Rhode Island has a very generous unemployment compensation rate compared to most other states.
John Robitaille, Republican candidate for governor, believes that one reason more Rhode Islanders aren't back at work is that the state pays too much to people who have lost their jobs.During an Oct. 4 appearance on The Helen Glover Show, Robitaille asserted that unemployment compensation and welfare payments can discourage people from accepting jobs that are available, which is why the system needs to be changed to wean them from such programs.One contractor who's a friend of mine told me that he had two people turn him down flat [for a job] because they were making more money on unemployment than wanting to go to work for $15, $17 an hour. That's wrong, he said. Rhode Island has a very generous unemployment compensation rate compared to most other states and, couple that with our very generous welfare programs, and there's not really an incentive for people to go back to work.As of August, 37,298 Rhode Islanders who had lost a full-time or part-time job were receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Whether those payments discourage people from accepting jobs is a matter of opinion. We were interested in the question ofwhether the unemployment benefits are truly generous compared to other states.According to the latest numbers from the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (RIDLT),duringthe first quarter of 2010, the average unemployment insurance payment was $390.53 per week, the fifth highest in the nation. Only Hawaii ($419.27), Washington state ($401.95), Massachusetts ($400.57) and New Jersey ($400.55) paid out more per person.Another way to look at the question is the maximum benefit you can receive. In July 2010, thecapfor a single Rhode Islander was $551 per week. Five other states had a higher ceiling. Massachusetts was tops at $629 weekly.When dependents are factored in, Rhode Island ranks second, at $688 per week. (Massachusetts was the highest, at $943.) But that ranking is misleading because, according to RIDLT spokeswoman Laura Hart, different states have different limits on how many dependents you can claim. In Rhode Island, the limit is five.And that's not the whole story.Living expenses vary from state to state, and New England is noted for having a higher cost of living than many other regions.It's an important consideration, but not an easy one to gauge. The federal government puts outacost of living index for different regions, but not on a state-by-state basis.Instead, RIDLT compared the average weekly benefits in each state with the average weekly wage in those states, using data from the U.S. Department of Labor.By the latest measurement, during the first quarter of 2010 Rhode Island ranked second in the nation. The state paid the typical recipient 47.8 percent of the average weekly wage of $816.71. (Hawaii topped the list, at 54.8 percent. Massachusetts, by that measure, was at 37.3 percent, ranking it 29th. )Put another way, the average hourly wage in Rhode Island during the first quarter of 2010 was $20.42. The average person receiving unemployment insurance got the equivalent of $9.76 per hour. The benefit could be as much as $13.76 an hour for an individual or $17.20 per hour for someone with five or more dependents.By all these measures, Rhode Islanders receiving unemployment benefits are doing better than out-of-work people in most other states, so we rank Robitaille's statement True.
On 22 June 2017, the Occupy Democrats Facebook page posted a meme claiming that the United States government paid for Mitch McConnell's care and rehabilitation when the Republican senior senator contracted polio as an infant in the 1940s. meme This claim is contrasted, in the meme, with McConnell's support for the Senate Republican health care plan published that day: plan As a kid, Mitch McConnell had polio, and the government paid for ALL of his care and rehabilitation. Now, as the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, McConnell is taking government-funded care away from tens of millions of Americans. Let that sink in.   An article accompanying this meme reports that government-sponsored, publicly funded healthcare saved the young McConnell's life: article Mitch McConnell has been relentlessly working to roll back Medicaid and deprive millions of Americans of government-sponsored healthcare coverage for eight years now. But if it werent for the government, McConnell wouldnt be able to walk at all.  Young Mitch came down with a terrible case of polio as a child in Alabama. My mother was, of course, like many mothers of young polio victims, perplexed about what to do, anxious about whether I would be disabled for the rest of my life he admitted in a 2005 interview. But luckily for him, his mother took him 50 miles to the Warm Springs, where President Roosevelt won his own battle with polio and established a polio treatment center that was paid for by the public. President Roosevelt asked the people of America to send in dimes to the White House as part of his March of the Dimes foundation. Over two and a half million dimes were mailed in, and they paid for Mitchs physical therapy and treatment. A Death and Taxes article posted on the same date reports a similar story:  article How did Warm springs fund McConnells therapy, you ask? This was two decades before Lyndon Johnson launched federal health coverage by signing into law the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. In the mid-30s, Roosevelt and his law partner Basil OConnor founded the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and started organizing fundraising balls around the country. By 1938, however, the balls grew less effective and the president needed a new strategy. Using a phrase coined by vaudeville entertainer Eddie Cantor, March of Dimes  a spin on the popular newsreel series March of Time  Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes foundation and launched a campaign asking the public to mail ten-cent donations to the White House. Within a month, Roosevelt received around 2,680,000 dimes. The campaign continued through WWII. McConnell started visiting Warm Springs in 1944. In other words, he overcame polio with the help of public money allocated by the White House. Mitch McConnell has often told the story of his childhood affliction with polio, and the role of FDR's Warm Springs rehabilitation center in his recovery. In his 2016 memoir The Long Game, McConnell recounted how he was struck with polio at the age of two while staying with his mother in his aunt's home in Five Points, Alabama.  