahoney, 1983] In passing I must make mention of a funny situation in which I became involved while visiting Field Marshal Lord Alexander and his wife at their home near London. I motored there to have luncheon with them, and as I emerged from my car, a huge dog appeared in the driveway. Dogs always made a dead set for me, and I wasn't worried when it began jumping around and wagging its tail. But I did feel some concern when it followed me to the doorway and walked in as if it owned the house. A family pet, I felt sure, as it settled down to a corner of the living room as Lord and Lady Alexander greeted me warmly. At luncheon the dog settled down at my feet and the begging for food began. Lady Alexander's attention became riveted upon me: "Mr. Mahoney," she said charmingly, "I wish you would send your dog outside." And not until then did it dawn upon me that they thought the stray dog was mine! Origins: Though this story has often been told as an actual event in an important person's life, its first appearance came in a 1924 Lucy Maud Montgomery book, Emily Climbs. In Chapter 12, Emily's call on socially-superior Miss Janet Royal is interrupted by the antics of a very large muddy dog that follows her into the elegant parlor, where it proceeds to act up. to the legend, only after the beast has made a shambles of things and Emily is about to leave does the subject of the dog's ownership arise, each girl thinking up until that time the horrid thing belonged to the other. From those early beginnings, the "Not my dog" anecdote has gone on to reach a succession of new audiences, as new storytellers emerge and claim it as their own. Burt Reynolds is rumored to have told this story (starring himself as the embarrassed visitor) to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in the 1980s. A common element in this story is unequal status between visitor and visited. The one who comes calling feels inferior for reasons relating to social standing, comparative wealth, or the celebrated householder's achievements. Whatever the cause, he comes hat in hand, filled with a determination to make a good impression a certain recipe for social disaster! The story is one of horrific embarrassment; the faux pas being perceived as being that much more flamboyant because it plays out before someone looked up to. That matters are straightened out before the visit ends by the caller blurting out, "My dog? I thought he was yours!" doesn't change the momentary flash of mortification experienced or the knowledge that the sought-after host had sat there for quite a while thinking decidedly evil thoughts about his guest. The story is also a poke at the strictures of etiquette. Neither host nor guest feels it would be proper to comment negatively on the dog's behavior, so both endure the worsening state of affairs in stoic silence. The legend underscores common misperceptions about etiquette, that the rules of polite behavior are often impractical and adherence to them results in ridiculous situations a more direct approach would head off at the pass. Those who resent the genteelly-voiced demands of Miss Manners and long for less structured, more direct forms of social interaction get to savor a moment of self-congratulation through this story because it proves right what they've been saying all along. As old as this story is (1924, remember?) it continues to pop up, and even at times changes in dramatic ways. We picked up the following non-canine version of the tale during our Internet travels, again proving that no story can't stand a little improving: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] The story goes along the lines of a young Indo-asian couple who after a non-arranged marriage, decide to get a house together. A few weeks after they move in, the husband returns from work to find an older woman in the living room of the house. Knowing they have broken with tradition by having a non-arranged marriage, the husband greets his mother-in-law, only to receive a hard silent stare. She is evidently not happy at their recent union. That evening the old woman joins the couple at the dinner table, and continues to join them for every meal for the next month, never uttering a word. Eventually the once-close couple become hostile to one another, unhappy that 'Mother' has been allowed to move in with them. They stop talking and avoid one another. A few days later the situation escalates into an argument about the old woman. The creepy truth is revealed as the wife exclaims "My mother? I thought she was yours!" Barbara "vinegar mother" Mikkelson Last updated: 2 August 2011 Curses! Broiled Again! Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be . New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 55-57). Too Good To Be Mahoney, Patrick. Barbed Wit & Malicious Humor. New York: Citadel Press, 1956. (p. 100). Regis, Edward. Who Got Einstein's Office? Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1987 (p. 110). Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill. Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths. London: Virgin Books, 1996. ISBN 0-86369-969-3 (pp. 105-106). Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 39). The Big Book of Urban Legends
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[
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"sentence": " Brunvand, Jan Harold. Too Good To Be . New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04734-2 (pp. 55-57)."
},
{
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],
"sentence": " Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill. Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths. London: Virgin Books, 1996. ISBN 0-86369-969-3 (pp. 105-106)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"../../sources/bigbook.htm"
],
"sentence": " The Big Book of Urban Legends. New York: Paradox Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56389-165-4 (p. 39)."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bacon-sandwich-reported-offensive-facebook/
|
Bacon Sandwich Reported as Offensive on Facebook
|
Kim LaCapria
|
12/08/2016
|
[
"A social media post claimed that a bacon sandwich image was deemed \"offensive\" by Facebook in an attempt to farm engagement."
] |
On 23 November 2016, the Facebook page "I Am Proud To Be English" shared a photograph of a bacon sandwich alongside a meme implying the image was banned because it was offensive to Muslims: shared The meme read: I actually had this reported on my timeline as been offensive!! Is it? How many people dare to like and share it? Tens of thousands answered the call, though many of the post's top comments expressed skepticism about the claim on several levels: At least one person noticed that claims that the bacon sandwich was reported as offensive did not mesh with the wide circulation of the photograph after it was posted: Doubters were correct in suspecting the bacon sandwich picture was unlikely to be flagged by Facebook. The social network's Community Standards held that only the following content is subject to review and removal: Direct Threats, Self-Injury, Dangerous Organizations, Bullying and Harassment, Attacks on Public Figures, Criminal Activity, Sexual Violence and Exploitation, and Regulated Goods. We could find no appropriate category under which the image would be restricted via a report. held In response to an earlier but similar rumor, a representative for Facebook told us that images which do not violate Facebook's Community Standards would not be removed from their platform. The "share this bacon sandwich" meme was one of several that suggested that Muslims are offended by the mere sight of pork, or simply offended in manners that were rumored to affect citizens of the UK or United States. Similar claims often circulate about disabled veterans, poppies, and Nativity scenes, but all versions are very likely to forms of likebait (or like-farming), aiming to appeal to the emotional responses of social media users in order to promote or popularize unrelated companies or Facebook interests in a bait and switch. several offended mere sight of pork affect citizens disabled veterans poppies Nativity likebait like-farming Facebook Help Center. "Community Standards."
Accessed 8 November 2016.
|
[
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[
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],
"sentence": "On 23 November 2016, the Facebook page \"I Am Proud To Be English\" shared a photograph of a bacon sandwich alongside a meme implying the image was banned because it was offensive to Muslims:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards"
],
"sentence": "Doubters were correct in suspecting the bacon sandwich picture was unlikely to be flagged by Facebook. The social network's Community Standards held that only the following content is subject to review and removal: Direct Threats, Self-Injury, Dangerous Organizations, Bullying and Harassment, Attacks on Public Figures, Criminal Activity, Sexual Violence and Exploitation, and Regulated Goods. We could find no appropriate category under which the image would be restricted via a report."
},
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"https://www.snopes.com/tag/muslims-offended/",
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"https://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/belgiumpork.asp",
"https://www.snopes.com/washington-school-district-bans-pork/",
"https://www.snopes.com/germany-bans-pork-under-sharia-law/",
"https://www.snopes.com/waterworld-waterpark-bans-bikinis-because-muslims-are-offended/",
"https://www.snopes.com/remove-flag-muslims-offended/",
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"https://www.snopes.com/facebook-usmc-ban/",
"https://www.snopes.com/poppy-sale-ban/",
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"https://www.snopes.com/2016/01/15/death-hoaxes-like-farming/",
"https://www.snopes.com/tag/like-farming/"
],
"sentence": "The \"share this bacon sandwich\" meme was one of several that suggested that Muslims are offended by the mere sight of pork, or simply offended in manners that were rumored to affect citizens of the UK or United States. Similar claims often circulate about disabled veterans, poppies, and Nativity scenes, but all versions are very likely to forms of likebait (or like-farming), aiming to appeal to the emotional responses of social media users in order to promote or popularize unrelated companies or Facebook interests in a bait and switch."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jan/14/kathleen-vinehout/vinehout-says-160-tax-cut-didnt-show-weekly-payche/
|
If you make the average amount of people in Wisconsin, $50,000, you got $1.60 less a week in taxes under the state income-tax cut, but it didnt show up in your paycheck.
|
Dave Umhoefer
|
01/14/2014
|
[] |
Despite lower income-tax rates enacted by lawmakers, Wisconsin workers didnt see the result in their paychecks in 2013 unless they took special action. Taxpayers will see the benefit when they file their tax returns this year and get either a larger refund or a smaller bill. Why? The state did not change the tax withholding tables to reflect the new, lower rates -- following a long tradition in Madison. The state currently has no plan to update the withholding tables in 2014, either. Thats the sum of what we learned as we checked out a claim by state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, about what the average worker would save from the tax cut approved in 2013 by Republican lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker. Vinehout, who is mulling a run for governor this fall, opposed the tax cut, as did many Democrats. She says the savings for individual families wasnt worth the $650 million in lost revenue to the state over two years. This is what shetold a small audiencein Waukesha on Dec. 5, 2013: Get rid of the tax decrease, Vinehout said. Did you know -- you might not know this -- if you make the average amount of people in Wisconsin, $50,000, you got $1.60 less a week in taxes? You might not have known that because they didnt change the withholding tables, so it didnt show up in your paycheck. She added: But, if you file for your refund, and lets say you file it a little late, and you get that refund sometime in June, youll maybe have a little more money, which might be just about the time the governors is out there on the campaign trail saying, hmm, you got more money in your pocket because of what I gave you. Lets examine the elements of Vinehouts claim. Checks in the mail Wisconsin Revenue Department spokesperson Laurel Patrick confirmed that withholding tables were not updated after the tax cut, and said no decision has been made to do so in 2014 either. The tax cut reduced rates in all five tax brackets. That means the tax-rate changes are not automatically reflected on peoples paychecks. To get the tax savings on their regular paycheck, employees must file a new WT-4 or WT-4A form with their employer. Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said the state, with a few exceptions, has long tried to help its immediate cash flow needs by not automatically making tax cuts show up on peoples paychecks. The practice predates Walker. The state is now over-withholding by 20 percent or more because it has typically not adjusted the tables, Berry said. Many taxpayers may prefer getting a lump sum at refund time, Berry said, but they should understand that as a group they essentially are giving state government a billion-dollar annual no-interest loan that adds to the state deficit under generally accepted accounting principles. Politicians know its more politically valuable for people to get a nice refund in 2014, Berry said. Whats the savings? The rest of Vinehouts claim was that if you make the average amount of people in Wisconsin, $50,000, you got $1.60 less a week in taxes under the income tax cut. When we asked for evidence, Vinehouts office pointed to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis of the tax savings from the income-tax changes, and to separate state figures on tax burdens. The average Wisconsin adjusted gross income, across all types of filers, was $47,310 for tax year 2010, according to a Revenue Department analysis. There is 2011 data, the latest available, that puts the figure at $48,537, according to Dale Knapp, research director at the Taxpayers Alliance. Vinehout looked up that average income in the June 2013 memo by the non-partisan Fiscal Bureau, which presents ranges of income along with tax changes estimated for 2014. The Fiscal Bureau is the independent budget scorekeeper in Madison, and its reports on taxes are used by both parties to gauge the impact of proposals. The bureaus analysis said that in the $40,000 to $50,000 range, the average savings is $85 for one year. That works out to $1.63 a week, which Vinehout referred to as $1.60 in her claim. So, Vinehout puts the average income into the slot, and with a bit of rounding her figure for the average tax change is on target. Theres some imprecision built in here, though, because the Fiscal Bureau memo uses income ranges rather than one particular income. So while Vinehout mentions $50,000, she gets the $1.60 average tax change from an income range of $40,000 to $50,000. And because the average state income is above the midpoint of that range, its likely the average tax change would differ slightly from the $1.60. There are other ways to illustrate the impact of the tax cut. One is to look at the types of filers rather than just the composite income brackets as in the Fiscal Bureau memo. Depending on the example used, one approach yields a smaller tax change figure than Vinehouts approach, the other a larger one. The average single person who filed taxes had $26,556 in income, while married couples had an average of $83,480, said Knapp. Walker, for his part,chooses the married couple example. Such a couple with two children would save about $173 a year, or $3.33 per week over the two years. On the lower end, the average single would see a weekly savings of about 73 cents. The overall state average that Vinehout cites is a middle ground between those two numbers. Our rating Vinehout said that if you make the average amount of people in Wisconsin, $50,000, you got $1.60 less a week in taxes under the $650 million state income-tax cut, but it didnt show up in your paycheck. The average income she cites is slightly high but within reasonable rounding range. She uses a reliable source for her tax-change numbers, and they are on target or very close, with the caveat that the analysis is set up for income ranges rather than a precise income. Shes right that the tax cut did not just show up in workers paychecks, due to inaction by the state. With the clarifications noted, we rate her claim Mostly True. If you wish to comment on this item, please clickhereto go to JSOnline.com.
|
[
"State Budget",
"Taxes",
"Wisconsin"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "This is what shetold a small audiencein Waukesha on Dec. 5, 2013:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
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"sentence": "Walker, for his part,chooses the married couple example. Such a couple with two children would save about $173 a year, or $3.33 per week over the two years."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "If you wish to comment on this item, please clickhereto go to JSOnline.com."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/19/ohio-democratic-party/ohio-democratic-party-bashes-john-kasichs-costly-c/
|
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.
|
Nadia Pflaum
|
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 talked about something else: the governors out-of-state travel, and what it costs taxpayers in the only state he has won. The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs 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 partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015. AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they. State funds from the public safety departments non-highway program, which includes the governors security detail, is likely paying for rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, fuel, per diems and overtime while Kasich criss-crosses the country chasing delegates. But theDispatchstory describes how cagey state agencies are being with these specifics. Information that was public in the years before Kasichs run is now shielded. On payroll records, the governors detail was previously listed as the executive protection unit. Officials told theDispatchthat that designation that 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 governors 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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency 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 is currently showing expenditures from July 1, 2015, through Feb. 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 Kasichs campaign stops. Like a batch of hotel rooms 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 period 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. Its not a staggering total, though some taxpayers might argue that $403,638 could be better spent on other state services. Kasich has poo-pooed 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 stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in 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 Kasichs campaign, or spokesman Rob Nichols. Our ruling The Ohio Democratic Party said that in 177 days on the campaign trail, Kasichs 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 Kasichs camp will confirm any details on the governors security, we have to rely on what we learned from the treasurers open records data. We rate this claim True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596
|
[
"Ohio",
"Campaign Finance",
"Taxes"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": "Columbus Dispatch",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bxipBsIGzNG7Zt2Oy9MCFaFXjxvdmWq_"
},
{
"image_caption": "Dispatch",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1yaAeBRDpUM4NzYyeRuRrHzqNP9BE7daj"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/OHDems/?fref=ts"
],
"sentence": "The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs costly campaign, the image says, entails 177 days spent out of state and a tab of $350,000 to taxpayers."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/03/25/Kasich_security_detail_overtime.html"
],
"sentence": "The partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/travel-fund-for-kasich-security-tops-350-000-1.660538"
],
"sentence": "AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/13/Mandel_state_checkbook.html"
],
"sentence": "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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency initiative."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/christies_security_costs_break_records_in_2015.html"
],
"sentence": "Other governors who ran for president have stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in overtime alone before he dropped out in September 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596"
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"sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596"
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true
| 1 |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/19/ohio-democratic-party/ohio-democratic-party-bashes-john-kasichs-costly-c/
|
It has been reported that Governor John Kasich, a Republican candidate for president, has been out of state for a total of 177 days and has utilized $350,000 of taxpayer funds for his campaign expenses.
|
Nadia Pflaum
|
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 talked about something else: the governors out-of-state travel, and what it costs taxpayers in the only state he has won. The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs 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 partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015. AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they. State funds from the public safety departments non-highway program, which includes the governors security detail, is likely paying for rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, fuel, per diems and overtime while Kasich criss-crosses the country chasing delegates. But theDispatchstory describes how cagey state agencies are being with these specifics. Information that was public in the years before Kasichs run is now shielded. On payroll records, the governors detail was previously listed as the executive protection unit. Officials told theDispatchthat that designation that 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 governors 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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency 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 is currently showing expenditures from July 1, 2015, through Feb. 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 Kasichs campaign stops. Like a batch of hotel rooms 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 period 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. Its not a staggering total, though some taxpayers might argue that $403,638 could be better spent on other state services. Kasich has poo-pooed 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 stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in 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 Kasichs campaign, or spokesman Rob Nichols. Our ruling The Ohio Democratic Party said that in 177 days on the campaign trail, Kasichs 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 Kasichs camp will confirm any details on the governors security, we have to rely on what we learned from the treasurers open records data. We rate this claim True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596
|
[
"Ohio",
"Campaign Finance",
"Taxes"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": "Columbus Dispatch",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UrCES4qsOKdiakn4H3OPm93DRanr7KlC"
},
{
"image_caption": "Dispatch",
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1bZCqvCNUvZX7wSP8_ge-ORONEds51nXD"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/OHDems/?fref=ts"
],
"sentence": "The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs costly campaign, the image says, entails 177 days spent out of state and a tab of $350,000 to taxpayers."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/03/25/Kasich_security_detail_overtime.html"
],
"sentence": "The partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/travel-fund-for-kasich-security-tops-350-000-1.660538"
],
"sentence": "AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/13/Mandel_state_checkbook.html"
],
"sentence": "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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency initiative."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/christies_security_costs_break_records_in_2015.html"
],
"sentence": "Other governors who ran for president have stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in overtime alone before he dropped out in September 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596"
],
"sentence": "https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596"
}
] |
true
| 1 |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/19/ohio-democratic-party/ohio-democratic-party-bashes-john-kasichs-costly-c/
|
It is reported that Governor John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate, has been away from his home state for 177 days and has utilized $350,000 of public funds for his expensive campaign.
|
Nadia Pflaum
|
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 talked about something else: the governors out-of-state travel, and what it costs taxpayers in the only state he has won. The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs 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 partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015. AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they. State funds from the public safety departments non-highway program, which includes the governors security detail, is likely paying for rental cars, hotel rooms, flights, fuel, per diems and overtime while Kasich criss-crosses the country chasing delegates. But theDispatchstory describes how cagey state agencies are being with these specifics. Information that was public in the years before Kasichs run is now shielded. On payroll records, the governors detail was previously listed as the executive protection unit. Officials told theDispatchthat that designation that 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 governors 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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency 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 is currently showing expenditures from July 1, 2015, through Feb. 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 Kasichs campaign stops. Like a batch of hotel rooms 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 period 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. Its not a staggering total, though some taxpayers might argue that $403,638 could be better spent on other state services. Kasich has poo-pooed 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 stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in 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 Kasichs campaign, or spokesman Rob Nichols. Our ruling The Ohio Democratic Party said that in 177 days on the campaign trail, Kasichs 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 Kasichs camp will confirm any details on the governors security, we have to rely on what we learned from the treasurers open records data. We rate this claim True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f55505e5-5211-4178-9fd0-7d1b2854c596
|
[
"Ohio",
"Campaign Finance",
"Taxes"
] |
[
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1UP01Une6sULqcRYnKEafgboIpp1bpDlq"
},
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1GCSbolNv_HYnQs2GlvsKbdiQ5dzQWklV"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "The Ohio Democratic Party posted a graphic on itsFacebookpage on April 8, 2016, to bolster its complaint. Kasichs costly campaign, the image says, entails 177 days spent out of state and a tab of $350,000 to taxpayers."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/03/25/Kasich_security_detail_overtime.html"
],
"sentence": "The partys communications director, Kirstin Alvanitakis, pointed us to aMarch 26Columbus Dispatchstoryreporting that Kasich has been out of state at least 177 days as he pursued the presidency. TheDispatchtally includes days he spent exploring the bid before his official announcement July 21, 2015."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/travel-fund-for-kasich-security-tops-350-000-1.660538"
],
"sentence": "AnAssociated Press storycontains 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 Mikes Deli, so do they."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/13/Mandel_state_checkbook.html"
],
"sentence": "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 hisnationally recognizedtransparency initiative."
},
{
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],
"sentence": "Other governors who ran for president have stuck taxpayers with tabs, too. Chris Christies security detail cost New Jersey taxpayers an estimated$614,000. Bobby Jindal racked up$400,000in Louisiana during his considerably shorter run through November 2015. Wisconsin taxpayers paid Scott Walkers security team$577,000in overtime alone before he dropped out in September 2015."
},
{
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],
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] |
true
| 1 |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/recurring-donation-dec/
|
Is Trump Campaign Auto-Checking A "Recurring Donation" Option That Ends in December?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
11/06/2020
|
[
"The campaign website, until recently, had been accepting recurring donations up until Election Day. "
] |
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, though the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. reported changed March 2020 shift September 2020 The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." late October Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign. Speaking From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim the money
|
[
"funds"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1Jvan0p0-4T11CBtlA_uh0wE9fJOoGXo3"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/"
],
"sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/chQXR",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200208132007/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200323183516/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200902133615/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200919213243/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was \"now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December.\" This is true, though the \"automatically checked box\" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20201028140017/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read \"make this a recurring donation until 12/14.\" It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to \"keep fighting after election day\" because \"there will be voter fraud like you've never seen.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/contribution-check.png",
"https://archive.vn/chQXR"
],
"sentence": "Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because \"this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/XbFc4#selection-1485.0-1485.412"
],
"sentence": "From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim "
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/recurring-donation-dec/
|
Is the Trump campaign automatically selecting a "Recurring Donation" option that will expire in December?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
11/06/2020
|
[
"The campaign website, until recently, had been accepting recurring donations up until Election Day. "
] |
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, though the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. reported changed March 2020 shift September 2020 The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." late October Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign. Speaking From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim the money
|
[
"debt"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1DxTnhxIf3ynTdj2iV4vieme2zh2z-hWb"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/"
],
"sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/chQXR",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200208132007/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200323183516/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200902133615/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200919213243/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was \"now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December.\" This is true, though the \"automatically checked box\" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20201028140017/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read \"make this a recurring donation until 12/14.\" It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to \"keep fighting after election day\" because \"there will be voter fraud like you've never seen.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/contribution-check.png",
"https://archive.vn/chQXR"
],
"sentence": "Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because \"this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim "
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/recurring-donation-dec/
|
Is the Trump campaign automatically selecting a "Recurring Donation" option that expires in December?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
11/06/2020
|
[
"The campaign website, until recently, had been accepting recurring donations up until Election Day. "
] |
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, though the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. reported changed March 2020 shift September 2020 The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." late October Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign. Speaking From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim the money
|
[
"returns"
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}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/"
],
"sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/chQXR",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200208132007/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
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],
"sentence": "On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was \"now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December.\" This is true, though the \"automatically checked box\" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20201028140017/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read \"make this a recurring donation until 12/14.\" It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to \"keep fighting after election day\" because \"there will be voter fraud like you've never seen.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/contribution-check.png",
"https://archive.vn/chQXR"
],
"sentence": "Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because \"this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/XbFc4#selection-1485.0-1485.412"
],
"sentence": "From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim "
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/recurring-donation-dec/
|
Is the Trump campaign automatically selecting a checkbox for a "Recurring Donation" option that concludes in December?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
11/06/2020
|
[
"The campaign website, until recently, had been accepting recurring donations up until Election Day. "
] |
Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, though the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. reported changed March 2020 shift September 2020 The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." late October Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign. Speaking From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim the money
|
[
"funds"
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[
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}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/collections/snopes-fact-checks-the-2020-us-election-live/"
],
"sentence": "Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/chQXR",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20200208132007/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
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"https://web.archive.org/web/20200902133615/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute",
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],
"sentence": "On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was \"now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December.\" This is true, though the \"automatically checked box\" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform WinRed changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20201028140017/https://secure.winred.com/tmagac/contribute"
],
"sentence": "The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read \"make this a recurring donation until 12/14.\" It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to \"keep fighting after election day\" because \"there will be voter fraud like you've never seen.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2020/11/contribution-check.png",
"https://archive.vn/chQXR"
],
"sentence": "Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because \"this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.vn/XbFc4#selection-1485.0-1485.412"
],
"sentence": "From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim "
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-purple-heart-news-media/
|
Did President Trump's Awarding of a Purple Heart to a Wounded Vet Go Unreported by News Media?
|
Dan Evon
|
03/22/2019
|
[
"Some social media users turned a private moment between Trump and a veteran into accusations of news bias. "
] |
On 16 March 2019, an image of President Donald Trump bestowing a Purple Heart decoration on a wounded veteran named Clint Trial went viral after a Facebook user shared it along with the claim that the event "didn't make the news": Facebook user shared The text of the meme reads: "The President Awarding a Purple Heart to Marine MSGT Clint Trial. This Didn't Make the News, Share, Because It Should Have." This is a genuine photograph of President Trump awarding a Purple Heart to a wounded veteran reportedly named Clint Trial. While the majority of "news media blackout" claims that we've encountered an allegation often levied in an attempt to either spread fake news or to push narratives of biased reporting have proved false, in this case, it's true that mainstream news outlets provided little (if any) coverage of this event. fake news narratives biased So why didn't this photograph make the news? While many social media users shared this image as "evidence" of the news media's alleged bias against President Trump, that claim wasn't supported by what we found. If this were simply a case of "liberally biased" mainstream media outlets ignoring a positive story about President Trump, we would still expect coverage of this event to turn up in conservative-leaning news outlets. However, we found almost no information about this veteran's receiving a Purple Heart from President Trump in any news outlets, regardless of their perceived political leanings. The only article we could turn up was published in a Pennsylvania newspaper, the Titusville Herald, on 16 February 2019. That paper reported on the event not because of its national importance, but because of the pictured veteran's family ties to Saegertown, Penn. Titusville Herald The report also contained an editor's note explaining that the veteran's surname was omitted due to a request for privacy: "*Editors note: There are two Clints referenced in this story. One, simply referred to as Clint, is Luke McGills uncle, while the second is his father. The last names of Clint and his wife, Casey, have been omitted by request of the family for privacy." The event began with President Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland in February 2019 for his annual physical. While there, the president met with a few of the wounded veterans who were being treated at that facility: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center met The Titusville Herald also reported that President Trump's visit with Trial was unexpected, and that no members of the press were present at the meeting. In other words, President Trump didn't meet with this wounded veteran for a photo op or with the expectation of garnering positive news coverage. The newspaper also reported that the photographs were taken by a White House photographer (not a press photographer) and were privately provided to the family as keepsakes: A Saegertown boy and his family got an unexpected visit from the President of the United States while meeting with an uncle who was injured in the military. Luke McGill, 11, travelled with his mother, Stacey Gotchy, of Saegertown, and his cousin to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Feb. 6 to visit his uncle Clint, a marine who lost both of his legs to a land mine in Afghanistan ... While they were there, Clint was asked if he would be up for seeing a special VIP visitor, according to Gotchy. Little did they know, the special VIP visitor would turn out to be the president of the United States ... According to Gotchy, the meet and greet was not political in any way. There was no press at the meeting, and the only pictures taken were by a White House photographer who provided images as keepsakes for the family. President Trump was very kind and compassionate, Gotchy said. There was nothing political about it. He was very kind, concerned and very respectful and you could tell his sole purpose was to make sure [Lukes uncle] Clint was okay and his family was supported throughout the process. The visit became even more special when the president learned that Clint had not yet received his Purple Heart. Casey reached out to the staff at the office with the request that the president be the one who pinned the medal awarded to soldiers wounded in the line of duty on Clints shirt. President Trump saved Clints visit for last and held an award ceremony with the family present. We haven't been able to track down the initial internet origins of this image, but it seems likely that the photograph was lifted from one of the personal social media pages of Trial (whose Twitter account is now set to private) or those of one of his relatives, and then turned into a meme and shared (against his wishes for privacy) with his full name. This meme does not appear to demonstrate any news media "bias" against President Trump but rather a private interaction that was never meant to receive press attention. President Trump didn't meet with this veteran for a photo opportunity, nor did the news media refuse to cover the event out of a desire to provide nothing but negative stories about the president. If anything, this meme seems to demonstrate that some social media users will exploit even wounded veterans in order to advance their own political viewpoints. A GoFundMe campaign to help Sgt. Trial with his injuries was established in March 2019: GoFundMe In mid-January 2019, Clint Trial was working overseas when an explosion caused serious injuries to his body, resulting in a bilateral leg amputation, traumatic brain injury, and numerous internal injuries. We want to make sure this warrior and his family never have to worry about future costs as he adapts his life to a new normal and learns to get back on his "new feet." When you make a contribution to this fund, you will help ease this transition. Money raised with this fundraiser will be used to cover gaps in coverage for care outside of hospital bills, to include vehicle modifications, traveling costs for family members, moving expenses, and construction costs to ensure their house is properly adapted to ADA standards. CBS News. "Trump Has His Annual Physical at Walter Reed."
