Says on the state level, we spend less today than Jon Corzine spent in fiscal year 2008, five years later.
The only way to make New Jersey a more affordable place to live is to have government spend less money, according to Gov. Chris Christie.The Republican governor offered that solution when a man called into a Jan. 22 radio program and expressed concerns about the cost of living in New Jersey. The caller wanted to know the plan for keeping people like him in the state.Christie told the man that property taxes have increased minimally in the last two years, because government spending has been capped. On the state level, spending is now lower than it was under Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in fiscal year 2008, according to Christie.Now were making a difference. Because you know why? Were capping spending, Christie said on New Jersey 101.5s Ask the Governor program. Were saying youve got to spend less, and on the state level, we spend less today than Jon Corzine spent in fiscal year 2008, five years later.The governor, who is seeking re-election this year, repeated the state spending claim on Thursday during a campaign stop at Tops Diner in East Newark.Christie is right that state spending in the current fiscal year is lower than the spending level in fiscal year 2008, but the governors claim ignores the fact that spending has still increased with each new state budget since he took office.Lets break down the numbers:For fiscal year 2008, Corzine approved a spending plan of about $33.47 billion, according to state Department of the Treasury reports. Final state spending that year ended slightly higher, at $33.61 billion, according to department reports.In June 2012, Christie signed a budget for fiscal year 2013 that appropriates about $31.65 billion in state spending.So, the governors current budget marks a nearly $2 billion decrease in state spending as compared to fiscal year 2008.But just because state spending is lower than it was five years ago, doesnt mean it hasnt increased on Christies watch.In his first budget after taking office in January 2010, Christie approved a roughly $28.36 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2011. For the next budget year -- fiscal year 2012 -- the governor approved a roughly $29.69 billion budget.That means, in terms of the annual appropriations acts signed by Christie, state spending has increased by about $3.29 billion, or 11.6 percent, between fiscal years 2011 and 2013. In response to our findings about spending increases during Christie's tenure, Treasury spokesman Bill Quinn said the following in an e-mail: We think your original question has been conclusively answered in the Governors favor as unequivocally true. You are now posing an entirely different inquiry that is not based on what the Governor actually said on the air that led to your fact check.The increased spending since fiscal year 2011 is due in part to the governors policies boosting the states economy, leading to higher tax revenues, according to Quinn. He pointed out how two of the major areas of higher spending have been in education and pension contributions.Quinn added that the tough decisions needed to put the state budget on sound, responsible fiscal footing in fiscal years 10 and 11 allowed us to grow and make key investments in FY 12 and 13.Our rulingIn response to a caller during New Jersey 101.5s Ask the Governor program, Christie claimed that on the state level, we spend less today than Jon Corzine spent in fiscal year 2008, five years later.The governor is correct in that the fiscal year 2013 budget is nearly $2 billion less than the level of state spending under Corzine in fiscal year 2008. But Christies claim ignores the fact that state spending has still increased during his tenure.That means the governors statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. That meets our definition of Mostly True. To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com.
A story about two armed "illegal aliens" killed during an attempted home invasion by an 11-year-old shotgun-wielding girl was posted to LibertyPost.org on 25 April 2007:  Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest. Although the account was widely cited as a validation of "anti-illegal immigration" and/or pro-gun ownership positions, confirmation of the tale as a real-life incident was lacking. The only documentation for this item was numerous web sites all citing the same information, with no details of time or place (other than a reference to Montana). Searches of news databases (including Montana-based newspapers) failed to turn up any corresponding news stories containing any of the four names provided, and the name of one of the putative criminals ("Ralphel Resendez") just happened to echo an alias (Raphael Resendez-Ramirez) used by Angel Maturino Resendiz (also an undocumented immigrant), the infamous "Railroad Killer." Railroad Killer Although many versions of this item cited the home invasion incident as having taken place in Butte, Montana, that area's sheriff said no such thing had occurred in that city: When asked about the authenticity of the events described in this story, Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff John Walsh told The Montana Standard that his office never investigated such an incident. "This never happened," Walsh said. The story claims the girl shot and killed the two intruders while she was home alone. The story doesn't provide a street address or attribute the information to any official sources. Walsh brushed off the story as an urban myth. "It's amazing how these things get around," he said. The only news story (of recent vintage) we could turn up about a minor using a shotgun to kill two armed intruders attempting a home invasion robbery took place in December 2006 and involved a 17-year-old boy in Texas (rather than an 11-year-old girl in Montana): news story An overnight home invasion robbery attempt in northeast Harris County ended in a hail of gunfire that left two suspects dead. Investigators said a 17-year-old was home with his cousin when four armed men kicked in the door and started shooting. The teen pulled out a shotgun of his own and fired back at the suspects, killing two of them. Going back almost twenty years to 1988, we did find a news story about an 11-year-old shooting and killing two home intruders, but again the details didn't match the example cited above: Switzer, S.C.  