memoir It's one of my life's great fortunes that Sister's home was only about sixty miles from Warm Springs, Georgia, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established a polio treatment center and where he'd often travel to find relief from the polio that paralyzed him at the age of thirty-nine. My mother took me there every chance she had. The nurses would teach her how to perform exercises meant to rehabilitate my leg while also emphasizing her need to make me believe I could walk, even though I wasn't allowed to. So it's clear that Mitch McConnell did indeed receive significant help  primarily in the form of physical therapy and physical therapy training for his mother  from the polio rehabilitation center established by Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Georgia.  However, neither this particular center nor the care given to McConnell were government-funded. Roosevelt purchased the property at Warm Springs, Georgia and established a center there in 1927, having visited frequently for therapy for his own polio, which he contracted in 1921. He (and others) set up the Warm Springs Foundation, a nonprofit organization that depended on wealthy philanthropists and donations from members of the public.  1927 In 1934, Basil O'Connor (once a partner at Roosevelt's law firm and a close associate of the recently-elected President) began organizing fundraising for the Warm Springs Foundation, set around the President's birthday celebrations each year. Within four years, these birthday balls had raised $1,350,030 for the Warm Springs rehabilitation center (the equivalent of $23.3 million in 2017). equivalent In September 1937, Roosevelt reconstituted the Warm Springs Foundation as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as polio was then widely known); in January 1938, the directors of the foundation launched the first "March of Dimes", a phrase coined by vaudeville star Eddie Cantor who helped promote a nationwide fundraising drive which attracted the support of Hollywood stars as well as charitable middle-class families giving 10 cents each.  In six months, the March of Dimes raised $81,073 (which would be about $1.4 million in 2017). In July 1938, the New York Times published a detailed auditor's report, which offered a breakdown of donations and expenditure. report Some aspects of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis perhaps reflect a more innocent time. For example, the hundreds of thousands of dimes sent by members of the public were processed at the White House and a cheque was given to Roosevelt, who then turned it over to O'Connor for distribution via the Foundation. However, in many ways the operation was a precursor of the professional, almost corporate style of non-profit fundraising and campaigning that has followed since. For example, a large portion of funds raised in 1938 came from attendees at 8,000 Presidential birthday balls throughout the country, labor organizations contributed the equivalent of $760,000, and the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies wrote off the cost of thousands of birthday greetings sent to the President at 25 cents per message. The following year, charity sporting events were held throughout the country, and badges were distributed to donors as part of an awareness-raising "Give a Dime and Wear a Button" campaign.  year Funds raised for the Warm Springs Foundation and National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis were also distributed in the form of research grants to scientists hoping for a breakthrough in the treatment of polio. grants This came to fruition in the 1950s when Dr. Jonas Salk  who had received a grant from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis  developed a successful polio vaccine.  Jonas Salk The Warm Springs center that helped in Mitch McConnell's recovery was indeed founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was President at the time McConnell was struck by the disease, in 1944. Roosevelt was the driving force behind both the Warm Springs Foundation and its successor, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and used his political office to energetically promote fundraising for polio care and research. The funding came from the kindness and charity of the public, as well as wealthy celebrities and large corporations. However, it was operated as an innovative, nationwide nonprofit organization, not a federal or state agency, and it was not taxpayer or government-funded. The Warm Springs center visited by McConnell remained owned and operated by a nonprofit organization until 1974, when the state of Georgia took it over, making it truly government-run. Since 2014, it has been owned and operated by Augusta University.  Augusta University McConnell, Mitch. "The Long Game." (pg 9,10).
 Penguin Random House. 31 May 2016. New York Times. "$1,350,030 Raised for Warm Springs."
 New York Times Archive. 16 January 1938. New York Times. "Net of $1,021,034 to Paralysis Fund."
 New York Times Archive. 7 July 1938. New York Times. "Sport World Aids in Paralysis Drive."