8 February 2019. Brown, Tyler. "Local Family Meets President Trump."
Titusville Herald. 16 February 2019.
|
[
"share"
] |
[
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1M5nqNxC4NEG35AKHOPLtbe1iCn_yEK-6"
},
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1lwpo6ke9j15zy23J0ZxosvtyG0o25Pa2"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/03/joe-buck.jpg",
"https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217353530057828&set=a.1108714245658&type=3&theater"
],
"sentence": "On 16 March 2019, an image of President Donald Trump bestowing a Purple Heart decoration on a wounded veteran named Clint Trial went viral after a Facebook user shared it along with the claim that the event \"didn't make the news\":"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paris-muslim-siege-false/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muslims-chanting-on-video/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/poland-march-refugees/",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-called-libya-a-sht-show-and-media-was-silent/"
],
"sentence": "This is a genuine photograph of President Trump awarding a Purple Heart to a wounded veteran reportedly named Clint Trial. While the majority of \"news media blackout\" claims that we've encountered an allegation often levied in an attempt to either spread fake news or to push narratives of biased reporting have proved false, in this case, it's true that mainstream news outlets provided little (if any) coverage of this event."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.titusvilleherald.com/news/article_a4b7dcdc-3196-11e9-b72f-4fcaae38818e.html"
],
"sentence": "The only article we could turn up was published in a Pennsylvania newspaper, the Titusville Herald, on 16 February 2019. That paper reported on the event not because of its national importance, but because of the pictured veteran's family ties to Saegertown, Penn."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-gets-annual-physical-at-walter-reed/",
"https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1094233554886840321?lang=en"
],
"sentence": "The event began with President Trump's visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland in February 2019 for his annual physical. While there, the president met with a few of the wounded veterans who were being treated at that facility:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.gofundme.com/clint-trial039s-adaptation-fund"
],
"sentence": "A GoFundMe campaign to help Sgt. Trial with his injuries was established in March 2019:"
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/23/brendan-doherty/ri-congressional-candidate-brendan-doherty-says-fe/
|
Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.
|
Tom Mooney
|
05/23/2012
|
[] |
Brendan Doherty, like a lot of candidates, says if hes elected to Congress in November hell put a stop to rampant fraud and waste in government spending.On his campaign website, the Republican candidate for the First District seat and former head of the Rhode Island State Police, says hell use his years in law enforcement to shine a light on the unconscionable abuse of hard-earned taxpayer funds.Among examples of abuse he lists are the purported millions of dollars in pension benefits the federal government distributes each year to federal retirees who are, well, dead:Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.Weve heard stories of dead people voting before, but are they also getting hundreds of millions in pension payments? We called Dohertys campaign to find out where the candidate got his information.Spokesman Robert Coupe told us he thought the $601 million figure was pretty large when he first heard it from campaign staffers. He said it came from Wastebook 2011, the latest edition of an annual compilation of questionable government spending put out by Sen. Tom A. Coburn, R-Oklahoma.We checked Wastebook 2011, which indeed mentions over $601 million paid out to deceased federal workers in the last five years, with footnotes citing the source: a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General, titled, appropriately enough, Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased Annuitants.According to the Office of Personnel Managements report, the amount of post-death improper payments is consistently $100-$150 million annually.Some of what the federal government calls improper payments is outright fraud -- people with electronic access to the deceaseds bank accounts taking the money. And some of it is because the money was electronically transferred into what are now inactive bank accounts. The money can sit there piling up for years before anyone notices.Special efforts have been under way since at least 2005 to reduce payments going to dead retirees and their survivors, the report says. Those efforts have included matching the rolls of eligible recipients with the Social Security Administrations death records on a weekly and annual basis, doing similar checks with the IRS to see whos still filing returns, and random phone calls to retirees over 90 years old just to make sure theyre still around.Those steps have helped identify the scope of the problem, Susan L. Ruge, a spokeswoman in the Office of Personnel Managements inspector generals office, said in an e-mail. In fiscal year 2010, for instance, the office identified $116.8 million in improper payments going to dead retirees or survivors.But solving the problem is another matter.According to the Personnel Managements report: There remains a high probability that egregious loss of monies from the [civil service] fund will continue and require strategic corrective actions. It notes one case of a man illegally pocketing more than $515,000 by cashing in his dead fathers monthly retirement checks -- for 37 years.Ruge said 94 percent of annuity payments are transferred electronically into bank accounts as opposed to the older method of mailing checks. The office of inspector general, she said, has no breakdown as to payments stolen by others with access to those accounts and money lost by languishing into those unattended accounts.In overpayment cases where no theft has occurred, there is greater potential for EFT (electronic fund transfer) overpayments to continue undetected, simply because no one is monitoring the deceased annuitants bank account, said Ruge.If there is good news in any of this it is this: while $601 million going to dead people in the last five years sounds like a lot of money, it represents less than 2.5 percent of all civil service retirement disbursements, the report claims.Our RulingDohertys website says Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.The campaign accurately quoted a figure whose source is a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General.We rate his statement True.Rhode Islands former top cop is setting his bar of expectation pretty high if hes promising to curb this kind of rampant fraud and waste. Well be watching.Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.
|
[
"Rhode Island",
"Federal Budget",
"Pensions",
"Retirement"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/#%21/PolitiFactRI"
],
"sentence": "Brendan Doherty, like a lot of candidates, says if hes elected to Congress in November hell put a stop to rampant fraud and waste in government spending.On his campaign website, the Republican candidate for the First District seat and former head of the Rhode Island State Police, says hell use his years in law enforcement to shine a light on the unconscionable abuse of hard-earned taxpayer funds.Among examples of abuse he lists are the purported millions of dollars in pension benefits the federal government distributes each year to federal retirees who are, well, dead:Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.Weve heard stories of dead people voting before, but are they also getting hundreds of millions in pension payments? We called Dohertys campaign to find out where the candidate got his information.Spokesman Robert Coupe told us he thought the $601 million figure was pretty large when he first heard it from campaign staffers. He said it came from Wastebook 2011, the latest edition of an annual compilation of questionable government spending put out by Sen. Tom A. Coburn, R-Oklahoma.We checked Wastebook 2011, which indeed mentions over $601 million paid out to deceased federal workers in the last five years, with footnotes citing the source: a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General, titled, appropriately enough, Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased Annuitants.According to the Office of Personnel Managements report, the amount of post-death improper payments is consistently $100-$150 million annually.Some of what the federal government calls improper payments is outright fraud -- people with electronic access to the deceaseds bank accounts taking the money. And some of it is because the money was electronically transferred into what are now inactive bank accounts. The money can sit there piling up for years before anyone notices.Special efforts have been under way since at least 2005 to reduce payments going to dead retirees and their survivors, the report says. Those efforts have included matching the rolls of eligible recipients with the Social Security Administrations death records on a weekly and annual basis, doing similar checks with the IRS to see whos still filing returns, and random phone calls to retirees over 90 years old just to make sure theyre still around.Those steps have helped identify the scope of the problem, Susan L. Ruge, a spokeswoman in the Office of Personnel Managements inspector generals office, said in an e-mail. In fiscal year 2010, for instance, the office identified $116.8 million in improper payments going to dead retirees or survivors.But solving the problem is another matter.According to the Personnel Managements report: There remains a high probability that egregious loss of monies from the [civil service] fund will continue and require strategic corrective actions. It notes one case of a man illegally pocketing more than $515,000 by cashing in his dead fathers monthly retirement checks -- for 37 years.Ruge said 94 percent of annuity payments are transferred electronically into bank accounts as opposed to the older method of mailing checks. The office of inspector general, she said, has no breakdown as to payments stolen by others with access to those accounts and money lost by languishing into those unattended accounts.In overpayment cases where no theft has occurred, there is greater potential for EFT (electronic fund transfer) overpayments to continue undetected, simply because no one is monitoring the deceased annuitants bank account, said Ruge.If there is good news in any of this it is this: while $601 million going to dead people in the last five years sounds like a lot of money, it represents less than 2.5 percent of all civil service retirement disbursements, the report claims.Our RulingDohertys website says Over the past five years the federal government has paid out $601 million in retirement and disability benefits to deceased former federal employees.The campaign accurately quoted a figure whose source is a report issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Managements Office of the Inspector General.We rate his statement True.Rhode Islands former top cop is setting his bar of expectation pretty high if hes promising to curb this kind of rampant fraud and waste. Well be watching.Get updates fromPolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/nov/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-correct-1-4-working-age-americans-not/
|
Nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working.
|
Louis Jacobson
|
11/07/2016
|
[] |
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has gotten some things about the labor market very wrong, notably suggesting that the unemployment rate may be 42 percent. (Its not; that got aPants on Fire.) But at a Nov. 4 rally in Atkinson, N.H., Trump offered a statistic that was much closer to the mark. At the core of my contract is my plan to bring back our jobs, about time, he said, later adding that nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. They want to work. They're not working. When we checked with several economists, they said the most commonly used age span for defining the prime working years is 25 to 54. So we looked at the employment-to-population ratio for ages 25 to 54 -- that is, the percentage of people in that age range who are working, divided by the total number of people in that age range. (We also spot-checked the data for 18 to 64 and for 25 to 64 and did not find significant differences from 25 to 54.) According to the most recent data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics -- covering October 2016 -- 78.2 percent of the population between 25 and 54 was working. Flip that percentage and 21.8 percent of the population between 25 and 54 wasnotworking. So Trump is on solid ground saying nearly one in four. That said, well try to put this number in some historical context. Heres a chart for this statistic that goes back to 1948. The chart shows the percentage of people working. First, simply citing this figure ignores that the percentage of people in this age range who are working has risen steadily during President Barack Obamas presidency. The chart below shows that this ratio has risen by 3.4 percentage points since its most recent low point during the Obama presidency -- 74.8 percent in November 2010. So just citing the number ignores that the figure has been going in the right direction for the past six years. Second, its worth noting that the current ratio is not all that far from its all-time high -- 81.9 percent in April 2000. Prime working age happens to be the prime childbearing and child-rearing age, and it makes sense that some people will choose not to work during at least some of those years. So its not as if this number has always been pushing 100 percent and now is suddenly down dramatically. On the other hand, economists say that Trump has put his finger on a legitimate concern about the current labor market -- that the employment rate among prime-working-age Americans has not recovered to its level prior to the Great Recession. Despite more than six years of steady job growth, the employment-to-population ratio for those 25 to 54 has not yet returned to its immediate pre-Great Recession peak of 80.3 in January 2007. Today, its still 2.1 percentage points below that peak. And every single month but two of President George W. Bushs two terms in office had a higher percentage than todays, even though Bush took office during an economic downturn, albeit a milder one. The trend line for men has been particularly problematic. As the following chart shows, the employment ratio for men in this age range was almost always above 90 percent prior to 1980, and in the immediate pre-Great Recession period, it was in the 87 percent range. Under Obama, it has rebounded from a low of 80.6 percent, but it was still only at 85 percent in October 2016 -- lower than its pre-recession level. In other words, we may be looking at a new, lower normal for prime-working-age employment, particularly for men -- and unlike some other employment statistics, this is one that is not shaped by an ongoing surge of baby boomer retirements. Our ruling Trump said that nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. The actual percentage is 21.8 percent, so Trumps phrasing is reasonable. Putting it this way does ignore that this number has declined steadily under Obama for the past six years, and it also ignores that its not that far from the all-time low. Still, economists agree that Trump is raising a legitimate concern, since even after six years of improvement, the percentage today remains worse than it was prior to the Great Recession, suggesting that it might represent a new, more worrisome normal. We rate his claim Mostly True.
|
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"hrefs": [
"https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/11/donald-trump/donald-trump-repeats-pants-fire-claim-unemployment/"
],
"sentence": "During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has gotten some things about the labor market very wrong, notably suggesting that the unemployment rate may be 42 percent. (Its not; that got aPants on Fire.)"
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cbc-69-twitter/
|
Did Twitter Label CBC's Account '69% Government-Funded Media'?
|
Damakant Jayshi
|
04/18/2023
|
[
"Opinions were mixed on whether Elon Musk was making a sex joke or just thumbing his nose at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or both."
] |
Editor's note: As of April 20, 2023, Twitter had droppedall "state-affiliated" and "government-funded" labels on the accounts of government officials and media outlets, including the CBC. dropped On April 17, 2023, several social media posts surfaced claiming that Twitter, under Elon Musk's leadership, had labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as "69% Government-funded Media." The claim was true. several social media posts As of this writing on April 18, CBC's Twitter profile indeed included the label "69% Government-funded Media" above its bio reading, "The official CBC Twitter. Bringing you the best of Canada." CBC's Twitter profile Initially, the figure was reportedly 70%, according to a screenshot shared by Musk. It was unclear when, exactly, the social media platform decreased the number by 1% in what some observers took to be an allusion to a sex joke.Sharing a screenshot depicting the "69%" figure, Musktweetedin the early hours of April 18: "Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they're 'less than 70% government-funded', so we corrected the label." screenshot shared by Musk allusion to a sex joke tweeted The "government-funded media" label wasattachedafter the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, posted a message on social mediaasking for it. "I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC's various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNew and @CBCAlerts," wrote Poilievre, who is challenging Justin Trudeau as prime minister, in theletter. CBC's new "government-funded" designation also followed Twitter'smove to label Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Media (NPR) "government-funded media," and those media outlets' subsequent decision to go silent on the platform. As far as we can determine, no other accounts labeled as government-funded media had a percentage attached to the label. posted a message letter For the purposes of this fact check, we are not attempting to confirm, nor deny, whether the label was appropriate or accurate considering CBC's budget composition. Rather, we are focusing whether such a designation was actually made. That was true. The CBC receives some funding through Canadian Parliament appropriations. (According toCBC's annual financial report,the media outlet received $1.24 billion (in Canadian dollars) in public funding through parliamentary appropriations in 2021-2022. That accounts to roughly 66% of that year's revenue.)However,the "69%" figure was not seemingly based on the factual makeup of CBC's budget. Rather, it appeared to be an instance of Musk thumbing his nose at the CBC (and possibly making a joke about a sex position, which would not have been out of character for Musk). CBC's annual financial report would not have been out of character When we asked Twitter's communications team how, or why, it picked the number to supposedly depict the proportion of CBC's budget that is government funding, we got a poop emoji autoreply. (Musk instituted that autoreply to all questions from journalists on March 19.) autoreply We asked CBC spokesperson Leon Mar about Twitter's recent labeling of the media outlet's Twitter profile, and the spokesperson said, "With regard to the latest from Elon Musk,this is not a serious response. Journalistic independence is not a game." this The CBC official said the real issue was that "Twitter's definition of 'Government-funded Media' means [that account is] open to editorial interference by government," or that it takes editorial direction from government officials. The spokesperson shared a statement from CBC Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon'sin which the top editor said, "[The] government has no zero involvement in our editorial content or journalism." Twitter's definition statement Considering the government money that helps fund CBC's operations, Michael Geist, who is a Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said "publicly-funded media" would be a more accurate designation on the media outlet's Twitter profile, rather than "government-funded media." The former group, according to Geist'sinterpretation of Twitter's policies, "includes media organizations with public financing and does not reference government involvement in editorial content." according to Geist'sinterpretation On April 20, Twitter removed all "government-funded" and "state-affiliated" profile labels, including those on CBC accounts. removed Goswami, Rohan. "Twitter Drops Labels for President Joe Biden, State-Affiliated and Government-Funded Media."CNBC, 21 Apr. 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/21/twitter-drops-government-related-account-labels.html.
Government and Media Account Labels on Twitter. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/government-media-labels. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. Https://Cbc.Radio-Canada.ca/En/Impact-and-Accountability/Finances/Annual-Reports/Ar-2021-2022/Highlights/Financial-Highlights. https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/impact-and-accountability/finances/annual-reports/ar-2021-2022/highlights/financial-highlights. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. Https://Cbc.Radio-Canada.ca/En/Media-Centre/Cbc-Radio-Canada-Is-Not-Governement-Funded-Media. https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/cbc-radio-canada-is-not-governement-funded-media. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. Https://Cbc.Radio-Canada.ca/En/Media-Centre/Statement-Regarding-Twitter-Labelling-Cbc-Radio-Canada-as-Government-Funded-Media. https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/statement-regarding-twitter-labelling-cbc-radio-canada-as-government-funded-media. Accessed 18 Apr. 2023. News , Brodie Fenlon . CBC. "Why We Have Paused Our CBC News Twitter Accounts | CBC News." CBC, 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/cbc-twitter-news-1.6813747. 'Twitter Labels CBC Account as "Government-Funded Media"'.Thestar.Com, 16 Apr. 2023, https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/16/twitter-labels-cbc-account-as-government-funded-media.html. Update [April 21, 2023]: Noted that Twitter removed all "government-funded" and "state-affiliated" labels throughout the platform as of April 20.
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],
"sentence": "Editor's note: As of April 20, 2023, Twitter had droppedall \"state-affiliated\" and \"government-funded\" labels on the accounts of government officials and media outlets, including the CBC."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/search?q=CBC%2069&src=typed_query"
],
"sentence": "On April 17, 2023, several social media posts surfaced claiming that Twitter, under Elon Musk's leadership, had labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as \"69% Government-funded Media.\" The claim was true."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/cbc/"
],
"sentence": "As of this writing on April 18, CBC's Twitter profile indeed included the label \"69% Government-funded Media\" above its bio reading, \"The official CBC Twitter. Bringing you the best of Canada.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1648122937872986115",
"https://twitter.com/atRachelGilmore/status/1648139806533201920",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20230418013559/https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1648135878454177794"
],
"sentence": "Initially, the figure was reportedly 70%, according to a screenshot shared by Musk. It was unclear when, exactly, the social media platform decreased the number by 1% in what some observers took to be an allusion to a sex joke.Sharing a screenshot depicting the \"69%\" figure, Musktweetedin the early hours of April 18: \"Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they're 'less than 70% government-funded', so we corrected the label.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/16/twitter-labels-cbc-account-as-government-funded-media.html",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20230413145352/https://twitter.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1645904023726309377"
],
"sentence": "The \"government-funded media\" label wasattachedafter the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, posted a message on social mediaasking for it. \"I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC's various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNew and @CBCAlerts,\" wrote Poilievre, who is challenging Justin Trudeau as prime minister, in theletter. CBC's new \"government-funded\" designation also followed Twitter'smove to label Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Media (NPR) \"government-funded media,\" and those media outlets' subsequent decision to go silent on the platform. As far as we can determine, no other accounts labeled as government-funded media had a percentage attached to the label."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/impact-and-accountability/finances/annual-reports/ar-2021-2022/highlights/financial-highlights",
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/twitter-logo-titter/"
],
"sentence": "The CBC receives some funding through Canadian Parliament appropriations. (According toCBC's annual financial report,the media outlet received $1.24 billion (in Canadian dollars) in public funding through parliamentary appropriations in 2021-2022. That accounts to roughly 66% of that year's revenue.)However,the \"69%\" figure was not seemingly based on the factual makeup of CBC's budget. Rather, it appeared to be an instance of Musk thumbing his nose at the CBC (and possibly making a joke about a sex position, which would not have been out of character for Musk)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20230401173204/https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1637420728743088130?lang=en"
],
"sentence": "When we asked Twitter's communications team how, or why, it picked the number to supposedly depict the proportion of CBC's budget that is government funding, we got a poop emoji autoreply. (Musk instituted that autoreply to all questions from journalists on March 19.)"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1648125802611986438"
],
"sentence": "We asked CBC spokesperson Leon Mar about Twitter's recent labeling of the media outlet's Twitter profile, and the spokesperson said, \"With regard to the latest from Elon Musk,this is not a serious response. Journalistic independence is not a game.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated",
"https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/cbc-twitter-news-1.6813747"
],
"sentence": "The CBC official said the real issue was that \"Twitter's definition of 'Government-funded Media' means [that account is] open to editorial interference by government,\" or that it takes editorial direction from government officials. The spokesperson shared a statement from CBC Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon'sin which the top editor said, \"[The] government has no zero involvement in our editorial content or journalism.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20230418154437/https://twitter.com/mgeist/status/1647997401087582208"
],
"sentence": "Considering the government money that helps fund CBC's operations, Michael Geist, who is a Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said \"publicly-funded media\" would be a more accurate designation on the media outlet's Twitter profile, rather than \"government-funded media.\" The former group, according to Geist'sinterpretation of Twitter's policies, \"includes media organizations with public financing and does not reference government involvement in editorial content.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/21/twitter-drops-government-related-account-labels.html"
],
"sentence": "On April 20, Twitter removed all \"government-funded\" and \"state-affiliated\" profile labels, including those on CBC accounts."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ranch-stash/
|
Harry Reid, Chinese Company Behind Nevada Ranch Standoff
|
David Mikkelson
|
04/14/2014
|
[
"Are Senator Harry Reid and a Chinese company building a solar plant behind a standoff between federal agents and a Nevada rancher?"
] |
Claim: Senator Harry Reid and a Chinese company building a solar plant are behind a standoff between federal agents and a Nevada rancher. Examples: [Collected via Facebook, April 2014] Site are reporting that Harry Reid is in cahoots with ENN a Chinese firm for which his son works to take over the range area in dispute with that Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management. Is there any truth here? The Bundy Ranch in NV standoff with BLM is being attributed to Harry Reid's desire to help his son secure rights for a Chinese company to build a solar energy farm in the Nevada desert. It's making it's rounds on Facebook and, of course, the internet. Origins: April 2014 saw the publicizing of a decades-old dispute between the federal government and Cliven Bundy, a cattle rancher in Nevada, over grazing rights on public land. Back in 1993, Cliven Bundy began declining to pay the government fees required to allow his cattle to graze on public lands, and in 1998, as part of an effort to protect the endangered desert tortoise found in that area, the government obtained the issuance of a court order requiring Bundy to take his cows off that land. In July 2013, a federal court finally ordered Bundy to get his cattle off public land within 45 days or risk having them confiscated by the government and sold to pay off the fees and trespassing fines (reportedly in excess of $1.2 million) that he owes: Bundy does not recognize federal authority over land where his ancestors first settled in the 1880s, which he claims belongs to the state of Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management [BLM] disagreed and took him to federal court, which first ruled in favor of the BLM in 1998. After years of attempts at a negotiated settlement over the $1.2 million Bundy owes in fees failed, federal land agents began seizing hundreds of his cattle illegally grazing on public land. Bundy's claim that the land belongs to Nevada or Clark County didn't hold up in court, nor did his claim of inheriting an ancestral right to use the land that pre-empts the BLM's role. As Bundy did not comply with the court order, the confiscation of his cattle began in April 2014, precipitating a tense standoff between Bundy's supporters and law enforcement officials. (The government eventually relented and released about 400 head of cattle it had seized from Bundy.) confiscation Somewhere along the way in the reporting of this brouhaha, the conspiracy theory arose that the showdown between Cliven Bundy and the federal government wasn't really about grazing cattle or endangered tortoises, but was actually about a deal between Harry Reid, the senior U.S. Senator from Nevada (and the current U.S. Majority Leader), and a Chinese company eager to build a solar plant on the disputed land: conspiracy theory As a family in Clark County, Nev. continues to face an onslaught of heavily armed federal agents determined to kick them off of their ranch, reports have surfaced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be behind the entire ordeal. The ranch, which has been in Cliven Bundy's family for more than a century, is ground zero for a growing showdown between federal authorities and individual rights activists. Reid and his eldest son, reports indicate, were integral in the support and/or implementation of a $5 billion solar plant being built in the county by a Chinese company. Reid has been outspoken in support of the government's position on the Bundy issue, and both he and his son Rory were in earlier years prominent advocates of efforts by ENN Mojave Energy LLC (a Chinese-backed company) to build a solar plant in Clark County: outspoken Questions surrounding family ties are flaring again in Nevada around the Senate majority leader. He and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert. Reid has been one of the project's most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada. His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission. However, the theory that Reid's putative involvement in the Bundy dispute was motivated by a desire to somehow profit from the building of a solar plant falls flat in the face of two basic facts: The site that ENN Mojave Energy was planning to buy in order to build a solar plant is nowhere near the public land Bundy has been disputing with the government, and ENN gave up the solar project and terminated its agreement to buy land to house it as far back as June 2013: A Chinese-backed company is pulling the plug on a multibillion-dollar solar project near Laughlin after it was unable to find customers for the power that would have been generated there, a Clark County spokesman said. In a letter, an executive from ENN Mojave Energy LLC informed the county that the company was terminating its agreement to purchase 9,000 acres near Laughlin, stating that the "market will not support a project of this scale and nature at this time." The company, a subsidiary of ENN Group, described as the largest energy company in China, said it was unable to sign the necessary power purchase agreements to sell the energy generated from the solar plant to utilities in Nevada or neighboring states. The project was broken down into phases, but if fully completed, it was expected to generate enough energy to power 200,000 homes with a price tag of $1 billion to $6 billion. The move was hailed as a much-needed boost for economic development in the southern part of the state and was projected to create up to 2,200 permanent jobs. Commissioners agreed to sell the land at $4.5 million about a sixth of its appraised value in December 2011 to jump-start the development, but they put in place an aggressive timeline that required ENN to secure the complicated power purchase agreements. With the solar project now just a mirage, commissioners will discuss what to do with the 9,000 acres of county-owned land at their July 2 meeting. Even the conservative Breitbart site debunked this conspiracy claim, noting: Breitbart Despite the obvious partisan gain to be had if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory (a failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate) had somehow been involved in a "land grab" affecting the Bundy family ranch operation the facts just do not pan out as such. Indeed, Rory Reid did in fact have a hand in plans to reclassify federal lands for renewable energy developments. Just northeast of Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base, plans were drawn by Reid allies to potentially develop 5,717 acres of land for such use. While it would be fair to claim that such activity was in Bundy's relative neighborhood, the federal lands once leased by the family were more than 20 miles away, east of Overton, Nevada. Some versions of this conspiracy theory mistake the proposed ENN Mojave Energy site with that of the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar project, but the latter's 250MW solar power plant is already under construction (so there is no need to grab land for it), and, as noted in Wildlife News, the Moapa plant is being built near the Moapa Indian Reservation and not on public land disputed by Cliven Bundy: Moapa Southern Paiute Wildlife News A cursory search shows a sudden explosion of articles claiming Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, wants Bundy's land (all Bundy actually owns is a melon farm) to build a solar plant to enrich himself and his son. Bundy has been trespassing over 750,000 acres of U.S. public land to the south of Mesquite and Bunkerville, Nevada. Bundy's actual private property is his melon farm at Bunkerville, which looks like maybe 100 acres on Google Earth. There is a solar farm. But it is not on the huge swath of land Bundy is trespassing on. The solar facility is actually under construction near the Moapa Indian Reservation about ten miles closer to Las Vegas. Likewise, another area currently being studied by BLM for the possible development of solar plants, commonly known as the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, is sometimes mistakenly thrown into the conspiracy theory mix by persons who point to a BLM report listing "Cattle Trespass Impacts" and claim that it documents the BLM's intent to use the disputed land for solar development: Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone report Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle. But as explained at the Wildlife News, that isn't what the quoted blurb means: Wildlife News There is some feeble effort to try to mitigate the damage to wildlife [caused by solar development]. Some of it is near the sites of these solar mirrors. This is called "primary mitigation." Some is in a place distant to the solar power site. This is called "secondary mitigation." Wildlife mitigation is things like planting grass wildlife need or like, development of new water sources for wildlife to drink, and restoration of rangeland overgrazed by cattle. All this bureaucratic language means is that private groups like the Western Watersheds Project, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Friends of Gold Butte and Friends of Joshua Tree Forest don't think the damage from solar power plants located elsewhere can be mitigated at Gold Butte because the cattle will tromp all over it. Last updated: 14 April 2014 Ford, Matt. "The Irony of Cliven Bundy's Unconstitutional Stand." The Atlantic. 14 April 2014. Landau, Joel. "Federal Government Stops Fight with Nevada Rancher Over Grazing Land." [New York] Daily News. 12 April 2014. Maughan, Ralph. "Bundy's Land Is Not Solar Farm for Harry Reid." Wildlife News. 13 April 2014. Maughan, Ralph. "Here Is the "Notorious" Missing BLM Page Connecting to Harry Reid." Wildlife News. 15 April 2014. Shine, Conor. "Company Dumps Big Laughlin Solar Project, Says Market Won't Support It." Las Vegas Sun. 14 June 2013. Stern, Marcus. "U.S. Senator Reid, Son Combine for China firm's Desert Plant." Reuters. 31 August 2012. Woods, Lucy. "Moapa Tribe and First Solar Begin Construction of 250MW Project." PV-Tech 24 March 2014.
|
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/the-irony-of-cliven-bundys-unconstitutional-stand/360587/"
],
"sentence": "As Bundy did not comply with the court order, the confiscation of his cattle began in April 2014, precipitating a tense standoff between Bundy's supporters and law enforcement officials. (The government eventually relented and released about 400 head of cattle it had seized from Bundy.)"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://universalfreepress.com/shocking-allegations-show-harry-reid-chinese-company-behind-nevada-ranch-standoff/"
],
"sentence": "Somewhere along the way in the reporting of this brouhaha, the conspiracy theory arose that the showdown between Cliven Bundy and the federal government wasn't really about grazing cattle or endangered tortoises, but was actually about a deal between Harry Reid, the senior U.S. Senator from Nevada (and the current U.S. Majority Leader), and a Chinese company eager to build a solar plant on the disputed land:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/04/14/harry-reid-nevada-cattle-cliven-bundy/"
],
"sentence": "Reid has been outspoken in support of the government's position on the Bundy issue, and both he and his son Rory were in earlier years prominent advocates of efforts by ENN Mojave Energy LLC (a Chinese-backed company) to build a solar plant in Clark County:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/12/The-Saga-of-Bundy-Ranch"
],
"sentence": "Even the conservative Breitbart site debunked this conspiracy claim, noting:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.pv-tech.org/news/native_american_moapa_tribe_and_first_solar_begin_construction_of_250mw_pro",
"https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/04/13/right-wing-disinformation-bundys-land-is-not-solar-farm-for-harry-reid/"
],
"sentence": "Some versions of this conspiracy theory mistake the proposed ENN Mojave Energy site with that of the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar project, but the latter's 250MW solar power plant is already under construction (so there is no need to grab land for it), and, as noted in Wildlife News, the Moapa plant is being built near the Moapa Indian Reservation and not on public land disputed by Cliven Bundy:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/lvfo/blm_programs/energy/dry_lake_solar_energy.html",
"https://archive.today/nvlzr"
],
"sentence": "Likewise, another area currently being studied by BLM for the possible development of solar plants, commonly known as the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone, is sometimes mistakenly thrown into the conspiracy theory mix by persons who point to a BLM report listing \"Cattle Trespass Impacts\" and claim that it documents the BLM's intent to use the disputed land for solar development:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2014/04/15/here-is-the-notorious-missing-blm-page-connecting-to-harry-reid-not/"
],
"sentence": "But as explained at the Wildlife News, that isn't what the quoted blurb means:"
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-secret-words/
|
The Secret Words
|
David Mikkelson
|
02/15/2001
|
[
"Rumor has it that Groucho Marx made a risqu wisecrack about his cigar to a female 'You Bet Your Life' contestant with 17 children."