An 11-year-old boy who had been left alone after school shot and killed two men as they tried to steal a videocassette recorder from his family's home, police said. William Todd Knight, the son of Billy and Ann Knight, "acted very wisely," said Spartanburg County Coroner Jim Burnett. "His life was in danger, he looked for an escape and could not find one ... he was a very brave young man." Spartanburg County Sheriff's Department Capt. John Blackwood said the boy was watching cartoons in his parents' bedroom Monday afternoon when he heard noises at the front door of the family's brick, ranch-style home. Todd told officers he was scared, so he went to his room for the .22-caliber rifle his father had given him for Christmas and loaded four rounds. He then went to the front door and saw a man he described as "rough" pounding on the door. The man finally left in a white Datsun. Todd said he resumed watching cartoons and about 10 minutes later heard banging, this time at a dining room window. He saw two men climbing through the dining room window. The boy said he went into the bathroom to climb out the window, but saw the white Datsun was parked in the back yard. Todd told police he went back to the hallway, peeked around the corner into the den and was spotted by one of the intruders as they were taking the VCR. Todd then fired three rounds at the men, who dropped the VCR and fled. When police arrived, one of the dead men was found face down next to a woodpile in the back yard, approximately 50 to 75 feet from the house, while the second man was in the driver's seat of the white two-door Datsun. In October 2012, a 12-year-old Oklahoma girl shot (but did not kill) an unarmed burglar who broke into the house while she was home alone: Kendra St. Clair, 12, was at home alone in Oklahoma, when loud banging began on the door to her family's home. Soon, the glass shattered and an intruder had entered. "I was scared and I didn't know what to do next," Kendra [said]. Petrified, she called her mom Debra. "I said Kendra get the gun and go get in my closet now. And call 911." The young 6th grader followed her mom's orders to the tee. Kendra had taken shelter in a closet, clutching her mother's .40 caliber glock gun while she listened to the intruder make his way around her home. Her fear intensified to sheer terror, when she saw the knob of the closet door beginning to turn. At that point, that for the first time in her life, Kendra fired a gun. Police said the bullet traveled straight through the closet door and struck 32-year-old Stacey Jones in the shoulder, scaring him out of the house. They arrested him a few blocks away and charged Jones with first degree burglary. In January 2015, an 11-year-old Michigan girl armed with a shotgun was reported to have scared away (but not fired upon) a home intruder: An 11-year-old girl was able to scare off a suspect  later taken into custody  during a home invasion in Lapeer County's North Branch Township. The girl was home alone when a vehicle pulled into the driveway. One person knocked on all the doors and forced their way inside the home when there was no response. The girl locked herself inside a bathroom and hid in a closet with a shotgun. The suspect eventually opened the bathroom door and closet where the child was hiding with the weapon. The girl aimed the shotgun at the suspect, who then fled from the home. Police said the girl was not harmed during the encounter. "The 12-gauge shotgun is her weapon," said Lapeer County Sheriff Detective Sgt. Jason Parks. "She and her father are into hunting and avid sportsmen. She was familiar with that weapon." Parks praised the girl's responsibility, poise and composure. "She is fully capable of staying there by herself as we can clearly see based on this situation," he said. "She was able to defend herself from an intruder and be able to resolve an event even most adults would be taken aback by." In August 2015, an 11-year-old St. Louis boy left home with his 4-year-old sister reportedly staved off several home invasion attempts before finally shooting and killing a 16-year-old intruder, although accounts differ as to what actually took place: accounts Authorities said an 11-year-old child and his 4-year-old sister were at their home when two men attempted to break in. The suspects attempted to get into the home twice, but failed. They made their way inside through the front door on the third attempt around 2:30 p.m. After the suspects entered the home, police said, the 11-year-old picked up a gun and fatally shot Lamonte Streeter. According to police, Streeter's body was found inside the home and evidence collected at the scene indicate that he was shot while inside. Some neighbors are providing a different version of events. One woman, who said she saw the shooting, [said] the 11-year-old and Streeter were arguing on the home's front porch when the shots were fired. "The little boy's (person shot) jumped up and went towards there and laid down and he lands in the doorway. He was always sitting on the porch, he never went inside the house," said a neighbor. The second alleged intruder, identified by police as a 22-year-old man, was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of burglary, police said. Acosta, Roberto. "11-Year-Old Uses Shotgun to Scare Off Suspect Home Invasion."
  The Flint Journal.  1 February 2015. Emeigh, John Grant. "Fake Story Still Circulating on Internet."
  The Montana Standard.  13 December 2007. Greenblatt, Mark. "Oklahoma Girl, 12, Shoots Intruder During Home Burglary."
  ABC News.  20 October 2012. Associated Press. "Boy, 11, Shoots, Kills 2 Intruders."
  The [Elyria, OH] Chronicle Telegram.  15 March 1988 (p. 6). KHOU-TV [Houston]. "Teen Shoots, Kills 2 Would-Be Robbers."
  28 December 2006. On 8 March 2018 President Donald Trump repeated an often-derided claim regarding the U.S. trade deficit during a press conference in the White House. The president said that the country currently has a global trade deficit of $800 billion  a statement he has reportedly made more than 50 times since 2015. The remark at the press confrence came one day after he repeated the claim on his Twitter account. However, as news outlets have pointed out, that figure leaves out the fact that the U.S. has a trade surplus. As a report released by the Commerce Department shows, the actual deficit is $566 billion: reportedly repeated outlets released   The report said: The 2017 increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit of $57.5 billion or 7.6 percent to $810.0 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $3.7 billion or 1.5 percent to $244.0 billion. A report published by the White House in February 2018 stated that the U.S. economy has become more dependent on trade involving "private service-producing industries" such as engineering, travel, and finance among others: published Travel (including that for educational purposes) has constituted the largest share of U.S. services exports. Services trade between countries has continued to grow  given declining travel costs, improvements in telecommunications, and growth in online services that allow, for example, computer coding to take place in remote locations. This allows the United States to export high-skilled services to other countries that do not share ourexpertise and training advantages. Focusing on trade of tangible goods alone, the report added, ignored the country's "comparative advantage" in service-related trade. Trump reiterated his misleading claim on the same day he officially imposed tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on steel and aluminum, respectively. Mexico and Canada  the country's partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement  are exempted from those tariffs, and other countries will be allowed to petition for separate exemptions. The president's plan to impose the tariffs led to the resignation of White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn on 6 March 2018. imposed resignation The Trump administration said that the tariffs will take effect on 23 March 2018. said Qiu, Linda. "President Trumps Exaggerated and Misleading Claims on Trade."
  New York Times. 6 March 2018. Associated Press. Fact Check: Is Trump Right About the Size of Trade Deficit?"
  Accessed via CBS News. 8 March 2018. Liptak, Kevin and Diamond, Jeremy. "US Allies are Upset. The Top Economist Quit. Trump Doesn't Care."
  CNN. 8 March 2018. Alemany, Jacqueline. "Trump Tariffs Exempt Canada and Mexico."
  CBS News. 8 March 2018. Horsely, Scott. "White House Economic Adviser Gary Cohn Quits."
