Says President Barack Obama initially said the national health-care mandate isn't a tax, but his administration now says it is a tax.
Channeling U.S. Rep Joe Wilson, the Republican from South Carolina who shouted You lie! during President Barack Obama's speech to Congress in September, the Republican Party of Texas has accused the president of lying when he said that a new federal mandate requiring individuals to have health insurance was not a tax. You lie! the party tweeted July 19. Obama said O-care mandate wasn't a tax. Now Obama admin says it is a tax. Did the Obama administration talk one way and then the other? Per the legislation that Obama signed into law in March, most people will be required to have health insurance starting in 2014. There are exceptions, but individuals who aren't exempt and refuse to join a plan will be required to pay an annual penalty of $695 per person, up to a maximum of $2,085 per family, or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater. The health care law calls the fine individuals must pay if they don't have insurance a penalty. In a Sept. 20, 2009, interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama denied that the mandate to buy health insurance was equivalent to a tax. For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase, Obama said. He noted that Americans are required to have auto insurance, but nobody considers that a tax increase. (Auto insurance is a state mandate, but all the states except New Hampshire require it of resident drivers.) When Stephanopoulos pressed Obama on whether the mandate was a tax, Obama said: I absolutely reject that notion. However, on July 16 The New York Times published a story that seemed to vindicate opponents of the health care overhaul who argued that the insurance requirement was a tax. The headline: Changing stance, administration now defends insurance mandate as a tax. Texas is one of 21 states challenging the law's constitutionality in court, but Virginia was the first to face the federal government in a July 1 hearing on its lawsuit. The New York Times pointed to a brief filed in that case by the U.S. Department of Justice defending the individual mandate as a valid exercise of the federal government's power to lay and collect taxes. Congress can impose taxes to provide for the general welfare under Article I of the Constitution. From the health-care law: The requirement regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature: economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased. The law then says that national health spending is projected to increase from $2.5 trillion  17.6 percent of the economy  in 2009, to $4.7 trillion in 2019. In its legal brief, the department says the penalty is also a tax because it will raise revenue  $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office  and because it's imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code. Individuals who refuse to obtain health insurance and are penalized will have to report the fine as an addition to income tax liability, the brief says. The health care law itself doesn't mention Congress' taxing authority, instead noting that the mandate is protected under the Constitution's Article I commerce clause, which lets Congress regulate commercial activity that has a substantial effect on the national economy. The tax argument is the strongest argument, the Times quoted Jack Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School who supports the law, saying. This bill is a tax. Because it's a tax, it's completely constitutional. Balkin is also quoted saying that Obama has not been honest with the American people about the nature of the bill. White House spokesman Matt Lehrich defended the law both ways last week, telling us: We believe that the Commerce Clause provides ample constitutional authority for the individual mandate. If anyone has any doubts about that  and we dont think they should  its also clear that that the mandate is constitutional under Congresss power to tax. Similarly, Steven Schwinn, an associate professor of constitutional law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, pointed out on his blog July 18 that the Obama administration has consistently defended the mandate in court primarily under the Commerce Clause, and secondarily under Congress' taxing power to promote the general welfare. Henry Aaron, a scholar who specializes in health care and tax policy at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said Obama was correct to say the mandate isn't a tax. A mandate is meaningless unless it is backed up by some 'or else,' as in 'obey the mandate or else,'  Aaron said. The administration asserted the legal power to impose a mandate. The mandate is backed up by a tax that has to be paid if the mandate is violated. You obey the mandate or you pay the tax. Upshot: In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Obama insisted the mandate to purchase health coverage is not a tax. But in defending its legality, the Justice Department argues in part that the mandate is a valid exercise of Congress' taxing power. From where we sit, Obama was trying to make a political point; the Justice Department, a legal one. In its tweet, the Republican Party overreaches when it says the administration now calls the mandate a tax. The administration (still) isn't doing that. But it does cite Congress' power to levy taxes as authority for the mandate. And that enables the GOP to score its own political point, based on what looks like the administration's runs at having it both ways. We rate the GOP's recap of Obama's early position and his administration's recent defense of the law as Mostly True.