] |
You Bet Your Life was the post-World War II vehicle that provided Groucho Marx with a career apart from his brothers and introduced him to a generation of viewers too young to remember him from his stage or film work. The interview-quiz show, featuring the famous $100 bonus paid to any contestant who said the "secret word" (displayed on a cartoonish stuffed duck that dropped from above if a contestant uttered the word of the day) debuted on radio in 1947, aired on both radio and television through 1960, and continued on television only for its final season in 1960-61 all in all, an amazing fourteen-year run for a quiz show with a tiny budget, a plain set, and a small jackpot (even by 1950s standards). Although You Bet Your Life was structured to make it appear as though every show was completely ad-libbed by Groucho (who issued a steady stream of impromptu questions, off-the-cuff remarks, and cutting put-downs to contestants he had met only moments earlier), a good deal of preparation went into each episode. Potential contestants were selected and interviewed in advance, scripts for each week's show were prepared by writers and reviewed by Groucho, and the comedian used a mechanical teleprompter to read his lines during the recording of the program. (In early telecasts of You Bet Your Life, Groucho can be seen reading off sheets of paper propped up in front of him on something resembling a music stand.) It was true, however, that Groucho didn't actually meet the contestants until they walked onstage, and he certainly had plenty of latitude to depart from the prepared gags and questions (as did the contestants), with the result that much of the show's banter was indeed improvised on the spot. About a hour's worth of material was recorded for each half hour program so that flubs, uninteresting segments, and any troublesome or offensive remarks by Groucho could be edited out. The most notable remark of Groucho's You Bet Your Life years, that one that has gone down in legend as one of pop culture's most notorious comeback quips, supposedly occurred when Grouch was interviewing a Mrs. Story, a contestant with a remarkably large number of children (a number that varies anywhere from 10 to 21 in different tellings of the legend): GROUCHO: "Why do you have so many children? That's a big responsibility and a big burden." MRS. STORY: "Well, because I love my children and I think that's our purpose here on Earth, and I love my husband." GROUCHO: "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while." But did Groucho really say this, or is it a remark that (like so many other infamous quips) originated elsewhere and was later attributed to the notable figure deemed most likely to have said it? Since You Bet Your Life was taped in advance, heavily edited, and not aired live, this remark (if it truly occurred) would certainly have been cut from the finished program as too offensive for the standards of the times; so we can state definitively that (claims to the contrary notwithstanding) nobody ever actually heard it broadcast. If Groucho had really made this quip, the only people who would have heard it would have been the people present during the recording of the program (i.e., the cast, crew, contestants, and studio audience). So, did Groucho in fact utter this risqu remark, even if his bon mot never made it onto the airwaves? The one person who would undoubtedly know the truth is Groucho himself, and he maintained in a 1972 interview with Roger Ebert for Esquire magazine that he never said it: I got $25 from Reader's Digest last week for something I never said. I get credit all the time for things I never said. You know that line in You Bet Your Life? The guy says he has seventeen kids and I say: "I smoke a cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally"? I never said that. This debate really should end here, based on a complete lack of evidence that Groucho ever said any such thing, coupled with his unequivocal statement affirming that he did not (and Groucho had no motive to disclaim one of the most famous lines associated with his celebrity if he really had said it). Instead, the legend persists in large part because misinformation about it is propagated over and over. Take, for example, the following account, presented as a first-person telling in a 1976 book often touted as a Groucho Marx autobiography, The Secret Word Is Groucho: Wherever I go, people ask me about a remark I purportedly made to Mrs. Story. Folklore about the encounter has been so broadly disseminated that it has been variously described as occurring with a mother having any number from ten to thirty children. The story, however, is not apocryphal. It did happen. "Why do you have so many children?" I asked Mrs. Story. "That's a big responsibility and a big burden." "Well," she replied, "because I love children, and I think that's our purpose here on earth, and I love my husband." "I love my cigar too," I shot back, "but I take it out of my mouth once in a while." That kind of remark can have one of two reactions. It will either cause a sharp intake of breath at having crossed some forbidden frontier or it will bring the house down. The studio audience loved it, but the people out there in Radioland never got a chance to react. The exchange was clipped out by Dwan, the house censor. But even though Groucho is credited as the primary author of The Secret Word Is Groucho, it isn't really an "autobiography." The book was actually put together in the waning years of the comedian's life by freelance writer Hector Arce, who ostensibly obtained input from Groucho; and it's unlikely that Groucho's declining health and memory allowed him to contribute much (if anything) to the finished work, leaving Arce to rely on secondary sources. Arce consulted various personnel associated with You Bet Your Life in producing the book; almost certainly one (or more) of those people proffered the "cigar" story as true to Arce, who rewrote it in Groucho's voice and inserted it into the book, unaware that his subject had denied it just a few years previously. Arce's account doesn't sound like Groucho's speaking or writing style at all, and it presents a Groucho who has suddenly "remembered" details he was previously unfamiliar with in his Esquire few years earlier (i.e., he's corrected the gender of the person he was addressing from male to female, he now recalls the contestant's name, and he's fixed the wording of the remark from "I smoke a cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally" to the pithier "I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while"). While the 1972 Esquire interview in which Groucho discussed this quip unideniably contained Groucho's own words, the same can't be said for what was presented in Arce's book. The Secret Word Is Groucho account quoted above also has Groucho asserting that the purported exchange with Mrs. Story was "clipped out by Dwan, the house censor." Groucho of course would have known that Robert Dwan was not a "house censor"; he was one of the producers who worked on You Bet Your Life for its entire run, staging the weekly performances and supervising the editing of each episode for broadcast. In his own book about the program (As Long As They're Laughing: Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life), Dwan wrote: Last summer in Maine, a respectable New York dealer in rare books sidled up to me and said, conspiratorially, "Is it true Groucho made that crack about his cigar?" I knew immediately what he meant. For a long time, I, too, believed it was a figment of the mass libido. But, after discussions with my late partner, Bernie Smith, I am convinced that it did happen. I now believe that Groucho said it, but that he didn't mean what the dirty joke collectors think he meant. That remark, taken at its burlesque show level, was simply not his style. But outside of that studio audience and the 200 people who laughed that night, no one else ever heard that joke, because the exchange was never broadcast. It was never heard beyond the confines of NBC Studio C in Hollywood, and yet the story has spread to become an underground legend. This account is even more curious: Robert Dwan, the man who was onstage for every performance of You Bet Your Life and who supervised the editing of the show, didn't remember hearing Groucho make such a remark, yet he came to "believe" the legend was real because someone else told him so many years after the fact. And although Dwan noted that he consulted "20 volumes of the original scripts" and a "collection of acetate recordings of the unedited performances and tapes of the edited broadcasts" and four reels of 16mm film consisting of "the funniest and most audacious of the sequences which we were required to delete from the broadcasts as being unsuitable for viewing in the 1950s" in the preparation of his book, he made nary a mention of turning up anything supporting the "cigar" story. Steve Stoliar, who worked as a secretary in Groucho's household during the last few years of the comedian's life, also made an affirmative case for this legend in his 1996 book, Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House: You may have heard about a legendary line concerning a certain cigar that Groucho was alleged to have uttered during one program. Some say it never happened; others swear they've seen it on TV. As it turns out, the truth is somewhere inbetween. One of the unexpected pleasures of spending time with the people behind the scenes was getting to the bottom of this infamous incident. For the record, it was [You Bet Your Life head writer] Bernie Smith who provided us with the details. To our amazement, Bernie had kept a chart throughout the life of the show, in which he had meticulously recorded the names of the contestants, what the secret word was and how much they ended up winning. There was, it seems, a sign painter named Mr. Story who lived in Bakersfield, California. He and his wife had what was reputed to be the largest family in America. Originally there were twenty-two children, but three had died. During the first season of "You Bet Your Life," when it was broadcast on radio only, the Story family was bused in from Bakersfield to be contestants on the show. After a bit of small talk, the conversation went like this: Groucho: "How many children do you have?" Mrs. Story: "Nineteen, Groucho." Groucho: "Nineteen?! Why do you have so many children? It must be a terrible responsibility and a burden." Mrs. Story: "Well, because I love my children and I think that's our purpose here on Earth and I love my husband." Groucho: "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!" The studio audience went wild, but director Bob Dwan ordered the exchange deleted before it could be aired because it was obviously too racy for 1947 sensibilities. So the Story story is true, but anyone who claims to have seen that program is either mistaken or lying because it occurred three years before the show's 1950 television debut and it was edited out of the radio show before anyone but the studio audience had a chance to hear it. Unfortunately, no copies of that legendary outtake are known to have survived. Although the imagined dialogue between Groucho and the female contestant is lifted directly from The Secret Word Is Groucho, this account does at least introduce some detail to the story (e.g., a specific number of children, the hometown of the contestants, the father's occupation, the year of the interview) indicating actual research rather than mere repetition of legend. As we'll see shortly, however, some of this detail is inaccurate. The most recent presentation of the "cigar" legend we're aware of is the background booklet enclosed with the 2003 DVD release You Bet Your Life: The Lost Episodes (a collection of some of the show's preserved TV episodes), which contained the following information about an audio bonus feature included on one of the discs: In December 1950 DeSoto distributed a twelve inch 78rpm recording featuring highlights from You Bet Your Life and a holiday message from Groucho to their dealers. The nine minute recording includes an excerpt from Groucho's November 17, 1947 radio interview with Mr. and Mrs. Story of Bakersfield, California, the parents of twenty children. This interview has become legendary for a portion of it that never aired. Groucho: "Why do you have so many children? It must be a terrible responsibility and a burden." Mrs. Story: "Well, because I love my children and I think that's our purpose here on Earth, and I love my husband." Groucho: "I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while." Considering how many people have claimed to have seen or heard that exchange over the years it would seem likely that it must exist somewhere. But of the ninety-nine radio episodes of You Bet Your Life that aired prior to the show's television debut, fewer than half of them survive. And the show with Mr. and Mrs. Story is not among them. The famous exchange would certainly have been edited out anyway. The brief clip from Season's Greetings from DeSoto Laughs with Groucho is all that remains of this episode. And the only people who witnessed that legendary moment were in the studio audience that fateful night in 1947. (Note that the imagined dialogue between Groucho and Mrs. Story is lifted directly from the book The Secret Word Is Groucho, another indication that it came from someone associated with the You Bet Your Life program and not Groucho himself.) It is true that Marion and Charlotte Story of Bakersfield, California, the parents of twenty children, were once featured as contestants on You Bet Your Life. According to announcer George Fenneman's introduction, Mr. and Mrs. Story were selected to participate because the producers thought it would be interesting to go through the audience and find the couple with the largest number of offspring for Groucho to interview, and as the parents of twenty children (not nineteen, as stated in Raised Eyebrows), Mr. and Mrs. Story qualified for that honor. (Since You Bet Your Life was a well-planned show that interviewed and prepped its contestants in advance, Mr. and Mrs. Story likely appeared on the program by invitation and were not merely present in the audience by happenstance, with George Fenneman's introduction of them probably stretching the truth a little to create an exaggerated sense of spontaneity for the listening audience.) It is also true that this interview took place during You Bet Your Life's days as a radio-only program (it didn't begin airing on television in addition to radio until October 1950); so even if the "cigar" quip had sprung from this encounter, anyone who now claims to have seen Groucho make the remark on television is clearly mistaken. As usual, however, the DVD booklet's account is rife with misinformation. A complete audio recording of (the broadcast portions of) Marion and Charlotte Story's appearance on You Bet Your Life does indeed exist (and is linked below). Moreover, that recording couldn't possibly date from 17 November 1947, as claimed, because Groucho can be heard making promotional references to DeSoto-Plymouth, who did not become sponsors of You Bet Your Life until partway through the 1949-50 season. (External evidence indicates this recording actually dates from the broadcast of 11 January 1950, the first show aired after DeSoto-Plymouth took over sponsorship of You Bet Your Life from Elgin-American.) What do we find in this recording? It does not include anything like the infamous "cigar" quip, Groucho's only mention of stogies coming when he inquires of Mr. Story, "With each new kid, do you go around passing out cigars?" ("I stopped at about a dozen," Mr. Story responds.) And for those who would claim that the "cigar" remark was indeed uttered by Groucho but excised from the aired version of the show, we note that none of the claimed dialogue ancillary to that remark is present in the recording, either: Groucho does not ask Charlotte Story why she has so many children, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Story professes to thinking that having children is "our purpose here on Earth," nor does Mrs. Story proclaim that she loves her husband. As we touched on earlier in this article, it's a common phenomenon of urban legendry that amusing stories involving clever repartee often retroactively place words into the mouths of the famous people deemed most likely to have said them. Sometimes, however, the designated mouths don't really match up with the words assigned to them. Johnny Carson's image has long been saddled with the claim that he made a risqu remark to a cat-carrying starlet on the Tonight Show, even though he was never known for employing that sort of crude sexual humor in his TV talk show host role. Likewise, although it might seem that no one would fit a sexual double entendre involving a cigar better than Groucho Marx, even You Bet Your Life producer Robert Dwan acknowledged (as quoted above) that it was too burlesque and not really Groucho's style. It was the kind of dirty put-down Groucho might blurt out in private, but not to a kindly couple on a national radio program. Groucho's style on You Bet Your Life was typically much gentler, as exemplified by the following exchange made under similar circumstances (i.e., when he questioned a female contestant who came from a family of seventeen children): remark Groucho: How does your father feel about this rather startling turn of events? Is he happy or just dazed? Daughter: Oh, my daddy loves children. Groucho: Well, I like pancakes, but I haven't got closetsful of them ... It's not inconceivable that the infamous "cigar" quip might have originated with this very exchange, when someone later misremembered or deliberately "naughtied up" the dialogue to better fit Groucho's public image and changed "pancakes" to "cigar." NOTE: Various "blooper" records purport to offer an "actual recording" of Groucho's remark. However, those record makers typically employed recordings they made themselves using sound-alikes in order to "re-create" events for which no actual recording existed (in most cases because the events were apocryphal ones that never took place). blooper Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows.
New York: Ballatine Books, 1999. ISBN 0-345-42923-0 (p. 1138-1139). Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-507678-8 (pp. 732-734). Dwan, Robert. As Long As They're Laughing: Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life.
Baltimore: Midnight Marquee, 2000. ISBN 01-887664-36-X (p. 129). Ebert, Roger. "A Living Legend, Rated R."
Esquire. July 1972 (p. 143). Kaltenbach, Chris. "Also 20 Years Dead: Groucho."
The Baltimore Sun. 19 August 1997 (p. E1). Kanfer, Stefan. Groucho.
New York: Vintage Books, 2000. ISBN 0-375-70207-5. Marx, Groucho and Hector Arce. The Secret Word Is Groucho.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1976. ISBN 0-399-11690-7 (pp. 43-44). Stoliar, Steve. Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House.
Los Angeles: General Publishing, 1996. ISBN 1-881649-73-3 (pp. 124-125).
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nostradamus-predict-feeble-man/
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Did Nostradamus Predict the World Will Fall After a 'Feeble Man' Rules?
|
Madison Dapcevich
|
01/19/2021
|
[
"Nostradamus has been credited with accurately predicting dozens of historical events."
] |
A four-line poem, also known as a quatrain, allegedly written by 16th-century philosopher Michel de Nostradamus described predictions of a future plague that would fall upon the world. (Some assumed that this so-called plague referred to the COVID-19 pandemic, which Snopes has previously debunked here.) here The alleged quatrain went on to describe a feeble man who was set to rule the western world with a jezebel after the plague. According to Snopes readers, renditions of this poem appeared to suggest that this man and jezebel either referred to U.S. President Donald Trump or President-elect Joe Biden, depending on the person sharing the poem. In the end, this fool ruler will cause the great eagle presumably the United States to suffer and fall. The below meme circulated in early 2021: It is unclear where this quatrain originated from or who the original poster was. Nostradamus, who was also a French physician, first published Les Prophties in 1555. It is thought that his collection of poems, which are compiled in 10 sets of verses of 100 quatrains each, contain mythological and astrological predictions for the future world. In the centuries that followed his original publication, he has remained prominent in modern popular culture, often among internet users who share fabricated predictions falsely attributed to him. Les Prophties remained prominent Nostradamus is credited with accurately predicting many historical events, according to Rare Books Digest. And though many of his poems are largely vague and could apply to a number of events, some of his predictions do come eerily close to actual events. Rare Books Digest eerily close But the meme in question does not appear to make that list. A look through The Compleat Works of Nostradamus did not reveal any mention of a jezebel or a feeble man. And though the word plague was mentioned more than 30 times in the Nostradamus text, there is no instance where it occurs alongside the same wording as in the meme. look The Compleat Works of Nostradamus reveal Furthermore, it is also important to note that the quatrains written by Nostradamus do not follow chronological order. So, while they may be broken down into what the author considered to be centuries, these do not directly translate to the century in which any prediction was anticipated to occur.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nostradamus-predict-feeble-man/
|
Did Nostradamus prophesy that the world would descend into chaos following the reign of a weak leader?
|
Madison Dapcevich
|
01/19/2021
|
[
"Nostradamus has been credited with accurately predicting dozens of historical events."
] |
A four-line poem, also known as a quatrain, allegedly written by 16th-century philosopher Michel de Nostradamus described predictions of a future plague that would fall upon the world. (Some assumed that this so-called plague referred to the COVID-19 pandemic, which Snopes has previously debunked here.) here The alleged quatrain went on to describe a feeble man who was set to rule the western world with a jezebel after the plague. According to Snopes readers, renditions of this poem appeared to suggest that this man and jezebel either referred to U.S. President Donald Trump or President-elect Joe Biden, depending on the person sharing the poem. In the end, this fool ruler will cause the great eagle presumably the United States to suffer and fall. The below meme circulated in early 2021: It is unclear where this quatrain originated from or who the original poster was. Nostradamus, who was also a French physician, first published Les Prophties in 1555. It is thought that his collection of poems, which are compiled in 10 sets of verses of 100 quatrains each, contain mythological and astrological predictions for the future world. In the centuries that followed his original publication, he has remained prominent in modern popular culture, often among internet users who share fabricated predictions falsely attributed to him. Les Prophties remained prominent Nostradamus is credited with accurately predicting many historical events, according to Rare Books Digest. And though many of his poems are largely vague and could apply to a number of events, some of his predictions do come eerily close to actual events. Rare Books Digest eerily close But the meme in question does not appear to make that list. A look through The Compleat Works of Nostradamus did not reveal any mention of a jezebel or a feeble man. And though the word plague was mentioned more than 30 times in the Nostradamus text, there is no instance where it occurs alongside the same wording as in the meme. look The Compleat Works of Nostradamus reveal Furthermore, it is also important to note that the quatrains written by Nostradamus do not follow chronological order. So, while they may be broken down into what the author considered to be centuries, these do not directly translate to the century in which any prediction was anticipated to occur.
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},
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"https://rarebooksdigest.com/2012/12/07/les-propheties-by-nostradamus/",
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"sentence": "Nostradamus is credited with accurately predicting many historical events, according to Rare Books Digest. And though many of his poems are largely vague and could apply to a number of events, some of his predictions do come eerily close to actual events."
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"sentence": "But the meme in question does not appear to make that list. A look through The Compleat Works of Nostradamus did not reveal any mention of a jezebel or a feeble man. And though the word plague was mentioned more than 30 times in the Nostradamus text, there is no instance where it occurs alongside the same wording as in the meme."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nostradamus-predict-feeble-man/
|
Was the prediction of the downfall of the world by Nostradamus related to the reign of a weak ruler?
|
Madison Dapcevich
|
01/19/2021
|
[
"Nostradamus has been credited with accurately predicting dozens of historical events."
] |
A four-line poem, also known as a quatrain, allegedly written by 16th-century philosopher Michel de Nostradamus described predictions of a future plague that would fall upon the world. (Some assumed that this so-called plague referred to the COVID-19 pandemic, which Snopes has previously debunked here.) here The alleged quatrain went on to describe a feeble man who was set to rule the western world with a jezebel after the plague. According to Snopes readers, renditions of this poem appeared to suggest that this man and jezebel either referred to U.S. President Donald Trump or President-elect Joe Biden, depending on the person sharing the poem. In the end, this fool ruler will cause the great eagle presumably the United States to suffer and fall. The below meme circulated in early 2021: It is unclear where this quatrain originated from or who the original poster was. Nostradamus, who was also a French physician, first published Les Prophties in 1555. It is thought that his collection of poems, which are compiled in 10 sets of verses of 100 quatrains each, contain mythological and astrological predictions for the future world. In the centuries that followed his original publication, he has remained prominent in modern popular culture, often among internet users who share fabricated predictions falsely attributed to him. Les Prophties remained prominent Nostradamus is credited with accurately predicting many historical events, according to Rare Books Digest. And though many of his poems are largely vague and could apply to a number of events, some of his predictions do come eerily close to actual events. Rare Books Digest eerily close But the meme in question does not appear to make that list. A look through The Compleat Works of Nostradamus did not reveal any mention of a jezebel or a feeble man. And though the word plague was mentioned more than 30 times in the Nostradamus text, there is no instance where it occurs alongside the same wording as in the meme. look The Compleat Works of Nostradamus reveal Furthermore, it is also important to note that the quatrains written by Nostradamus do not follow chronological order. So, while they may be broken down into what the author considered to be centuries, these do not directly translate to the century in which any prediction was anticipated to occur.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Did Biden Vow To Eliminate the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Has Biden made a promise to get rid of the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Has Biden made a promise to remove the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Taxes?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Did Biden promise to abolish the 'stepped-up' basis for capital gains tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Has Biden promised to get rid of the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Did Biden promise to get rid of the 'Stepped-Up' Basis for Capital Gains Tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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"sentence": "On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated):"
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| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-stepped-up-capital-gains/
|
Did Biden promise to get rid of the 'stepped-up' basis for the capital gains tax?
|
Dan MacGuill
|
02/03/2021
|
[
"For once, a viral Facebook post critical of a politician accurately articulated their past pronouncements. "
] |
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 on a home that is left to them by 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: first emerged regained 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 what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. 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 PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have 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 dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! 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 hit 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. We are issuing a rating of 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, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets 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: explanation ...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 heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis. During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of 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: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad 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 paid for 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 would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document 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 paid for 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 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you 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: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care 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. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure 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 get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. 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. We are issuing a rating of 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.
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"sentence": "In June 2020, according to CNBC, Biden told would-be donors: \"Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis."
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https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/apr/12/joe-biden/fact-checking-joe-biden-corporation-taxes/
|
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.
|
Louis Jacobson
|
04/12/2021
|
[] |
With Republicanscriticizing the corporate tax hikeproposed by President Joe Biden to fund his infrastructure plan, Biden pushed back during remarks on his proposal, the American Jobs Plan. Biden framed the issue as one of fairness, with big corporations not paying their fair share. A new, independent study put out last week found that at least 55 of our largest corporations use the various loopholes to pay zero federal income tax in 2020, Bidensaidin his April 7 remarks. It's just not fair. It's not fair to the rest of the American taxpayers. We found that Bidens statement is supported by a recently released study from a liberal group, though that studys methodology has its critics. President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the American Jobs Plan at the White House on April 7, 2021. (AP) We didnt hear back from the White House, but Bidens remarks make clear that he was referring to an April 2studyby the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That study, which had 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 is sprinkled with well-known names, including FedEx, HP, Nike, Salesforce and XCel Energy. Collectively, the study concluded, the 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 by 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 Bidens 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. 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, apro-growth provision or provisions created to incentivize preferred activity by policymakers, such as the research and experimentation tax credit, Watson said. Still, even experts who are critical of the studys methodology told PolitiFact that Biden accurately portrayed the gist of the reports findings in his April 7 remarks. Notably, Bidens remark also stopped short of blaming the companies for evading taxes; his remarks suggest that his quarrel is with the tax system that allowed the companies to legally pay so little in taxes. The groups study is based on an analysis of annual financial reports filed by publicly traded companies in the Standard & Poors 500 stock index or the Fortune 500 list of companies with the largest revenue. But while this data comes from federally required disclosures, critics say that what is disclosed on these forms is calculated differently from these companies actual tax filings, which are private. In other words, the critics say, we dont really know whether these companies paid zero in taxes or not. Holtz-Eakinwrotethat 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, he wrote. 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. In addition, the rules governing the reporting of capital investments in the SEC disclosures may be different 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 said his groups report focuses on what the companies affirm is their best calculation of taxes they have paid for the year. Its very unlikely that the companys 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. Our report finds that many of these companies 26 that we have 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 companys actual tax position from its SEC filings. But he said the idea that many large corporations do pay zero in federal taxes is by now well-established. The non-partisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxationhas shownthat 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. And the committee, he said, 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 right that a study had been released days earlier by a non-governmental group that concluded 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 say that the financial disclosures used to compile the report are imperfect estimates of what the companies actually paid in taxes, since the accounting rules are different 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 studys general point. We rate the statement Mostly True.
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},
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},
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"sentence": "Holtz-Eakinwrotethat 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."
},
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"sentence": "The non-partisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxationhas shownthat 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. And the committee, he said, has access to corporations actual tax returns."
}
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| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does This Meme Demonstrate Racial Bias in Tax-Evasion Prosecutions?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
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"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this internet joke show evidence of racial discrimination in cases of tax evasion prosecution?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
[
"lien"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1q9-1OMSHHapAvlZmT1FRDePoPmpIjaZz"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Is there evidence of racial bias in tax-evasion prosecutions shown in this meme?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this meme show examples of racial bias in prosecutions for tax evasion?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
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[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WQY4IXRDzQuFBNtYvxlW9wyT9Vqg6NbW"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this online image show evidence of racial prejudice in cases of prosecuting individuals for tax evasion?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
[
"liability"
] |
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Could This Internet Joke Show Racial Prejudice in Cases of Tax Evasion Prosecution?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
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"returns"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1JZY7KPw1rjB8toYGdFs2FfEvhlQDETKR"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this internet trend show evidence of racial prejudice in cases of tax-evasion prosecutions?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
[
"debt"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1YaeBZxsc5Ybwen6gYUE27t4O3oq-p0T1"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this viral image showcase prejudice based on race in cases of tax evasion prosecutions?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
[
"finance"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1RcUMxoMnMTqiI214Tn8goNCUCpka8cEB"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/racial-bias-tax-evasion/
|
Does this online joke show evidence of racial prejudice in cases of tax evasion prosecutions?
|
David Mikkelson
|
03/15/2019
|
[
"What do these four examples have in common? Nothing of significance, as far as we can tell."
