Southwest Airlines Email Phishing Scam Says 'Congrats,' Claims You've Received 'Reward'
On Aug. 12, 2022, we reviewed a phishing scam that was sent as an email in which scammers pretended to be offering a "reward" from Southwest Airlines. The subject line read, "RE: __Link, Congrats! You've received a Southwest Airline reward You have been accepted!" Meanwhile, the body of the email claimed, "You've received an [sic] Southwest Airline reward." This was not a legitimate message from the company. The link included with the email was dangerous and should never be clicked. The email address in the message showed, "support@1785962.qaiecg5.com via nam10-bn7-obe.outbound.protection.outlook.com." This was not an official Southwest Airlines email address. Further, the message used the word "an" instead of "a" before the word "Southwest," and  also mistakenly used the singular word "Airline" instead of "Airlines." All of these were red flags that this fake Southwest Airlines email was a scam, as it would be out of character for a large company to make so many grammatical mistakes. Southwest Airlines scam  We plugged the link into the malicious URL scanner on ipqualityscore.com. The scan said that the link was "not safe," contained "suspicious activity," hosted malware, and was a 97 out of 100 on the risk scale, which indicated that it was "very risky." The scan also confirmed it was a phishing link. ipqualityscore.com We strongly advise against clicking any links or calling phone numbers that are mentioned in these kinds of phishing emails. If readers are suspicious that an email or text message is part of a phishing scam, simply close out of the message and contact the company that was referenced by reaching out through an official phone number, email address, live chat, or support website. If you need to contact a company to ask about a potential phishing scam, ensure that you're on the official website for the company by checking your web browser's address bar, which is located at the top of your screen. Scammers sometimes attempt to spoof company websites. For example, instead of southwest.com, which is the official website for Southwest Airlines, scammers might pretend to be the company's support team by registering a fake website such as southwest-rewards-support.com, for example. Don't trust it. southwest.com If any readers did click a link in the Southwest Airlines scam email or any other sort of phishing message, we recommend changing your email password and enabling two-factor authentication. A search of Google for your email provider and the words "two-factor authentication" should take you to a page that will instruct you on how to set that up. If it is believed that scammers accessed sensitive personal and financial data, it's advised to immediately call your bank and credit card companies to alert them to the matter. They should be able to provide advice on next steps to take in order to secure your accounts.
In October 2022, we received reader mail about a "Whole Foods Market Research" scam. The scam arrives in the form of an email, text, or mailed letter, and claims that the recipient has been chosen to be a secret shopper for Whole Foods Market. The goal of the scammer is to get the recipient to deposit a check into the recipient's bank account. However, unbeknownst to the recipient, the check is fake. The scammer is to quickly task the recipient to buy gift cards and then provide the identifying details on the front and back. Alternatively, the scammer might ask the recipient to initiate a wire transfer or money order to send back a partial amount of the funds from the check. The scammer claims that the recipient can keep a portion of the funds for the work. However, again, the check is fake, so recipients are spending their own money to buy gift cards for the scammers. We reviewed one example of this scam that arrived as an email. It came from wholefoodsmarketresearchllc@gmail.com, which was not an official Whole Foods email address. It claimed to come from a person named Jerry A. Wallace, a purported human resources (HR) representative. A previous version of this scam named Wallace as a "project manager," according to scampulse.com. We found no evidence of a person with this name being a real employee for Whole Foods. according to scampulse.com  The original email, which contained several store name misspellings, read as follows: wholefoodsmarketresearchllc@gmail.com wrote: Attn: (name removed) You submitted your information to one of our recruitment agencies to work as a Whole Foods Market Research representative. Your details have been verified and you have been shortlisted as one of our representatives. Here is your unique I.D. number MS6953, your details have been stored in our database. Our company has recently been contracted to do a quality survey on Target, King Soopers, Walmart Stores, Best Buy, Post Office, CVS, Rite Aid, Ebay, Kmart, Pizza Hut, Kroger, Walgreen, Dillons OR 7Eleven e.t.c. We have shortlisted a few representatives from various states and cities to visit any of the stores listed above randomly, to buy merchandise and share their experience via our feedback Checklist/Assessment form. You will receive an envelope containing a Cashier's Check and the Instructions Letter. The Checklist/Assessment Form will be sent/attached to your mail. Please signify your interest with a Yes, I'm Ready. Thank you. Best Regards,Whole Foods Market ResearchHR Personnel :- Jerry A. WallaceCell :- (216) 239-2582 We called the phone number listed in the email. After several rings, a voice message was played that said, "The TextNow subscriber you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave your message after the tone." The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) previously published a full report on this scam back in 2020: full report People spotted signs of a fake check scam in the bogus Whole Foods secret shopper offer (which was from a scammer, not really Whole Foods). Thats when someone sends you a check and convinces you to deposit it and quickly send them money. In this scam, the recruiter would send shoppers a check for more than $2,000 and they would: fake check scam 1. Cash or deposit the check immediately.2. Buy gift cards with most of the money.3. Keep about $450 as their pay.4. Scratch the coating off the gift cards to show the PIN codes.5. Send pictures of the cards front and back (with the codes) to the recruiter. If anyone ever tells you to deposit a check, withdraw money, and send it to someone, thats a scam. When the check later turns out to be fake, the bank will want the money back. And if anyone tells you to go buy gift cards and share the PIN numbers, thats a scam, too. Once the scammer has the PIN, they also have all the money from the cards. The FTC said this scam can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. They also added, "If you already cashed a fake check and sent money to a scammer, find out how to report to gift card, wire transfer, and money order businesses." ReportFraud.ftc.gov find out how In sum, both we and the FTC advise consumers to not respond to any emails, texts, or mailed letters that invite recipients to work as a secret shopper for "Whole Foods Market Research." How To Spot, Avoid, and Report Fake Check Scams. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 29 Jan. 2020, https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-report-fake-check-scams. Imposter H-SON LIMITED Reports & Reviews. Scampulse.com, 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.scampulse.com/imposter-h-son-limited-reviews. Small, Bridget. Fake Offers for Secret Shopper Jobs. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 3 Mar. 2020, https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2020/03/fake-offers-secret-shopper-jobs. Tressler, Colleen. Anatomy of a Fake Check Scam. U.S. Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice, 5 Sept. 2018, https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2018/09/anatomy-fake-check-scam. Democrats criticized Rick Perry for college costs the day the Republican governor gave his valedictory speech to Texas lawmakers. Among the beefs in a Jan. 15, 2015, email blast from the Democratic National Committee: College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003, putting the dream of earning a college degree further out of reach for many Texans. That year should ring a bell; its when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislatureagreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards. Committee's source We wondered how much tuition ultimately escalated. By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012news storyin theDallas Morning Newsthat said by the papers analysis, Texas students are paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also said: State officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but the costs have ballooned since 2003, even when inflation is factored in. Updated data Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, pointed out aFebruary 2014 board documentshe described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document said, in part: From fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 SCHs at a public university has increased by 104 percent. An SCH is a semester credit-hour. According to the document, the boards calculations were rooted in tuition and fees charged students. Then again, the board said, a student's actual charges may vary based on the student's classification and level of enrollment, the college the student attends within the university, the student's specific personal circumstances, or for other reasons deemed appropriate by the institution. Charts in the board analysis indicate the tuition and fees each year from fall 2003 through fall 2013 for nearly 40 institutions, most of them in the University of Texas or Texas A&M University systems. On average in fall 2003, tuition and fees were $1,934 for 15 semester credit-hours, according to the report. The average in fall 2013 was $3,951, the board said. By phone, Polden confirmed the boards results didnt take inflation into account. So we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsinflation calculatorto estimate that tuition and fees at the states public colleges and universities escalated 61 percent, in real terms, from fall 2003 through fall 2013. But that didnt bring us to the 2014-15 school year. So we asked for comparable charges on average for a student as of fall 2014. By email, Polden said the fall 2014 statewide average for someone taking 15 SCHs was $4,091, lifting the raw average tuition increase since fall 2003 to 112 percent. Adjusted for inflation, we calculated, the increase was 64 percent. UT Austin Separately, we asked the University of Texas at Austin for its fall 2014 charge for that many credit hours. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed the amount, $4,905, which we compared with the fall 2003 charge for that university of $2,721. Adjusted for inflation, the hike over the years came out to 40 percent. Out of governor's control? Worth mention: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years too, Perrycalled for $10,000, four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuitionso an entering student would pay the same tab each year while earning a degree. Our ruling The Democratic group, zeroing in on Perry, said Texas college tuition rates increased 55 percent since 2003. That figure is outdated--the increase through fall 2014 was 64 percent--and it's also worth clarifying the governor didn't directly control tuition, though he approved of the 2003 law deregulating rates and appointed ruling public college and university governing boards. We rate the statement 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. In December 2019, readers asked us about reports that claimed the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed changes to the way Social Security disability payments are made, which could cause thousands, even hundreds of thousands, to lose their benefits.  On Dec. 12, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune posted an article with the headline "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients." The article reported that: Inquirer Tribune "The Trump administration is proposing changes to Social Security that could terminate disability payments to hundreds of thousands of Americans, particularly older people and children. The new rule would change aspects of disability reviews  the methods by which the Social Security Administration determines whether a person continues to qualify for benefits. Few recipients are aware of the proposal, which is open for public comment through January." The left-leaning website Common Dreams published an article with the headline "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands.'" That story reported: article "Activists are working to raise public awareness and outrage over a little-noticed Trump administration proposal that could strip life-saving disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of people by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who is eligible for payments." On the face of it, the changes proposed by the Trump administration would not, in fact, directly or immediately strip disability benefits from thousands of would-be recipients, rather the changes would introduce more (and more frequent) eligibility reviews for those who wish to receive them. However, some critics have argued that those increased bureaucratic requirements would over-burden some would-be recipients, in particular especially vulnerable recipients, and would ultimately (albeit indirectly) result in thousands losing disability benefits.  