  NPR. 6 March 2018. In early April 2021, Snopes readers asked about social media posts and memes that claimed that former U.S. President Donald Trump "tricked" them into making recurring campaign donations. For instance, one such meme said contributors to the campaign who though they were making a one-time donation "were unaware the fine print stated they would be billed the same amount every single week until election day." Donald Trump   In many cases, these claims are rather exaggerated, mean-spirited takes on a New York Times story, as we will explain below. As we previously reported, it's true that the Trump campaign was soliciting recurring donations with a pre-checked box, even after the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election. It's also true that many Trump supporters demanded refunds from the Trump campaign, although it seems mathematically impossible that the number of people who requested refunds was in the millions (as was claimed in social media posts). New York Times story previously reported The April 3 Times report details the experience of Trump donor Stacy Blatt, a retiree who was in hospice care, suffering from cancer, when he discovered his bank account depleted from those recurring donations. Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaughs dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trumps campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500. It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution  federal records show it was his first ever  quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge  until Mr. Blatts bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help. What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud. Contrary to the takes offered in partisan memes and posts, Blatt and others like him were not "low IQ," but instead, fell victim to the complicated and evolving wording in a pre-checked box on Trump's online donation portal, according to the Times. As a result, the Times reported, the Trump campaign and WinRed, a for-profit company that processed the online donations, were forced to issue $122 million in campaign contribution refunds to people like Blatt. pre-checked box As Election Day neared in November 2020, the Times report described what amounted to a sense of panic that cropped up inside the Trump campaign, as Democrats out-raised and spent them. During that time, the text on the online donation portal for Trump's donation website changed from simply asking donors to make donations a monthly gift, to including a pre-checked box with more complicated text that made donations weekly. asking donors As the election drew closer, text in that bright yellow box went from containing a pre-checked field that in March 2020 simply said, "Make this a monthly recurring donation," to more complicated and emphatic demands by late 2020 that contained fake ultimatums. As of Sept. 30, 2020, the box looked like this: looked like this   As the pre-checked box evolved, the result was an increase in refunds issued to donors who had missed the finer print in the box that allowed the refunds to be weekly recurring. The refunds issued by the Trump campaign outpaced and dwarfed the $21 million in refunds issued by his political rival, now-U.S. President Joe Biden. The effect can be seen in a graph posted by Shane Goldmacher, the Times report's author:  The evolution of the text in the box on Trump's online donation portal can be viewed by clicking on various dates via the Internet Archive. Internet Archive A search for Blatt's name can be found on OpenSecrets.org, a campaign finance transparency tool run by the nonpartisan organization Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. It confirms the Times reporting that Blatt, who listed himself as retired, was billed $500 multiple times by the Trump campaign between mid-September and October 11, 2020. Sadly, Blatt died of cancer in February 2021, according to the Times. found on OpenSecrets.org We sent emails to WinRed and the Trump campaign seeking comment, but didn't get an answer in time for publication. We will update if we do. But we note that in their public statements responding to the Times story that neither Trump nor WinRed refute the financial figures or facts laid out by the Times. Instead, the stance taken by both WinRed and Trump is that the Times' report was unfairly negative about their approach to fundraising. In a series of tweets, WinRed called the Times report a "hit piece" and said WinRed's practices were comparable to that of ActBlue, the fundraising portal that serves Democratic candidates. "So when Republicans do it to stay competitive, its nefarious, and when Dems - who created the technology - do it, its a 'platform for little experiments that gently squeeze even more money out of donors,'" WinRed tweeted. called tweeted In a statement responding to the report, Trump referenced his pre- and post-election disinformation campaign, namely false claims that the 2020 election was beset by a massive-scale voter fraud conspiracy. Like WinRed, Trump said his own fundraising efforts were based on those of ActBlue, and also like WinRed, he claimed that the percentage of donors who formally disputed the charges with their financial institutions was low: statement We learned from liberal ActBlue  and now were better than they are! In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also The Times story reported that WinRed "typically granted [refunds] to avoid more costly formal disputes." It also pointed out that while WinRed is a for-profit company, ActBlue is a non-profit organization. As such, WinRed "makes its money by taking 30 cents of every donation, plus 3.8 percent of the amount given. WinRed was paid more than $118 million from federal committees the last election cycle; even after paying credit card fees and expenses like payroll and rent, the profits are believed to be significant." We reached out to ActBlue for a response to WinRed and Trump's comments. A spokesperson told us by email that the average contribution amount across the platform in 2019-2020 was $38.08. The spokesperson also referred to this portion of the Times report that included a statement by ActBlue: was $38.08 ActBlue said in a statement that it had begun to phase out prechecked recurring boxes unless groups were explicitly asking for recurring contributions. Some prominent Democratic groups, including both congressional campaign committees, continue to precheck recurring boxes regardless of that guidance. Still, Democratic refund rates were only a small fraction of the Trump campaigns last year. On April 7, 2021, Timothy Miller, a writer for the political news site The Bulwark, tweeted that he received a fundraising text from the National Republican Congressional Committee with a similar, pre-checked fundraising box:  Despite aggressive efforts to pursue claims of widespread voter fraud, no evidence was ever presented by the Trump camp that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 election. Biden won by 7 million votes and 74 electoral college points. widespread voter fraud won An image circulated online criticizes Arizona's drug testing program for social assistance for supposedly spending a whopping $3.6 million to test 87,000 welfare recipients but catching only a single violator:   The drug test program, administered by the state Department of Economic Services (DES), allows officials to drug test those who receive cash benefits as part or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program if they have "reasonable cause" to do so. A January 2017 article by Counter Current News reported that only one person out of 87,000 had been disqualified from the TANF program for failing a drug test under that program, at a cost of $3.6 million to the state. article That claims was based on two sources: a March 2012 USA Today editorial stating that 87,000 people "went through the program" between 2009 and 2012 with only one testing positive, and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report that estimated the cost for each drug test at $42.  editorial report However, the underlying source material didn't state that 87,000 people had actually been subjected to drug tests in Arizona  that figure reflected the total number of people in the state who were receiving TANF benefits at the time (whether or not they had been tested or presented reasonable cause for testing).  And ACLU spokesperson Alexandra Ringe told us the organization planned to take down their report that provided the $42 drug test cost figure because the report was outdated. A DES spokesperson, Misty Kaufman, also told us on 23 March 2017 that under the state program, officials ask TANF recipients to submit to drug testing if DES is notified by "a law enforcement agency, a court, or other governmental entity" that they could be using drugs. A test may also be requested if recipients indicate in statements that they have used illegal drugs within the previous 30 days. Failing the test does not invoke a monetary fine, but it does disqualify otherwise eligible recipients from claiming cash benefits for a year. Since the program went into effect in November 2009, Kaufman said, 49 people had been flagged for drug testing as of 30 June 2016. Twenty-three of those people actually took the tests, which DES said cost a total of $585, or $25.43 per test. Of those 23 people, two had tested positive for drugs through September 2012, and another four since then. However, only three of the six people who failed the test lost their TANF benefits, as the other three positive results were attributed to prescription medications. According to Kaufman, the three valid disqualifications led to recipients' losing a combined $1,816 in benefit monies. Another 26 TANF benefit recipients have declined to take the drug test since the program went into effect, with 20 of them losing benefits in the aggregate sum of $4,155. The benefit period for the other six people had expired before they could incur the cutoff penalty. The National Conference of State Legislatures said in March 2017 that Arizona was one of at least 15 states that passed laws requiring drug tests or drug screenings for people participating in benefit programs. Florida's law, which required that every welfare applicant receive drug testing, was struck down by a federal judge in December 2013, who ruled that it amounted to an illegal search. By that point, 108 of 4,086 people had tested positive for drugs under that state's program. The New York Times noted at the time that the Florida program "cost more money to carry out than it saved." said struck down New York Times On 15 February 2017, the House passed House Joint Resolution 42, which rolled back a 2016 Labor Department rule limiting state-administered drug tests on unemployment insurance applicants to people seeking jobs in fields that already require drug screenings. That measure passed the U.S. Senate on 14 March 2017 and was presented to President Donald Trump on 21 March 2017. passed passed USA Today.  "Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Nets Little." 