] |
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 so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful 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: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today 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, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. 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 has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 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). settled 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. dispute 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, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: 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. conviction 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 (and 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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order 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 by the nickname 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. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader 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. Helmsleys 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 a 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 monies 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 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: contended 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 I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to 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 his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested 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. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons 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. Sharptons 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 wrongdoings 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. tax evasion Buettner, Russ. "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ. "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
The New York Times. 18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid. "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
The New York Times. 20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips. "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
Forbes.com. 17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W. "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
Forbes.com. 17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W. "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
Forbes.com. 19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs. "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie. "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
The Washington Post. 8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle. "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
USA Today. 28 February 2014.
|
[
"taxes"
] |
[
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1rWRC6JwRZIge6QDo7Mh4C3u3459csdRF"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.chron.com/business/article/Stewart-to-pay-195-000-in-settlement-of-civil-1652447.php"
],
"sentence": "Stewart was sentenced to 5 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)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/28/famous-tax-cheats/5903143/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/10/17/al-capone-sentenced-to-prison-for-tax-evasion-on-this-day-in-1931/"
],
"sentence": "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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/irs/tax-responsibilities/prision-for-tax-evasion/"
],
"sentence": "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 advisement, 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 case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them)."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/04/17/10-notorious-tax-cheats-queen-of-mean-leona-helmsley-proved-little-people-can-put-you-in-jail/"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname 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."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/nyregion/20cnd-helmsley.html"
],
"sentence": "Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont 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 in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/nyregion/questions-about-al-sharptons-finances-accompany-his-rise-in-influence.html"
],
"sentence": "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:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/nyregion/sharpton-criticizes-new-york-times-report-on-unpaid-taxes.html"
],
"sentence": "Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced \"old taxes\" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/tax-crime-does-not-pay"
],
"sentence": "The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings 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."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tiger-shark-chassahowitzka-river/
|
Do Photos Show People With a Dead Tiger Shark in Florida's Chassahowitzka River?
|
Madison Dapcevich
|
05/08/2021
|
[
"The harvesting of tiger sharks is prohibited under Florida law. "
] |
In early May 2021, photographs that reportedly showed a man holding what appeared to be a tiger shark along the bank of Floridas Chassahowitzka River sparked criticism on social media and launched an investigation by wildlife officials. The pictures were widely reported by both Florida and national media outlets, as well as shared within several groups on Facebook. sparked criticism social media Facebook The Chassahowitzka River is located along the Gulf of Mexico in central Florida. Though some species of shark have been known to swim into brackish waters like estuaries and river mouths, it is uncommon for a saltwater shark to survive in the freshwater of rivers. Marine conservation organization Oceana noted in a blog post that freshwater rivers and lakes are generally out of the question for species such as great white sharks, tiger sharks, and hammerhead sharks. located blog post At the time of writing, it is not yet known where the tiger shark was initially captured or how it wound up in the Chassahowitzka River. Snopes attempted to contact the photographers but did not hear back at the time of publication. In an email to Snopes, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) confirmed that the tiger shark had been caught in state waters in the Gulf of Mexico and was brought to the Chassahowitzka River. The FWC is aware of the incident that took place over the weekend on the Chassahowitzka River involving a tiger shark. The FWC takes this very seriously and is grateful to everyone who reported this incident. Tiger sharks are prohibited from harvest in state waters, wrote FWC Public Information Coordinator Karen Parker. FWC law enforcement officers have investigated this incident and have issued a Notice to Appear to two individuals for taking a prohibited species of shark. The two subjects currently have a Citrus County court date. Both individuals face a charge under 68B-44.004(3)(b), a ruling under the Florida Department of State that prohibits individuals from harvesting or possessing prohibited species from Florida waters. So named for the tiger-liked vertical markings along their sides, tiger sharks are considered as Near Threatened by The World Conservation Union and are protected from commercial and recreational harvest in Florida state waters. 68B-44.004(3)(b) tiger sharks Near Threatened Neither person has been identified by law enforcement officials, but we will update the article as more information becomes available.
|
[
"share"
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[
{
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1aLM13QU4bJM3ypbMskn-xWgz9PFm7TqH"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.facebook.com/Vegan4Fauna/posts/10223855089301331",
"https://www.facebook.com/groups/290317118306289/permalink/728416557829674/"
],
"sentence": "In early May 2021, photographs that reportedly showed a man holding what appeared to be a tiger shark along the bank of Floridas Chassahowitzka River sparked criticism on social media and launched an investigation by wildlife officials. The pictures were widely reported by both Florida and national media outlets, as well as shared within several groups on Facebook."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/05/tiger-shark-pic-2.jpg"
],
"sentence": " Facebook"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chassahowitzka+River/@27.4567507,-90.1625702,6.14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88e83d908ce497c7:0x3203d82624016943!8m2!3d28.7152904!4d-82.5718625",
"https://usa.oceana.org/blog/could-shark-live-lake#:~:text=Secondly%2C%20most%20sharks%20can%20only,tiger%20sharks%2C%20and%20hammerhead%20sharks."
],
"sentence": "The Chassahowitzka River is located along the Gulf of Mexico in central Florida. Though some species of shark have been known to swim into brackish waters like estuaries and river mouths, it is uncommon for a saltwater shark to survive in the freshwater of rivers. Marine conservation organization Oceana noted in a blog post that freshwater rivers and lakes are generally out of the question for species such as great white sharks, tiger sharks, and hammerhead sharks."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.flrules.org/gateway/ChapterHome.asp?Chapter=68B-44",
"https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/saltwater/sharks/tiger-shark/",
"https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/species-profiles/galeocerdo-cuvier/"
],
"sentence": "Both individuals face a charge under 68B-44.004(3)(b), a ruling under the Florida Department of State that prohibits individuals from harvesting or possessing prohibited species from Florida waters. So named for the tiger-liked vertical markings along their sides, tiger sharks are considered as Near Threatened by The World Conservation Union and are protected from commercial and recreational harvest in Florida state waters."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/aug/28/jerry-patterson/jerry-patterson-says-investments-overseen-his-offi/
|
Says a portfolio managed by the Texas General Land Office earned 22 percent last year while the states emergency reserve account experienced a 1 percent gain.
|
W. Gardner Selby
|
08/28/2012
|
[] |
Criticizing a poke at his not releasing millions of dollars to support public schools, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said that doing so might cut into double-digit returns on investments managed by the General Land Office.In aletterhe made public Aug. 22, 2012, Patterson, a Republican, said that those who want him to transfer $300 million in investment earnings to the State Board of Education for school needs do not understand the value of keeping such money invested so the states education endowment, the Permanent School Fund, continues to gain value.A pro-Democratic group, Progress Texas, accuses Patterson of inappropriately hoarding the millions. Patterson counters that the School Land Board, which he chairs, has discretion over whether to transfer the money and, he told us by telephone, it has until September 2013 to decide. His spokesman, Jim Suydam, also told us by email that the board approved a resolution in early 2011 to release $250 million of earnings in both 2012 and 2013 to the State Board of Education.In his letter, Patterson said that draining off additional earnings as Progress Texas says he must is a bad choice... because last year the GLO-managed PSF earned 22 percent and, due to statutory liquidity requirements, the rainy day fund earned just 1 percent. He was comparing the portion of the Permanent School Fund managed by the land office to earnings on the states savings account, otherwise known as the Economic Stabilization Fund. If your family needed a quick infusion of cash, Patterson wrote, would you withdraw cash from the investment account earning 22 percent or the account earning 1 percent?Were not venturing that question, but wondered if Patterson made an accurate earnings comparison.Starting in 2005, the land office was given the authority to invest in real estate using proceeds received from selling lands or drawing on revenue from Permanent School Fund mineral leases and royalties, the agency notes on aweb page. Professional fund management firms oversee the investments, the agency says, while theland board, consisting of the commissioner and two citizen appointees, manages the sale of Permanent School Fund land and mineral leases.To our inquiry, Suydam provided an agency report to the Legislature stating that through March 2012, the market value of the agencys investments made from the Permanent School Fund was $3.077 billion, about half of that reflecting externally managed direct real estate investments and nearly $1.2 billion attributable to short-term investments in the states treasury, which Suydam later said means money set aside so its on call for the agencys real estate investments.The report, dated Sept. 1, 2012, says that gross time-weighted returns on the portfolio in the 12 months through March amounted to nearly 22.9 percent, though that is without considering the short-term investments. Counting the cash-on-call portion, the report says, the time-weighted returns on the portfolio were 13.03 percent.Time-weighted returns?By email, Suydam told us the term describes a complex calculation that uses values for every day in the period being measured which, he said, explains why the 23 percent return shown for the real estate investments does not align with the 30 percent return that we calculated by comparing the market value of those investments at the end of March 2012 to the comparable figure at the end of March 2011.Asked how the earnings on real estate through March 2012 compare to recent 12-month periods, Suydam said such investments generated nearly 14 percent in market value in the 12 months through March 2011, but lost about 15 percent in the 12 months through March 2010.We checked on the rainy day funds earnings with Lauren Willis, spokeswoman for State Comptroller Susan Combs, who oversees state finances.Willis said by email that money in the reserve fund, created in 1988, is invested like other funds in the states treasury in stable, high-quality investments. In 2011, Willis said, the average yield on all those funds was 0.74 percent -- generating nearly $194 million in interest income including $51.9 million added to the rainy day fund. R.J. DeSilva, another Combs spokesman, said by email the rate of return might or might not have been about the same through the 12 months running through March 2012.In a telephone interview, we asked Patterson about why his letter mentions the higher returns on the real estate investments alone rather than also taking into account the lower returns influenced by the agencys cash-on-call funds.I dont count the cash, Patterson replied, because its not part of our investment portfolio.The land office, Patterson noted, is limited by law to managing just part of the overall education endowment. Suydam later said by email that as of the end of March, the market value of the agencys portion of the PSF, not including the value of minerals or state-owned land, was nearly $3.1 billion. He said the State Board of Education oversaw the funds remaining $25.6 billion.Our rulingPattersons reference to 22 percent in earnings over the 12 months running through March 2012 does not account for reduced earnings from nearly $1.2 billion in cash-on-call money supporting the agencys real estate investments. That clarification would be helpful, though it still seems reasonable, overall, to focus on the portion of the portfolio that would be expected to reap sizable gains. Separately, the claim seems to reflect the annual earnings on the rainy day fund, though the commissioners March-to-March time period does not match the calendar-year approach used by the state comptroller.We rate the statement as Mostly True.
|
[
"Education",
"State Budget",
"Texas"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.glo.texas.gov/glo_news/_documents/patterson-response-progress-texas.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Criticizing a poke at his not releasing millions of dollars to support public schools, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said that doing so might cut into double-digit returns on investments managed by the General Land Office.In aletterhe made public Aug. 22, 2012, Patterson, a Republican, said that those who want him to transfer $300 million in investment earnings to the State Board of Education for school needs do not understand the value of keeping such money invested so the states education endowment, the Permanent School Fund, continues to gain value.A pro-Democratic group, Progress Texas, accuses Patterson of inappropriately hoarding the millions. Patterson counters that the School Land Board, which he chairs, has discretion over whether to transfer the money and, he told us by telephone, it has until September 2013 to decide. His spokesman, Jim Suydam, also told us by email that the board approved a resolution in early 2011 to release $250 million of earnings in both 2012 and 2013 to the State Board of Education.In his letter, Patterson said that draining off additional earnings as Progress Texas says he must is a bad choice... because last year the GLO-managed PSF earned 22 percent and, due to statutory liquidity requirements, the rainy day fund earned just 1 percent. He was comparing the portion of the Permanent School Fund managed by the land office to earnings on the states savings account, otherwise known as the Economic Stabilization Fund. If your family needed a quick infusion of cash, Patterson wrote, would you withdraw cash from the investment account earning 22 percent or the account earning 1 percent?Were not venturing that question, but wondered if Patterson made an accurate earnings comparison.Starting in 2005, the land office was given the authority to invest in real estate using proceeds received from selling lands or drawing on revenue from Permanent School Fund mineral leases and royalties, the agency notes on aweb page. Professional fund management firms oversee the investments, the agency says, while theland board, consisting of the commissioner and two citizen appointees, manages the sale of Permanent School Fund land and mineral leases.To our inquiry, Suydam provided an agency report to the Legislature stating that through March 2012, the market value of the agencys investments made from the Permanent School Fund was $3.077 billion, about half of that reflecting externally managed direct real estate investments and nearly $1.2 billion attributable to short-term investments in the states treasury, which Suydam later said means money set aside so its on call for the agencys real estate investments.The report, dated Sept. 1, 2012, says that gross time-weighted returns on the portfolio in the 12 months through March amounted to nearly 22.9 percent, though that is without considering the short-term investments. Counting the cash-on-call portion, the report says, the time-weighted returns on the portfolio were 13.03 percent.Time-weighted returns?By email, Suydam told us the term describes a complex calculation that uses values for every day in the period being measured which, he said, explains why the 23 percent return shown for the real estate investments does not align with the 30 percent return that we calculated by comparing the market value of those investments at the end of March 2012 to the comparable figure at the end of March 2011.Asked how the earnings on real estate through March 2012 compare to recent 12-month periods, Suydam said such investments generated nearly 14 percent in market value in the 12 months through March 2011, but lost about 15 percent in the 12 months through March 2010.We checked on the rainy day funds earnings with Lauren Willis, spokeswoman for State Comptroller Susan Combs, who oversees state finances.Willis said by email that money in the reserve fund, created in 1988, is invested like other funds in the states treasury in stable, high-quality investments. In 2011, Willis said, the average yield on all those funds was 0.74 percent -- generating nearly $194 million in interest income including $51.9 million added to the rainy day fund. R.J. DeSilva, another Combs spokesman, said by email the rate of return might or might not have been about the same through the 12 months running through March 2012.In a telephone interview, we asked Patterson about why his letter mentions the higher returns on the real estate investments alone rather than also taking into account the lower returns influenced by the agencys cash-on-call funds.I dont count the cash, Patterson replied, because its not part of our investment portfolio.The land office, Patterson noted, is limited by law to managing just part of the overall education endowment. Suydam later said by email that as of the end of March, the market value of the agencys portion of the PSF, not including the value of minerals or state-owned land, was nearly $3.1 billion. He said the State Board of Education oversaw the funds remaining $25.6 billion.Our rulingPattersons reference to 22 percent in earnings over the 12 months running through March 2012 does not account for reduced earnings from nearly $1.2 billion in cash-on-call money supporting the agencys real estate investments. That clarification would be helpful, though it still seems reasonable, overall, to focus on the portion of the portfolio that would be expected to reap sizable gains. Separately, the claim seems to reflect the annual earnings on the rainy day fund, though the commissioners March-to-March time period does not match the calendar-year approach used by the state comptroller.We rate the statement as Mostly True."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/isis-called-for-assassination-of-barron-trump/
|
Did ISIS Call for the Assassination of Barron Trump?
|
Dan Evon
|
11/22/2017
|
[
"A message on the Telegram app from an \"ISIS supporter\" used a hashtag translated to \"handle the son of the mule of America.\""
] |
On 21 November 2017, several outlets published articles under irresponsible headlines claiming that ISIS had called for the assassination of Barron Trump. One of the most egregious was published by The Daily Caller, which in addition to stating that the terrorist group had called for the assassination of President Trump's son, also claimed that they had released a "detailed plan" of how the deed would be accomplished: several published published ISIS Calls For Assassination Of Barron Trump, Release Detailed Plan To Kill 11-Year-Old Nearly all of these reports linked back to an article published by The Washington Beacon which in turn cited a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that provides translations of foreign reports. The claims made in the initial report, however, were far less daunting than subsequent headlines made them appear. article The MEMRI report was not available on their web site at the time of this writing. The full report, which MEMRI sent to us via email, can be seen below. The MEMRI report states this threat was posted in a "pro-ISIS" channel on Telegram, a popular communication app, by a "supporter of ISIS." The report did not state that the threat came from a known-terrorist, or from a leader of ISIS, or through some form of official communication from the terrorist organization. This lack of verification of the message's original source puts the post on shaky ground, and was omitted from the exaggerated headlines. When we reached out to MEMRI for comment, they emphasized this distinction: Please note the report indicates it was a supporter of ISIS on a pro-ISIS Telegram channel. Popular in the Middle East, Telegram is an encrypted chat application that has been used by ISIS in the past, with The New York Times reporting in February 2017 that one of the Islamic State's most influential recruiters instructs newcomers to contact him on the messaging app. The New York Times reporting Additionally, the message on Telegram did not include a "detailed plan." The Telegram post, which MEMRI shared with us, consisted solely of a photograph of Barron Trump, a map showing the location of his school, and a few hashtags. One of these hashtags, which MEMRI translated to mean "handle the son of the mule of America," appears to be the only reference to a "plan" for an assassination. It should also be noted that the location of Barron Trump's school was publicly known long-before this message was posted on Telegram. known Here is the full report from MEMRI: On November 21, 2017, a supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Telegram called for the assassination of Barron Trump, and shared the name of the school that Barron attends along with a Google map pinpointing its location. Using the hashtag "handle the son of the mule of America," the supporter, who uses the name "Dak Al-Munafiqeen," Arabic for "striking the hypocrites," wrote: "Barron Trump goes to this school in Washington." The post was followed by a photo of Barron Trump. To widely disseminate the call for assassination, several pro-ISIS Telegram channels have shared and forwarded the post. Although we have no reason to dispute MEMRI's translation, it should be noted that the group has been accused of biased reporting in the past. In an article entitled "Selective MEMRI," Guardian reporter Brian Whitaker argued that the non-profit has a habit of translating articles that shine a particularly bad light on the Muslim world: Selective MEMRI The second thing that makes me uneasy is that the stories selected by MEMRI for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel. I am not alone in this unease. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Washington Times: "MEMRI's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible." Threats against the President and the First Family should not be taken lightly, but the outlets reporting that "ISIS Call(ed) for Assassination of Barron Trump" exaggerated the contents of a message posted to Telegram to make it appear as if this were a credible threat sent directly from the terrorist organization. Strauss, Valerie. "Barron Trump to Attend Private St. Andrews Episcopal School in Maryland This Fall."
The Washington Post. 15 May 2017. Whitaker, Brian. "Selective Memri."
The Guardian. 12 August 2002.
|
[
"profit"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1s32Q46N55ftYffTR3eM4difi9m3NQdu3"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.is/AQY8V",
"https://archive.is/NFElB",
"https://archive.is/g0EsE#selection-1249.0-1266.1"
],
"sentence": "On 21 November 2017, several outlets published articles under irresponsible headlines claiming that ISIS had called for the assassination of Barron Trump. One of the most egregious was published by The Daily Caller, which in addition to stating that the terrorist group had called for the assassination of President Trump's son, also claimed that they had released a \"detailed plan\" of how the deed would be accomplished:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://archive.is/zTSRU"
],
"sentence": "Nearly all of these reports linked back to an article published by The Washington Beacon which in turn cited a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that provides translations of foreign reports. The claims made in the initial report, however, were far less daunting than subsequent headlines made them appear. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html"
],
"sentence": "Popular in the Middle East, Telegram is an encrypted chat application that has been used by ISIS in the past, with The New York Times reporting in February 2017 that one of the Islamic State's most influential recruiters instructs newcomers to contact him on the messaging app."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/15/barron-trump-to-attend-private-st-andrews-episcopal-school-in-maryland-this-fall/?utm_term=.e6e0690898b7"
],
"sentence": "Additionally, the message on Telegram did not include a \"detailed plan.\" The Telegram post, which MEMRI shared with us, consisted solely of a photograph of Barron Trump, a map showing the location of his school, and a few hashtags. One of these hashtags, which MEMRI translated to mean \"handle the son of the mule of America,\" appears to be the only reference to a \"plan\" for an assassination. It should also be noted that the location of Barron Trump's school was publicly known long-before this message was posted on Telegram. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/12/worlddispatch.brianwhitaker"
],
"sentence": "Although we have no reason to dispute MEMRI's translation, it should be noted that the group has been accused of biased reporting in the past. In an article entitled \"Selective MEMRI,\" Guardian reporter Brian Whitaker argued that the non-profit has a habit of translating articles that shine a particularly bad light on the Muslim world:"
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/jan/03/pat-toomey/pat-toomey-says-us-has-highest-corporate-tax-rates/
|
We have the highest (corporate tax rates) in the world right now.
|
Louis Jacobson
|
01/03/2011
|
[] |
On the Jan. 2, 2011, edition of NBC'sMeet the Press, Sen.-elect Pat Toomey, R-Pa., cited a striking statistic in urging the United States to lower its corporate tax rates.Asked by host David Gregory about possible areas where President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans can work together, Toomey suggested several areas, including taxes.I think tax policy is a possible area, one with plenty of landmines but plenty of opportunities,Toomey said. Simplify the code, lower rates. We should be lowering corporate tax rates because we have the highest in the world right now. (Later in the roundtable discussion, Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter repeated the statistic, but we'll check Toomey's quote here. )We wondered whether the U.S. really has the highest corporate tax rates in the world.Using the most straightforward definition of corporate tax rates, Toomey is right. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 32 large, industrialized democracies,ranksthe combined corporate income tax rate in its member nations. That means the highest tax bracket for general corporate income, excluding taxes levied on specific products or services.For 2010, the U.S ranks second to Japan by a fraction of a percentage point -- 39.54 percent for Japan to 39.21 percent for the U.S. But that figure is already outdated: Japan has recently moved to cut its rate for 2011 by 5 percentage points, leaving the U.S. with the highest corporate tax rate among OECD nations.But before we declare Toomey's statement True, let's dig a little deeper.The OECD rate is the statutory rate -- that is, the top corporate tax rate on the books. But many companies pay considerably less than that, due to deductions and other exclusions. Adjusting for these factors produces a statistic called the effective tax rate.The World Bankhas assembled datafrom 183 nations and made a series of statistical adjustments to produce a full international comparison of effective tax rates. By this measurement, the U.S. rate is considerably lower than the published rate -- 27.6 percent. But in a comparative sense, that's still pretty high: Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand produced a higher effective rate in the World Bank study. And Japan's number should fall by the time next year's study comes out.The World Bank also produces another -- and broader -- statistic. This measure factors in not only the corporate profit tax but also a range of other taxes paid by businesses, including the cost of employee taxes borne by the employer. When the World Bank ranked countries from the lowest level of taxes to the highest, the U.S. ranked 124th out of 183 -- meaning corporate taxes were relatively high. A number of other large and/or democratic countries were higher, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Spain and Sweden.This last measure provides a wider snapshot of U.S. tax policy toward businesses, but it also introduces some complications. Factoring in the employer-paid portion of labor taxes makes the corporate tax rate seem higher in countries that provide higher benefits such as pensions or health care through business taxes, while making the rate seem lower for countries that provide less generous benefits through the tax code. So making apples-to-apples comparisons can be tricky.There's also broader context that Toomey doesn't get into.In a previous item, we noted that when all taxes, including those such as personal income taxes and property taxes -- not just corporate taxes -- are taken into account and compared to gross domestic product, the U.S. doesn't rank near the top of the OECD table in total tax burden.Still, if you rate Toomey on his specific wording by looking at corporate tax rates, he's right that the U.S. does now have the highest corporate tax rates on the books, at least among the biggest industrialized democracies, which is most economists' typical yardstick. So we rate his statement Mostly True.
|
[
"National",
"Taxes"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40871803/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts"
],
"sentence": "On the Jan. 2, 2011, edition of NBC'sMeet the Press, Sen.-elect Pat Toomey, R-Pa., cited a striking statistic in urging the United States to lower its corporate tax rates.Asked by host David Gregory about possible areas where President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans can work together, Toomey suggested several areas, including taxes.I think tax policy is a possible area, one with plenty of landmines but plenty of opportunities,Toomey said. Simplify the code, lower rates. We should be lowering corporate tax rates because we have the highest in the world right now. (Later in the roundtable discussion, Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter repeated the statistic, but we'll check Toomey's quote here.)We wondered whether the U.S. really has the highest corporate tax rates in the world.Using the most straightforward definition of corporate tax rates, Toomey is right. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 32 large, industrialized democracies,ranksthe combined corporate income tax rate in its member nations. That means the highest tax bracket for general corporate income, excluding taxes levied on specific products or services.For 2010, the U.S ranks second to Japan by a fraction of a percentage point -- 39.54 percent for Japan to 39.21 percent for the U.S. But that figure is already outdated: Japan has recently moved to cut its rate for 2011 by 5 percentage points, leaving the U.S. with the highest corporate tax rate among OECD nations.But before we declare Toomey's statement True, let's dig a little deeper.The OECD rate is the statutory rate -- that is, the top corporate tax rate on the books. But many companies pay considerably less than that, due to deductions and other exclusions. Adjusting for these factors produces a statistic called the effective tax rate.The World Bankhas assembled datafrom 183 nations and made a series of statistical adjustments to produce a full international comparison of effective tax rates. By this measurement, the U.S. rate is considerably lower than the published rate -- 27.6 percent. But in a comparative sense, that's still pretty high: Among larger international economies, only Japan, New Zealand and Thailand produced a higher effective rate in the World Bank study. And Japan's number should fall by the time next year's study comes out.The World Bank also produces another -- and broader -- statistic. This measure factors in not only the corporate profit tax but also a range of other taxes paid by businesses, including the cost of employee taxes borne by the employer. When the World Bank ranked countries from the lowest level of taxes to the highest, the U.S. ranked 124th out of 183 -- meaning corporate taxes were relatively high. A number of other large and/or democratic countries were higher, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Spain and Sweden.This last measure provides a wider snapshot of U.S. tax policy toward businesses, but it also introduces some complications. Factoring in the employer-paid portion of labor taxes makes the corporate tax rate seem higher in countries that provide higher benefits such as pensions or health care through business taxes, while making the rate seem lower for countries that provide less generous benefits through the tax code. So making apples-to-apples comparisons can be tricky.There's also broader context that Toomey doesn't get into.In a previous item, we noted that when all taxes, including those such as personal income taxes and property taxes -- not just corporate taxes -- are taken into account and compared to gross domestic product, the U.S. doesn't rank near the top of the OECD table in total tax burden.Still, if you rate Toomey on his specific wording by looking at corporate tax rates, he's right that the U.S. does now have the highest corporate tax rates on the books, at least among the biggest industrialized democracies, which is most economists' typical yardstick. So we rate his statement Mostly True."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-madden-death-hoax/
|
John Madden Death Hoax (2014)
|
Dan Evon
|
04/27/2016
|
[
"False reports in 2014 and 2016 that the former NFL coach had passed away came from an article originally published on a satirical website."
] |
Editor's Note: The Associated Press reported that John Madden died at the age of 85 on Dec. 28, 2021. The fact check below pertains to a hoax that circulated online in 2014 and 2016. John Madden died A rumor about Hall of Fame coach John Madden's alleged death started circulating online in April 2016: The rumor started after the web site LockerDome put up a link to a fake news article, which was published on 29 April 2014 by the entertainment web site Empire Sports: NFL fans cover your eyes, Super Bowl winning head coach John Madden was found this morning dead at his Pleasanton, California home. Paramedics responded to a call made early this morning and found the 78 year old Hall-of-Fame coach sitting upright on his couch with a microphone in his hand. The Pleasantville Medical Examiner has not released the cause of death but no foul play is suspected. There was no truth to this story when it was initially published in 2014. There was still no truth to this fake news item when it recirculated two years later, at a time when John Madden was still alive and well at 80 years old (not 78). Empire Sports, like the related Empire News, is one of many "satire and entertainment" web sites that publishes only hoax stories: many Empire Sports uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental. LockerDome is an interest-based social network that started as a place for sports fans to gather online but later expanded to include other interests. LockerDome network Update [Dec. 28, 2021: Update to report that John Madden died on Dec. 28, 2021.
|
[
"interest"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1WOi1am6xCQEjgOCJHst4fruCFvZfrU5r"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/ap/2021/12/28/john-madden-dies/"
],
"sentence": "Editor's Note: The Associated Press reported that John Madden died at the age of 85 on Dec. 28, 2021. The fact check below pertains to a hoax that circulated online in 2014 and 2016."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/"
],
"sentence": "Empire Sports, like the related Empire News, is one of many \"satire and entertainment\" web sites that publishes only hoax stories:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.lockerdome.com",
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentbeshore/2014/06/17/lockerdomes-big-bet-pays-off-with-40-million-monthly-uniques/#16b49c37dbbe"
],
"sentence": "LockerDome is an interest-based social network that started as a place for sports fans to gather online but later expanded to include other interests."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-son-college/
|
Did Tucker Carlson Ask Hunter Biden for Help Getting His Son into College?
|
Nur Ibrahim
|
12/07/2022
|
[
"The Fox News host was once friendly with the presidents son."
] |
Since the 2020 elections, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has attackedU.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, for allegedly engaging in business practices by means of which Hunter allegedly benefited from his father's position. But just a few years ago, according to an internet rumor, Carlson was asking for the younger Biden's help in getting his son into college. attacked A meme going around claims that an email shows Carlson thanking Biden for writing a letter to Georgetown University on behalf of his son, Buckley. This claim is accurate. In 2014, when Joe Biden was serving as vice president, Carlson and his wife, Susie,reached out to Hunter Biden for help in getting their son into Georgetown University. Their email communication was revealed through forensic analysis of a laptop once owned by Biden that he had purportedly left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. The laptop was obtained by Trump's then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and its contents pushed out to the New York Post in 2020. The correspondenceon Biden's hard drive, a copy of which was also in the possession of the FBI, was largely used to investigate his overseas business dealings during his father's time in the White House, but also have illuminated more about the Carlson-Biden relationship. reached out revealed laptop once owned by Biden correspondence The emails were given to The Washington Poston a hard drive by activist Jack Maxey, who received it from Giuliani. The Washington Post revealed the details of Carlson's and Biden's communication in May 2022, and was able to confirm with the help of forensic analysis and interviews with people familiar with the communications that this and other emails on the hard drive were real. The Washington Post So what did Carlson actually say? The Post shared an image of a few of the emails in which he thanks Biden for writing a letter to Georgetown "on Buckley's [his son's] behalf." He added, "So nice of you. I know it'll help." The Post Image via Washington Post Carlson's wife wrote to Biden in 2014: "I realize you don't really know Buckley. Maybe you could meet or speak to him and he could send you a very brief resume with his interests and grades attached." She also wrote: "Tucker and I would be so grateful if you could write a letter or speak to someone in the Georgetown Admission's Office about Buckley." Biden wrote back that he would be honored to help. "I will do anything you would like me to do," he said. Carlson described his son's interest in squash and fly fishing and wrote, "He loves Washington for all the right reasons, I think, and really wants to go to school here." When Biden agreed to write a letter for Buckley, Susie responded with, "Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!" Carlson admitted that he was once close with Biden in a phone interview with the Post. He said: "Hunter Biden was my neighbor. Our wives were friends. I knew him well. I talked to him many times about addiction, something I know a lot about. And I've said that. I think that Hunter Biden is an addict and that's why his life is falling apart, and I feel bad for him. I've said that many times, and I mean it." admitted He refused to discuss the emails, however, pointing (with apparent irony) to claims that the timing of the laptop's emergence in 2020 had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Previously, Carlson had dismissed and mocked claims of a Russian disinformation campaign as an effort by the establishment and tech giants to protect Joe Biden's 2020 election campaign. It is unclear if Biden ended up writing a letter, but Carlson's son did end up going to the University of Virginia. refused "I can't confirm these emails. The emails that you're referring to were described by our intel community as Russian disinformation," he said. He added that he could not verify the emails as he did not have access to the account. said Hunter Biden declined to comment to the Post. Since 2020, Carlson has regularly skewered the younger Biden on his show, accusing him of getting "lucrative jobs because he had an important father." skewered He did say there were certain lines he would not cross, pertaining to the laptop. In October 2020, he said: "Much of the material on the laptop is of limited relevance to the public. [...] And by the way, if we're being honest, some of the exchanges between Hunter Biden and his father, and they are on there, too, reveal that whatever you say about them, Joe Biden really loves his son, and they're touching." But following the 2020 election, Carlson's anti-Hunter Biden rhetoric grew, and he even poked fun at his addictions in an October 2021 segment:"So again, let's say you were a crackhead through your 40s, made a lot of pornographic videos mostly of yourself, your genitals covered in M&Ms, and then once you got to your 50s, decide, 'Hey, I want to be Andy Warhol. You probably couldn't do it unless your dad happened to be the president, and that's how Hunter Biden pulled that off." grew "A Look at the Time Tucker Carlson Asked Hunter Biden for a Favor." Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2022. Pengelly, Martin. "Tucker Carlson Tried to Use Hunter Biden to Get His Son into Georgetown." The Guardian, 20 May 2022. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/19/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-georgetown-emails.Accessed 7 Dec. 2022.