The Social Security Administration distributes disability benefits in two principle ways: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their previous Social Security tax contributions and history of work, and is paid out of the Social Security insurance fund; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their disability status and inability to work, and is paid out of general tax coffers.  ways In order to prevent potential abuse and waste in the system, the Social Security Administration conducts "continuing disability reviews," essentially investigating whether each recipient still has a disabling condition, and if so, which kind. Those reviews take place more or less frequently, depending on the nature of each individual's disability, broken into three "medical diary categories," as follows: reviews In November, the Social Security Administration published its proposals to make several changes to the review system. The most significant proposal was to add a fourth medical diary category, "Medical Improvement Likely." Recipients placed in that category would undergo a review every two years. proposals According to a document accompanying the proposals, the decision to introduce the fourth category was made, in part, because the administration saw a pattern whereby some in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category were being prematurely subjected to re-evaluation, after six-18 months, before a medical improvement had the chance to take hold, and some in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category had successfully treated their impairment comfortably within the three-year review interval. The introduction of the new category would therefore mean the bureaucratic burden on some recipients would actually be lessened, since they would be subject to review less frequently, though clearly it would also mean others would be subject to more frequent reviews. On the whole, the administration has estimated that, between 2020 and 2029, the new category would tend towards requiring more frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category, rather than less frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category:   The administration expects the introduction of the "Medical Improvement Likely" category to lead to an 18 percent increase in the total number of reviews undertaken over the next decade. This would therefore lead to an increased up-front cost in administering the disability benefits programs, and an increased aggregate bureaucratic burden to recipients (even if some individual recipients would actually undergo reviews less frequently).  Greater scrutiny of individual cases, and enhanced enforcement of eligibility criteria, results in some recipients no longer being deemed eligible, and no longer receiving either SSDI or SSI, which saves money for the Social Security insurance fund and the Treasury, respectively. For the 2015 fiscal year, for example, the Social Security Administration calculated a 19.9:1 return on investment rate for disability benefits enforcement  meaning that for every $1 spent on performing reviews, the government would save $19.90 on disability benefits that would otherwise have been paid, over the course of a lifetime, to recipients who are now deemed ineligible. To be specific, the administration estimated that the $717 million spent on reviews in 2015 would ultimately save $14.3 billion in lifetime disability benefit payments.  calculated So the introduction of the Trump administration's proposals is highly likely to ultimately lead to thousands of disability benefits recipients no longer receiving those benefits  both because some will be overburdened by the bureaucratic demands of more frequent reviews, and because some recipients whose medical status no longer meets the eligibility criteria will have that ineligibility discovered sooner. A considerable measure of truth, therefore, exists in the reports published by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Common Dreams. However, those articles failed to mention an important component to the administration's proposals: They would not change how a recipient's eligibility is determined, only how often that determination takes place. As the proposal stated: "We are not changing the Medical Improvement Review Standard that we use to determine whether a person continues to meet the disability requirements of the Act." This means that, while the proposed increase in the number and frequency of reviews was highly likely to ultimately cause thousands to lose their benefits, that loss of benefits would not be arbitrary, or based on an application of a new and different standard for determining whether someone's health has improved. The standards and criteria for assessing whether an improvement has taken place would be the same as currently exist, and only the frequency of those reviews would change. In other words, some recipients would be subject to more frequent reviews, but if those more frequent reviews result in a finding that the recipient still has a qualifying disability or impairment  based on the same criteria as currently apply  the recipient would continue to receive disability benefits.  It could be that, as some critics have argued, the proposal represents an elegant way for the administration to save money by removing thousands from the recipient rolls without having to change eligibility criteria  the latter a move that would be more likely to cause public outrage or political opposition. However, on its face at least, the proposal involves enhanced enforcement of existing eligibility standards and criteria. That's an important distinction, and a significant omission from news articles that reported, with some justification, that the Trump administration had proposed changes to Social Security disability benefits that would cause thousands to be stripped of those benefits.  argued Lubrano, Alfred. "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients."
 The Philadelphia Inquirer/The Chicago Tribune. 12 December 2019. Johnson, Jake. "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands."
 Common Dreams. 16 December 2019. Social Security Administration. "Proposed Rule -- Rules Regarding the Frequency and Notice of Continuing Disability Reviews."