 New York Times Archive. 27 December 1938. Claim:  E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies, policies and legislation that have contributed to the current and future US oil supply situation.  Did you know that the United States does NOT have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign. This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France  actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endlessbillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela to be used in propping up their economies. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democrat Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, off Cuba but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming. We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our dirt burms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no burm around it. People wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly nothing. So, America enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil. What the US government also does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "Record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc. amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon. To all you Democrats, when you go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama just keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin through a Democrat's name. William "Bill" Phillips Origins:  Several readers (including members of the Phillips family) have maintained to us that there is no descendant of Frank Phillips matching the description of the putative author of this piece, which itself appears to be a rewritten/expanded version of an earlier article (one not originally attributed to William "Bill" Phillips).  Given the uncertain provenance of the "Phillips" authorship version, we'll address our analysis primarily to the wording of the (presumed) original: article I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up. Ranking businesses according to "bigness" can be based on a variety of different metrics: geographic reach, scale of operations, market value, gross revenues, net profits, etc. Exxon Mobil is certainly one of the world's largest (in terms of gross revenues) and most profitable public companies.  (Many of the world's largest non-public companies are also in the oil business.)  The statement here about Exxon Mobil's being "only the 14th largest [oil company] in the world" refers to the amount of oil and gas reserves that company controls, and it is generally true that the major (public) oil companies have much less access to oil and gas resources than they did a few decades ago, most of which are now controlled by national oil companies: largest profitable non-public reserves Despite record crude prices, the major oil companies are struggling to access resources that are being jealously guarded by national companies with whom they are forced to establish partnerships. As paradoxical as it may seem, high oil prices do not mean a golden age for the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Totalor BP. Of course, with a barrel of oil at more than 140 dollars, they are seeing major profits, but the future has never seemed so uncertain. The problem is access to reserves. The oil majors now control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s, according to figures released by the office of Ernst and Young at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. As a result they are being forced to explore in increasingly extreme conditions. The statement that "94% of the world's oil supply [is] locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States" might be a considered a bit misleading since many of those "hostile" countries have relatively small oil reserves, while the country with the second-largest oil reserves, Canada, is U.S.-friendly (and both Mexico and the United States are also among the countries with the largest oil reserves). reserves This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France   actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. Drilling for oil off of most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts has largely been barred due to a moratorium imposed by Congress in the early 1980s and by an executive order signed by President George H.W. Bush (a Republican) in 1990.  The congressional moratorium has to be renewed every year, and it has remained in place for nearly three decades through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike.  (On 14 July 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the executive order barring offshore drilling that had been signed by his father eighteen years earlier.)  The congressional moratorium is due to expire on 1 October 2008 unless Congress votes to extend it. Some analysts have claimed that if the oil industry could extract oil and gas from oil shale in a cost-effective manner, oil shale deposits in the U.S. (particularly on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, site of the world's largest such deposit) could produce viable oil reserves of about 800 billion barrels (three times the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).  However, the cost and effectiveness of oil shale development (and the resource use and environmental effects attendant to accomplishing it) remain a subject of considerable debate, and oil companies remain barred from undertaking commercial oil shale projects on federal land: At best production is years away, while unpredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land for commercial-scale oil shale projects. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. The subject of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development is another issue that has been pursued across the years through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR.  As of now, both major-party presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are opposed to opening ANWR to oil exploration. pursued factors Last updated:  14 July 2008    Dechaux, Delphine.   "Despite Rocketing Prices, Outlook Is Bleak for Oil Majors."   Agence France Presse.  6 July 2008.     Feller Ben.   "Bush Trumps Congress; Moves First on Drilling."   Associated Press.  14 July 2008.     Forbes, Steve.   "Will We Rid Ourselves of This Pollution?"   Forbes.  16 April 2007.     Guerrera, Francesco and Carola Hoyos.   "Hidden Value: How Unlisted Companies Are Eclipsing the Public Equity Market."   Financial Times.  15 December 2006.     Ivanovich, David.   "Despite 800 Billion Barrel Potential, Oil Shale a Hard Sell."   The Houston Chronicle.  12 July 2008.     Simon, Richard.   "Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling."   Los Angeles Times.  14 July 2008. Claim:  The federal government has banned public school students from bringing sack lunches to school. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2013] Naturalcuresnotmedicine.com  posted an article indicating that the "Feds" are prohibiting school lunches from home without doctor's orders. Is this true or false. When and where?  Is it true that the federal government won't allow parents to pack lunches for preschool kids without a doctor's note? It doesn't even sound slightly true to me,  but it's being tossed around the internet. Origins:  Intermittent rumors about imminent government control of school lunches (and specifically, a ban on lunches brought in from home) have popped up across the internet since 2011, and claims about the imposition of a government ban on brown bag lunches have continued to circulate since.  Mentions of home lunch bans began cropping up on the Internet as early as 2011, with the pattern with this cyclical rumor appearing to be consistent: A parent packs a lunch,  receives a note from a teacher or school official informing them of a district or program policy regarding lunches from home, and the note circulates as proof that the "feds" are sweeping in to seize control of the cafeteria. Back in 2001, one Chicago-area school called Little Village Academy banned home lunches. The Chicago Tribune covered the minor controversy, explaining that the school's principal (not the federal government) had instituted the rule at his school only after watching students bring lunches consisting of "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" on field trips. The rumor about federal lunch bans died down a bit after 2011 but picked up again in 2013 when a mom blog relayed the story of a friend in Virginia who had received a note from her child's school about packed lunches. The note, which was quickly reproduced on a number of prominent natural news and conspiracy sites, read: mom blog natural news I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians note to that regard. I am sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact Stephanie [redacted] the Health Coordinator for Federal Programs Preschool at [redacted]. Perhaps due to the start of the school year, the same story began to circulate in September 2014, with the same image and text attached. Given the timing and the return to classrooms for the majority of America's kids, it's no surprise the tale has once more gained traction and begun to spread virally on social media sites.  