  18 March 2012. American Civil Liberties Union.  "Drug Testing of Public Assistance Recipients as a Condition of Eligibility." 
  Accessed 3 April 2017.
 Robles, Francis.  "Florida Law on Drug Tests for Welfare Is Struck Down." 
  The New York Times.  31 December 2013. National Conference of State Legislatures.  "Drug Testing for Welfare Recipients and Public Assistance." 
  14 March 2017. Wang, Amy B.  "Welfare Recipients Face Drug Tests."
  The Arizona Republic.  25 November 2009. Claim:  List demonstrates the concept of "a billion." Status:  Multiple  see below. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2003] A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.  A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it. Origins:  We   don't know the specific origins of this piece illustrating the enormousness represented by the number one billion, but it's reasonably accurate as far as the arithmetic goes.  We collected the example quoted above and first published this article back in 2003, and rather than updating this page annually, we've chosen to keep our comments relative to that year. We have to start out by noting that the definition of "billion" is not standardized.  In some places and usages, a billion is a one followed by nine zeros, or one thousand million; in other cases, a billion is a one followed by twelve zeros, or one million million.  In the U.S., the common usage of "billion" refers to a one followed by nine zeros (or 1,000,000,000), so that's the standard we employ here. billion  A billion seconds: One billion seconds is about 31.7 years, so going back in time a billion seconds would put us in 1972.  (The discrepancy in the version cited above, which puts the year at 1959, might have come about because the example we collected was compiled or last updated in 1990.)  A billion minutes:  One billion minutes is approximately 1901 years, so travelling back to a time one billion minutes ago would land us in the year A.D. 102.  This date is about seventy years too late to encompass the life of Jesus according to traditional accounts. (The discrepancy of several decades might be the result of someone's faulty arithmetic or historical knowledge, or it could be an indication that this piece originated back in the 1930s.)  A billion hours:  One billion hours ago represents a time a bit over 114,000 years in the past, an era generally classified as the Lower Paleolithic era, or the "Old Stone Age."  A billion days ago: Some versions of this piece include the line "A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet."  A billion days is approximately 2.74 million years; the era defined by that time period is generally estimated to be about when the first species of the genus Homo appeared in Africa, having diverged from the Australopithecines. Homo  A billion dollars ago:  If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion.  In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, someone politicized the "billions" piece by adding the following coda to it: Some interesting statistics While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans  It'samazing what you can learn with some simple division ... Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean? Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every  man,  woman, child), you each get $516,528. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787 Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012. Are all your calculators broken in Washington, D.C.? Maybe all of us should just flood their houses, then we can all be on the "big easy" street for the rest of our lives, and forget about working, and paying taxes and all that useless stuff! In September 2005, the two U.S. Senators from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu (a Democrat) and David Vitter (a Republican), jointly introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act in Congress, a bill that sought a total of $250 billion in federal funds to provide long-term relief and assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.  Of course, the legislation didn't propose that the entire amount be spent on New Orleans alone, or that the money literally be distributed to New Orleans  residents  the point of the coda was to provide some perspective on how much $250 billion is by presenting it relative to the number of people in the area hardest hit by the hurricane. Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act In any case, the arithmetic is a little bit off.  Assuming the population and home figures provided to be correct, dividing $250 billion equally among all New Orleans residents would mean:   Each person would receive $515,810.   The money/home ratio would be $1,328,014.   A family of four would take in an aggregate total of $2,063,240. Last updated:  22 April 2008    Sources:   Grunwald, Michael and Susan B. Glasser.  "Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions."   The Washington Post.  26 September 2005  (p. A1). Claim:  A package containing a dead cat is stolen by a thief who thinks she's making off with something of value. LEGEND Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 1997] Two elderly women went shopping. As they came out of the mall they spied a dead cat in the parking lot. Being cat lovers, they couldn't bear the thought of leaving the poor dead kitty there. They decided to take it home and give it a decent burial. They went back into the store and got some Dillard's shopping bags. They wrapped the dead kitty in one sack and then put it in another Dillard's sack, hoping to contain the odor. It was lunch time so their next stop was a local restaurant. As it was a warm day, they were reluctant to leave the dead kitty closed up in the car. So they placed the Dillard's sack beside the car and went in to eat. As it happened, their car was visible through the window where they were sitting in the restaurant. They watched a lady walk by their car, stop, go back and pick up their Dillard's sack, and walk into the restaurant. This lady is then seated next to our two elderly cat lovers. The lady orders her lunch and curiosity getting the better of her, she opens the Dillard's sack. She peeks inside, screams, and in trying to get out of her chair, falls and hits her head. An ambulance is called to take the poor woman away. As they are taking her away one of our elderly cat lovers places the Dillard's sack on the gurney saying, "I think this belongs to her..."   Origins:  Recent  versions of this story often place it at the West Edmonton Mall in Canada or the Mall of America in the United States. In those incarnations the action supposedly takes place in the parking lot, where a Good Samaritan places the deceased beastie in a shopping bag, then retreats to her own car to watch so she'll be on hand to give an explanation when the cat's owner returns. Another woman comes along, filches the bag, and gets it back to her own car, where she opens it and is seen fainting dead away once she catches sight of her ill-gotten gains. (In some tellings, an ambulance is called and the still-unconscious woman is placed on a stretcher with what the emergency workers believe to be the poor dear's bag thoughtfully placed on her chest.) Now I'm going to ruin your day by telling you it never happened. Not only that, dead-cats-in-package stories are as old as the hills (one even turned up in a 1904 New York Times article.) Another standard version has an old woman taking her dear, departed Fluffy across town on a bus so she can bury her in a lovely park. Either thieves brazenly steal her package or her parcel somehow gets innocently switched with someone else's, and she arrives at her destination not with Fluffy but instead with a nice ham all wrapped up. (It's told both ways.)   