 Federal Register. 18 November 2019. On 24 February 2015, a Facebook user posted a photograph of what appeared to be sliced oranges with red veining or discoloration. According to the user, the citrus fruits depicted were imported from Libya, seized in Algeria, and had been injected with the blood of an HIV-positive person: The immigration services of Algeria recovered a large quantity of these oranges coming from Libya. These oranges were injected with positive tested Hiv & AIDS blood. Please share this msg & warn people of d dangers involved.   The image appended to the post had previously appeared on a Facebook page on 19 February 2015, but the tone of that version was far more skeptical. The earlier posting observed that rumors about the oranges varied, and that the source of the photograph was not known. Prior to that, a version of the rumor was posted to a message board on 19 December 2014 and similarly claimed the oranges were tainted with HIV-positive blood. appeared message board Regardless of the origin of the image, the underlying claim is not plausible. Even if oranges shipped from Libya (or elsewhere) to Algeria were injected with HIV, no threat would be posed by that sort of contamination. As we noted in discussion of earlier rumors about tainted fruit, HIV cannot be transmitted in the manner described: tainted fruit transmitted Except for rare cases in which children consumed food that was pre-chewed by an HIV-infected caregiver, HIV has not been spread through food. The virus does not live long outside the body. You cannot get it from consuming food handled by an HIV-infected person; even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Plausibility notwithstanding, rumors about unwitting folks engaged in otherwise low-risk activities contracting HIV have circulated for decades. Similar versions involved a booby-trapped gas pump, deliberately tainted ketchup dispensers, and adulterated pizza purposefully contaminated with infected bodily fluids. gas pump ketchup pizza   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "HIV Transmission." On Oct. 11, 2022, we received an email from a reader who said they spotted a questionable quote meme on WhatsApp. The quote was titled "My India in 1835" and was credited to "Lord Macaulay," whose full name was Thomas Babington Macaulay. We found no historical records to confirm that Macaulay ever said the exact words quoted in the meme. At the same time, the quote may have been somewhat of a paraphrase, as Macaulay did express his thoughts on how best to educate the Indian populace in other words.  WhatsApp Macaulay was an English politician, author, and historian who lived from 1800-1859. According to Britannica.com, he was perhaps best known for writing a five-volume work, "The History of England from the Accession of James the Second." Britannica.com The History of England from the Accession of James the Second The fake quote reads as follows (with the words "ancient education system" being bolded in the meme): My India in 1835Read Carefully "I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation." Lord Macaulay's Address to the British Parliament on 2nd Feb. 1835 In order to establish whether or not the quote was real, we first looked to Google Books. The Google Books website allows anyone to search the text of just about every book in the world for free. Google Books We searched for various portions of the exact quote, placing quotation marks around the words. However, the only results we found were in recent books that were written in the 21st century. A prominent quote from 1835 would not magically make its first appearance in literature nearly two centuries later. The quote was likely at least partially born on the internet and took on a life of its own, somehow finding its way from the web into recent books. After the Google Books search, we stumbled upon a helpful fact check by Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the AFP story, they reported on the same quote, except the word "India" had been replaced with "Africa." It's unclear which version of the quote came first, but it was likely the one naming India. Nevertheless, AFP concluded the attribution of the quote to Macaulay is incorrect. Agence France-Presse (AFP) replaced with "Africa." The AFP fact check pointed out that the man pictured in the quote meme bore a striking resemblance to "a portrait ofBritish army officer Sir Henry John William Benti[n]ck," not Macaulay. It also mentioned that Macaulay had expressed his views on the benefits of English-language education in India in an 1835 document, "Minute on Education": portrait Minute on Education Authorship of the speech has also been attributed to Lord William Benti[n]ck -- not to be confused with Sir Henry John William Benti[n]ck -- who was a contemporary of Macaulay's and served as Governor-General of British India. attributed to Lord William Benti[n]ck Macaulay's Minute on Education in 1835, which promoted the superiority of Western education, was supported by Lord William Benti[n]ck. In the document, Macaulay talks of creating a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. In "Minute on Education," Macaulay argued that teaching in the English language was necessary to improve education in India. In his opinion, the languages spoken at the time by the people of India were a roadblock to effectively funds allotted by Parliament to improve the country's education. "We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue," he said.  The following passage is from Macaulay's "Minute on Education," which included the "blood and color" quote that appeared in the AFP report: In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, -- a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. India gained independence from British rule in 1947. gained independence In sum, there's no record of Macaulay uttering the exact words cited in the quote meme in regard to "dominating" India in the 1835, though he did express thoughts in writing on the subject of Indian education at the time, including his conviction that the education of Indians should be conducted in English, not Indians' native languages. Fenton, Roger. Sir Henry John William Bentinck. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1855, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw157047/Sir-Henry-John-William-Bentinck. Google Books. https://books.google.com/. India Independence Day (1947). United States Census Bureau, 15 Aug. 2022, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/india-independence-day.html. Knowles, Michael David. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay | English Politician and Author. Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Babington-Macaulay-Baron-Macaulay. Macaulay, Thomas. The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Penguin Books Limited, 1848. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Minute on Education. Columbia University in the City of New York, 1835, https://www.columbia.edu/. Malawi Government. Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/malawigovernment/. Mitra, Anirban. The Infamous Macaulay Speech That Never Was. The Wire, 19 Feb. 2017, https://thewire.in/history/macaulays-speech-never-delivered. Saint-Cricq, Thomas, and Charlotte Mason. Lord Macaulay Never Gave This Speech to UK Parliament. Agence France-Presse (AFP), 25 Feb. 2020, https://factcheck.afp.com/lord-macaulay-never-gave-speech-uk-parliament. Claim:  Message details requirements of the GIVE (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism andEducation) act. false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2009] Obama and his Youth Brigade Is this the change you really voted for? President Obama has only been in office for two months. Now we have HR 1388. The Bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) with 37 others. The Bill was introduced to the floor of the House of Representatives where both Republicans and Democrats voted 321-105 in favor. Next it goes to the Senate for a vote and then on to President Obama. This bill's title is called "Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education" (GIVE). It forms what some are calling "Obama's Youth Brigade." Obama's plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade .. His goal is one million youth! This has serious Nazi Germany overtones to it. The Bill would forbid any student in the brigade to participate in "engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization." That means no church attendance or witnessing. Again, is this what America voted for? Here is part of the HR1388 Bill'swording: SEC. 1304 PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. Section 125 (42 U.S.C. 12575) is amended to read as follows: SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS. (a) Prohibited Activities - A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities: (1) Attempting to influence legislation. (2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes. (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.  This bill DOES exist. It has been passed in the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate. I have just looked it up. Below is the link with the bill if you wish to read it. I am not sure that it disallows one from attending church. But it certainly prohibits any sort of participation in teaching or leading. https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text https://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text Origins:  On 21 April 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (also known as the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, or GIVE), a piece of legislation that amended the National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) and the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (DVSA) (acts which originally funded, among other programs, the AmeriCorps and the National Senior Service Corps) to revise their programs and reauthorize appropriations for them: The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorizes a dramatic funding increase for AmeriCorps and other volunteer programs, and the creation of new programs for seniors and veterans. It establishes a goal of expanding from 75,000 government-supported volunteers to 250,000, and would increase education funding and establish a summer volunteer program for students, paying $500 (which would be applied to college costs) to high-school and middle-school student who participate. As Michael Hais and Morley Winograd noted in an editorial on the eve of the bill's signing, voting support for it in Congress was divided along party lines: GIVE represents a major redemption of candidate Obama's promise to offer his most loyal and largest constituency, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, a chance to serve their country at the community level and in return earn assistance with the cost of their college education. Not everyone is ready to join hands and sing the praises of the concept, however. While GIVE enjoyed bipartisan sponsorship in both the Senate and the House, that didn't prevent a majority of Republicans from voting against the bill on final passage. They complained that the bill was "too expensive" and would crowd out pure volunteer work with program participants receiving a modicum of financial support for their efforts from the federal government. In the House, 149 of 175 Republicans voted "no," joined by 19 of their colleagues in the Senate, including the party's two top leaders. Contrary to the claims made in the e-mail example reproduced above, GIVE does not "require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months."  The bill allows students to earn $500 credits towards college costs by participating in volunteer service programs; it contains no provisions  for mandatory service as a condition of receiving student loans, or for any other reason.  (The original version of the bill merely called for a feasibility study regarding "Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented," but even that language was dropped from the passed version of the bill.) GIVE also does not "prohibit any sort of participation in teaching or leading" of religious instruction or services by individuals who take part in national service programs. It states that AmeriCorps members may not engage in those activities while they are operating in that role  that Last updated:  29 April 2009 As memes of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders wearing hand-crafted mittens at Joe Biden's presidential inauguration plastered the Internet in early 2021, rumors surfaced alleging that the creator of the mittens had stopped selling recycled wool products because of high federal taxes. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders Snopes received numerous inquiries to investigate the validity of the claim, which attempted to expose hypocrisy of people who support the Vermont senator's goals of imposing new taxes to pay for various proposals, including free universal health care. imposing new taxes   Here's some background: Jen Ellis, a Vermont elementary school teacher, said she made the mittens out of discarded wool sweaters and gifted them to the senator after he lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. "I sent him these mittens kind of as a shoutout to who he is, and I put a note in that said something to the effect of, 'I hope you run again,'" she told Slate. Hillary Clinton Slate  (Photo by JONATHAN ERNST/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)  The viral image of Sanders wearing Ellis' gift and sitting with his arms and legs crossed made the teacher famous by the viral standards of 2021. She gave multiple interviews to news outlets including NPR and Slate in which she discussed her support for Sanders and reaction to the memes; social media users and other websites republished those comments, in part to harness the virality of the moment. teacher famous NPR Slate republished those comments Among the latter group was The Federalist, an online hub of articles with a conservative bent. Two days after the inauguration, the website published a page with the headline, "Woman Behind Bernie Sanders' Iconic Mittens Quit Making Them Because High Taxes Killed Her Business," reading: page The Vermont school teacher who made Bernie Sanders mittens, featured in the most recent viral meme, said she had to stop making them after the federal government taxed her too much. viral meme To support the claim, The Federalist cited a portion of Ellis' interview with Slate. According to a transcribed version of that conversation, which Slate published on Jan. 21, the elementary school teacher indeed told writer Rachelle Hampton: interview with Slate Hampton: Speaking of bittersweet, you supported Bernie. How did you feel about watching Biden be sworn in as president? Ellis: Oh my gosh, I cried. Im 42 and Ive waited four decades of my life  Im tearing up just thinking about it to see a woman be vice president. I wish that she was president, although I think Biden is pretty great. [...] And then there was this little side nagging thing of every five minutes I was getting several hundred more emails about the mittens. A year ago, when Bernie was on the campaign trail, he was wearing those mittens and Twitter buzzed about it then. Im not really on TwitterI have an account, but I dont really participate  but a lot of my younger colleagues do and they were like, 'Youve gotta check this out.' [...] So I put it out there that I made the mittens, they were a gift, and theyre not knitted, theyre sewn from repurposed and up-cycled sweaters. At that time, I had 30 or 40 mittens for sale and being a little nave about Twitter, I put my Gmail account on that, which someone picked up yesterday and retweeted it. People have been contacting me thinking that they can get mittens, and actually they cant. I dont have any more, and I dont have much of a mitten business anymore because it really wasnt worth it. Independent crafters get really taken for a ride by the federal government. We get taxed to the nth degree, and it wasnt really worth it pursuing that as a business, even as a side hustle. I mostly just make them as gifts. 30 or 40 mittens for sale In other words, Ellis said she did not "have much of a mitten business anymore," or that she previously sold the handmade items for a price and then mostly stopped. She implied that federal taxes were a leading factor in her decision to make that change. On Jan. 20, as social media lit up with the memes following the inauguration, she confirmed on Twitter that she was not selling mittens like the senator's. confirmed on Twitter   Snopes reached out to Ellis to learn more about her history of trying to sell mittens for profit and paying federal taxes as a self-described independent crafter. We have not yet received a response, but we'll update this report when or if we do. All of that said, the size of Ellis' former business was unknown, as well as how long or via what methods she sold the handmade mittens. U.S. tax code requires all independent contractors  no matter if they use online marketplaces such as Etsy to sell handmade products  to pay local and federal taxes based on net profits. U.S. tax code Etsy Also, we should note here: Sanders' proposed changes to the country's tax system would repeal aspects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act so that taxpayers who earn between about $9,500 and $250,000 would pay about 4% more, and taxes on the country's top earners would generate the majority of revenue. Additionally, he wants to impose a new payroll on businesses that earn more than $2 million annually, a change that intends to protect ventures like Ellis' from paying more. (See here for a detailed breakdown of Sanders' tax proposal by Forbes.) 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act here So while it was true that taxes played a role in Ellis' decision to stop charging people money for mittens prior to her viral fame, it was false to claim that she "quit" making them all together, like The Federalist headline alleged. Between Jan. 23 and 24, she said in a series of tweets that she made three more pairs of "Bernie mittens," two of which she donated to Passion 4 Paws Vermont and Outright Vermont for fundraising and one that she was auctioning off to benefit her daughters college fund. Passion 4 Paws Vermont Outright Vermont daughters college fund   After that, Sanders' official campaign began selling merchandise with the senator's meme-worthy image that Ellis made possible. The so-called "Chairman Sanders" sweatshirts, T-shirts, stickers, etc. helped raise $1.8 million for charitable organizations in Vermont over the course of five days, The Associated Press