circulate When the story first began to travel across the social web, the Director of Communications and Public Relations for Henrico County Public Schools responded to an inquiry on this particular incident with a statement noting that schools receiving funds to participate in the federal Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs must provide meals to schoolchildren at no cost to their parents, and allowing schoolkids to bring their own lunches from home would (barring special medical requirements) violate that requirement: Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs It is Head Start policy, not Henrico County Public Schools policy, that there cannot be any costs to parents associated with the program, meals or otherwise. Parents packing a lunch is considered a "cost" by Head Start. As a result, every year parents are informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition that merits a specific diet, along with a physician's note to that regard. Meals served by the school conform to USDA nutritional requirements along with cultural, religious, and personal preferences on a case by case basis. Parents are always welcome to discuss their children's dietary needs with our health coordinator. While many disagree with this particular Head Start (HS) performance standard by which we are regulated and funded; as good stewards of federal dollars, it is protecting one of our most at risk populations and operating at the highest level of expectation with all of the funding strands we utilize for Pre-K. Additionally, parents are made aware of the policy as stated in the preschool parent handbook upon entrance to the program and are required to sign they have received and read it. The family advocates go over it with them on some of their initial meetings with parents. As indicated in this response, the issue was not one of the federal government's trying to control exactly what schoolkids may eat for lunch, but rather one of ensuring that all children covered under the Head Start program were provided with their allotted lunches at no cost to their parents. Last updated:  16 September 2014 Claim:  You can recharge your cell phone using body electricity.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2015] Is there any truth to this video?  i.e. you can charge your phoneusing body electricity?  Seems just too simple:  Origins:  According to the video displayed above (titled "Charge Your Phone with Body Electricity!"), the perpetual modern dilemma of how to ensure your cell phone is always charged or charging can be solved with just two silver coins, a piece of paper, a paper clip, and your hot, sweaty body. In terms of appealing propositions, this one features the advantages of frugality,  ease of use, and the enticing tempt of never suffering a temporarily bricked device again. Mobile users can be spared the shame of ever having to ask  virtual strangers for loans of their charger cords, if they can put aside the notion that body-charging a cell phone phone is a fairly awkward public proposition. Whether the human body can charge electronic devices (such as phones, or pacemakers, or hearing aids) is not a subject that lies entirely within the realm of science fiction. A September 2014 Newsweek article tackled the potential offered by body-based device charging, but with the caveat that the technology was nowhere near accessible just yet: Newsweek Of course, with all due respect to Voix's cool invention, talk is cheap. Piezoelectrics energy harvesters haven't yet made a dent in the real world, for the most part. On the other hand, all of the researchers and industry reps interviewed for this story agree that piezoelectrics is very much poised to become a real commercial forceperhaps within the next three to five years. The gait-powered backpacks and knee braces look likely to break through even sooner. It is perhaps telling that these two last products don't use piezoelectrics and produce somewhere around 1,000 times more electricity. But as electronic devices continue to shrink and need less juice to work, and piezoelectronic ones are tweaked to produce more power, the technologies will likely meet in the middle. While you one day might be able to harness body-generated power to charge a phone, no useful manner of doing so existed when the video in question was posted online. Moreover, its extraordinary claims about harnessing body-generated power to recharge cell phones were not proved within the video; viewers were simply informed that the trick worked without being presented with any corroborating evidence that the phone shown in the video hadn't been charged in some other fashion. Some viewers attempted to replicate the feat shown in the impressive clip with multiple devices, only to come up short:    A Quora user also opined that the body electricity claim didn't wash in terms of the mechanical process of recharging cell phones: This particular video is pure rubbish.  There are 4 contacts in a USB connector, only one of them is power.  You do not make a capacitor with a piece of paper and two "silver" coins, and anyway a capacitor is not what you need.  And you can get a few tenths of a volt if your skin is damp and if you used two different metallic coins, but that is less than a tenth of the voltage you need and less than a thousandth of the current required.  So it's wrong on so many levels it's funny. Whether or not phones could eventually be charged using body electricity, there's no evidence the video shown here managed that feat. No corroborating videos of people charging phones in such a manner have turned up, and multiple viwers have reported that the steps outlined in the video did not work to successfully recharge any cell phone.  Last updated:  27 March 2015 The Trump administration is not known for accuracy when it comes to spelling; from the names of contemporary world leaders, to historical figures, to innocuous words like "education," the administration has repeatedly made headlines with embarrassing mistakes. So a 7 June 2017 Facebook post claiming that the Department of Education had misspelled the word "success" in a letter to parents seemed plausible. leaders figures education Castro Valley, California parent Kendra Galordi Frautnick shared a copy of a letter on Facebook that the Trump Administration purportedly sent to her daughter, congratulating the eighth grader on her receipt of the President's Education Award: shared copy   blogs We spoke to a representative from the Department of Education's President's Education Awards Program, who told us that the letters of congratulations were not intended to be distributed to individual students, but to be read aloud at an awards ceremony by a school administrator. The representative said 2017 was the first year in which the letter was not physically mailed to participating schools, but made available for download on the PEAP web site. The official version of this year's letter [PDF], does not contain the purported typographical error spelling "success" as "succuess": letter PDF       Although a separate person claims that a friend received the version with an error on the same date Frautnick shared the photograph, that account was secondhand and might have referenced Frautnick's Facebook post. Aside from that copy, we were unable to find any versions containing the spelling error. claims Frautnick sent us additional photographs to show that she had not doctored the image of the letter that she posted to Facebook. She told us: Its the actual letter my daughter received with the presidential award. I took a picture of it when she pointed out the typo. I posted it and it went viral. She received it from the white house through her school. The official published President's Education Award letter for 2017 lacked the "succuess" error present in Facebook shares of the document. We rate this "false" because a copy of the letter with the spelling error exists but was not reproduced across the country. We have so far unable to determine whether the typographical error was only regionally distributed or simply fabricated. Reeves, Chris.  "So Much Success In The Trump White House, They Can't Even Spell The Word."