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"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "Since the 2020 elections, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has attackedU.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, for allegedly engaging in business practices by means of which Hunter allegedly benefited from his father's position. But just a few years ago, according to an internet rumor, Carlson was asking for the younger Biden's help in getting his son into college."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/",
"https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/10/15/hunter-biden-laptop-giuliani/",
"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/19/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-georgetown-emails"
],
"sentence": "This claim is accurate. In 2014, when Joe Biden was serving as vice president, Carlson and his wife, Susie,reached out to Hunter Biden for help in getting their son into Georgetown University. Their email communication was revealed through forensic analysis of a laptop once owned by Biden that he had purportedly left at a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019. The laptop was obtained by Trump's then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and its contents pushed out to the New York Post in 2020. The correspondenceon Biden's hard drive, a copy of which was also in the possession of the FBI, was largely used to investigate his overseas business dealings during his father's time in the White House, but also have illuminated more about the Carlson-Biden relationship."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "The emails were given to The Washington Poston a hard drive by activist Jack Maxey, who received it from Giuliani. The Washington Post revealed the details of Carlson's and Biden's communication in May 2022, and was able to confirm with the help of forensic analysis and interviews with people familiar with the communications that this and other emails on the hard drive were real."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "So what did Carlson actually say? The Post shared an image of a few of the emails in which he thanks Biden for writing a letter to Georgetown \"on Buckley's [his son's] behalf.\" He added, \"So nice of you. I know it'll help.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "Carlson admitted that he was once close with Biden in a phone interview with the Post. He said: \"Hunter Biden was my neighbor. Our wives were friends. I knew him well. I talked to him many times about addiction, something I know a lot about. And I've said that. I think that Hunter Biden is an addict and that's why his life is falling apart, and I feel bad for him. I've said that many times, and I mean it.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "He refused to discuss the emails, however, pointing (with apparent irony) to claims that the timing of the laptop's emergence in 2020 had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Previously, Carlson had dismissed and mocked claims of a Russian disinformation campaign as an effort by the establishment and tech giants to protect Joe Biden's 2020 election campaign. It is unclear if Biden ended up writing a letter, but Carlson's son did end up going to the University of Virginia."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "\"I can't confirm these emails. The emails that you're referring to were described by our intel community as Russian disinformation,\" he said. He added that he could not verify the emails as he did not have access to the account."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "Since 2020, Carlson has regularly skewered the younger Biden on his show, accusing him of getting \"lucrative jobs because he had an important father.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20220702214754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/"
],
"sentence": "But following the 2020 election, Carlson's anti-Hunter Biden rhetoric grew, and he even poked fun at his addictions in an October 2021 segment:\"So again, let's say you were a crackhead through your 40s, made a lot of pornographic videos mostly of yourself, your genitals covered in M&Ms, and then once you got to your 50s, decide, 'Hey, I want to be Andy Warhol. You probably couldn't do it unless your dad happened to be the president, and that's how Hunter Biden pulled that off.\""
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/feb/05/stacey-evans/does-georgia-have-lowest-minimum-wage-country/
|
Georgia has the lowest minimum wage in the country.
|
Miriam Valverde
|
02/05/2018
|
[] |
Stacey Evans, a Democrat running to be Georgias next governor, claims workers are at an economic disadvantage in part because of the states minimum wage. I want Georgia to be the best place to work, live, and raise a family. Right now, it isnt,Evans saidon her campaign website. Georgia is 40th in income inequality, 40th in high school graduation, and has the lowest minimum wage in the country. We wondered if Georgia in fact has the lowest minimum wage in the nation. It does, but its not alone (tied with Wyoming), and most of hourly wage employees are paid above the states minimum wage: at least $7.25, which is also the federal minimum wage. Georgias state law sets the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour, but the federal Fair Labor Standards Act still applies, meaning most employees are covered under thefederal minimum wageof $7.25 per hour. Wyoming, which equally has a $5.15 minimum wage, alsosaysthat when the federal minimum wage is higher than the states, the federal minimum wage applies to most workers. Like Georgia, Wyoming also has a $5.15 minimum wage, the lowest in the country. And while, thankfully, many Georgians are protected by a federal wage floor, many Georgians are not, said Adam Ney, research director for the Evans campaign. The fact remains that Georgia has the lowest minimum wage in the country and that we must increase it because everybody deserves a fair days pay for a hard days work. Who doesnt get the federal minimum wage? There areexemptionsin the law for certain farm workers, seasonal workers, health aides, and workers who receive tips. In 2016, Georgia had about 2.3 million workers paid hourly rates, and 51,000 of them (or 2.2 percent) were paid below the federal minimum wage,according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. An estimated 90,000, or 3.9 percent, were paid at or below the federal minimum wage. Overall, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina had the highest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage, at or about 5 percent, BLS said. Georgia is one of seven statesthat have either a lower state minimum wage than the federal standard, or no state minimum wage at all, said Wesley Tharpe, research director at the left-leaning think tank Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. In practice, the vast majority of workers in every state are subject to the federal requirement of $7.25 an hour, Tharpe said. Tipped workers, including servers, are also paid a lower hourly rate in most states including Georgia, Tharpe said. Some evidence suggests their tips dont always sum to get them about the required $7.25 federal rate, he said. Evans said Georgia has the lowest minimum wage in the country. Georgias minimum wage of $5.15 per hour is the lowest in the nation, but Wyoming also has the same minimum wage. Also, most of Georgias workers paid hourly rates earn the federal minimum of $7.25. Evans statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. We rate it Mostly True.
|
[
"Georgia",
"Economy",
"Jobs"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://staceyevans.com/jobs-and-the-economy/"
],
"sentence": "I want Georgia to be the best place to work, live, and raise a family. Right now, it isnt,Evans saidon her campaign website. Georgia is 40th in income inequality, 40th in high school graduation, and has the lowest minimum wage in the country."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#stateDetails"
],
"sentence": "Georgias state law sets the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour, but the federal Fair Labor Standards Act still applies, meaning most employees are covered under thefederal minimum wageof $7.25 per hour."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://doe.state.wy.us/lmi/trends/0814/a1.htm"
],
"sentence": "Wyoming, which equally has a $5.15 minimum wage, alsosaysthat when the federal minimum wage is higher than the states, the federal minimum wage applies to most workers."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://gbpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Better-Pay-for-Honest-Work3.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Who doesnt get the federal minimum wage? There areexemptionsin the law for certain farm workers, seasonal workers, health aides, and workers who receive tips."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm"
],
"sentence": "In 2016, Georgia had about 2.3 million workers paid hourly rates, and 51,000 of them (or 2.2 percent) were paid below the federal minimum wage,according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#stateDetails"
],
"sentence": "Georgia is one of seven statesthat have either a lower state minimum wage than the federal standard, or no state minimum wage at all, said Wesley Tharpe, research director at the left-leaning think tank Georgia Budget and Policy Institute."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tennessee-city-ban-public-homosexuality/
|
Is 'Public Homosexuality' Banned in Murfreesboro, Tennessee?
|
Alex Kasprak
|
11/20/2023
|
[
"For a time, the city ordinance explicitly included homosexual activity, of any kind, as a violation of newly issued \"community standards.\" "
] |
On Nov. 17, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted a Nov. 14 article from the New Republic on X (formerly Twitter) with the headline, "A City in Tennessee Banned Public Homosexuality and We All Missed It." posted This claim that a city ordinance in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, banned public homosexuality was broadly true when an ordinance on "community decency" went into effect in June 2023. But explicit reference to homosexuality was removed from the code in November 2023. claim June 2023 In June 2023, the Murfreesboro City Council passed Ordinance 23-O-22, a law purportedly regarding community decency that The Associated Press described as being "designed to ban drag performances from taking place on public property." As described by its authors, the new law "supplement[ed] existing civil and criminal sanctions for indecent behavior [by] barring persons who engage in prohibited conduct from sponsoring events on a public space for two years and increasing to five years where the prohibited conduct occurs in the presence of minors." Ordinance 23-O-22 described described The bill included "sexual conduct" as one form of indecent behavior covered by the June 2023 enhancements to the code. This "conduct" term, however, was defined by "Section 21-71 of the Murfreesboro City Code," which had been in place since the 1970s and that defined terms used in a section of city code detailing criminal offenses related to "exposing minors to harmful materials." That code defined "sexual conduct" in a way that broadly included "acts of [...] homosexuality": Section 21-71 "Sexual conduct" means acts of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks or, if such person be a female, breast. A literal reading of the new law therefore could have criminalized any sort of public display of homosexuality, even if such a display was not overtly sexual or sexual in nature. Then in October 2023, the city, citing the new law, denied a permit to the non-profit Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) to hold a Pride rally, which the group had held every year since 2016. That decision was made on the basis of this new city code and the allegedly indecent material present at the 2022 TEP event. As reported by The Associated Press, the ACLU took up the case on behalf of TEP: reported The legal challenge is the latest development in the ongoing political battle over LGBTQ+ rights inside Tennessee, where the states conservative leaders have sought to limit events where drag performers may appear, restrict classroom conversations about gender and sexuality, and ban gender-affirming care. [...] According to the 67-page complaint, the organization [TEP] has faced recent opposition from Murfreesboro leaders after conservative activists alleged that drag performances that took place during the 2022 Pride event resulted in the illegal sexualization of kids." TEP denied the shows were inappropriate, noting that the performers were fully clothed. However, the city quickly warned the organization it would be denying any future event permits and later approved updating its community decency standards intended to assist in the determination of conduct, materials, and events that may be judged as obscene or harmful to minors. The suit alleges the ordinance violates the First Amendment for chilling free speech rights, as well as argues that it breaks the 14th Amendment for discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community. On Oct. 26, the federal judge assigned to the case issued an order blocking the city from denying TEP's request for a permit to hold the 2023 pride event. As reported by the Daily News Journal: reported [The] ruling tells the local government, Murfreesboro City Manager Craig Tindall, Mayor Shane McFarland, the Murfreesboro Police Department and other city officials, that they "shall not enforce or take any action pursuant to the provision to Murfreesboro City Code 21-71 that includes 'homosexuality' within the definition of 'sexual conduct.'" Against this backdrop, in October 2023, the Murfreesboro council took up the issue of removing homosexuality from the list of "acts" that could constitute sexual conduct. On Nov. 2, a proposal removing the word passed, with the change set to take effect on Nov. 17 the day of Newsom's tweet. As reported by journalist Erin Reed: reported Good news. As of tomorrow, Murfreesboro will not have "homosexuality" in its code banning public homosexuality anymore. That said, the new indecency law that Murfreesboro passed still contains very vague "community standards" provisions used to target Pride and LGBTQ books. pic.twitter.com/N4rFzqhxFX pic.twitter.com/N4rFzqhxFX Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) November 16, 2023 November 16, 2023 Reed argued that while this change made "the targeting of LGBTQ+ people less explicit," the "vague 'community standards' section will still likely be used to target Pride events and books," she said. The ACLU case is ongoing. argued "The parties agreed and the judge accepted an agreement temporarily suspending enforcement of an ordinance designed to specify certain civil penalties against indecency in public spaces and to protect children from indecent conduct," Murfreesboro spokesman Mike Browning said in a statement. "However, other existing state statutes and city ordinances and penalties regarding such conduct remain applicable. said Because public homosexuality is no longer explicitly prohibited by Murfreesboro city code, the claim made by Newsom and others is out of date. It is still possible, however, based on statements made by the local government and the broad nature of the law, that the portion of code remaining could be used to prevent future LGBTQ+ events. 23-O-22 Community Decency Standards Ordinance . https://www.wkrn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2023/06/061523-Community-Decency.pdf. Granieri, Susanna. ACLU Sues a Tennessee City Over An Anti-Drag Ordinance. First Amendment Watch, 10 Oct. 2023, https://firstamendmentwatch.org/aclu-sues-a-tennessee-city-over-an-anti-drag-ordinance/. Municode Library. https://library.municode.com/tn/murfreesboro/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICO_CH21OFMIPR_ARTIIIEXMIHAMA_S21-71DE. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. Otten, Tori, et al. A City in Tennessee Banned Public Homosexualityand We All Missed It. The New Republic, 1 Nov. 2022. The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/post/176915/tennessee-town-ban-public-homosexuality. Reed, Erin. City Ordinance Banning Public Homosexuality Reaches Rutherford County Libraries. https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/city-ordinance-banning-public-homosexuality. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. Tennessee City Walks Back Ban on Public Homosexuality Kind Of. Yahoo News, 17 Nov. 2023, https://news.yahoo.com/tennessee-city-walks-back-ban-151306443.html. We Are Relieved: BoroPride Wins Court Order to Protect LGBTQ+ Festival from Government. The Daily News Journal, https://www.dnj.com/story/news/2023/10/23/boropride-wins-court-order-to-protect-lgbtq-festival-from-government/71288469007/. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023.
|
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1pHf9yHLLPBHc3ROaCaKSTt-5xMzp2KN_"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1725261423037804717"
],
"sentence": "On Nov. 17, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted a Nov. 14 article from the New Republic on X (formerly Twitter) with the headline, \"A City in Tennessee Banned Public Homosexuality and We All Missed It.\" "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://newrepublic.com/post/176915/tennessee-town-ban-public-homosexuality",
"https://www.wkrn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2023/06/061523-Community-Decency.pdf"
],
"sentence": "This claim that a city ordinance in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, banned public homosexuality was broadly true when an ordinance on \"community decency\" went into effect in June 2023. But explicit reference to homosexuality was removed from the code in November 2023."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.wkrn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2023/06/061523-Community-Decency.pdf",
"https://firstamendmentwatch.org/aclu-sues-a-tennessee-city-over-an-anti-drag-ordinance/",
"https://www.wkrn.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/73/2023/06/061523-Community-Decency.pdf"
],
"sentence": "In June 2023, the Murfreesboro City Council passed Ordinance 23-O-22, a law purportedly regarding community decency that The Associated Press described as being \"designed to ban drag performances from taking place on public property.\" As described by its authors, the new law \"supplement[ed] existing civil and criminal sanctions for indecent behavior [by] barring persons who engage in prohibited conduct from sponsoring events on a public space for two years and increasing to five years where the prohibited conduct occurs in the presence of minors.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://library.municode.com/tn/murfreesboro/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICO_CH21OFMIPR_ARTIIIEXMIHAMA_S21-71DE"
],
"sentence": "The bill included \"sexual conduct\" as one form of indecent behavior covered by the June 2023 enhancements to the code. This \"conduct\" term, however, was defined by \"Section 21-71 of the Murfreesboro City Code,\" which had been in place since the 1970s and that defined terms used in a section of city code detailing criminal offenses related to \"exposing minors to harmful materials.\" That code defined \"sexual conduct\" in a way that broadly included \"acts of [...] homosexuality\": "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://firstamendmentwatch.org/aclu-sues-a-tennessee-city-over-an-anti-drag-ordinance/"
],
"sentence": "Then in October 2023, the city, citing the new law, denied a permit to the non-profit Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) to hold a Pride rally, which the group had held every year since 2016. That decision was made on the basis of this new city code and the allegedly indecent material present at the 2022 TEP event. As reported by The Associated Press, the ACLU took up the case on behalf of TEP:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.dnj.com/story/news/2023/10/23/boropride-wins-court-order-to-protect-lgbtq-festival-from-government/71288469007/"
],
"sentence": "On Oct. 26, the federal judge assigned to the case issued an order blocking the city from denying TEP's request for a permit to hold the 2023 pride event. As reported by the Daily News Journal:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1725276725167169641?s=20"
],
"sentence": "Against this backdrop, in October 2023, the Murfreesboro council took up the issue of removing homosexuality from the list of \"acts\" that could constitute sexual conduct. On Nov. 2, a proposal removing the word passed, with the change set to take effect on Nov. 17 the day of Newsom's tweet. As reported by journalist Erin Reed:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://t.co/N4rFzqhxFX"
],
"sentence": "That said, the new indecency law that Murfreesboro passed still contains very vague \"community standards\" provisions used to target Pride and LGBTQ books. pic.twitter.com/N4rFzqhxFX"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1725276725167169641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
],
"sentence": " Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) November 16, 2023"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/city-ordinance-banning-public-homosexuality"
],
"sentence": "Reed argued that while this change made \"the targeting of LGBTQ+ people less explicit,\" the \"vague 'community standards' section will still likely be used to target Pride events and books,\" she said. The ACLU case is ongoing."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.dnj.com/story/news/2023/10/23/boropride-wins-court-order-to-protect-lgbtq-festival-from-government/71288469007/"
],
"sentence": "\"The parties agreed and the judge accepted an agreement temporarily suspending enforcement of an ordinance designed to specify certain civil penalties against indecency in public spaces and to protect children from indecent conduct,\" Murfreesboro spokesman Mike Browning said in a statement. \"However, other existing state statutes and city ordinances and penalties regarding such conduct remain applicable."
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/apr/10/richard-licht/licht-says-proposed-fees-ri-state-beaches-are-stil/
|
Proposed fees for Rhode Island beaches will still be less than some of the town beaches.
|
Richard Salit
|
04/10/2011
|
[] |
After an unusually cruel winter and chilly spring, we couldnt stop dreaming of hot summer days at the seashore. Then Governor Chafee proposed nearly doubling fees at state beaches. It hit us like a bucket of ice water.Under the plan, the price for a season pass would increase to $60 for Rhode Islanders from $30. Daily rates for state residents would jump to $10 from $6 during the week and to $14 from $7 on weekends and holidays. Fees for out-of-staters would also increase.While discussing the proposed fees on WJAR-TVs 10 News Conference on April 3, Richard Licht, director of the Department of Administration, asserted they werent out of line.For $30 more, you are getting a season pass to one of the greatest sets of beaches in the country. You still, at $60, are less than some of the town beaches charge I dont think thats an inordinate burden on the people of Rhode Island, Licht said.Could the fees atstate beachesstill be lower than town beaches even if doubled?When we inquired where Licht got his information, the governors spokesman, Michael Trainor, told us wed hear back by the next day.While we waited, we made some phone calls and found 14 coastal communities that charge admission to their beaches. Most of the beach fees have been set for the season.Like a beach ball on a breezy day, the fees are all over the place. And there are many different categories, covering residents, non-residents and seniors. (The Chafee administration ultimately referred us to the state Department of Environmental Management, which cited many of the same figures we found in our survey. )We decided to focus on the fee that the majority of state residents -- who dont live in beach communities -- would pay for a season pass or a single day at the shore. If they visit a state beach, theyd all pay the new fees. If they visit a town beach, theyd pay that communitys non-resident fee.The most expensive non-resident season pass costs $175 for Little Comptons South Shore Beach. Middletowns Sachuest Beach, also known as Second Beach, charges $140. Next comes Charlestown, at $90. Passes go for $80 at Newports Eastons Beach and South Kingstown Town Beach and $70 at Wuskenau Town Beach in Westerly.So how does the states proposed $60 season pass compare? Of the eight towns that offer passes to non-residents, the state fee would be less than all but Portsmouth, which collects $50 for a pass to Sandy Point Beach, on the Sakonnet River.So far, so good for Licht.But what about daily fees? (Remember, were comparing state fees to local non-resident fees, setting aside favorable pricing for residents. )Lets begin with weekdays.The Chafee administration wants to increase the $6 daily state fee to $10.Three towns -- Warren, Bristol and Tiverton -- charge just $5 per day. Westerly charges $6 and Portsmouth charges $7.Prices are higher at the ocean beaches: $10 in Charlestown, Narragansett, Middletown and Newport; $12 in Little Compton; and $15 a day in South Kingstown and Jamestown. (Narragansett also charges a separate fee to walk onto the beach.) Two towns -- Barrington and North Kingstown -- dont allow non-residents to park at their beaches.So the $10 state fee would be less than 5 of the 12 towns that welcome out-of-towners.On weekends and holidays, the states new fee would be $14 -- less than fees in 8 of the 12 beach towns.So when Licht says the new state fees are less than some of the town beaches, we cant disagree. In fact, the state fees are lower in many instances.We wont kick any sand at Licht on this one. We rate his claimTrue.
|
[
"Rhode Island",
"Recreation",
"State Budget"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.riparks.com/listing.htm"
],
"sentence": "After an unusually cruel winter and chilly spring, we couldnt stop dreaming of hot summer days at the seashore. Then Governor Chafee proposed nearly doubling fees at state beaches. It hit us like a bucket of ice water.Under the plan, the price for a season pass would increase to $60 for Rhode Islanders from $30. Daily rates for state residents would jump to $10 from $6 during the week and to $14 from $7 on weekends and holidays. Fees for out-of-staters would also increase.While discussing the proposed fees on WJAR-TVs 10 News Conference on April 3, Richard Licht, director of the Department of Administration, asserted they werent out of line.For $30 more, you are getting a season pass to one of the greatest sets of beaches in the country. You still, at $60, are less than some of the town beaches charge I dont think thats an inordinate burden on the people of Rhode Island, Licht said.Could the fees atstate beachesstill be lower than town beaches even if doubled?When we inquired where Licht got his information, the governors spokesman, Michael Trainor, told us wed hear back by the next day.While we waited, we made some phone calls and found 14 coastal communities that charge admission to their beaches. Most of the beach fees have been set for the season.Like a beach ball on a breezy day, the fees are all over the place. And there are many different categories, covering residents, non-residents and seniors.(The Chafee administration ultimately referred us to the state Department of Environmental Management, which cited many of the same figures we found in our survey.)We decided to focus on the fee that the majority of state residents -- who dont live in beach communities -- would pay for a season pass or a single day at the shore. If they visit a state beach, theyd all pay the new fees. If they visit a town beach, theyd pay that communitys non-resident fee.The most expensive non-resident season pass costs $175 for Little Comptons South Shore Beach. Middletowns Sachuest Beach, also known as Second Beach, charges $140. Next comes Charlestown, at $90. Passes go for $80 at Newports Eastons Beach and South Kingstown Town Beach and $70 at Wuskenau Town Beach in Westerly.So how does the states proposed $60 season pass compare? Of the eight towns that offer passes to non-residents, the state fee would be less than all but Portsmouth, which collects $50 for a pass to Sandy Point Beach, on the Sakonnet River.So far, so good for Licht.But what about daily fees? (Remember, were comparing state fees to local non-resident fees, setting aside favorable pricing for residents.)Lets begin with weekdays.The Chafee administration wants to increase the $6 daily state fee to $10.Three towns -- Warren, Bristol and Tiverton -- charge just $5 per day. Westerly charges $6 and Portsmouth charges $7.Prices are higher at the ocean beaches: $10 in Charlestown, Narragansett, Middletown and Newport; $12 in Little Compton; and $15 a day in South Kingstown and Jamestown. (Narragansett also charges a separate fee to walk onto the beach.) Two towns -- Barrington and North Kingstown -- dont allow non-residents to park at their beaches.So the $10 state fee would be less than 5 of the 12 towns that welcome out-of-towners.On weekends and holidays, the states new fee would be $14 -- less than fees in 8 of the 12 beach towns.So when Licht says the new state fees are less than some of the town beaches, we cant disagree. In fact, the state fees are lower in many instances.We wont kick any sand at Licht on this one. We rate his claimTrue."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/apr/15/bernie-sanders/does-hillary-clinton-want-15-or-12-minimum-wage/
|
When this campaign began, I said that weve got to end the starvation minimum wage of $7.25, raise it to $15. Secretary Clinton said let's raise it to $12.
|
Lauren Carroll
|
04/15/2016
|
[] |
Does Hillary Clinton think the federal minimum wage should be $12 an hour or $15? This question produced one of the more heated back-and-forths in an April 14 Democratic presidential debate between Clinton and opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders starting when Clinton asserted that she has continuously supported the Fight for $15 advocacy campaign. I have supported the Fight for $15, Clinton said. I am proud to have the endorsement of most of the unions that have led the Fight for $15. To Sanders, that was news. I am sure a lot of people are very surprised to learn that you supported raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, Sanders said. When this campaign began, I said that weve got to end the starvation minimum wage of $7.25, raise it to $15. Secretary Clinton said let's raise it to $12. An extended back-and-forth followed. Were putting Sanders claim on the Truth-O-Meter. Hes right that Clintons official position is to raise the national minimum wage to $12 as a floor. However, she has also shown support for the Fight for $15 campaign that pushes for higher minimums in individual states and cities. Heres whatClintons website sayson that point: Hillary believes we are long overdue in raising the minimum wage. She has supported raising the federal minimum wage to $12, and believes that we should go further than the federal minimum through state and local efforts, and workers organizing and bargaining for higher wages, such as the Fight for $15 and recent efforts in Los Angeles and New York to raise their minimum wage to $15. In June 2015, early on in her campaign, Clinton spoke with a gathering ofFight for $15members via phone and told them she supported their campaign. All of you should not have to march in the streets to get a living wage, but thank you for marching in the streets to get that living wage, she said,according to theWashington Post. A few days later, Clinton delivered acampaign kickoff speechin which she called for raising the minimum wage, but she did not specify a number. Her support for the $12 minimum wage proposal seems to have emerged around July 2015, when she praised legislation proposed by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., arguing that it would be more politically feasible. Lets not just do it for the sake of having a higher number out there, she said, according to theNew York Times. But lets get behind a proposal that actually has a chance of succeeding. By November,Clinton had started to say plainly that she prefers a $12 federal minimum wage. In the same month, though,she tweetedwith the hashtag #FightFor15. What about Sanders? Hes right that he has advocated specifically for a $15 minimum wage since his campaign began. Let us be honest and acknowledge that millions of Americans are now working for totally inadequate wages, he said as part of hisMay 2015 announcement. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised. The minimum wage must become a living wage, which means raising it to $15 an hour over the next few years. A couple months earlier, in March 2015,he put forward an amendmentto eventually raise the minimum wage to $15. He also put forth legislation inJuly 2015. Our ruling Sanders said, When this campaign began, I said that weve got to end the starvation minimum wage of $7.25, raise it to $15. Secretary Clinton said let's raise it to $12. Since the start of his campaign, Sanders has advocated for a $15 minimum wage. Since early on in her campaign, Clinton has supported the Fight for $15s efforts in individual cities and states. But her official position is that she prefers a $12 federal minimum wage as a floor, allowing cities and states to go further. Sanders has a point that he is calling for a federal minimum wage that would be $3 more an hour than what Clinton says she favors. However, he misses the nuance that Clinton is also supportive of local efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15. We rate his claim Mostly True.
|
[
"National",
"Economy",
"Income"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/plan-raise-american-incomes/"
],
"sentence": "Heres whatClintons website sayson that point:"
},
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"hrefs": [
"https://hillaryspeeches.com/2015/06/07/clinton-speaks-with-fight-for-15/"
],
"sentence": "In June 2015, early on in her campaign, Clinton spoke with a gathering ofFight for $15members via phone and told them she supported their campaign."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/07/hillary-clinton-sounds-populist-note-at-fast-food-workers-convention/"
],
"sentence": "All of you should not have to march in the streets to get a living wage, but thank you for marching in the streets to get that living wage, she said,according to theWashington Post."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://time.com/3920332/transcript-full-text-hillary-clinton-campaign-launch/"
],
"sentence": "A few days later, Clinton delivered acampaign kickoff speechin which she called for raising the minimum wage, but she did not specify a number."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/30/hillary-clinton-speaks-favorably-about-12-minimum-wage/"
],
"sentence": "Lets not just do it for the sake of having a higher number out there, she said, according to theNew York Times. But lets get behind a proposal that actually has a chance of succeeding."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-i-favor-12-hour-minimum-wage"
],
"sentence": "By November,Clinton had started to say plainly that she prefers a $12 federal minimum wage. In the same month, though,she tweetedwith the hashtag #FightFor15."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://berniesanders.com/bernies-announcement/"
],
"sentence": "Let us be honest and acknowledge that millions of Americans are now working for totally inadequate wages, he said as part of hisMay 2015 announcement. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised. The minimum wage must become a living wage, which means raising it to $15 an hour over the next few years."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/republicans-oppose-minimum-wage-hike-as-senate-debates-budget"
],
"sentence": "A couple months earlier, in March 2015,he put forward an amendmentto eventually raise the minimum wage to $15. He also put forth legislation inJuly 2015."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-denier-die-from-covid/
|
Did Ohio Man Who Called COVID-19 a 'Political Ploy' Die from the Disease?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/22/2020
|
[
"John W. McDaniel of Ohio passed away at the age of 60 in April 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 In April 2020, a set of screenshots supposedly showing comments from a "John McDaniels," in which he called COVID-19 a "political ploy" and social-distancing measures "bullshit," started to circulate on social media. Along with the posts were articles claiming he died from complications of the coronavirus disease. Here's a screenshot supposedly showing a post from McDaniel on March 15 and a snippet from his obituary a month later: McDaniel truly died from complications related to COVID-19 in April 2020 after he downplayed the seriousness of the disease on social media. died The New York Daily News wrote: wrote An Ohio man has tragically died from COVID-19 after criticizing his states coronavirus lockdown. John W. McDaniel, 60, died Wednesday in Columbus, exactly one month after reportedly calling Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order madness. If what Im hearing is true, that DeWine has ordered all bars and restaurants to be closed, I say bullshit! He doesnt have the authority," McDaniel reportedly wrote in a since-deleted social media post circulated widely on social media. As screenshots of McDaniel's posts went viral, many social media users took the opportunity to criticize McDaniel, saying he had received his comeuppance for calling the virus a political ploy. McDaniel's wife, Lisa, acknowledged that her husband had made some "early assumptions" about the virus on social media, but added that social media users were also making unfair assumptions about him. In a statement posted to the Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page that announced services for McDaniel would not be live-streamed due to concerns about unwanted, negative social media reactions, she explained that McDaniel, like many others, was initially not fully aware of the severity of the pandemic. However, she wrote that he ordered the employees at his company O&M to work from home on March 16 (the day after the above-displayed Facebook post). Furthermore, according to her Facebook message, he self-isolated as soon as he was made aware that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page Lastly, she wrote that if he were still alive, he would have abided by the state's stay-at-home order and would have encouraged others to do the same. Here's her statement from April 22, 2020 (emphasis ours): Words do not describe all of the emotions we, John W. McDaniel's family, are experiencing right now. We are overwhelmed with grief for the loss of our believed husband, father, soon to be father-in-law, son, brother, uncle, and dear friend to many. Similar to thousands of people, we are suffering from an unexpected and untimely loss due to the effects of COVID-19, the likes of which we never could have imagined. During this time of mourning, John's story, along with early assumptions that he stated on Twitter and Facebook have turned into national news. The news has opened the flood gates for people to share their own misguided anger and unfounded assumptions about a man they don't know. Wanting to protect my family and John's legacy, we have decided not to live stream his funeral services via Facebook today. We will be privately recording his services today and we will be sharing it directly with his family and friends. We have not come to this decision lightly and we hope everyone will honor and respect this decision. As each day passes, we all are learning more about this "invisible enemy." We have all learned that the early actions taken by our National and State government were indeed the right action to take. Quarantine and social distancing have been effective in flattening the curve. John, President of O&M, ordered the company to work from home on March 16. In addition, it is important to note that John immediately self-isolated as soon as he learned he had been in contact with someone who had tested positive. Many, like John, made statements early on not fully aware of the severity of COVID-19; many have retracted their statements knowing now the effects of this pandemic. We know if John was still here with us he would acknowledge the national crisis we're are in, abide by the stay-at-home order, and encourage family and friends to do the same. But sadly he is not with us and we will forever have to live and cope with how his life ended far too soon. Further, we will never be able to erase from our hears and minds the negative posts that have been made and shared about John this past week. To all of our family and friends, my sons and I will never be able to appropriately say "thank you" for all the love and support you have given us throughout this entire process. From the bottom of our hearts we will forever be grateful for you and the special relationship we share. While some may cast aspersions on McDaniel for not treating COVID-19 with the seriousness it deserved in March 2020, it should be noted that misinformation has been rampant during this pandemic. rampant We've debunked scores of rumors over several months that have touted bad medical advice and promoted conspiracy theories. U.S. President Donald Trump, too, has been criticized for downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 and has repeatedly called the news outlets outlets covering this pandemic "fake news." On Feb. 28, just two weeks before McDaniel posted on social media that COVID-19 was a "political ploy," Trump said during a rally that "Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus" as their "new hoax." bad medical advice conspiracy theories. fake news said Brown, Bruce. "Its Dangerous for Public Officials to Cry Fake News During the COVID-19 Pandemic."