In a closely-related version, the woman takes the subway with her soon-to-be-buried cat, but this time the beastie is in a suitcase. While the woman is struggling up the steep stairs, a nice young boy offers to carry the suitcase up for her. She gratefully hands over the bag, and he hares off with dead Fluffy. (In this version you're left to imagine the lad's reaction when he pries it open.) The following tale of one man's efforts to track down this story comes out of David Jacobson's 1948 book, The Affairs of Dame Rumor: Through the association of ideas, a given concept turns into a dramatic event, such as the perennial wonder of the Dead-Cat-Come-to-Justice. A New York City newspaperman once decided to track down this tale. He had first heard it from a friend. Claiming to believe the story himself, the friend told the newspaperman about a woman who had placed her pet cat in a veterinary hospital where it later died. As she wished to give the animal a decent burial, the woman called for her pet's remains; and neatly wrapped in a box she received the dead cat. Along the way home, the woman stopped to do some shopping at Stern's department store on 42nd Street. While selecting her purchases, the  woman placed the box on a near-by counter. But suddenly she looked around for it, and the box was gone. Stern's detectives began searching the store for the packaged body of the cat. Within a short time they found it. The opened box, the deceased animal leering out of it, was on the floor of a telephone booth. Alongside there lay the body of a woman, immediately identified as a well-known shoplifter who had been under the scrutiny of this and other stores for several months. The shoplifter had apparently taken her loot to the telephone booth, opened it, caught a glimpse of the dead cat, and dropped to the floor dead of a heart attack resulting from fright. His friend, the newspaperman learned, got the rumor about this macabre justice from two actors who lived in the neighboring apartment. The two knew the full truth of the story, according to the friend. Yet, interviewing the actors, the journalist found they had received the tale from a Christian Science practitioner, a man whose word they did not doubt as he had told them the rumor as gospel. The Christian Science practitioner willingly repeated this gospel before the newspaperman, adding that he had heard it from a woman. She was the friend of the dead cat's owner. She would give him the names of all the people involved. And, to be sure, this woman was full of the dead-cat wonder, according to thejournalist . . . Not that she actually knew the name of the animal's owner. But she had heard the rumor from her son-in-law, who knew all about it. "He turned out to know everything about it," the newspaperman reported. "He had heard the story firsthand from a passenger on a commuters' train whose aunt knew the lady who owned the dead cat." Still curious about the rumor, the newspaperman went to Stern's department store. There a somewhat firm, if not angered, chief detective swiftly assured him that nothing of the sort had happened. Neither had the local police station any record of either a dead shoplifter or a dead cat having been reported. While the newspaperman was playing ring-around-a-rosy with the Dead-Cat-Come-to-Justice rumor, it was having a gay time of its own. It was flying from table to table, from office to office on its cross-country journey. Readjusted to fit the local situation in Chicago, the rumor was an eye-opener, months later, when it became current talk. In California, the following year, people gasped in amazement as they heard about the fate of the shoplifter in the local department store. And at least one national magazine published the rumor as one of its truth-is-stranger-than-fiction features for the edification of the wonder-lovers among its loyal subscribers. Barbara "this cattail has nine lies" Mikkelson Sightings:  The 1981 Yevgeny Yevtushenko novel Wild Berries relates a "switched packages on a commuter train" version. Last updated:  19 July 2011 The Baby Train   Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Choking Doberman.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1984.  ISBN 0-393-30321-7  (pp. 216-219). The Choking Doberman   Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Mexican Pet.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1986.   ISBN 0-393-30542-2   (pp. 31-34). The Mexican Pet   Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good To Be .  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.   ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 63-65, 74-76). Too Good To Be    Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Vanishing Hitchhiker.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.  ISBN 0-393-95169-3  (pp. 103-112). The Vanishing Hitchhiker    de Vos, Gail.  Tales, Rumors and Gossip.  Englewood: Libraries Unlimited, 1996.  ISBN 1-56308-190-3  (pp. 158, 164-169). Tales, Rumors and Gossip   Dorson, Richard.  American Folklore.  Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959  (pp. 253-254). American Folklore    Harrison, Paul.  "In New York."   The Fitchburg [Massachusetts] Sentinel.  23 October 1933  (p. 6).    Jacobson, David J.  The Affairs of Dame Rumor.   New York: Rinehart & Company, 1948  (pp. 44-46).  The Affairs of Dame Rumor   Scott, Bill.  Pelicans & Chihuahuas and Other Urban Legends.  St. Lucia, Queensland: Univ. of Queensland, 1996.  ISBN 0-7022-2774-9  (p. 64). Pelicans & Chihuahuas and Other Urban Legends   Smith, Paul.  The Book of Nastier Legends.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.  ISBN 0-7102-0573-2  (p. 88).   The Book of Nastier Legends Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths    Holt, David and Bill Mooney.  Spiders in the Hairdo.  Little Rock: August House, 1999.  ISBN 0-87483-525-9  (pp. 92-93). Spiders in the Hairdo   Schwartz, Alvin.  More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  New York: HarperCollins, 1984.  ISBN 0-397-32081-7  (pp. 52-53).   More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (pp. 42-43). The Big Book of Urban Legends In October and November 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of social media posts that claimed that the Build Back Better Act, a major budget and infrastructure bill, contained a "methane tax" of around $2,600 per head of cattle, and around $500 per swine, per year.  For example, one widely-shared Facebook post claimed: widely-shared Facebook post "Were you aware the $3.5 Trillion Human Infrastructure package includes an animal agriculture tax of $2,600!! per head of cattle? $500 for swine!!!..." The post contained a photograph of a column written by U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma. In the column, which was also posted to his website on Sep. 22, Mullin claimed that: posted to his website on Sep. 22 In an attempt to eliminate fossil fuels, this legislation [the Build Back Better Act] would impose a fee on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry. We all know that a fee is just a tax and that consumers are the ones who will pay for it. The tax is estimated to cost $6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine each year. That is more than what the animals are worth, itll run ranchers out of business.    