  Daily Kos.  9 June 2017. National Association of Secondary School Principals: Downloads.  "President's Education Award Letter."
  Accessed 12 June 2017. Wikipedia.  "President's Education Awards Program."
  Accessed 12 June 2017. One favorite tactic in political debate is to put words in the mouth of a respected elder statesman to make it appear he presciently anticipated some modern issue or political personality (and, naturally, took a stand that supported the viewpoint of whoever put those words in his mouth).  Therefore, given the debates that arose in over President George W. Bush's efforts to alter the Social Security system, one would expect the appearance at that time of a  fifty-year-old quote from a former President (and fellow Republican) labeling as "stupid" certain "Texas oil millionaires" who wanted "to abolish social security" to be a similar fabrication. See this claim we collected got in the Snopes inbox in 2005: President Dwight Eisenhower, Republican, uttered these words on November 8, 1954: "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things.  Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas.  Their number is negligible and they are stupid."  In addition to being a war hero, a decent fellow, a moderate Republican before they began to go extinct, President Eisenhower apparently was also quite the prophet. Little George W. Bush was about 9 years old at the time ... Save for a few minor details, however, the quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower cited in this message is in fact an accurate one.  It wasn't something he uttered but rather something he wrote, and the version reproduced above omits Ike's reference to a specific Texas oil tycoon (H.L. Hunt), but it otherwise is taken verbatim from a letter President Eisenhower penned to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, on 8 November 1954: letter Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this  in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything  even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.  A meme circulated in 2015 elided the reference to "Texas oil millionaires" and presented the quote as something aimed at the modern Tea Party:  Politically, Ike was a classic small-government Republican.  He was of the opinion that the federal government had grown too large at the expense of local and state authority since the advent of FDR's New Deal in the 1930's, a situation exacerbated by the national emergency produced due to America's entry into World War II.  Since the Depression and the war were over by the time Eisenhower took office in 1953, Ike felt it was time to return to a "middle way"  that included pruning federal subsidies to industries such as agriculture and power companies, which he believed no longer needed government assistance.  At the same time, he wanted to sustain and even increase funding for programs he thought had good track records, and Social Security was paramount among those programs.  Cummings, Jeanne.  "Gingrich Out to Save America."   The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  16 January 1994  (p. G1). In June 2017, a federal jury awarded $6.7 million in damages to Shonda Martin, a woman who testified that she had been raped multiple times by guard Xavier Thicklen while she was being held in the Milwaukee County Jail in 2013: testified Martin arrived at the jail in February 2013 at the age of 19. She soon learned she was pregnant. She testified she could not control her activities or movements in jail; the guards did. Thicklen raped Martin in jail. He had sexual contact with her three times while she was pregnant, including vaginal intercourse, and two times after delivery. [Thicklen] told her he was in gray and she was in blue, and his co-workers would believe him and not her. She understood him to mean "he's in authority and ... he has power over me." She understood him to mean his co-workers would believe anything he said; he could falsely say she tried to grab or hit him, or tried to take his taser or gun, and she would be punished. She testified, "I believed everything he said.... I knew that his authority over me would trump anything that I said." Martin testified that during each sexual assault, Thicklen was in uniform, armed, and on duty working for County. All five assaults occurred in jail. Every time, he had to use his keys, power, and authority. He told her he would be fired if people found out. He took steps to hide the assaults. For example, he assaulted her off camera. Finally, on December 3, 2013, she reported the sexual assaults when she was concerned he possibly gave her a disease which spread to her child. An investigation began that day. She was transferred the next day. Thicklen was dismissed and prosecuted. This case (Martin v. Milwaukee County) came to widespread public attention over three years later, in October 2020, after President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Barrett had been involved in an appeal of the case two years earlier, during which, a popular meme held, she had "reversed the lower court's decision to award" money to the victim: Martin v. Milwaukee County   As is often the case, the meme presented a simplified version of facts that could be considered misleading. Barrett was part of a three-judge Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel that heard an appeal from Milwaukee County. That panel did not "overturn" the damages award to Martin; rather, it ruled that because Thicklen's actions in sexually assaulting Martin were outside the scope of his employment, Thicklen alone  and not the county  was liable for paying those damages: scope of his employment Here, we may take it as granted that the sexual assaults occurred during the authorized time and space limits of Thicklen's employment (although there may be some question about whether Thicklen was actually authorized to be in the particular locations of the sexual assaults at the times he perpetrated them). But even when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Martin and the verdict, we hold no reasonable jury could find the sexual assaults were in the scope of his employment ... Uncontested evidence at trial demonstrated County thoroughly trained Thicklen not to have sexual contact with inmates. County expressly forbade him from having sexual contact with an inmate under any circumstances, regardless of apparent consent. County's training warned him that such sexual contact violates state law and the Sheriff's Office's mission. Martin argues [Thicklen] might have intended to exert power, dominion, and control over her by sexually assaulting her. But that inference, while reasonable, still does not bring the sexual assaults within the scope because under that theory he would still have pursued purely personal goals. Any power, dominion, and control asserted or achieved through these sexual assaults would "belong to" and "benefit" only him, not County, on these facts. Olson reminds us that an employee's being "at least partially actuated by a purpose to serve the employer" is a sine qua non of scope. Olson Martin presented no