Miami Herald. 27 March 2020. Egan, Lauren. "Trump Calls Coronavirus Democrats' 'New Hoax.'"
NBC News. 28 February 2020. Carter, Andrew. "Marion Man Dies After Contracting Coronavirus; Local Cases Climb to 276."
Marion Star. 16 April 2020. Dillon, Nancy. "Ohio Man Dies From COVID-19 After Criticizing Governors Coronavirus Lockdown as 'Madness.'"
New York Daily News. 21 April 2020.
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},
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],
"sentence": "McDaniel truly died from complications related to COVID-19 in April 2020 after he downplayed the seriousness of the disease on social media. "
},
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],
"sentence": "The New York Daily News wrote: "
},
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"hrefs": [
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"sentence": "In a statement posted to the Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page that announced services for McDaniel would not be live-streamed due to concerns about unwanted, negative social media reactions, she explained that McDaniel, like many others, was initially not fully aware of the severity of the pandemic. However, she wrote that he ordered the employees at his company O&M to work from home on March 16 (the day after the above-displayed Facebook post). Furthermore, according to her Facebook message, he self-isolated as soon as he was made aware that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19."
},
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"sentence": "While some may cast aspersions on McDaniel for not treating COVID-19 with the seriousness it deserved in March 2020, it should be noted that misinformation has been rampant during this pandemic."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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"https://www.snopes.com/collections/coronavirus-conspiracy-theories/",
"https://www.miamiherald.com/article241537166.html",
"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-calls-coronavirus-democrats-new-hoax-n1145721"
],
"sentence": "We've debunked scores of rumors over several months that have touted bad medical advice and promoted conspiracy theories. U.S. President Donald Trump, too, has been criticized for downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 and has repeatedly called the news outlets outlets covering this pandemic \"fake news.\" On Feb. 28, just two weeks before McDaniel posted on social media that COVID-19 was a \"political ploy,\" Trump said during a rally that \"Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus\" as their \"new hoax.\" "
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-denier-die-from-covid/
|
Was the Ohio man who labeled COVID-19 as a 'Political Ploy' the one who perished from the illness?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/22/2020
|
[
"John W. McDaniel of Ohio passed away at the age of 60 in April 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 In April 2020, a set of screenshots supposedly showing comments from a "John McDaniels," in which he called COVID-19 a "political ploy" and social-distancing measures "bullshit," started to circulate on social media. Along with the posts were articles claiming he died from complications of the coronavirus disease. Here's a screenshot supposedly showing a post from McDaniel on March 15 and a snippet from his obituary a month later: McDaniel truly died from complications related to COVID-19 in April 2020 after he downplayed the seriousness of the disease on social media. died The New York Daily News wrote: wrote An Ohio man has tragically died from COVID-19 after criticizing his states coronavirus lockdown. John W. McDaniel, 60, died Wednesday in Columbus, exactly one month after reportedly calling Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order madness. If what Im hearing is true, that DeWine has ordered all bars and restaurants to be closed, I say bullshit! He doesnt have the authority," McDaniel reportedly wrote in a since-deleted social media post circulated widely on social media. As screenshots of McDaniel's posts went viral, many social media users took the opportunity to criticize McDaniel, saying he had received his comeuppance for calling the virus a political ploy. McDaniel's wife, Lisa, acknowledged that her husband had made some "early assumptions" about the virus on social media, but added that social media users were also making unfair assumptions about him. In a statement posted to the Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page that announced services for McDaniel would not be live-streamed due to concerns about unwanted, negative social media reactions, she explained that McDaniel, like many others, was initially not fully aware of the severity of the pandemic. However, she wrote that he ordered the employees at his company O&M to work from home on March 16 (the day after the above-displayed Facebook post). Furthermore, according to her Facebook message, he self-isolated as soon as he was made aware that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page Lastly, she wrote that if he were still alive, he would have abided by the state's stay-at-home order and would have encouraged others to do the same. Here's her statement from April 22, 2020 (emphasis ours): Words do not describe all of the emotions we, John W. McDaniel's family, are experiencing right now. We are overwhelmed with grief for the loss of our believed husband, father, soon to be father-in-law, son, brother, uncle, and dear friend to many. Similar to thousands of people, we are suffering from an unexpected and untimely loss due to the effects of COVID-19, the likes of which we never could have imagined. During this time of mourning, John's story, along with early assumptions that he stated on Twitter and Facebook have turned into national news. The news has opened the flood gates for people to share their own misguided anger and unfounded assumptions about a man they don't know. Wanting to protect my family and John's legacy, we have decided not to live stream his funeral services via Facebook today. We will be privately recording his services today and we will be sharing it directly with his family and friends. We have not come to this decision lightly and we hope everyone will honor and respect this decision. As each day passes, we all are learning more about this "invisible enemy." We have all learned that the early actions taken by our National and State government were indeed the right action to take. Quarantine and social distancing have been effective in flattening the curve. John, President of O&M, ordered the company to work from home on March 16. In addition, it is important to note that John immediately self-isolated as soon as he learned he had been in contact with someone who had tested positive. Many, like John, made statements early on not fully aware of the severity of COVID-19; many have retracted their statements knowing now the effects of this pandemic. We know if John was still here with us he would acknowledge the national crisis we're are in, abide by the stay-at-home order, and encourage family and friends to do the same. But sadly he is not with us and we will forever have to live and cope with how his life ended far too soon. Further, we will never be able to erase from our hears and minds the negative posts that have been made and shared about John this past week. To all of our family and friends, my sons and I will never be able to appropriately say "thank you" for all the love and support you have given us throughout this entire process. From the bottom of our hearts we will forever be grateful for you and the special relationship we share. While some may cast aspersions on McDaniel for not treating COVID-19 with the seriousness it deserved in March 2020, it should be noted that misinformation has been rampant during this pandemic. rampant We've debunked scores of rumors over several months that have touted bad medical advice and promoted conspiracy theories. U.S. President Donald Trump, too, has been criticized for downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 and has repeatedly called the news outlets outlets covering this pandemic "fake news." On Feb. 28, just two weeks before McDaniel posted on social media that COVID-19 was a "political ploy," Trump said during a rally that "Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus" as their "new hoax." bad medical advice conspiracy theories. fake news said Brown, Bruce. "Its Dangerous for Public Officials to Cry Fake News During the COVID-19 Pandemic."
Miami Herald. 27 March 2020. Egan, Lauren. "Trump Calls Coronavirus Democrats' 'New Hoax.'"
NBC News. 28 February 2020. Carter, Andrew. "Marion Man Dies After Contracting Coronavirus; Local Cases Climb to 276."
Marion Star. 16 April 2020. Dillon, Nancy. "Ohio Man Dies From COVID-19 After Criticizing Governors Coronavirus Lockdown as 'Madness.'"
New York Daily News. 21 April 2020.
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| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-19-denier-die-from-covid/
|
Did the man from Ohio who referred to COVID-19 as a 'political scheme' pass away from the illness?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/22/2020
|
[
"John W. McDaniel of Ohio passed away at the age of 60 in April 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 In April 2020, a set of screenshots supposedly showing comments from a "John McDaniels," in which he called COVID-19 a "political ploy" and social-distancing measures "bullshit," started to circulate on social media. Along with the posts were articles claiming he died from complications of the coronavirus disease. Here's a screenshot supposedly showing a post from McDaniel on March 15 and a snippet from his obituary a month later: McDaniel truly died from complications related to COVID-19 in April 2020 after he downplayed the seriousness of the disease on social media. died The New York Daily News wrote: wrote An Ohio man has tragically died from COVID-19 after criticizing his states coronavirus lockdown. John W. McDaniel, 60, died Wednesday in Columbus, exactly one month after reportedly calling Gov. Mike DeWines stay-at-home order madness. If what Im hearing is true, that DeWine has ordered all bars and restaurants to be closed, I say bullshit! He doesnt have the authority," McDaniel reportedly wrote in a since-deleted social media post circulated widely on social media. As screenshots of McDaniel's posts went viral, many social media users took the opportunity to criticize McDaniel, saying he had received his comeuppance for calling the virus a political ploy. McDaniel's wife, Lisa, acknowledged that her husband had made some "early assumptions" about the virus on social media, but added that social media users were also making unfair assumptions about him. In a statement posted to the Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page that announced services for McDaniel would not be live-streamed due to concerns about unwanted, negative social media reactions, she explained that McDaniel, like many others, was initially not fully aware of the severity of the pandemic. However, she wrote that he ordered the employees at his company O&M to work from home on March 16 (the day after the above-displayed Facebook post). Furthermore, according to her Facebook message, he self-isolated as soon as he was made aware that he had been in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Snyder Funeral Homes Facebook page Lastly, she wrote that if he were still alive, he would have abided by the state's stay-at-home order and would have encouraged others to do the same. Here's her statement from April 22, 2020 (emphasis ours): Words do not describe all of the emotions we, John W. McDaniel's family, are experiencing right now. We are overwhelmed with grief for the loss of our believed husband, father, soon to be father-in-law, son, brother, uncle, and dear friend to many. Similar to thousands of people, we are suffering from an unexpected and untimely loss due to the effects of COVID-19, the likes of which we never could have imagined. During this time of mourning, John's story, along with early assumptions that he stated on Twitter and Facebook have turned into national news. The news has opened the flood gates for people to share their own misguided anger and unfounded assumptions about a man they don't know. Wanting to protect my family and John's legacy, we have decided not to live stream his funeral services via Facebook today. We will be privately recording his services today and we will be sharing it directly with his family and friends. We have not come to this decision lightly and we hope everyone will honor and respect this decision. As each day passes, we all are learning more about this "invisible enemy." We have all learned that the early actions taken by our National and State government were indeed the right action to take. Quarantine and social distancing have been effective in flattening the curve. John, President of O&M, ordered the company to work from home on March 16. In addition, it is important to note that John immediately self-isolated as soon as he learned he had been in contact with someone who had tested positive. Many, like John, made statements early on not fully aware of the severity of COVID-19; many have retracted their statements knowing now the effects of this pandemic. We know if John was still here with us he would acknowledge the national crisis we're are in, abide by the stay-at-home order, and encourage family and friends to do the same. But sadly he is not with us and we will forever have to live and cope with how his life ended far too soon. Further, we will never be able to erase from our hears and minds the negative posts that have been made and shared about John this past week. To all of our family and friends, my sons and I will never be able to appropriately say "thank you" for all the love and support you have given us throughout this entire process. From the bottom of our hearts we will forever be grateful for you and the special relationship we share. While some may cast aspersions on McDaniel for not treating COVID-19 with the seriousness it deserved in March 2020, it should be noted that misinformation has been rampant during this pandemic. rampant We've debunked scores of rumors over several months that have touted bad medical advice and promoted conspiracy theories. U.S. President Donald Trump, too, has been criticized for downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 and has repeatedly called the news outlets outlets covering this pandemic "fake news." On Feb. 28, just two weeks before McDaniel posted on social media that COVID-19 was a "political ploy," Trump said during a rally that "Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus" as their "new hoax." bad medical advice conspiracy theories. fake news said Brown, Bruce. "Its Dangerous for Public Officials to Cry Fake News During the COVID-19 Pandemic."
Miami Herald. 27 March 2020. Egan, Lauren. "Trump Calls Coronavirus Democrats' 'New Hoax.'"
NBC News. 28 February 2020. Carter, Andrew. "Marion Man Dies After Contracting Coronavirus; Local Cases Climb to 276."
Marion Star. 16 April 2020. Dillon, Nancy. "Ohio Man Dies From COVID-19 After Criticizing Governors Coronavirus Lockdown as 'Madness.'"
New York Daily News. 21 April 2020.
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}
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true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/12/rand-paul/marco-rubio-not-conservative-proposes-1-trillion-b/
|
Says Marco Rubio is proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program in tax credits and $1 trillion in new military spending.
|
Tom Kertscher
|
11/12/2015
|
[] |
The wordconservativewas uttered 18 times during the Fox Business News Republican presidential debate on Nov. 10, 2015. The first 17 references made in the Milwaukee Theatre were done with particular emphasis by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. (Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the word once.) Paul called himself the only fiscal conservative among the eight candidates on stage -- and made a point to contrast himself with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, in one of the more contentious exchanges of the night. Rubio had just defended his proposal to increase a child tax credit when Paul interjected. We have to decide what is conservative and what isn't conservative. Is it fiscally conservative to have a trillion-dollar expenditure? We're not talking about giving people back their tax money. He's talking about giving people money they didn't pay. It's a welfare transfer payment,Paul saidof Rubios tax credit plan. So, here's what we have. Is it conservative to have $1 trillion in transfer payments -- a new welfare program that's a refundable tax credit? Add that to Marco's plan for $1 trillion in new military spending, and you get something that looks, to me, not very conservative. Defending the tax credit and his defense spending proposals, Rubio said the family is the most important institution in society and the world is a stronger and a better place when the United States is the strongest military power in the world. But is Rubio proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending? And $1 trillion over what period of time? Tax credit Rubiostax planincludes creating a new, partially refundable child tax credit of up to $2,500 per child. It is meant to offset income and payroll taxes and is considerably larger than the $1,000 credit that is currently available. Refundabletax credits help people at the lower end of the income scale, in that people who are too poor to pay any income tax can get money back from the government. Pauls campaign referred us to a March 2015analysisby the nonpartisan Tax Foundation of a tax plan proposed in the Senate by Rubio and U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. That analysis estimated the credit would result in a loss of tax revenue of about $170 billion per year. Thats the equivalent of $1.7 trillion over 10 years -- 10 years being a common time frame for federal budget planning. But its worth noting that Paul didnt say 10 years in making his claim. Well note that, unlike the original Rubio-Lee plan, Rubio as a candidate isproposingthat the credit would be phased out at higher income levels -- beginning at $150,000 for an individual and $300,000 for a family. That would mean the lost revenue would be something less than $1.7 trillion over 10 years, but still well above $1 trillion, saidKyle Pomerleau, director of federal projects at the Tax Foundation, a free market-oriented think tank. Thats because relatively few people at the higher incomes have children and would be eligible for the tax credits, he told us. In other words, the tax credit is expensive, Pomerlau said, because its large and nearly universal for families. The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of theUrban InstituteandBrookings Institution, also did anestimateof the original tax credit proposal and came up with a figure similar to that of the Tax Foundation -- an estimated loss of nearly $1.58 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years. Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center, told us the center hasn't analyzed Rubio's current proposal. But he said a loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years is a fair estimate. Pauls characterization of Rubios tax credit as welfare is a stretch, however. Eleanor May, Pauls campaign spokeswoman, said giving people a refundable credit -- meaning, giving them more than they paid is a welfare transfer payment from one group of people to another. But as our colleagues at PunditFactnoted, even the most expansive definition of welfare -- including the cash program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children), traditional food stamps, Medicaid and the food program called Women, Infants and Children -- doesnt include tax credits. Rubio, whose campaign did not respond to our requests for this article, noted in the debate that everyone who works pays the payroll tax. Defense spending Rubio has backed more defense spending since at least March 2015, when he and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a budget amendment to increase the Pentagons budget. At the time, Rubio argued that adjusted for inflation, defense spending had declined by 21 percent since 2010 -- a claim PolitiFact National ratedMostly True. Rubios amendment proposed restoring defense spending levels to what had been proposed in the spring of 2011, for fiscal 2012 going forward, by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Gates proposal was prior to spending limits that were imposed by theBudget Control Actof 2011, which became law in the summer of 2011. Returning to the so-called 2012 proposed spending levels would add $1 trillion in defense spending over 10 years,Benjamin Friedman, a defense research fellow at the liberatrian Cato Institute, told us. That is also the estimate made in a July 2015reportfrom the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The morning after the Milwaukee debate, Rubio was asked in a Fox News interview: So, where are you going to get the trillion dollars from that Rand Paul says we shouldnt be spending? Rubio didnt address the figure, saying: First of all, before we fund anything, the federal government should be fully funding national security. But he has made references to the $1 trillion cost in the past. In a September 2014speech, Rubio said he agreed with a recommendation by the bipartisan National Defense Panel to return to the 2012-level spending, which we are on track to be around $1 trillion short of through fiscal year 2022. And on his campaign website, Rubiosayshe would restore defense spending to the 2012 level, and begin to undo the damage caused by $1 trillion in indiscriminate defense cuts. Our rating Paul said Rubio is proposing a new $1 trillion welfare program and $1 trillion in new military spending. Its estimated that over 10 years, a common time frame for federal budget planning, Rubios child tax credit would result in the loss of $1 trillion in tax revenue; and his plan to reverse declines in Pentagon spending would cost $1 trillion. But its a stretch to call the tax credit welfare and in making his claim, Paul didnt state that the $1 trillion costs would be over 10 years. We rate Pauls statement Mostly True. More debate claims Go herefor PolitiFact National's fact checks on statements made during the Milwaukee debate. And herefor PolitiFact Wisconsin's night-of review of the debate.
|
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},
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"sentence": "Well note that, unlike the original Rubio-Lee plan, Rubio as a candidate isproposingthat the credit would be phased out at higher income levels -- beginning at $150,000 for an individual and $300,000 for a family."
},
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"sentence": "That would mean the lost revenue would be something less than $1.7 trillion over 10 years, but still well above $1 trillion, saidKyle Pomerleau, director of federal projects at the Tax Foundation, a free market-oriented think tank. Thats because relatively few people at the higher incomes have children and would be eligible for the tax credits, he told us."
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},
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},
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},
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"sentence": "In a September 2014speech, Rubio said he agreed with a recommendation by the bipartisan National Defense Panel to return to the 2012-level spending, which we are on track to be around $1 trillion short of through fiscal year 2022."
},
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"sentence": "And on his campaign website, Rubiosayshe would restore defense spending to the 2012 level, and begin to undo the damage caused by $1 trillion in indiscriminate defense cuts."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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],
"sentence": "Go herefor PolitiFact National's fact checks on statements made during the Milwaukee debate."
},
{
"hrefs": [
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"sentence": "And herefor PolitiFact Wisconsin's night-of review of the debate."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jul/02/larry-kudlow/larry-kudlow-wrong-about-deficits-falling-rapidly-/
|
The deficit ... is coming down, and its coming down rapidly.
|
Louis Jacobson
|
07/02/2018
|
[] |
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump, raised eyebrows when he said in aFox Business Network interviewthat the nations deficit is falling on Trumps watch. The economy under President Donald Trump, Kudlow said on June 29, is throwing out enormous amounts of new tax revenues. As the economy gears up, more people working, better jobs and careers -- those revenues come rolling in, and the deficit, which is one of the other criticisms (of Trumps economic policy), is coming down, and its coming down rapidly. Growth solves a lot of problems. . @larry_kudlow: The deficit... is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly. Growth solves a lot of problems.pic.twitter.com/H375h7rV0a As it happens, the deficit hasnt come down to date -- which sparked a quick backlash on social media and prompted Kudlow to amend his remarks later that day. KudlowtoldtheWashington Postthat the economy is so strong right now its going to produce lower deficits. I probably should have said future deficits. However, that assertion is questionable as well. The most trusted source for future budget projections, the Congressional Budget Office, shows rising deficits for years into the future. Infiscal year 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the federal deficit was $438 billion. (A refresher: The deficit refers to federal revenues minus federal outlays. Each years deficit adds to the overall public debt.) In fiscal year 2016, which was also under Obama, the deficit rose to $585 billion. In fiscal year 2017, which was about two-thirds on Trumps watch, the deficit rose to $665 billion. The deficit also rose as apercentage of the nations gross domestic product-- a way of comparing economic statistics across time. In fiscal year 2015, the deficit was 2.4 percent of GDP, rising to 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2016 and 3.5 percent in fiscal 2017. So on a full-year basis, Kudlow is wrong. Hes also wrong if you look at the first seven months of fiscal year 2018. According to theTreasury Department, the first seven months of the current fiscal year saw a deficit of $385 billion -- which is 12 percent higher than the first seven months of fiscal year 2017, when the deficit totaled $344 billion. As for the future,CBO findsno reason to expect the deficit to go down any time soon. For fiscal year 2018, CBO projects a deficit of $804 billion, rising each successive year to $981 billion in 2019, $1 trillion in 2020, $1.1 trillion in 2021, and $1.3 trillion in 2022. The deficit is also poised to increase as a percentage of GDP -- from 3.5 percent in 2017 to 4.0 in 2018 and eventually to 5.4 percent in 2022. Heres the full chart from CBOs most recent projections, released in April. Not only that, but CBO specifically cited the tax cut Trump backed and signed into law as a reason for spiraling deficits. The deficit that CBO now estimates for 2018 is $242 billion larger than the one that it projected for that year in June 2017, CBO wrote in its April report. Accounting for most of that difference is a $194 billion reduction in projected revenues, mainly because the 2017 tax act is expected to reduce collections of individual and corporate income taxes. And the projections would be even worse if Congress doesnt allow the recent round of tax cuts to expire. In that scenario, far larger deficits and much greater debt would result than in CBOs baseline projections for the 20192028 period, CBO wrote. Kudlow said, The deficit ... is coming down, and its coming down rapidly. After being criticized, he later clarified that he probably should have said future deficits. Kudlows first formulation is wrong, and his revised version isnt supported by the most widely trusted barometer -- projections by the CBO. Trump tax bill, which dramatically cut revenues, is a big reason why. The statement is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
|
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"sentence": "Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump, raised eyebrows when he said in aFox Business Network interviewthat the nations deficit is falling on Trumps watch."
},
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"https://twitter.com/larry_kudlow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"
],
"sentence": ".@larry_kudlow: The deficit... is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly. Growth solves a lot of problems.pic.twitter.com/H375h7rV0a"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/29/trumps-top-economic-adviser-says-deficit-is-coming-down-rapidly-contradicting-all-available-data/?utm_term=.714d3e062acb"
],
"sentence": "As it happens, the deficit hasnt come down to date -- which sparked a quick backlash on social media and prompted Kudlow to amend his remarks later that day. KudlowtoldtheWashington Postthat the economy is so strong right now its going to produce lower deficits. I probably should have said future deficits."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/hist01z1-fy2019.xlsx"
],
"sentence": "Infiscal year 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the federal deficit was $438 billion. (A refresher: The deficit refers to federal revenues minus federal outlays. Each years deficit adds to the overall public debt.)"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/hist01z2-fy2019.xlsx"
],
"sentence": "The deficit also rose as apercentage of the nations gross domestic product-- a way of comparing economic statistics across time. In fiscal year 2015, the deficit was 2.4 percent of GDP, rising to 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2016 and 3.5 percent in fiscal 2017."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsreports/rpt/mthTreasStmt/mts0418.pdf"
],
"sentence": "Hes also wrong if you look at the first seven months of fiscal year 2018. According to theTreasury Department, the first seven months of the current fiscal year saw a deficit of $385 billion -- which is 12 percent higher than the first seven months of fiscal year 2017, when the deficit totaled $344 billion."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/53651-outlook.pdf"
],
"sentence": "As for the future,CBO findsno reason to expect the deficit to go down any time soon."