Mullin's description of the provisions of the bill was inaccurate, as were the numerous social media posts based on it. At the time those claims were made, and as of Nov. 2, 2021, the Build Back Better Act did not contain a tax or fee on methane that would equate to thousands of dollars per head of cattle, or hundreds of dollars per head of swine. As a result, we are issuing a rating of  H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, is a 2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill, and has been the subject of intensive negotiations during the fall of 2021. Section 30114 of the legislation provides for a "methane fee," but it applies only to "petroleum and natural gas systems," and not the agriculture sector. Therefore, Mullin's claim  that "this legislation would impose a 'fee' on all methane emissions, including in our agriculture industry"  is false.  2,468-page budget and infrastructure bill A spokesperson for Mullin told Politifact that the congressman was referring to an amendment to the bill, proposed by Republicans in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would have explicitly stipulated that the methane fee does not apply to agriculture. Democrats voted down that proposal, on the basis that the text of the legislation already explicitly stipulated that the fee related only to oil and gas production.  told Politifact amendment While expressing concern about hypothetical future actions on the part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the spokesperson effectively acknowledged that the Build Back Better Act does not currently do what Mullin claimed it did: "While the language specifies the oil and gas industry, it also references EPAs greenhouse gas inventory and leaves too much room for the EPA to expand its regulatory reach." The same spokesperson also told Politifact that the key figures from Mullin's op-ed  "$6,500 per dairy cow, $2,600 per head of cattle, and $500 per swine"  came from an analysis prepared by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). However, the AFBF later issued its own news release, clarifying that the analysis was conducted in order to address an entirely hypothetical question, namely what the effect of a methane tax would be if it were applied to the agriculture industry  a proposal that no participants in Congressional negotiations have so far made.  In that Sept. 30 news release, AFBF Vice President Sam Kieffer said: Sept. 30 news release Over the summer, American Farm Bureau economists conducted an analysis, at the request of Congressional committee staff, to determine the potential impact if agriculture were to be included in legislation imposing such a tax. We did so based on the formula set forth in legislative proposals that impose a methane tax on the oil and gas sectors.  ...While we oppose any tax on methane, Farm Bureau is grateful to lawmakers for recognizing the thin margins in agriculture and that such a tax would undoubtedly put family farms out of business. We are especially grateful to the Senate for passing an amendment that specifically exempts agriculture. That Senate amendment was one proposed by U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and passed by a vote of 66-33 on Aug. 10. It prohibited "the imposition of new Federal methane requirements on livestock." passed by a vote of 66-33 on Aug. 10 On 10 December 2015, the web site YourNewsWire.com published a video purportedly showing film acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick, who helmed such groundbreaking films as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, confessing to having helped NASA fake the Apollo program moon landings: published A stunning new video has emerged 15 years after Stanley Kubrick's death in which Kubrick admits that the NASA moon landings were faked. Filmmaker T. Patrick Murray interviewed Kubrick three days before his death in March 1999. He was forced to sign an 88-page NDA to keep the contents of the interview a secret for 15 years. Below is a transcript from the interview with Stanley Kubrick, in which the 2001 Space Odyssey Director admits on camera that, "the moon landings ALL were faked, and that I was the person who filmed it." In the interview, the alleged Stanley Kubrick figures confesses that: Kubrick: I perpetrated a huge fraud on the American public, which I am now about to detail, involving the United States government and NASA, that the moon landings were faked, that the moon landings ALL were faked , and that I was the person who filmed it. Murray: Ok. (laughs) What are you talking ... You're serious. Ok. Kubrick: I'm serious. Dead serious. Yes, it was fake. Murray: Why are you telling the world? Why does the world need to know that the moon landings aren't real and you faked them? Kubrick: I consider them to be my masterpiece. Murray: And you can' t take credit, or even talk about ... Kubrick: Well, I am now ... Murray: So, you can't talk to Roger Ebert about it. Does that frustrate you? Why did they have to fake it? Why would they have to do that? Kubrick: Because it is impossible to get there ... 2001 was very ambitious, but that's not to say that faking the moon landing was not ambitious. But I learned things from making 2001, and that's why I got this gig in the first place. Murray: That makes sense Kubrick: Well, it was easy for me, because I didn't think a whole lot about the morality of it. But I didn't. And I could see that Neil [Armstrong] was, he was bothered by it. This video has been circulating online since at least August 2015 and is one of several clips purportedly showing Kubrick talking about his alleged involvement in faking the U.S. moon landings. While there are various edits of this infamous (and fake) interview circulating on YouTube, the videos all originated with a new film from T. Patrick Murray titled Shooting Kubrick. film Murray claimed on the Shooting Kubrick web site that he was granted unprecedented access to interview the director in May 1999, which would have been quite an impressive feat since Kubrick had passed away two months earlier:Although the date could be a simple typographical error, that was not the only questionable aspect of the interview. The man being interviewed simply doesn't look or sound like Stanley Kubrick when compared to a video of the real Kubrick accepting the D.W. Griffith Award in 1997:  Furthermore, unedited versions of the interview contain hints that the "Stanley Kubrick" in the video is an actor. In a since-deleted clip, the interviewer called his subject "Tom" and instructed him on how to tell the next part of his story: "You don't say he said anything. You say what he says. Tom, I'm giving you directions. You don't have to imitate him (Richard Nixon). You're not reporting it. You're repeating it ... We're doing exposition here. That's how we're going to sneak it in." A spokesman for Kubrick's widow also proclaimed that "[t]he interview is a lie, Stanley Kubrick has never been interviewed by T.Patrick Murray the whole story is made up, fraudulent and untrue." T. Patrick Murray has not admitted that his interview with Stanley Kubrick is a hoax, but he certainly is banking the mystery's driving interest in his project: If you havent heard U.S. Rep.Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, say she is fighting for the middle class in her bid for the U.S. Senate, you havent been listening.But you can be forgiven. The gubernatorial recall all but filled Wisconsins political bandwidth until the election was held June 5, 2012.Now, more attention will turn to Baldwin and the four Republicans seeking to succeed Democrat Herb Kohl in the November 2012 Senate election.Baldwin sounded the middle class theme in attacking the best known GOP candidate, former governorTommy Thompson, in amemoreleasedto the media May 30, 2012.She declared:Thompsons tax plan amounts to an average tax cut of almost $87,000 for the top 1 percent.The 1 percent are people with incomes over $343,000, according to the memo.Sounds like a good deal for them. But is Baldwin on target?Baldwins evidenceBaldwin campaign spokesman John Kraus said Baldwin's is based on a flat tax provision in a tax reformplanthat Thompsonreleasedin April 2012.Two paragraphs in the four-page document are devoted to the flat tax.For two years, individual taxpayers could opt to file a tax return with a 15 percent rate, or file a return using existing exemptions. After two years, Thompson would move to an across-the board flat tax with provisions to encourage savings, investment, home ownership and support for charities, the plan says.Heres the Baldwin math:In 2009,accordingto the latest figures available from the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of federal income tax returns amounts to nearly 1.38 million people. They all earned more than $343,927.That group generated just over $1.32 trillion in adjusted gross income, which resulted in a total of just over $318 billion in income taxes paid.Had a 15 percent flat rate been in effect, the 1 percent would have paid $198.7 billion in taxes or $119.3 billion less, under Thompsons plan.That means those taxpayers would have paid an average of $86,502 less in income taxes.Thompson campaign spokesman Brian Nemoir noted that tax rates ranged from 10 percent to 35 percent in 2009 (as they do now). He said Thompsons plan better balances the nearly half of all Americans that dont pay income taxes against the nations top 1 percent of earners, who pay 37 percent of the income taxes collected.As for Baldwins figures, he said her analysis seems sufficient.While Thompson's proposal lacks enough detail for analysis, the Tax Policy Centerevaluatedthe more detailed 15 percent flat tax plan advanced by Newt Gingrich during his 2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination. The center concluded that no one, regardless of income, would see a tax increase under Gingrich's plan. Under onescenario, which divided all taxpayers into five groups based on income, all five groups would get a tax cut under Gingrich's plan.So, its likely Thompsons plan would benefit many more groups than the 1 percent cited by Baldwin, who is using that approach to bolster her underlying point.As for the specifics of Baldwin's claim, we ran her numbers by three tax experts: Tax Policy Center senior fellowRoberton Williamsand Tax Foundation economistMark Robyn, both in Washington, D.C.; and Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance presidentTodd Berryin Madison.All three said Baldwin is generally on target, but that Thompsons plan is too short on details to know for sure whether Baldwins $87,000 figure is on the money.Williams said Baldwins numbers, on their face, are accurate.Its a back-of-the-envelope calculation, thats what it is, said Robyn.Robyn and Berry agreed the 1 percent would almost certainly get a tax break under Thompsons plan, but they couldnt say whether Baldwins figure is accurate because Thompsons plan doesnt specify what deductions and exemptions might remain under his flat tax and who would qualify for them.Her calculations are probably overstated a little, but we dont know how much, said Berry.Our ratingBaldwin said Thompson's tax plan amounts to an average tax cut of almost $87,000 for the top 1 percent and Thompson didnt refute the figure.Tax experts said Baldwins figure is in the ballpark, at least as an estimate, but that Thompsons flat tax proposal lacks too much detail to know for sure.Baldwins claim is accurate but needs additional information -- our definition of Mostly True. In the early months of 2024, as U.S. President Joe Biden ramped up his campaign for reelection in November, a controversial, years-old quote attributed to him was resurrected on social media. Biden, whose public verbal blunders are so legendary he has described himself as a "gaffe machine," allegedly told a racially mixed audience at a Danville, Virginia, campaign rally in 2012 that the Republican Party was going to "put y'all back in chains." gaffe machine That notorious statement, which surfaced in late April and early May 2019 (shortly after Biden announced his 2020 candidacy), was cited anew on platforms from X to TikTok as an instance of his "playing the race card" to disparage Republicans: X TikTok  (@PatriotsStevie / X)   Although it's unclear, based on contemporaneous press coverage of the event, whether the audience was most accurately described as "predominantly" or "largely" Black (more about which later), Biden did in fact utter the words attributed to him at an Aug. 14, 2012, rally attended by a racially mixed crowd that included hundreds of Black attendees. The following report is from the New York Times blog "The Caucus," posted the same day as the event: The Caucus Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. created a stir at a campaign speech in Virginia when he told the crowd that Mitt Romney's policies would enable the banking and financial sectors to "put you all back in chains." The remark came roughly two-thirds of the way through Mr. Biden's 30-minute speech, which was delivered to a crowd that included many African-Americans at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, Va. "Romney wants to let the  he said in the first hundred days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street," Mr. Biden said. "They're going to put you all back in chains." The moment was captured for posterity in a C-SPAN video. C-SPAN video We would probably not be talking about this today had Biden's remark not been widely interpreted as a direct reference to slavery. As such, it drew instant condemnation, beginning with the Romney campaign, which released a statement saying: "After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama campaign has reached a new low. The comments made by the vice president of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama campaign will say and do anything to win this election." Romney himself echoed that statement in a speech he gave later the same day in which he held President Barack Obama responsible. "His campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency," Romney said at a rally in Chillicothe, Ohio. "Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower." Though he didn't specifically mention race, Romney accused Obama of pursuing a strategy of divisiveness: "Over the last four years, this President has pushed Republicans and Democrats as far apart as they can go. And now he and his allies are pushing us all even further apart by dividing us into groups. He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces." Media pundits and campaign surrogates were more explicit in their criticism of Biden. In an opinion piece for Breitbart, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said the vice president's statement was "race-baiting at its finest." Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, declared on "Face the Nation" that it was "an absolutely blatant appeal to racism." Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, also a Republican, accused Biden of "play[ing] the race card." Some Democrats agreed with the criticism. "First of all, without question they were appeals to race," said former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder. "The important thing I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact, what he said is they are going to do something to y'all, not to me. Not us. So he was still involved with that separate American." said CBS News reported that then-U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., called Biden's comment "stupid" during a radio interview: reported "Was he talking about slavery? You bet your a** he was. Was he using the vernacular? Yes, he was," said Rangel, a longtime New York Democrat who is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. "Did he think it was cute ... Yes, he did. Was it something stupid to say? You bet your life it was stupid." Rangel added that if an African-American had made the joke, "We would have been laughing, because we would know that deep down, they may be beating the hell out of us but they ain't thinking about putting us into any chains." Ebony magazine contributor Jamil Smith agreed with Rangel's perception that Biden was "using the vernacular," or "code-switching," as Smith called it, "to acclimate to a particular environment or audience." Phonetically rendered, this is what Biden actually said: "They gonna put y'all back in chains." But the vice president stood by the remark in an Aug. 14 campaign stop in Raleigh, North Carolina, insisting that the message he was trying to convey wasn't about race, but rather the negative impact the opposition party's vow to "unshackle Wall Street" would have on middle-class Americans: The last time these guys unshackled the economy, to use their term, they put the middle class in shackles. That's how we got where we are. Nine million jobs lost, wage stagnation, 16 trillion dollars in wealth you all lost, in your home equity, in your 401ks, and your pension plans  you're the ones that got nailed. All of America except for the very few. And I'm told when I made that comment earlier today in Danville, Virginia, the Romney Campaign put out a Tweet, you know Tweets, and went on the air, went on the airwaves saying "Biden's outrageous in saying that  I think I said, instead of unshackled, unchained or  anyway, outrageous to say that, that's what we meant. I'm using their own words. I got a message for them, if you want to know want to know what's outrageous, it's their policies, and the effects of their policies on middle class America, that's what's outrageous. Biden had, in fact, used precisely the same trope before to characterize the impact of Republican economic policies on the middle class. The day after a Republican primary debate in October 2011, Biden said, referring to economic conditions under the George W. Bush administration: "The last time we liberated the economy under their proposals, the last eight years put the middle class in chains. My lord, how many times we have to go back to that horror movie?" said Obama took Biden's side, defending the Danville speech in an interview with People magazine: interview Biden's comment sparked Romney to call the Obama campaign one of "division and hate and anger." But Obama, speaking to PEOPLE in Dubuque, Iowa, seemed unrattled by the controversy. He said Biden's words needed to be considered in context; that he was only saying "you, consumers, the American people, will be a lot worse off if we repeal these [Wall Street reform] laws as the other side is suggesting." "In no sense was he trying to connote something other than that," Obama added. The racial composition of the audience is relevant to this debate, though not decisive, partly because estimates in the press were rough and contradictory. Although it was consistently reported that approximately 900 people were in attendance, and we know, from both press reports and video of the event, that a significant percentage of the attendees were Black, the media couldn't agree on whether more Black people were present than white people, fewer Black people than white people, or roughly the same number of each. The majority of mainstream news outlets reported that the audience was "predominantly," "largely," or "mostly" Black. Among these were the Los Angeles Times, Politico, CBS News, Fox News, The Daily Beast, National Public Radio, and NBC News. Significantly fewer outlets reported that the audience was "about 50%" Black. Some described it as "racially mixed." A small minority of venues said the makeup of the crowd was "partially" Black. We asked Tiffany Holland, a reporter who live-blogged the event for the Richmond Times-Dispatch website, for her impression of the racial makeup of the crowd. "If memory serves, the crowd was about half-African-American and half-white," she said in an email, adding that in her experience, Democratic Party events in Danville usually drew a "healthy mix of diversity." But she also said that this was just the impression she came away with, and could be remembering it wrongly. In any case, even if only 50% of the attendees were Black, Biden would have found himself gazing out over an audience that included hundreds of Black faces. The crowd need not have been "predominantly" Black to inspire a politician so inclined to engage in racial pandering. That Biden uttered the sentence "They gonna put y'all back in chains" before just such a crowd stands confirmed. Whether it should taken as a racially charged, pandering reference to slavery we leave it to readers to judge for themselves. Berg, Rebecca.  "Biden Warns Romney Policies Would Put Crowd 'Back in Chains.'"  The New York Times ("The Caucus" blog).  14 August 2012. Cain, Andrew.  "In Danville, Biden Says Romney's Policies Will 'Put Y'all Back in Chains.'"  Richmond Times-Dispatch.  14 August 2012. Condon, Stephanie.  "Rangel: Biden's Gaffe Was Clearly About Slavery."   CBS News.  24 August 2012. Holland, Steve and Jeff Mason.  "Biden Draws Romney's Ire with 'Chains' Comment."   Reuters.  14 August 2012. Holland, Tiffany.  "Biden: We Need to Finish What Obama Started."   Richmond Times-Dispatch.  14 August 2012. Montopoli, Brian.  "Joe Biden Clarifies 'in Chains' Remark."   CBS News.  14 August 2012. O'Neil, Luke.  "I Am a Gaffe Machine': A History of Joe Biden's Biggest Blunders."   The Guardian.  25 April 2019. Rainey, James.  "Joe Biden Used 'Chains' Metaphor Before to Hit Republicans."   Los Angeles Times.  15 August 2012. Roberts, Allison.  "Before VP Visit, Lots of Prep."   GoDanRiver.com.  17 August 2012. Schwarz, Gabriella.  "Biden Hits Cain's '9-9-9' Plan."   CNN.  12 October 2011. Shapiro, Ben.  "Biden in 49% Black Danville, VA: 'They Gonna Put Y'All Back in Chains."   Breitbart.  14 August 2012. Shield, Gerry.  "Republicans Blast Biden for 'Chains' Remark."   New York Post.  20 August 2012. Smith, Jamil.  "Biden 'Unchained.'"   Ebony.  17 August 2012. Tau, Byron.  "Obama Defends Biden on 'Chains' Remark."   Politico.  15 August 2012. Westfall, Sandra Sobieraj.  "President Obama: No Apologies, No Scolding for Joe Biden's Remark."  < em>People.  15 August 2012. Wise, Scott.  "Doug Wilder Criticizes Biden, 'Chains' Comment."   WTVR.  16 August 2012. C-SPAN.  "Vice President Joe Biden in Danville, Virginia.   14 August 2012. MSNBC.  "Obama Campaign Backs Biden's Controversial 'Chains' Remark."   16 August 2012.