evidence at trial that the sexual abuse was similar in kind to work Thicklen was employed to perform. This case is distinguishable from cases involving excessive force by police officers. Some force, even deadly force, is sometimes permissible for police officers. But the rapes in this case were not part of a spectrum of conduct that shades into permissible zones. Inmate rape by a guard usually involves no gray areas. Even though all of the judgments against Thicklen (who was not a party to the appeal) were allowed to stand, in a practical sense the ruling meant the victim would likely collect little in damages, since Thicklen was not required to be indemnified by the county and likely does not possess assets worth anything close to $6.7 million  a fact the panel recognized: indemnified As an aside, we note our conclusion is consistent with the Wisconsin Supreme Court's understanding of the public policy behind [the state's indemnification statute]. Wisconsin courts have determined that the purpose of the statutory indemnification is to enable public employees to perform their duties without fear of having to pay out of pocket for such performance. Indemnification here would not further this purpose. We have sympathy for Martin, who loses perhaps her best chance to collect the judgment. But [the law] does not make public employers absolute insurers against all wrongs. Critics of Barrett's have noted that in a similar case heard by the Indiana Supreme Court in 2018 (Cox v. Evansville Police Department), involving sexual assaults committed by police officers, that court arrived at the opposite conclusion: Cox v. Evansville Police Department Two on-duty police officers  one in Fort Wayne and one in Evansville  sexually assaulted women, who then brought civil actions against the officers city employers. We address two theories of employer liability: (1) the scope-of-employment rule, traditionally called respondeat superior, and (2) the rules common-carrier exception, which imposes a more stringent standard of care on certain enterprises. We hold that the cities may be liable under the scope-of-employment rule and that the exception does not apply. Resounding in our decision today is the maxim that great power comes with great responsibility. Cities are endowed with the coercive power of the state, and they confer that power on their police officers. Those officers, in turn, wield it to carry out employment duties  duties that may include physically controlling and forcibly touching others without consent. For this reason, when an officer carrying out employment duties physically controls someone and then abuses employer-conferred power to sexually assault that person, the city does not, under respondeat superior, escape liability as a matter of law for the sexual assault. Investing officers with considerable and intimidating powers comes with an inherent risk of abuse. When that abuse is a tortious act arising naturally or predictably from the police officers employment activities, it falls within the scope of employment for which the city is liable. Thus, if an on-duty police officer commits a sexual assault by misusing official authority, the sexual assault is within the scope of employment if the employment context naturally or predictably gave rise to that abuse of official authority. Oddly, perhaps, in 2019 another three-judge Seventh Circuit panel (not including Barrett) similarly reversed a lower court's ruling to hold a Wisconsin county responsible for paying damages over the sexual assault of female inmates by a male jailer: reversed ruling Darryl Christensen, a former Polk County jailer, was convicted in 2016 of sexually assaulting five female inmates hundreds of times over a three-year period. Two of his victims, identified as J.K.J. and M.J.J., sued Christensen and Polk County over the assaults in federal court. The complaint claimed the county sheriffs department was indifferent to the risk of assault because it allowed one male officer with the ability to prevent the entrance of other jailers to supervise female inmates in areas without cameras. The county also deliberately chose not to accept state training materials regarding sexual assault in jails. A jury awarded the women $11.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, of which the county was responsible for paying $4 million. Given that Christensen was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his conduct, this figure is the only part of the award the women will ever possibly receive. But in June [2019], a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit reversed the ruling against the county, holding that it could not be held accountable for the actions of a rogue guard who knew that he was violating jail policy, his training and the law. In that case, however, the full court voted to rehear the issue, and in a non-unanimous decision  with Barrett joining the majority  the court vacated the three-judge panel's opinion and upheld the original jury verdict that held both the county and Christensen liable for the latter's abuse of female inmates: vacated Darryl Christensens long-term abuse of J.K.J. and M.J.J. more than justified the jurys verdict against him. And the jury was furnished with sufficient evidence to hold Polk County liable not on the basis of Christensens horrific acts but rather the countys own deliberate choice to stand idly by while the female inmates under its care were exposed to an unmistakable risk that they would be sexually assaulted  a choice that was the moving force behind the harm inflicted on J.K.J. and M.J.J., U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Scudder wrote for the full courts majority. Based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury was entitled to conclude that if Polk County had taken action in response to the glaring risk that its female inmates health and safety were in danger, J.K.J. and M.J.J.s assaults would have stopped sooner, or never happened at all, Scudder said. His opinion was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Diane Wood, Michael Kanne, Ilana Rovner, David Hamilton, Amy Barrett and Amy St. Eve. U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Brennan, who authored the original opinion, wrote a blistering 62-page dissent, and was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Diane Sykes and William Bauer. Under the majority opinion, a single subordinate employee may secretly override municipal policy and create a new policy under which that public employer is accountable. That is vicarious liability, a collapse into respondeat superior against which the Supreme Court has repeatedly warned for 60 years, Brennan said. Diedrich, John.  "Woman Describes Rapes by Milwaukee County Jail Guard and Giving Birth While Shackled."
  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  5 June 2017. Diedrich, John.  "Jury Awards $6.7M to Inmate Raped by Guard in Milwaukee County Jail, Shackled During Childbirth."
  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  7 June 2017. Bailey, Lorraine.  "Full Seventh Circuit Finds Wisconsin County Liable in Prison Rape Case."