reported. The Associated Press reported On Jan. 24, Ellis tweeted that the senator called her to tell her that "the mitten frenzy" had raised "an enormous amount of money" for the charities. Besides that evidence, it was unclear how, or to what extent, the teacher was involved in the making or selling of the campaign-official products featuring her mittens. tweeted campaign-official products   As further proof to debunk claims that she had ceased all mitten-making, the teacher on Jan. 27 announced that she had partnered with entities including Darn Tough Socks to make socks inspired by the viral mittens, and the following day she said she was in the process of another project "to get Bernie Mittens for ALL." announced Darn Tough Socks she was "Im not opening a mitten factory or quitting my job as a second grade teacher! However, I am going to choose a new adventure on the side," Ellis said on her official website and GoFundMe page. "Never fear  I will make more mittens, but I won't be selling them for myself. I will be donating them to Vermont Charities to help them fundraise and make up for the funds lost due to the pandemic." official website GoFundMe page In sum, while it was true that, prior to her viral fame, Ellis mostly stopped charging people for handmade mittens due to costs including federal taxes, she was still creating the recycled wool products and people were spending money on them, as of this writing. For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truthful and misleading information. Weeks after the U.S. Capitol insurrection, reports surfaced claiming that a highly visible member of the right-wing mob  the self-described "QAnon digital soldier" who was photographed shirtless, wearing horns and furs on his head  was abandoning former President Donald Trump as a demagogue. reports QAnon digital soldier For example, a Jan. 29 Vice headline read: "The 'QAnon Shaman' just Flipped On Trump." headline read   The assertion had some truth to it. In an interview with The Associated Press, the lawyer representing the man  Jacob Chansley or "Jake Angeli" of Arizona  said his client's attitude toward the president had changed since the deadly siege, and he was willing to testify in Trump's historic second impeachment. That trial by the U.S. Senate was set to begin the week of Feb. 8 and would either convict or acquit the former president of inciting his supporters to break into the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to halt a ceremonial vote to affirm the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. halt a ceremonial vote The attorney, Albert Watkins, said he wants senators to hear the perspective of someone who was incited by Trump, according to the Jan. 30 story. The Associated Press continued: Jan. 30 story Watkins said his client was previously 'horrendously smitten' by Mr. Trump but now feels let down after Mr. Trump's refusal to grant Chansley and others who participated in the insurrection a pardon. 'He felt like he was betrayed by the president,' Watkins said. Here is a full list of the people Trump pardoned or commuted during his final hours in office. full list We reached out to Watkins to determine the legitimacy of the news story. In an email, we sent him a link to The Associated Press reporting, asked him if it was indeed accurate, and, if so, inquired why or under what circumstances his party decided to offer Angeli's testimony. He responded in an email message to Snopes: "My client is available if called upon to testify. No statement to the contrary has been made." In other words, it was true to claim that Angeli  who was arrested and charged on Jan. 9 for insurrection-related crimes including civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, and disorderly conduct  was willing to testify in Trump's Senate impeachment trial, which may determine whether Trump can run for political office in the future. Jan. 9 whether However, the nature of Angeli's testimony, should he be asked to speak during the trial, remained unknown as of this writing. "The words of Trump supporters who are accused of participating in the riot may end up being used against him in his impeachment trial," The Associated Press reported, though no evidence existed to determine whether Angeli would indeed share his experience to help senators convict the former president. In sum, while it was true that Angeli was willing to testify at Trump's second impeachment trial, it was not known whether he was preparing to make a statement that would help or hurt the efforts of senators who believe the former president is guilty of inciting the insurrection. For those reasons, we rate this claim a "mixture" of truthful, false, and undetermined information. On Jan. 9, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a tweet, written partially in all-capital letters, asking people how their "409K'S" are doing, and although he deleted the tweet and re-posted it without the "409K" reference, the errant tweet was captured by at least two archiving services.Trump then deleted that tweet and posted a new tweet, substituting in the correct reference, "401K." A 401(k) is a retirement-savings benefit offered to employees by some companies. Funds are generally automatically deducted from paychecks and deposited into an account that is tied to stocks. Therefore the performance of 401(k) accounts are linked to the highs and lows of the stock market. archiving services  new tweet  Many Americans, however, do not have access to this benefit, as it is dependent on their employer. Regardless of whether they have one, most Americans do not have enough money saved for retirement, according to economic data. do not most U.S. stocks have been experiencing a record bull market for roughly a decade, which Trump generally claims credit for, although it started under his predecessor, Barack Obama. record started Elkins, Kathleen."Only Half of Americans Have Access to a 401(k)  Heres How to Save for Retirement If You Dont."
CNBC.18 March 2019. Chang, Sue."Welcome To the Longest Bull Market in Wall Street History."
CNBC.22 August 2018. Chang, Sue. "The Dows Tumultuous History, in One Chart."
MarketWatch. 3 February 2018. Martin, Emmie."Heres How Many Americans Have Nothing Saved for Retirement."