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1000-dollar-bill-grover-cleveland/
|
Did US $1,000 Bill Feature President Grover Cleveland?
|
Dan Evon
|
02/12/2022
|
[
"The $1,000 bill may not look familiar to most Americans because it hasn't been produced in decades. "
] |
In February 2022, a picture showing a curious piece of currency, a $1,000 bill featuring the face of 22nd and 24th U.S. President Grover Cleveland, was circulated on social media: While thousand-dollar bills may not be a familiar sight to modern audiences, the United States truly produced a $1,000 bill featuring Cleveland in 1928 and 1934. As for this specific bill, this photo was first posted to Reddit in August 2020 by a banker in a post explaining that the bill was brought in to be deposited by a customer. The bank teller, according to the post, informed the man that this bill was likely worth much more than $1,000 and encouraged them to sell it to a collector: Reddit in August 2020 Customer brought in a 1934 thousand dollar bill. After ten years in banking finally got to see one in person ... told him I could accept the bill but only at face value. Really tried to steer him to find a collector or someone else because he could get more for it, even in that condition. Cleveland first appeared on the $1,000 bill in 1928. Here's a newspaper clipping from 1928 announcing the new currency, including two larger denominations, a $5,000 bill featuring President James Madison and a $10,000 bill featuring Salmon P. Chase, a former governor, senator, Supreme Court justice, and secretary of the treasury. 15 Jan 1929, Tue The Democrat-Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri) Newspapers.com 15 Jan 1929, Tue The Democrat-Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri) Newspapers.com Side note: While the $10,000 bill was real, it did not feature the words "HAIL SATAN" in small print around its edges, as online rumors claimed in 2017. online rumors claimed in 2017 Cleveland wasn't the first person to be featured on a piece of American currency worth $1,000. The National Museum of American History's Numismatic Collection features a few other legal tender notes in that denomination. For example, a $1,000 note featuring Robert Morris, a financier and founding father known as "Financier of the Revolution," was produced in 1863. Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. secretary of the treasury, was also the face of a $1,000 note in 1918. Robert Morris The Cleveland bills were last printed in 1945, and officially discontinued in 1969 due to a "lack of use," according to the U.S. Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing. While we can't say for sure why these bills fell out of favor, a newspaper article from 1946 described the air of suspicion that surrounded people who paid for things with $1,000 bills. U.S. Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing 27 Feb 1946, Wed The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com 27 Feb 1946, Wed The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com While the reporter in the above-displayed story found that these suspicions were largely exaggerated (he was able to use $1,000 bills without a problem), the $1,000 bill's connection to nefarious activities, justified or not, stretches back to the early 1900s: 25 Nov 1911, Sat St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) Newspapers.com 25 Nov 1911, Sat St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) Newspapers.com A Man With a $1000 Bill Is Little Better Than Penniless. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 Nov. 1911, p. 2. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94583897/st-louis-post-dispatch/. Passing $1000 Bills In Boston Is Cinch, Globe Reporter Finds. The Boston Globe, 27 Feb. 1946, p. 11. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94583750/the-boston-globe/. Rare $1,000 Bill Expected to Fetch $1M at Baltimore Auction. Baltimoresun.Com, https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-rare-money-auction-20180321-story.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2022. Robert Morris Deserves His Place on This $1,000 Bill The Intelligent Collector Magazine | Blog. https://intelligentcollector.com/blog/robert-morris-deserves-his-place-on-this-1000-bill/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2022. The National Numismatic Collection. National Museum of American History, 21 July 2016, https://americanhistory.si.edu/national-numismatic-collection. U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing - $1,000 Note (Green Seal). https://www.moneyfactory.gov/1000greendenom.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2022. U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing - Denominations Greater Than $100. https://www.moneyfactory.gov/uscurrency/denomsabove100.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2022.
|
[
"banking"
] |
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},
{
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"image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=94578040&width=700&height=1369&ts=1607535806"
},
{
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"image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=94583750&width=700&height=475&ts=1607535806"
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{
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"image_src": "https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=94583897&width=700&height=599&ts=1607535806"
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2022/02/Screen-Shot-2022-02-09-at-10.25.08-AM.png",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/ie58zn/customer_brought_in_a_1934_thousand_dollar_bill/"
],
"sentence": "While thousand-dollar bills may not be a familiar sight to modern audiences, the United States truly produced a $1,000 bill featuring Cleveland in 1928 and 1934. As for this specific bill, this photo was first posted to Reddit in August 2020 by a banker in a post explaining that the bill was brought in to be deposited by a customer. The bank teller, according to the post, informed the man that this bill was likely worth much more than $1,000 and encouraged them to sell it to a collector:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94578040/the-democrat-argus/"
],
"sentence": " 15 Jan 1929, Tue The Democrat-Argus (Caruthersville, Missouri) Newspapers.com"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hail-satan-hidden-10000-bill/"
],
"sentence": "Side note: While the $10,000 bill was real, it did not feature the words \"HAIL SATAN\" in small print around its edges, as online rumors claimed in 2017. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1252334"
],
"sentence": "Cleveland wasn't the first person to be featured on a piece of American currency worth $1,000. The National Museum of American History's Numismatic Collection features a few other legal tender notes in that denomination. For example, a $1,000 note featuring Robert Morris, a financier and founding father known as \"Financier of the Revolution,\" was produced in 1863. Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. secretary of the treasury, was also the face of a $1,000 note in 1918. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.moneyfactory.gov/uscurrency/denomsabove100.html"
],
"sentence": "The Cleveland bills were last printed in 1945, and officially discontinued in 1969 due to a \"lack of use,\" according to the U.S. Department of Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing. While we can't say for sure why these bills fell out of favor, a newspaper article from 1946 described the air of suspicion that surrounded people who paid for things with $1,000 bills."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94583750/the-boston-globe/"
],
"sentence": " 27 Feb 1946, Wed The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94583897/st-louis-post-dispatch/"
],
"sentence": " 25 Nov 1911, Sat St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) Newspapers.com"
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-friday-origins/
|
How Did 'Black Friday' Get Its Name?
|
David Mikkelson
|
11/30/2013
|
[
"Use of the term 'Black Friday' to describe the day after Thanksgiving did not originate with accounting practices or slavery."
] |
"Black Friday" is the (originally derisive, now mainstream) term for the phenomenon that takes place in the U.S. on the day after Thanksgiving Thursday, when millions of consumers who get the day off from work or school crowd into stores for what is traditionally considered the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The origins of the term "Black Friday" have become somewhat obscured in the mists of time, however, leading people to invent fanciful explanations for how that phrase became attached to the day after Thanksgiving. One example posits that the term started with a tradition of slaveowners or slave traders using that day as an opportunity for selling their wares: The use of "Black Friday" as a descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the selling of slaves, though, and the term didn't originate until nearly a century after the practice of slavery was abolished in the U.S. The earliest known use of "Black Friday" in such a context stems from 1951 and referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving in order to have four consecutive days off (because that day was not yet commonly offered as a paid day off by employers): 1951 WHAT TO DO ABOUT "FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING" "Friday-after-Thanksgiving-itis" is a disease second only to the bubonic plague in its effects. At least that's the feeling of those who have to get production out, when the "Black Friday" comes along. The shop may be half empty, but every absentee was sick and can prove it. What to do? Many companies have tried the standard device of denying Thanksgiving Day pay to employees absent the day before and after the holiday. Trouble is, you can't deny pay to those legitimately ill. But what's legitimate? Tough to decide these days of often miraculously easy doctors' certificates. Glenn L. Martin, Baltimore aircraft manufacturer has another solution: When you decide you want to sweeten up the holiday kitty, pick Black Friday to add to the list. That's just what Martin has done. Friday after Thanksgiving is the company's seventh paid holiday. We're not suggesting more paid holidays just to get out of a hole. But, if you can make a good trade in bargaining, there are lots of worse things than having a holiday on a day that was half holiday anyway. Shouldn't cost too much for that reason, either. By 1961 the term "Black Friday" (and "Black Saturday" as well) was being commonly used in a derisive sense by Philadelphia police, who had to deal with the mayhem and headaches caused by all the extra pedestrian and vehicular traffic created by hordes of shoppers heading for the city's downtown stores on the two days after Thanksgiving: 1961 For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest shopping days normally are the two following Thanksgiving Day. Resulting traffic jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in Philadelphia, it became customary for officers to refer to the post-Thanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday. In a 1994 article, former Philadelphia Bulletin reporter Joseph P. Barrett recalled how he took part in popularizing the term "Black Friday" throughout Philadelphia in the early 1960s, from which it eventually spread into nationwide usage: article The term "Black Friday" came out of the old Philadelphia Police Department's traffic squad. The cops used it to describe the worst traffic jams which annually occurred in Center City on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was the day that Santa Claus took his chair in the department stores and every kid in the city wanted to see him. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season. Schools were closed. Late in the day, out-of-town visitors began arriving for the Army-Navy football game. Every "Black Friday," no traffic policeman was permitted to take the day off. The division was placed on 12 hours of duty, and even the police band was ordered to Center City. It was not unusual to see a trombone player directing traffic. Two officers were assigned to intersections along Market Street to control the throngs of pedestrians. The department also placed police officers outside parking garages because the "lot filled" signs failed to deter motorists from lining up on the curb lane outside the garage. This reduced street size from two lanes to one. This caused traffic to back up and block traffic at the next intersection. This caused massive gridlock. In 1959, the old Evening Bulletin assigned me to police administration, working out of City Hall. Nathan Kleger was the police reporter who covered Center City for the Bulletin. In the early 1960s, Kleger and I put together a front-page story for Thanksgiving and we appropriated the police term "Black Friday" to describe the terrible traffic conditions. [W]e used it year after year. Then television picked it up. One popular alternative explanation for the origins of "Black Friday" is that it is the day on which retailers finally began to show a profit for the year (in accounting terms, moving from being "in the red" to "in the black") after operating at an overall loss from January through mid-November: If the day is the year's biggest for retailers, why is it called Black Friday? Because it is a day retailers make profits black ink, said Grace McFeeley of Cherry Hill Mall. "I think it came from the media," said William Timmons of Strawbridge & Clothier. "It's the employees, we're the ones who call it Black Friday," said Belle Stephens of Moorestown Mall. "We work extra hard. It's a long hard day for the employees." However, the earliest known use of this accounting-related explanation for the origins of the term "Black Friday" dates from 1981, many years after Philadelphia police had been using the phrase in reference to traffic issues. Barrett, Joseph P. "This Friday Was Black with Traffic." The Philadelphia Inquirer. 25 November 1994. Drum, Kevin. "Black Friday." Mother Jones. 26 February 2010.
|
[
"profit"
] |
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"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=17Megogv-fV63f59oqjP4iLk9hJ3kPXf5"
}
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[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-August/092018.html"
],
"sentence": "The use of \"Black Friday\" as a descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the selling of slaves, though, and the term didn't originate until nearly a century after the practice of slavery was abolished in the U.S. The earliest known use of \"Black Friday\" in such a context stems from 1951 and referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving in order to have four consecutive days off (because that day was not yet commonly offered as a paid day off by employers):"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2011-May/109292.html"
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"sentence": "By 1961 the term \"Black Friday\" (and \"Black Saturday\" as well) was being commonly used in a derisive sense by Philadelphia police, who had to deal with the mayhem and headaches caused by all the extra pedestrian and vehicular traffic created by hordes of shoppers heading for the city's downtown stores on the two days after Thanksgiving:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://articles.philly.com/1994-11-25/news/25869629_1_traffic-cop-block-traffic-traffic-policeman"
],
"sentence": "In a 1994 article, former Philadelphia Bulletin reporter Joseph P. Barrett recalled how he took part in popularizing the term \"Black Friday\" throughout Philadelphia in the early 1960s, from which it eventually spread into nationwide usage:"
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jul/19/paul-sadler/paul-sadler-says-national-debt-doubled-under-georg/
|
Says federal debt doubled during the Bush administration.
|
Sue Owen
|
07/19/2012
|
[] |
Former Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler answered adebatequestion June 26, 2012, with a call to stop expanding government programs until the federal debt is under control.Squaring off in Dallas with retired teacher Grady Yarbrough, his opponent in the July 31, 2012, runoff for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sadler said, Until we get our financial house in order, we cannot continue to spend money. We just cant.The U.S. has never seen national debt like this, Sadler said. It doubled during the Bush administration.We decided to see if Sadlers claim about debt under President George W. Bush holds up.Sadler sent us an email with several presidents names linked to numbers, such as Bill Clinton 1.4, and told us the numbers sources were the U.S. Treasury, Financial Management Service, Bureau of the Public Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Office of Management and Budget.The same figures and sources, listed in the same order, appear on a July 28, 2011,New York Timeschartillustrating how much of the federal debt accumulated under each president since 1981.According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion -- an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. TheTimesascribed the increase in debt to tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007.Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bushs presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into theTreasurys online calculatorgives debt figures that tally with theTimesgraphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bushs presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway.Gross federal debt, though, is only one measure of how much the government owes. Because Sadlers numbers match theTimeschart, we started with that statistic, which includes money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to public debt.Public debt itself is another commonly used measure. Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government, in the form of Treasury notes and other securities.Which to use? We consulted Oregon State University political scientist Robert Sahr, who studies U.S. debt, policy, presidents and inflation.Sahr suggested we use public debt, and emailed us part of atextbooks explanation of why net public debt, rather than gross debt, is seen as a better measure of how much government is borrowing: We returned to the Treasury calculator and found that during Bushs fiscal years, public debt rose from $3.3 trillion to $7.6 trillion -- up 130 percent, clearly more than double.Also, we asked Sahr whether he agreed that debt doubled under Bush.Adjusted for inflation, he said, public debt did not double, though it came close.Sahr produced aspreadsheetfor us withfiscal year-end debt numbersfrom the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent.Returning to gross federal debt, which was Sadlers basis: Sahrs spreadsheet showed the same 105-percent increase in non-inflation-adjusted dollars as theNew York Timeschart. In 2011 dollars, though, the increase was 70 percent.Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bushs first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent. The calculator didnt have an amount for public debt January 20, 2001, but says the non-adjusted figure was $6.3 trillion January 20, 2009.When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation. The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation.Sahr said later: Sure, youre paying in current dollars. But if youre looking at the change in debt over eight years, part of the change is the change in the value of the dollar over those years.A final note: Such accounting and tallies can be read as blaming Bush alone for the increases. As PolitiFact has noted numerous times, such assumptions are overly sweeping. Many factors are at play, including Congress, which votes on many spending decisions affecting the debt.Our rulingWe see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bushs presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. Thats not quite doubling.We rate Sadlers claim Mostly True.
|
[
"Debt",
"Federal Budget",
"Texas"
] |
[] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"http://video.pbs.org/video/2250649231"
],
"sentence": "Former Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler answered adebatequestion June 26, 2012, with a call to stop expanding government programs until the federal debt is under control.Squaring off in Dallas with retired teacher Grady Yarbrough, his opponent in the July 31, 2012, runoff for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sadler said, Until we get our financial house in order, we cannot continue to spend money. We just cant.The U.S. has never seen national debt like this, Sadler said. It doubled during the Bush administration.We decided to see if Sadlers claim about debt under President George W. Bush holds up.Sadler sent us an email with several presidents names linked to numbers, such as Bill Clinton 1.4, and told us the numbers sources were the U.S. Treasury, Financial Management Service, Bureau of the Public Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Office of Management and Budget.The same figures and sources, listed in the same order, appear on a July 28, 2011,New York Timeschartillustrating how much of the federal debt accumulated under each president since 1981.According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion -- an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. TheTimesascribed the increase in debt to tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007.Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bushs presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into theTreasurys online calculatorgives debt figures that tally with theTimesgraphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bushs presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway.Gross federal debt, though, is only one measure of how much the government owes. Because Sadlers numbers match theTimeschart, we started with that statistic, which includes money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to public debt.Public debt itself is another commonly used measure. Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government, in the form of Treasury notes and other securities.Which to use? We consulted Oregon State University political scientist Robert Sahr, who studies U.S. debt, policy, presidents and inflation.Sahr suggested we use public debt, and emailed us part of atextbooks explanation of why net public debt, rather than gross debt, is seen as a better measure of how much government is borrowing:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmWzr4_cemD5dGlpa0IwZDYyaEJDLVh6cDQwSDY2ZlE#gid=0"
],
"sentence": "We returned to the Treasury calculator and found that during Bushs fiscal years, public debt rose from $3.3 trillion to $7.6 trillion -- up 130 percent, clearly more than double.Also, we asked Sahr whether he agreed that debt doubled under Bush.Adjusted for inflation, he said, public debt did not double, though it came close.Sahr produced aspreadsheetfor us withfiscal year-end debt numbersfrom the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent.Returning to gross federal debt, which was Sadlers basis: Sahrs spreadsheet showed the same 105-percent increase in non-inflation-adjusted dollars as theNew York Timeschart. In 2011 dollars, though, the increase was 70 percent.Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bushs first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent. The calculator didnt have an amount for public debt January 20, 2001, but says the non-adjusted figure was $6.3 trillion January 20, 2009.When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation. The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation.Sahr said later: Sure, youre paying in current dollars. But if youre looking at the change in debt over eight years, part of the change is the change in the value of the dollar over those years.A final note: Such accounting and tallies can be read as blaming Bush alone for the increases. As PolitiFact has noted numerous times, such assumptions are overly sweeping. Many factors are at play, including Congress, which votes on many spending decisions affecting the debt.Our rulingWe see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bushs presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. Thats not quite doubling.We rate Sadlers claim Mostly True."
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apple-cider-vinegar-diet/
|
Did a Cornell Student Cut 37 Pounds Using Apple Cider Vinegar and Supplements?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/27/2017
|
[
"Stories promoting a \"diet hack\" involving apple cider vinegar are based on unrelated photographs and false claims."
] |
In April 2017, an advertisement for a diet product called "Refresh Garcinia Cambogia" or "Garicinia Slim" was disguised as a genuine news report and published on web sites such as Running Evolutions.com and The Platinum Beard: Running Evolutions.com The Platinum Beard Student from Cornell University Cuts 31lbs On University Budget! Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 31lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money. Amanda is studying nutrition sciences at Cornell, and for a required research project Amanda thought it would be perfect to use university funds to find out how to 'hack' her weight loss. According to Amanda, "the most expensive piece of it all was actually finding what worked. But the actual solution only cost about $5." "I had struggled with my weight my whole life. I tried things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which just didn't work as good as they promised. I am a single Mom with a kid at home and I am also working towards my degree, so I don't have any time to be at the gym. When I was assigned this big research project, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a deeper look at the natural weight loss opportunities that are out there, and that is when I found out about combining Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and apple cider vinegar. The best part of it all, I can tell that my daughter is proud of me." - Amanda Haughman These reports included a number of false and misleading claims. For instance, the lead photograph purportedly showing Amanda Haughman's tremendous weight loss is actually Rachel Graham, who lost nearly 100 pounds in a year. Graham told Today in 2016 that she credited her weight loss to exercise and a healthy diet. Graham did not mention the alleged magic formula of apple cider vinegar and garcinia cambogia: Rachel Graham Today Ask Rachel Graham how shes managed to lose almost 100 pounds in one year and the formula is simple: Healthy food and exercise. No secrets. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. Shes also honest about the impact of going from 235 pounds to 144 pounds, especially the loose skin on her stomach, thighs and arms. [...] I want people to know that it is 110 percent possible, Graham told TODAY. I used to feel as though it wasn't. That I didn't have what it takes, and that it was just too far out of reach... If you want to make changes, it is completely possible with healthy food and exercise. This weight loss advertisement also fabricated an interview with CNN and claimed that the network ran a segment on this Cornell student's "amazing discovery": We sat down with Amanda to ask her more about how she found out about Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and whether or not that is all that she used to lose 31lbs so quickly. CNN: Tell us, how did you know where to start? Amanda: To be honest, I really didn't. I was given a budget for the project by the university, and I spent nearly all of it researching everything under the sun. I looked into other previous research, case studies, and even successful weight loss stories of others. This story never appeared on CNN. Not surprisingly the Platinum Beard post links to a site selling Garcinia Cambogia. The Running Evolutions article links instead to what is apparently borrowed content from Barry's Boot Camp, a personal training program. We reached out to Barry's Boot Camp for comment, but have not yet received a reply. Although we can't speak to the effectiveness of drinking apple cider vinegar with Refresh Garcinia Cambogia, we can say that this text did not originate in a genuine news article. This is an advertisement that used a fabricated interview, falsified claims, and an unrelated photograph to sell a diet product. Pawlowski, A. "Mom gets real about weight loss: Here's how she shed 90 pounds in a year."
Today 3 October 2016.
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}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apple-cider-vinegar-diet/
|
Was a student from Cornell able to lose 37 pounds by utilizing apple cider vinegar and supplements?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/27/2017
|
[
"Stories promoting a \"diet hack\" involving apple cider vinegar are based on unrelated photographs and false claims."
] |
In April 2017, an advertisement for a diet product called "Refresh Garcinia Cambogia" or "Garicinia Slim" was disguised as a genuine news report and published on web sites such as Running Evolutions.com and The Platinum Beard: Running Evolutions.com The Platinum Beard Student from Cornell University Cuts 31lbs On University Budget! Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 31lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money. Amanda is studying nutrition sciences at Cornell, and for a required research project Amanda thought it would be perfect to use university funds to find out how to 'hack' her weight loss. According to Amanda, "the most expensive piece of it all was actually finding what worked. But the actual solution only cost about $5." "I had struggled with my weight my whole life. I tried things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which just didn't work as good as they promised. I am a single Mom with a kid at home and I am also working towards my degree, so I don't have any time to be at the gym. When I was assigned this big research project, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a deeper look at the natural weight loss opportunities that are out there, and that is when I found out about combining Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and apple cider vinegar. The best part of it all, I can tell that my daughter is proud of me." - Amanda Haughman These reports included a number of false and misleading claims. For instance, the lead photograph purportedly showing Amanda Haughman's tremendous weight loss is actually Rachel Graham, who lost nearly 100 pounds in a year. Graham told Today in 2016 that she credited her weight loss to exercise and a healthy diet. Graham did not mention the alleged magic formula of apple cider vinegar and garcinia cambogia: Rachel Graham Today Ask Rachel Graham how shes managed to lose almost 100 pounds in one year and the formula is simple: Healthy food and exercise. No secrets. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. Shes also honest about the impact of going from 235 pounds to 144 pounds, especially the loose skin on her stomach, thighs and arms. [...] I want people to know that it is 110 percent possible, Graham told TODAY. I used to feel as though it wasn't. That I didn't have what it takes, and that it was just too far out of reach... If you want to make changes, it is completely possible with healthy food and exercise. This weight loss advertisement also fabricated an interview with CNN and claimed that the network ran a segment on this Cornell student's "amazing discovery": We sat down with Amanda to ask her more about how she found out about Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and whether or not that is all that she used to lose 31lbs so quickly. CNN: Tell us, how did you know where to start? Amanda: To be honest, I really didn't. I was given a budget for the project by the university, and I spent nearly all of it researching everything under the sun. I looked into other previous research, case studies, and even successful weight loss stories of others. This story never appeared on CNN. Not surprisingly the Platinum Beard post links to a site selling Garcinia Cambogia. The Running Evolutions article links instead to what is apparently borrowed content from Barry's Boot Camp, a personal training program. We reached out to Barry's Boot Camp for comment, but have not yet received a reply. Although we can't speak to the effectiveness of drinking apple cider vinegar with Refresh Garcinia Cambogia, we can say that this text did not originate in a genuine news article. This is an advertisement that used a fabricated interview, falsified claims, and an unrelated photograph to sell a diet product. Pawlowski, A. "Mom gets real about weight loss: Here's how she shed 90 pounds in a year."
Today 3 October 2016.
|
[
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}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/apple-cider-vinegar-diet/
|
Was a weight loss of 37 pounds achieved by a Cornell student through the use of apple cider vinegar and supplements?
|
Dan Evon
|
04/27/2017
|
[
"Stories promoting a \"diet hack\" involving apple cider vinegar are based on unrelated photographs and false claims."
] |
In April 2017, an advertisement for a diet product called "Refresh Garcinia Cambogia" or "Garicinia Slim" was disguised as a genuine news report and published on web sites such as Running Evolutions.com and The Platinum Beard: Running Evolutions.com The Platinum Beard Student from Cornell University Cuts 31lbs On University Budget! Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 31lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money. Amanda is studying nutrition sciences at Cornell, and for a required research project Amanda thought it would be perfect to use university funds to find out how to 'hack' her weight loss. According to Amanda, "the most expensive piece of it all was actually finding what worked. But the actual solution only cost about $5." "I had struggled with my weight my whole life. I tried things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which just didn't work as good as they promised. I am a single Mom with a kid at home and I am also working towards my degree, so I don't have any time to be at the gym. When I was assigned this big research project, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a deeper look at the natural weight loss opportunities that are out there, and that is when I found out about combining Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and apple cider vinegar. The best part of it all, I can tell that my daughter is proud of me." - Amanda Haughman These reports included a number of false and misleading claims. For instance, the lead photograph purportedly showing Amanda Haughman's tremendous weight loss is actually Rachel Graham, who lost nearly 100 pounds in a year. Graham told Today in 2016 that she credited her weight loss to exercise and a healthy diet. Graham did not mention the alleged magic formula of apple cider vinegar and garcinia cambogia: Rachel Graham Today Ask Rachel Graham how shes managed to lose almost 100 pounds in one year and the formula is simple: Healthy food and exercise. No secrets. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. Shes also honest about the impact of going from 235 pounds to 144 pounds, especially the loose skin on her stomach, thighs and arms. [...] I want people to know that it is 110 percent possible, Graham told TODAY. I used to feel as though it wasn't. That I didn't have what it takes, and that it was just too far out of reach... If you want to make changes, it is completely possible with healthy food and exercise. This weight loss advertisement also fabricated an interview with CNN and claimed that the network ran a segment on this Cornell student's "amazing discovery": We sat down with Amanda to ask her more about how she found out about Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and whether or not that is all that she used to lose 31lbs so quickly. CNN: Tell us, how did you know where to start? Amanda: To be honest, I really didn't. I was given a budget for the project by the university, and I spent nearly all of it researching everything under the sun. I looked into other previous research, case studies, and even successful weight loss stories of others. This story never appeared on CNN. Not surprisingly the Platinum Beard post links to a site selling Garcinia Cambogia. The Running Evolutions article links instead to what is apparently borrowed content from Barry's Boot Camp, a personal training program. We reached out to Barry's Boot Camp for comment, but have not yet received a reply. Although we can't speak to the effectiveness of drinking apple cider vinegar with Refresh Garcinia Cambogia, we can say that this text did not originate in a genuine news article. This is an advertisement that used a fabricated interview, falsified claims, and an unrelated photograph to sell a diet product. Pawlowski, A. "Mom gets real about weight loss: Here's how she shed 90 pounds in a year."
Today 3 October 2016.
|
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}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/poached-eggs/
|
Costa Rica Sea Turtle Egg Harvesting
|
David Mikkelson
|
10/11/2010
|
[
"Photographs show residents of Costa Rica poaching sea turtle eggs?"
] |
Claim: Photographs show poachers collecting sea turtle eggs in Costa Rica. REAL PHOTOGRAPHS; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION Example: [Collected via e-mail, March 2010] Aha, maybe we have just discovered why the sea turtle is going extinct & it is not global warming. !!!!!!!.... Sending you an e-mail of the turtle poachers on the beaches of Costa Rica. See the 2nd picture too, where the female cannot cover up her own eggs, before the intruder steals away what Nature has given her to protect her young. These people have unfortunately, taught their children nothing for the future generation to cherish. Look at these children and they do not know anything about conservation of Marine Life Protection and look at the disastrous road their parents are taking too... What have they they all gained for the future of Costa Rica's Marine Life protection? World Wide shame in COSTA RICA. Please distribute widely. The Turtle eggs are stolen to be sold. The PLANET IS THANKFUL. Origins: These photographs do show the collection of olive ridley sea turtle eggs in the coastal town of Ostional, Costa Rica, but those who are gathering them are not "poachers" (i.e. people who catch fish or game illegally), nor are they regarded as threatening the sustainability of the sea turtle population in that area. As described in a 1998 article by National Public Radio correspondent John Burnett, the gatherers are engaged in a government sponsored conservation activity, collecting a relatively small portion of eggs, which biologists have averred would otherwise have been destroyed, from the millions of olive ridley eggs laid during the turtles' reproductive season: olive ridley conservation activity In the coastal town of Ostional, located on Costa Rica's Guanacaste Peninsula, a 13-year-old project has helped stabilize the population of the olive ridley sea turtle. For 10 months of the year, usually around the third quarter of the moon, olive ridleys swim by the hundreds of thousands to a single mile of beach at Ostional in an ancient reproductive rite little understood by scientists. They scuttle onto the sand, dig a hole with their flippers, and drop in an average of 100 leathery, white eggs the size of ping pong balls. Over the course of a five-day "arribada," literally, an arrival, nesting females will leave as many as 10 million eggs in the black, volcanic sand. Mass nesting is nature's way of ensuring that after the turkey vultures, feral dogs and raccoons have eaten all the fresh eggs they want, there will be enough left over to produce a sustainable population of olive ridleys. In the early 1980s, scientists learned that because of limited space on the beach, females arriving later destroy the first laid eggs. The researchers wondered: why not let poachers have the doomed eggs? Under a law written especially for Ostional, the government allows an egg harvesting cooperative to collect all they can during the first 36 hours of every arribada. Coop members then truck the eggs around the country, selling them to bars and restaurants. In return, the community must protect the olive ridley. Coop members clean debris from the nesting areas and patrol the beach day and night for poachers. Forty days later, when the hatchlings emerge, children from the Ostional Primary school run to the beach. "We protect the tortugitas when they crawl to the ocean. If we don't, the vultures will get them and bite their heads off," says a local 8-year-old boy, breathlessly. A Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) representative noted that the activity pictured here is controversial but legal (Ostional is the only part of Costa Rica where sea turtle egg gathering is allowed), and that investigation to determine its overall effect on the olive ridley population is ongoing: STC Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) has seen a lot of recent communication among conservation groups and turtle advocates concerning these photos showing sea turtle eggs being harvested in Costa Rica. The reality is that this harvest is the only remaining LEGAL harvest of turtle eggs in that country. The community of Ostional on the Pacific Coast is permitted to harvest all of the olive ridley eggs that are deposited during the first couple of days of an arribada (when thousands of turtles return to nest at the same time over about a week). The eggs are packaged and marked for sale around the country, with much of the income returning to the community. While I don't personally agree with this egg collection, the project is endorsed by the Costa Rican government for the time being. This is a very controversial subject among sea turtle scientists, conservationists and community members in Costa Rica. Among other issues, the legal sale of any turtle eggs in the country opens the door for clandestine egg harvesting from other parts of the country. The photos being circulated have served as a catalyst for the Costa Rican National Sea Turtle Conservation Network (of which STC is an integral part) to initiate an investigation of the scientific justification for this egg harvest. Specifically, the group is investigating the validity of claims that the harvest increases (or at least doesn't reduce) overall hatching productivity on this beach. The claim put forth is that during an arribada, many of the first nests to be laid are dug up and destroyed by females attempting to nest in the same spot days later. Not only are the earliest nests often destroyed, the rotting eggs become putrid and attract lots of bugs and predators, thus threatening the last nests deposited. A committee of the CRNSTCN was formed (on which STC's scientific director, Dr. Emma Harrison serves) to investigate the issues surrounding this legal harvest further. In addition to an independent investigation of the issue, questions are being asked of the people in charge of the project to help determine whether there is sufficient monitoring of the program and its impacts on the Ostional olive ridley population. Based on the results of this investigation, there could be some recommendations for changes in the future. For the time being, what you see in these photos is completely legal and regulated by the Costa Rican government, though it remains quite controversial, and there is a formal review of the program underway by independent biologists in Costa Rica. The Costa Rica Tourism Board has also placed a notice on its web site in response to the circulation of these photographs: notice A chain of emails is circulating on the Internet with false information regarding the Conservation and Use of Ridley Sea Turtle Eggs Project (Lepidochels olivacea) at the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge in Guanacaste. There are 12 photos of the legal gathering of eggs accompanied by text labeling it as "theft" and an "international shame." The Costa Rica Tourism Board (ICT) seeks to clarify that the images actually represent a model of sustainable development in the Ostional community, approved in 1990 by executive order for the Protection, Conservation, and Recovery of Sea Turtle populations enacted on November 28th, 2002 and by Fishing and Agriculture law approved on April 25th, 2005. The legal use and allotment of resources plan, far from being an embarrassment, is the pride of the country and has been applauded and recognized by national and international scientists. The Ostional National Wildlife Refuge witnesses up to 200,000 Olive Ridley turtles during the rainy season and about 15,000 in the dry season. Upon their arrival, the sea turtles lay thousands of eggs and destroy a large portion of them as they return to the ocean. That's why, under the sustainability development concept, the nearby rural areas are allowed to remove a specified amount for commercial purposes in Costa Rica under the Ostional Internal Development Association (ADIO). ADIO assures a rational use of the eggs and avoids massive and uncontrolled removal by communities. The association works together with the Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications Ministry (MINAET), the Costa Rica Institute of Fishing and Agriculture (INCOPESCA), and the Biology Department of the University of Costa Rica. Only ADIO has permission to commercialize turtle eggs in the country, packed in sealed bags displaying the association's logo and sold with corresponding invoices. Any other consumption is illegal. Reuters. "Caribbean Turtles Said Threatend by Catches, Trade."