  Courthouse News Service.  15 May 2020. Bailey, Lorraine.  "Full Seventh Circuit Hears Debate Over Municipal Liability in Prison Rape."
  Courthouse News Service.  5 December 2019. In the contest for the hearts and minds of voters, Democrats have been claiming that the economy is really improving and the Republicans have been saying they can make the anemic recovery even more robust.During theonline-onlyportion of the Aug. 28 Providence Journal-WPRI debate among Democrats David Cicilline and Anthony Gemma, both running in the 1st Congressional District, incumbent Cicilline was asked how he would tackle the massive national debt.Cicilline said that in addition to cutting spending and closing loopholes in the tax system, the pace of job creation needs to increase.When President Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Now we've had job growth, I think, for 24 consecutive months, he said.We've heard a lot of chatter about the job numbers and whether they really indicate a recovery, so we decided to look further.First, a look at what the employment situation was like when Obama took office.Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in January 2009, when the president was sworn in, the country lost 818,000 jobs. (The numbers do not include farm workers and are adjusted for seasonal shifts in employment, but that's the standard way of calculating employment and unemployment rates. )That's 17 percent more than the 700,000 jobs Cicilline cited. (To put the numbers in perspective, the losses for the first three full months that Obama was in office averaged 738,000 per month. The average job loss for the last three full months of the Bush administration was 651,000. )When it comes to thenumber of monthsin which the United States has had job growth, Cicilline's timeframe was also somewhat off.BLS datashow that the last time the United States lost jobs was in September 2010, when 27,000 jobs were lost.That's 22 months ago, not 24.How significant have the increases been?Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institutiontold PolitiFact Nationalin May that the economy needs to create 90,000 to 100,000 jobs each month just to keep pace with the number of people coming into the work force.During 7 of those 22 months, including as recently as April, May and June of this year, job growth was below 100,000. In 8 of the 22 months, it was over 200,000.When we asked his campaign for the source of Cicilline's statement, spokeswoman Nicole Kayner sent usa White House blog itemfrom Aug. 3 reporting: The economy has now added private sector jobs for 29 straight months. We confirmed that with the BLS database, but this is for non-government jobs, and Cicilline didn't make that distinction in his debate comment.Our rulingIn the debate, U.S. Rep. David Cicilline said: When President Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Now we've had job growth, I think, for 24 consecutive months.We want to note, as we repeatedly have, that even though there's been improvement in the job numbers during the Obama administration, a president's ability to influence the economy is severely limited.As for Cicillines comment, he understated the job losses occurring when President Obama took office and, by the most commonly used measure, he overstated by two months the timespan of continued job growth. But his main point -- that there has been growth for nearly two years -- is sound.Because the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rule itMostly True. (Get updates from PolitiFact Rhode Island on Twitter:@politifactri. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.) FACT CHECK: Is President Obama compiling a "secret race database" comprised of "sensitive personal data"?      Claim:  President Obama is compiling a secret race database comprising Americans' sensitive personal data.  false WHAT'S   Extant data collection methods used by agencies such as HUD track demographic patterns, including race and integration trends.     WHAT'S /CONJECTURE:  The Obama administration is collecting demographic data for a broader racial purpose, the practice is new, and the openly-compiled data comprises a "secret race database." Example:  [Collected via e-mail and Twitter, July 2015] According to an article in the New York Post, President Obama is collecting a nefarious "secret race database." How much of this is true, and how much is misleading hype? So who are the racists again? Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE via @nypost https://t.co/63VmYIXqNE @nypost  Yes, Nick $earcy! (@yesnicksearcy) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015   This is movie level horror material yet it's happening. It's real life. https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE https://t.co/LxxvA7EpyE  Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015   I favor equal opportunity, not govt forcing equal results. This is Affirmative Action on steroids: https://t.co/N3snUnie67 #WakeUpAmerica https://t.co/N3snUnie67 #WakeUpAmerica  Senator Dick Black (@SenRichardBlack) July 19, 2015 July 19, 2015   Obama collecting Americans' personal info for a secret race database https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf This makes my skin crawl @RandPaul https://t.co/1VNJqRsqQf @RandPaul  Alexis In NH (@AlexisinNH) July 18, 2015 July 18, 2015   Origins:   On 18 July 2015, the New York Post published an article titled "Obama Collecting Personal Data for a Secret Race Database." The article made vague claims that President Obama (or agents of the government working on his behalf, described as "racial bean counters") had been quietly collecting sensitive, personal data about American citizens for purposes of racial justice: Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama's racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school  all to document "inequalities" between minorities and whites. This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make "disparate impact" cases against: banks that don't make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don't offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds. The paper offered up one example of the purported secret racial database's reach, pertaining to Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) data collection practices: The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups  white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino  and publish geospatial data pinpointing racial imbalances. No explanatory links to this nefarious database were provided, but we managed to hack our way into the program to get the full scoop. Actually, we entered "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" into Google's search box and immediately found HUD's page explaining the program and its purposes. program So secretive is this database that HUD has made numerous documents available describing its overall progress, including links to the Federal Register [PDF] and its most current Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing policy. (They even tried to bury it by issuing a press release about it.) A portion of that openly published, available for all to view documentation is described by HUD as "[updated data use methods] on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) [aim] to provide all HUD grantees with clear guidelines and the data that will help