CNBC.28 June 2019. Claim:  The drawback of a laborer's illiteracy frees him to become a success in another field. LEGEND Example:  [Brunvand, 1993] My grandfather used to tell  about a country lad who went to the big city to seek his fortune, but had no luck finding a job.  One day, wandering through the red light district, he spotted a Help Wanted sign in a window. They were looking for a bookkeeper, but after the madam quizzed the boy about his education and discovered that he could neither read or write, she turned him away. Feeling sorry for him, she gave him two big red apples as he left.  A few blocks down the street, he placed the apples on top of a garbage can while tying his shoe, and a stranger came along and offered to buy them. The boy took the money to a produce market and bought a dozen more apples,which he sold quickly.  Eventually he parlayed his fruit sales into a grocery store, then a string of supermarkets.  Eventually he became the wealthiest man in the state. Finally he was named Man of the Year, and during an interview a journalist discovered that his subject could neither read or write. "Good Lord, Sir," he said.  "What do you suppose you would have become if you had ever learned to read and write?" "Well," he answered, "I guess I would have been a bookkeeper in a whorehouse."1 Origins:  According to folklorist Jan Brunvand, after writer Somerset Maugham was accused of stealing the plot of his 1929 short story "The Verger," he explained that he'd heard the tale from a friend and that it was a well known bit of Jewish folklore.  Maugham's claim is supported by this find, harvested from a 1923 joke book: Some fifteen years ago there landed in New York a friendless and almost penniless Russian immigrant who found lodgings on the East Side and at once, with racial perseverance and energy, set out to earn a living. He was of a likeable disposition, and speedily made acquaintances who sought to aid him in his ambition.  One of them sponsored him for the vacant post of janitor, or shammos, to use the common Hebraic word, of a little synagogue on a side street.  But when the officers of the congregation found out the applicant was  entirely illiterate they reluctantly denied him employment, inasmuch as a shammos must keep certain records.  The greenhorn quickly rallied from his disappointment.  He got a job somewhere.  He prospered.  Presently he became a dabbler in real estate. Within ten years he was one of the largest independent operators in East Side tenement-house property and popularly rated as a millionaire.  An occasion arose when he needed a large amount of money to swing what promised to be a profitable deal.  Finding himself for the moment short of cash, he went to the East Side branch of one of the large banks. It was the first time in his entire business career that he had found it necessary to borrow extensively.  He explained his position to the manager, who knew of his success, and asked for a loan of fifty thousand dollars. "I'll be very glad to accommodate you, Mr. Rabin," said the banker.  "Just sit down there at that desk and make out a note for the amount." The caller smiled an embarrassed smile.  "If you please," he said, "you should be so good as to make out the note and then I should sign it." "What's the idea?" inquired the bank manager, puzzled. "Vell, you see," he confessed, "I haf to tell you somethings: Myself, I cannot read and write.  My vife, she has taught me how to make my own name on paper, but otherwise, with me, reading and writing is nix." In amazement, the banker stared at him. "Well, well, well!" he murmured admiringly.  "And yet, handicapped as you've been, inside of a few years you have become a rich man!  I wonder what you'd have been by now if only you had been able to read and write?" "A shammos," said Mr. Rabin modestly.2 Some like to question the legend's basis on the grounds that if the work-seeker couldn't read, he couldn't have made out what the sign in the window said. "Illiterate" is often mistakenly interpreted as "incapable of making head or tail out of so much as one written word." In real life, any number of folks who cannot read and thus have no hope of making sense of a printed page have learned to recognize by sight a goodly number of key words and phrases, including "help wanted." The illiterate among us manage to catch the right buses, "read" road signs, and order off menus, all by way of having memorized what certain words look like. They exist in mainstream society undetected for years, sometimes fooling even their immediate families. A good story never goes out of style, as this example shows: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test  (Floors, sweeping and cleaning). After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report forwork on your first day. Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardlyexpect to be employed. Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly. After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pickup truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the internet from the very start!" After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!" Moral of this story: 1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.  2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire. 3. Since you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire. 4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you probably have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft. The   legend's message is twofold: that sometimes seeming adversity is actually the Hand of God arranging future events in our favor, and that often the most momentous decisions we make swing on little more than the expediency of the moment. Taking the second point first, we observe that if the young farm boy in the first example had been able to read and write, he would have gained the job he sought, that of a bookkeeper in a brothel, and thus would never have become the grocery tycoon he ultimately turned out to be. As to what led him to seek the bookkeeping position, he quite by happenstance chose to walk down a particular street, coincidentally on a day when a "Help Wanted" sign was posted in one of the windows. On another day, that sign wouldn't have been there, or he would already have had a job somewhere else.  It is ever thus  the directions of lives change depending upon which ad is answered, which interview is given, even which bus is taken. A chance encounter can lead to a marriage and the begetting of children, and just as certainly the slightly different choice of ad or bus can result in those two people's never meeting. Career direction is likewise up for grabs. As much as we like to feel we're masters of our fate, often we're the very last factor to have much influence on unfolding events, even within the confines of our own lives. But there's another message to this legend, one of the power of divine intervention and why it doesn't pay to second-guess God.  Today's disappointment can be a necessary, though momentarily painful, ingredient in tomorrow's success, as the snubbed bookkeeper or janitor finds out. Children of the moment that we are, we tend to forget this truth when caught up in sorrow over not getting what we'd set our hearts on, and tend only to remember it again when things ultimately turn out far better than they would have if we'd gotten our shortsighted way.  Barbara "father of the chide" Mikkelson Sightings:  In Somerset Maugham's 1929 short story "The Verger," an illiterate church caretaker is fired by the vicar when his lack of education comes to light. The ousted verger goes on to become a tobacconist, eventually owning a string of shops in London. Last updated:  20 April 2011 The Baby Train   2.  Cobb, Irvin S.  A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.  New York: Garden City Publishing, 1923  (pp. 190-191).  Asimov Laughs Again   Botkin, B.A.  Sidewalks of America.  Indianapolis-New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1954  (pp. 430-431).   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 196). The Big Book of Urban Legends