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],
"sentence": "Origins: These photographs do show the collection of olive ridley sea turtle eggs in the coastal town of Ostional, Costa Rica, but those who are gathering them are not \"poachers\" (i.e. people who catch fish or game illegally), nor are they regarded as threatening the sustainability of the sea turtle population in that area. As described in a 1998 article by National Public Radio correspondent John Burnett, the gatherers are engaged in a government sponsored conservation activity, collecting a relatively small portion of eggs, which biologists have averred would otherwise have been destroyed, from the millions of olive ridley eggs laid during the turtles' reproductive season:"
},
{
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],
"sentence": "A Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) representative noted that the activity pictured here is controversial but legal (Ostional is the only part of Costa Rica where sea turtle egg gathering is allowed), and that investigation to determine its overall effect on the olive ridley population is ongoing:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.tourism.co.cr/costa-rica-tourism-news/costa-rica-tourism-news/the-business-of-turtle-eggs-in-ostional-is-legal-reasonable-and-sustainable.html"
],
"sentence": "The Costa Rica Tourism Board has also placed a notice on its web site in response to the circulation of these photographs:"
}
] |
true
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ill-suited/
|
George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents
|
David Mikkelson
|
07/16/2013
|
[
"Is George Zimmerman suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son?"
] |
Claim: George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son. Example: [Collected via e-mail, July 2013] Facebook is sharing that George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for failure to control him. I find this very difficult tobelieve. I think this is bogus. Origins: On 15 July 2013, the National Report published an article ("George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents") about acquitted defendant George Zimmerman's having filed a civil lawsuit against the parents of the teenager he shot, Trayvon Martin: article George Zimmerman filed a civil suit today just before 5PM EST at the Seminole County, Florida, Courthouse. The suit alleges the parents of Trayvon Martin, failed to control their minor-age son on the evening of February 26, 2012, when Martin repeatedly assaulted Zimmerman, placing him in imminent fear for his life and resulting in the death of Martin. The civil action specifies that Zimmerman acted in self defense resulting in the case being ruled a justifiable homicide by a jury trial that ended on Saturday with a verdict of not guilty. Desperate state prosecutors charged the victim with 2nd degree murder though they had no evidence of a crime and hoping to stay off more violence and having Florida put to the torch at the criminal hands of rioters months before the start of the states tourist season. The complaint further specifies Zimmerman shares "zero-liability" in the death of Martin as he acted without malice and solely in self-defense. The amount of damages Zimmerman is seeking are unspecified. By the following day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article. However, the article was just a bit of satire from the National Report, a web site which publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." Last updated: 16 July 2013
|
[
"liability"
] |
[
{
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[
{
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"https://nationalreport.net/george-zimmerman-files-civil-suit-against-trayvon-martins-parents-for-being-brutally-attacked-by-their-juvenile-son/"
],
"sentence": "Origins: On 15 July 2013, the National Report published an article (\"George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents\") about acquitted defendant George Zimmerman's having filed a civil lawsuit against the parents of the teenager he shot, Trayvon Martin:"
}
] |
false
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-murray-ice-cream-taxes/
|
Did Bill Murray Recommend Eating Children's Ice Cream to Teach About Taxes?
|
Bethania Palma
|
02/23/2017
|
[
"A quote attributed to the actor shared on social media originated with a parody Twitter account."
] |
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 parodyquotestated that "The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream": The twitter account from which it was posted, however, 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 jut re-open the closed door. Because thats how doors work." The fact the Twitter account was not real, as usual, 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. shared 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.
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Answering Your Questions About the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse
|
Arturo Garcia
|
08/19/2017
|
[
"The 21 August 2017 celestial event will be viewable to millions in North America, but taking the proper precautions is important."
] |
A total solar eclipse will be visible across swaths of North America on 21 August 2017, the first of its kind since 1974: 1974 The celestial event has stirred excitement and mass travel to the regions from which totality will be visible (the rest of the continent will still see a partial eclipse). Naturally, it has also sparked a whole cornucopia of misinformation and hoaxes. While NASA has published its own list of misconceptions about eclipses, we want to address some rumors about the event ourselves: list Was the eclipse calculated for the wrong year? One extremely bogus claim is that the date was miscalculated by one year because NASA failed to "carry the one". NASA astrophysicist C. Alex Young says that is a popular hoax: claim I know people have checked their numbers more than once. I've heard that one that's a good one. Young, an associate director at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, will host a live online broadcast tracking the eclipse across the U.S. (We should note that watching the livestream on a laptop or desktop computer will not cause eye damage.) online Around 10 million people, he said, reside along "path to totality," with more traveling to areas where it will be visible. According to NASA: According The path of totality is a relatively thin ribbon, around 70 miles wide, that will cross the U.S. from West to East. The first point of contact will be at Lincoln Beach, Oregon at 9:05 a.m. PDT. Totality begins there at 10:16 a.m. PDT. Over the next hour and a half, it will cross through Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. The total eclipse will end near Charleston, South Carolina at 2:48 p.m. EDT. From there the lunar shadow leaves the United States at 4:09 EDT. Its longest duration will be near Carbondale, Illinois, where the sun will be completely covered for two minutes and 40 seconds. The number of people who will be able to witness the eclipse, Young said, has fueled the interest in this particular event, as well as the connectivity and access that will allow more to follow it: So many people have access to what's happening but also, everyone in the United States all of North America are gonna experience at least a partial eclipse. So many people have access to this online but will get to experience this in some sort or another. There hasn't been anything that broad-reaching ever in terms of astronomical events like this. It really is unprecedented. Are eclipses harmful to your health? Only if you look directly at the sun before or after totality without the appropriate protective glasses. An eclipse is nothing more or less than the moon passing between the sun and the earth, casting a large shadow over the earth as the moon blocks the sun's light. This allows the solar corona, which is luminous electromagnetic radiation that is always present but normally too faint to see, to be briefly visible in the form of a ghostly (sometimes green) light. It does not bring any new radiation into the planet's atmosphere, and thus cannot spoil or poison food, affect a developing fetus, or accurately foretell any impending disaster. And no, eclipses don't send expectant mothers into labor. eclipse corona light food fetus disaster labor. Are eclipse glasses worthless? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration partnered with the American Astronomical Society to release a list of vendors and retail chains who are selling glasses that meet the 12312-2 international safety standard. Young told us that welder glasses can also be used, so long as they meet the same standard. list standard. Both groups have also released guides for watching the eclipse with either a pinhole camera or through optical projection (which can be done by using binoculars or a telescope, though at risk of damaging each device). Using regular sunglasses, however, would be worthless for the occasion and even potentially harmful, said the agencies: either through While you're enjoying a "comfortable" view of the "dim" Sun, solar infrared radiation could be cooking your retinas. And you wouldn't know till later, because your retinas don't have pain receptors. Only after the eclipse, when you notice blind spots or other vision problems, would you realize you'd made a catastrophic mistake. The same is true of ordinary camera filters, old X-rays, mobile phone camera lenses, and smoked glass; viewing the eclipse through them will offer no protection to your eyes, although you can take photographs of the eclipse with a camera or a cell phone with a proper filter attached. same filter However, even if you ordered the proper glasses, it's important to keep in mind that not all eclipse viewing glasses are equal. On 12 August 2017, less than two weeks before the eclipse, retail giant Amazon issued a recall for certain counterfeit viewing glasses. They offered full refunds, but left people scrambling for eye safety. The move created a secondary panic when legitimate and verified eclipse viewing glasses were caught up in the recall as well: recall recall "Safety is among our highest priorities. Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively reached out to customers and provided refunds for eclipse glasses that may not comply with industry standards. We want customers to buy with confidence anytime they make a purchase on Amazon.com and eclipse glasses sold on Amazon.com are required to comply with the relevant ISO standard," the company said in a statement. Amazon.com Amazon.com Amazon said customers who did not receive an email purchased glasses that were safe to use. The company did not reveal how many glasses were recalled or how much money was refunded. Anyone who is concerned about their eclipse glasses but did not receive an email about the recall can reach out to Amazon customer service. Viewers don't need to have one black side and one reflective side in order to be effective, despite what you may have heard, but special solar filters are essential to look at the event directly (until full totality) without frying your eyes. In their absence, or in the absence of an appropriately darkened welding filter (Shade 12 or above) optical projection or a homemade pinhole camera is the safest choice. filter Shade 12 camera Do eclipse glasses expire? NASA said that anyone who bought one of the recommended sets of glasses can use them indefinitely as long as they are not damaged: said If your eclipse glasses or viewers are compliant with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard, you may look at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed Sun through them for as long as you wish. Furthermore, if the filters aren't scratched, punctured, or torn, you may reuse them indefinitely. Some glasses/viewers are printed with warnings stating that you shouldn't look through them for more than 3 minutes at a time and that you should discard them if they are more than 3 years old. Such warnings are outdated and do not apply to eclipse viewers compliant with the ISO 12312-2 standard adopted in 2015. Can you watch the eclipse through your phone's "selfie" mode? You can view the eclipse through your phone's "selfie" mode so that you can watch it on your screen. That will spare your eyes, but be sure to make certain it won't burn your phone's photoreceptors; for example, Apple says iPhones and iPads are safe to point at the sun because the lens is so wide, meaning that the full force of the light the sun emits is relatively dim, but if you use a telephoto clip-on lens or something else to magnify the sun and its light, a filter is probably a good idea. mode eyes iPhones Are pets in danger of eye damage if they are outside during the eclipse? While humans need to take precautions to guard their eyes, the consensus among experts is that pets are in no immediate danger. Author and veterinarian Dr. Jessica Vogelsang explained to us: veterinarian It's hard for me to criticize such a well-meaning warning, because there's really no harm in following the advice to keep pets inside during the eclipse. It's better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. But in the interest of offering a realistic risk assessment, the likelihood of a pet ruining their eyes the same way a human would during an eclipse is much lower- not because the damage would be any less were they to stare at the sun, but because from a behavior standpoint dogs and cats just don't have any interest in doing so. We tend to extrapolate a lot of things from people to pets that just doesn't bear out, and this is one of them. I've seen lots of warnings from the astronomy community and the human medical community about the theoretical dangers of pets and eclipses, but I'm not sure if any of them really know animal behavior all that well. It's not like there's a big outcry from the wildlife community to go chase down coyotes and hawks and bears and give them goggles either. While we in the veterinary community absolutely appreciate people being concerned about their pets' well-being, this is a non-issue for us. Pet owners unsure of how their pet would react to the eclipse, she said, should keep them inside since "if nothing else they'll avoid the chaos outside from all the partygoers." Angela Speck, a co-chair of the AAS National Solar Eclipse Task Force, had the same advice for pet owners in a video NASA released on 21 June 2017: video It's no different than any other day. On a normal day, your pets don't try to look at the sun and therefore don't damage their eyes, so on this day they're not gonna do it either. It is not a concern, letting them outside. All that's happened is we've blocked out the sun, it's not more dangerous. So I think that people who have pets want to think about that. I'm not going to worry about my cat. Young added, "The reality is that animals are smart enough not to look at the sun, even the partially eclipsed sun." He did note, however, evidence that other animals such as whales and dolphins have observed eclipses once they begin, before avoiding the sun once they concluded. evidence Will the eclipse cause earthquakes and damage infrastructure? Young refuted the notion that the eclipse would be responsible for any tremors or infrastructure damage, though he anticipated traffic increases for people coming or going from eclipse-centered gatherings, as well as a possible shortage of other necessities: I've been hearing reports that pretty much all the suppliers of porta potties have been completely tapped out and everything's rented. I suspect there will a lot of people buying water and food so that's gonna bring up the numbers quite a lot. There's even a concern that it might become difficult to get gasoline. I don't have any hard numbers, but it's very possible that it could be an issue. For those outside the path of totality or who wish to spare their retinas, the eclipse can be viewed online at multiple web sites. online Do revised maps show inexplicable deviations from the eclipse's totality path? There have been no revisions to NASA's map of where the solar eclipse can be viewed, nor are there any reported irregularities or strange deviations from the path of the shadow: An interactive map can be viewed here. (As you can see, there are no strange jogs or veers.) here Conspiracy theorists have also claimed that the eclipse would foreshadow the end of the world, or the appearance of Nibiru a fabricated "renegade planet" people have also said would destroy the Earth. claimed fabricated Will NASA launch bacteria-filled balloons during the eclipse? Yes, kind of. More than fifty high-altitude balloons will be released across the United States for the Eclipse Ballooning Project, which is led by Montana State University's Angela Des Jardins. The balloons will live-stream the event from high altitudes: Eclipse Ballooning Project Angela Des Jardins Students will conduct high altitude balloon (HAB) flights from around 25 locations across the 8/21/2017 total eclipse path, from Oregon to South Carolina, sending live video and images from near space to the NASA website. While the cost of conducting HAB flights is low, there are interesting challenges presented by this highly collaborative effort. These challenges are broad technical, political, administrative and present an amazing hands-on learning opportunity for the students who participate. Several potentially long lasting partnerships with other federal agencies and with industry will develop. Several partnerships, including with ATA Aerospace, which conducted the Red Bull Stratos flight, are already in progress. In addition to the primary camera payloads that students will build to provide footage of the moons shadow on Earth and the darkened sun, each team will fly a secondary payload of their choice. Links to information and pictures about each teams secondary payload will be included online. In a second effort in collaboration with NOAA, dozens radiosonde balloons will be flown to gather important science data on eclipse stratospheric temperature and ozone fluctuations. Some of the balloons will carry metal tags coated with a type of bacteria called Paenibacillus xerothermodurans, which is an especially hardy life form found in the soil outside the Kennedy Space Center in 1973 and isolated in NASA clean rooms, so that their resilience in the upper layers of the atmosphere can be tested when the balloons return to the ground. Because of the specific conditions in the stratosphere that are affected by the eclipse low temperatures, lower oxygen levels, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation the experiment will potentially offer inside into how bacteria might behave on Mars. soil Students will track the balloons using GPS tags, then and mail the tags back to NASA once they find them. (Despite rumors and speculation, the bacteria is not harmful to humans or the environment.) balloons rumors not harmful Are people selling tickets to view the eclipse? Yes. In some areas, observatories and event planners are offering tickets to specific viewing areas and festivals, particularly along the "totality path". However, the eclipse will be above most of North America, so there is no need to buy a ticket unless you feel like paying to share the experience with like-minded strangers. Even if you do, though, most of the events appear to have sold out fairly quickly. observatories tickets experience Will a group of coal industry people be protesting the eclipse? A group of people purporting to be associated with the coal industry have put out a press release on 11 August 2017, saying that they plan to hold a protest in the western Kentucky town of Hopkinsville (which has temporarily rebranded itself as Eclipseville, or the "point of greatest eclipse") in order to bring attention to how important their industry is, and how it has been mistreated by the "fake news" media: press release Eclipseville Kentuckians for Coal is an ad-hoc coalition of miners, union officials, family members and coal users created to defend the Kentucky coal industry against encroachment from renewable energy industries and from economic development initiatives aimed at lessening America's dependence on coal. Kentuckians for Coal stands against the eclipse and those who worship it. The protest is scheduled for high noon on Monday, August 21, 2017, in front of the offices of the Kentucky New Era newspaper at 1618 E. 9th Street, Hopkinsville, just as the eclipse begins. The "totality"--the complete blocking of the Sun by the Moon--will start at 1:24:39 and will last 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The protesters chose the New Era office location because the newspaper and other fake-news media have been over-hyping the eclipse because of its potential to boost local economic development, while ignoring the importance of the coal industry. The story has been picked up by news organizations and blogs as legitimate, but we have found several reasons to be tremendously skeptical. For example, the press release appears to have been written with tongue lodged firmly in cheek: Hopkinsville, with a population of 33,000, has two other great claims to fame. One is as the birthplace of the world-renowned psychic Edgar Cayce. He made his home in Hopkinsville, and died there in 1945, after predicting the date of his own death. The other is the notoriously pagan annual celebration of extra-terrestrials, which commemorates a terrifying landing by space aliens in 1955, 62 years ago to the day, known as the Little Green Men Festival. world-renowned psychic Edgar Cayce Little Green Men Festival When more than 250,000 people descend on the town for four days in August, including busloads of Amish from Pennsylvania and rumored Arab royalty, hucksters will peddle overpriced souvenirs as area hotels jack up their room rates by 400%; gas stations run out of gas; and cell phone service crashes due to demand. Traffic jams, a run on available food, an invasion of prostitutes, and rowdy crowds will test the patience of both local residents and the extra law enforcement brought in to maintain order. In addition, there is the serious threat to spectators' eyesight if they look at the sun without special eclipse-viewing glasses. hucksters will peddle overpriced souvenirs an invasion of prostitutes Secondly, there appears to be no Joseph Calvin (no matter his rank) living in Hopkinsville, and no one has responded to a voice mail message we left at the number supplied in the release. Finally, as of 2015, there are no more union coal miners working anywhere in the state of Kentucky. anywhere Do personal electronics such as cellphones present a danger due to "cosmic rays," "gamma rays," or "cosmic gamma rays"? Among rumors spreading on social media about the solar eclipse were ones that involved the putative danger posed by cell phones on the day of the event: I heard something about comic rays and about not being able to use our phones during 12:30 p.m to 3:30 a.m However, the claim circulated for years prior to the eclipse and still made "no scientific sense whatsoever." circulated Does an eclipse happen only during the full moon, new moon, or doesn't it matter? According to NASA, eclipses can take place during a new moon, under certain circumstances: According Eclipses only occur if the Moon is located within 0.5 degrees of the plane of the ecliptic, on a line that passes through the center of the Sun and the Earth. The Moon travels along an orbit that is inclined by 5 degrees to the ecliptic plane, so there are only two opportunities each month when it passes through the plane of the ecliptic. These points are called the ascending and descending nodes. Eclipses of the Sun only occur if new moon occurs when the Moon is near of one of these nodes. A similar argument explains why lunar eclipses do not occur every full moon at the node opposite the Sun from the Earth. NASA.
"Eclipse 101." International Organization for Standardization.
"ISO 12312-2:2015." American Astronomical Society.
"Reputable Vendors of Solar Filters & Viewers." American Astronomical Society.
"Projection: Pinhole & Optical." NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"How to Make a Pinhole Camera." NASA.
"Eclipse Live." "2017 Total Solar Eclipse Science Briefing."
YouTube, uploaded by NASA. 21 June 2017. Netburn, Deborah. "Will the Great American Eclipse Make Animals Act Strangely? Science Says Yes."
Los Angeles Times. 9 August 2017. NASA.
"Why Don't Eclipses Occur Every New Moon?" Austin, Jon. "'Black Moon' eclipse to signal 'end of the world' in just FIVE DAYS."
Express. 16 August 2017.
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"sentence": "Yes, kind of. More than fifty high-altitude balloons will be released across the United States for the Eclipse Ballooning Project, which is led by Montana State University's Angela Des Jardins. The balloons will live-stream the event from high altitudes:"
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://lokilegolauncher.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/collaborating-with-nasa-astrobiology/"
],
"sentence": "Some of the balloons will carry metal tags coated with a type of bacteria called Paenibacillus xerothermodurans, which is an especially hardy life form found in the soil outside the Kennedy Space Center in 1973 and isolated in NASA clean rooms, so that their resilience in the upper layers of the atmosphere can be tested when the balloons return to the ground. Because of the specific conditions in the stratosphere that are affected by the eclipse low temperatures, lower oxygen levels, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation the experiment will potentially offer inside into how bacteria might behave on Mars."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16145668/eclipse-nasa-balloons-stratosphere-bacteria-life-mars",
"https://archive.is/aMUMu",
"https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/solar-eclipse-a-chance-to-study-lifes-resilience/"
],
"sentence": "Students will track the balloons using GPS tags, then and mail the tags back to NASA once they find them. (Despite rumors and speculation, the bacteria is not harmful to humans or the environment.) "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.lowellsolareclipse.com/attend-the-event/purchase-tickets/",
"https://www.stubhub.com/oregon-eclipse-tickets-oregon-eclipse-2017-all-week-pass-8-17-2017/event/9759532/?newga=1&sort=price+asc&qty=1&qqd=1&qtyq=false&byo=1&ticket_id=1270255590&ticketRank=1&byo_qty=1",
"https://oregoneclipse2017.com/"
],
"sentence": "Yes. In some areas, observatories and event planners are offering tickets to specific viewing areas and festivals, particularly along the \"totality path\". However, the eclipse will be above most of North America, so there is no need to buy a ticket unless you feel like paying to share the experience with like-minded strangers. Even if you do, though, most of the events appear to have sold out fairly quickly."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/kentuckians-for-coal-to-protest-the-solar-eclipse-august-21-442178.php",
"https://www.eclipseville.com/"
],
"sentence": "A group of people purporting to be associated with the coal industry have put out a press release on 11 August 2017, saying that they plan to hold a protest in the western Kentucky town of Hopkinsville (which has temporarily rebranded itself as Eclipseville, or the \"point of greatest eclipse\") in order to bring attention to how important their industry is, and how it has been mistreated by the \"fake news\" media: "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce",
"https://www.kentuckynewera.com/news/article_d520b816-219a-11e7-b3c9-2777c410f788.html"
],
"sentence": "Hopkinsville, with a population of 33,000, has two other great claims to fame. One is as the birthplace of the world-renowned psychic Edgar Cayce. He made his home in Hopkinsville, and died there in 1945, after predicting the date of his own death. The other is the notoriously pagan annual celebration of extra-terrestrials, which commemorates a terrifying landing by space aliens in 1955, 62 years ago to the day, known as the Little Green Men Festival. "
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.kentuckynewera.com/eclipse/article_1c78f8ba-4688-11e7-a1de-c7282b68ed35.html",
"https://www.kentuckynewera.com/eclipse/article_e7dace1a-6209-11e7-b4bd-b339f8ea4eef.html"
],
"sentence": "When more than 250,000 people descend on the town for four days in August, including busloads of Amish from Pennsylvania and rumored Arab royalty, hucksters will peddle overpriced souvenirs as area hotels jack up their room rates by 400%; gas stations run out of gas; and cell phone service crashes due to demand. Traffic jams, a run on available food, an invasion of prostitutes, and rowdy crowds will test the patience of both local residents and the extra law enforcement brought in to maintain order. In addition, there is the serious threat to spectators' eyesight if they look at the sun without special eclipse-viewing glasses."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://wfpl.org/kentucky-doesnt-have-any-more-working-union-coal-miners/"
],
"sentence": "Secondly, there appears to be no Joseph Calvin (no matter his rank) living in Hopkinsville, and no one has responded to a voice mail message we left at the number supplied in the release. Finally, as of 2015, there are no more union coal miners working anywhere in the state of Kentucky."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/dangerous-cosmic-gamma-rays/"
],
"sentence": "However, the claim circulated for years prior to the eclipse and still made \"no scientific sense whatsoever.\""
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/why-dont-eclipses-occur-every-new-moon"
],
"sentence": "According to NASA, eclipses can take place during a new moon, under certain circumstances:"
}
] |
neutral
| null |
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-jennifer-aniston-starting-a-celebrities-for-trump-group/
|
Is Jennifer Aniston Starting a 'Celebrities for Trump' Group?
|
Arturo Garcia
|
11/20/2017
|
[
"A particularly brazen attempt at \"clickbait\" scraped together two unrelated stories under a random headline."
] |
Here's a glimpse into a particularly brazen attempt at producing "clickbait" by making a huge claim about a beloved celebrity with an attraction-grabbing headline that is literally unrelated to the story underneath. A 17 November 2017 post on the web site ConservativeSociety.net bore a headline that featured a quote misattributed to actress Jennifer Aniston: "Me and All The Trump Supporter Celebrities Decide To Make A Company Named 'Celebrities For Trump,' Which Fight Against All Anti Trump Celebrities, I Think President Trump Needs Our Support."The idea, presumably, was that viewers would distribute the post online based solely on their reaction to the headline rather than the underlying story because that story does not include Aniston's fabricated "quote," and no interview, no publication, nor any other proof of her interest in this subject is offered.To boot, this piece of clickbait appeared to be a mishmash of off-topic information and wholesale reproduction of another site's work.Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson.Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a "report" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com.A Gossip Cop spokesperson told us they first encountered the story on another questionable web site, DailyNewPosts.com, in October 2017:The word-for-word use of our story, which is clearly unrelated to Donald Trump, is a clear example of willful copyright infringement. We plan to seek all legal remedies and demand the site remove our material immediately.Conservative Society's "story" lists DailyNewPosts.com as its source; however, the latter web site's version of the piece is no longer available. A 17 November 2017 post on the web site ConservativeSociety.net bore a headline that featured a quote misattributed to actress Jennifer Aniston: "Me and All The Trump Supporter Celebrities Decide To Make A Company Named 'Celebrities For Trump,' Which Fight Against All Anti Trump Celebrities, I Think President Trump Needs Our Support." The idea, presumably, was that viewers would distribute the post online based solely on their reaction to the headline rather than the underlying story because that story does not include Aniston's fabricated "quote," and no interview, no publication, nor any other proof of her interest in this subject is offered. To boot, this piece of clickbait appeared to be a mishmash of off-topic information and wholesale reproduction of another site's work. Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson. sketch Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a "report" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com. report A Gossip Cop spokesperson told us they first encountered the story on another questionable web site, DailyNewPosts.com, in October 2017: The word-for-word use of our story, which is clearly unrelated to Donald Trump, is a clear example of willful copyright infringement. We plan to seek all legal remedies and demand the site remove our material immediately. Conservative Society's "story" lists DailyNewPosts.com as its source; however, the latter web site's version of the piece is no longer available. Evans, Greg. "'SNL' Pokes at Donald Trump's CNN Tweets And Gives Shout-Out to Real-Life High School Supporter."
Deadline. 3 December 2016. Weiss, Shari. "Jennifer Aniston Launching HSN Clothing Collection?"
GossipCop. 26 October 2017.
|
[
"interest"
] |
[
{
"image_caption": null,
"image_src": "https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1FqwsvdmQk878s-91DCw8FqXVWjI-zaJx"
}
] |
[
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2017/11/ConservativeSociety-fake-news-headline.jpg",
"https://deadline.com/2016/12/snl-saturday-night-live-alec-baldwin-donald-trump-cnn-1201864044/",
"https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-hsn-clothing-collection-home-shopping-network/"
],
"sentence": "A 17 November 2017 post on the web site ConservativeSociety.net bore a headline that featured a quote misattributed to actress Jennifer Aniston: \"Me and All The Trump Supporter Celebrities Decide To Make A Company Named 'Celebrities For Trump,' Which Fight Against All Anti Trump Celebrities, I Think President Trump Needs Our Support.\"The idea, presumably, was that viewers would distribute the post online based solely on their reaction to the headline rather than the underlying story because that story does not include Aniston's fabricated \"quote,\" and no interview, no publication, nor any other proof of her interest in this subject is offered.To boot, this piece of clickbait appeared to be a mishmash of off-topic information and wholesale reproduction of another site's work.Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson.Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a \"report\" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com.A Gossip Cop spokesperson told us they first encountered the story on another questionable web site, DailyNewPosts.com, in October 2017:The word-for-word use of our story, which is clearly unrelated to Donald Trump, is a clear example of willful copyright infringement. We plan to seek all legal remedies and demand the site remove our material immediately.Conservative Society's \"story\" lists DailyNewPosts.com as its source; however, the latter web site's version of the piece is no longer available."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://deadline.com/2016/12/snl-saturday-night-live-alec-baldwin-donald-trump-cnn-1201864044/"
],
"sentence": "Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson."
},
{
"hrefs": [
"https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-hsn-clothing-collection-home-shopping-network/"
],
"sentence": "Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a \"report\" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com."
}
] |
false
| null |
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