them to achieve those goals": PDF current press release HUDs rule clarifies and simplifies existing fair housing obligations for HUD grantees to analyze their fair housing landscape and set locally-determined fair housing priorities and goals through an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). To aid communities in this work, HUD will provide open data to grantees and the public on patterns of integration and segregation, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disproportionate housing needs, and disparities in access to opportunity. This improved approach provides a better mechanism for HUD grantees to build fair housing goals into their existing community development and housing planning processes. In addition to providing data and maps, HUD will also provide technical assistance to aid grantees as they adopt this approach. In short, HUD will be using extant data to identify areas in which fair housing laws may not be functionally applied. Similarly, the Federal Register's lengthy (public, easy to find) summary stated: Through this rule, HUD commits to provide states, local governments, public housing agencies (PHAs), the communities they serve, and the general public, to the fullest extent possible, with local and regional data on integrated and segregated living patterns, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, the location of certain publicly supported housing, access to opportunity afforded by key community assets, and disproportionate housing needs based on classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. Through the availability of such data and available local data an knowledge, the approach provided by this rule is intended to make program participants better able to evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues such as segregation, conditions that restrict fair housing choice, and disparities in access to housing and opportunity, identify the factors that primarily contribute to the creation or perpetuation of fair housing issues, and establish fair housing priorities and goals. The New York Post cited another shadowy instance of "racial bean counting": Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records. Again, the National Mortgage Database was hidden in plain sight. In seconds on Google, intrepid searchers could locate the Federal Housing Finance Agency's page devoted to the National Mortgage Database (upon which no mentions of race or racial equality appeared): page In 2012, FHFA began a major initiative to build a national mortgage database on first-lien single-family mortgages in existence any time from January 1998 forward. This project is being jointly funded and managed by FHFA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The information will primarily be used to support the agencies' policy making and research efforts and help regulators better understand emerging mortgage and housing market trends in this evolving and changing finance market. Like the AFFH, the National Mortgage Database was also buried deep in the annals of the publicly accessible and searchable Federal Register. Federal Register From that point on, the Post's article primarily focused on purportedly nefarious and racially motivated actions by "Obama's brainchild," the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). (In actuality, the CFPB was primarily the "brainchild" of Elizabeth Warren and came into existence as part of Dodd-Frank related financial reforms.) The article claimed the CFPB was compiling separate databases for credit profiles and employment. We were able to locate a Government Accountability Office (GAO) document dated September 2014 [PDF] concerning collection of credit data. However, no portion of that document mentioned race, and we were unable to locate any documents, articles, or other information relating to race-based initiatives and employment efforts undertaken by the CFPB as suggested by the New York Post's article. Elizabeth Warren PDF A final portion of the article claimed that the Department of Education was enforcing segregation by way of race-based data collection (implicitly, at the behest of President Obama). However, a (not secret)  page on the U.S. Department of Education's web site indicated that data collection of that description had been ongoing since at least 2000 (eight years before the election of Barack Obama to the presidency). page Last updated:  22July 2015 Originally published: 22July 2015 Many social media users have expressed disbelief and dismay at a graphic indicating that the United States had been deemed "one of the ten worst countries in the world to be a woman," rounding out a list headed by India, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, and Nigeria:  The basis of the graphic was a 2018 survey compiled by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the "charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience." survey This item is therefore superficially "true" in the sense that it reflects the results of a genuine poll, but of course the significance of any particular survey or poll depends upon its methodology. In this case, Thomson Reuters polled 548 experts on women's issues by phone and in person between March 26 and May 4, 2018. The respondents were evenly spread across Europe, Africa, the Americas, South East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific, and included "aid professionals, academics, healthcare staff, non-government organisation workers, policy-makers, development specialists and social commentators." According to Thomson Reuters, "the survey asked respondents which five of the 193 United Nations member states they thought were most dangerous for women and which country was worst in terms of healthcare, economic resources, cultural or traditional practices, sexual violence and harassment, non-sexual violence and human trafficking." Still, Americans (and others) were left puzzled by how the United States could rank so highly in such a survey, given that many of the phenomena that contributed to the other countries' being declared dangerous and unhealthy places for women  female infanticide, forced marriages, sex slavery, domestic servitude, death by stoning, civil war, restricted access to health care  have little to no prevalence in the U.S. The explanation offered by Thomson Reuters was that the influence of the #MeToo movement and the Time's Up campaign, which were running concurrently with the poll, influenced the results sufficiently to push the U.S. into the top 10: Time's Up Experts said the surprise addition of the United States in the top 10 most dangerous countries for women came down to the #MeToo and Time's Up campaigns against sexual harassment and violence that have dominated headlines for months. "People want to think income means you're protected from misogyny, and sadly that's not the case," said Cindy Southworth, executive vice president of the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence. "We are going to look back and see this as a very powerful tipping point ... We're blowing the lid off and saying '#Metoo and Time's Up'." Reuters.  "Factbox: Which Are the World's 10 Most Dangerous Countries for Women?"
  25 June 2018. Goldsmith, Belinda and Meka Beresford.  "India Most Dangerous Country for Women with Sexual Violence Rife."
  Thomson Reuters Foundation.  26 June 2018.