In April 2017, an advertisement for a diet product called "Refresh Garcinia Cambogia" or "Garicinia Slim" was disguised as a genuine news report and published on web sites such as Running Evolutions.com and The Platinum Beard:  Running Evolutions.com The Platinum Beard   Student from Cornell University Cuts 31lbs On University Budget! Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 31lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money. Amanda is studying nutrition sciences at Cornell, and for a required research project Amanda thought it would be perfect to use university funds to find out how to 'hack' her weight loss. According to Amanda, "the most expensive piece of it all was actually finding what worked. But the actual solution only cost about $5." "I had struggled with my weight my whole life. I tried things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which just didn't work as good as they promised. I am a single Mom with a kid at home and I am also working towards my degree, so I don't have any time to be at the gym. When I was assigned this big research project, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a deeper look at the natural weight loss opportunities that are out there, and that is when I found out about combining Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and apple cider vinegar. The best part of it all, I can tell that my daughter is proud of me." - Amanda Haughman These reports included a number of false and misleading claims. For instance, the lead photograph purportedly showing Amanda Haughman's tremendous weight loss is actually Rachel Graham, who lost nearly 100 pounds in a year. Graham told Today in 2016 that she credited her weight loss to exercise and a healthy diet. Graham did not mention the alleged magic formula of apple cider vinegar and garcinia cambogia: Rachel Graham Today Ask Rachel Graham how shes managed to lose almost 100 pounds in one year and the formula is simple: Healthy food and exercise. No secrets. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. Shes also honest about the impact of going from 235 pounds to 144 pounds, especially the loose skin on her stomach, thighs and arms.  [...] I want people to know that it is 110 percent possible, Graham told TODAY. I used to feel as though it wasn't. That I didn't have what it takes, and that it was just too far out of reach... If you want to make changes, it is completely possible with healthy food and exercise. This weight loss advertisement also fabricated an interview with CNN and claimed that the network ran a segment on this Cornell student's "amazing discovery":   We sat down with Amanda to ask her more about how she found out about Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and whether or not that is all that she used to lose 31lbs so quickly. CNN: Tell us, how did you know where to start? Amanda: To be honest, I really didn't. I was given a budget for the project by the university, and I spent nearly all of it researching everything under the sun. I looked into other previous research, case studies, and even successful weight loss stories of others.   This story never appeared on CNN.  Not surprisingly the Platinum Beard post links to a site selling Garcinia Cambogia. The Running Evolutions article links instead to what is apparently borrowed content from Barry's Boot Camp, a personal training program. We reached out to Barry's Boot Camp for comment, but have not yet received a reply.  Although we can't speak to the effectiveness of drinking apple cider vinegar with Refresh Garcinia Cambogia, we can say that this text did not originate in a genuine news article. This is an advertisement that used a fabricated interview, falsified claims, and an unrelated photograph to sell a diet product. Pawlowski, A.  "Mom gets real about weight loss: Here's how she shed 90 pounds in a year."
  Today  3 October 2016. Claim: A photograph taken shortly after a California "UFO sighting" depicts a dead alien creature.  Example:[Collected via e-mail, November2015] Seems this is going viral on Facebook. They are talking about a missle launch and consequent "lights" then stating they heard screaming and found this "alien" or animal: "In Southern California everybody noticed a bright weird light. The government tried to tell everybody it's a testing of a missile launching. And now ppl in San Jose, CA are seeing dead aliens laying around and Facebook deleting it every time somebody mentions it."  Origins: On 7 November 2015, social media users (and subsequently, the regular news media) reported an unidentified bright light spotted and photographed in the skies above California:  The following day, Facebook user Gianna Peponis and a Reddit user shared the above-reproduced photographs, claiming the images were snapped shortly after reports about the bright lightappeared. It wasn't clear who initially uploaded the photographs to the Internet, and the images' origins were further obscured by the fact that the Facebook poster either deleted or locked the initial, most popular set of photographs. Her page sported subsequent screenshots of that initial photo set, which lacked any proof that the pictures were taken or posted after the bright light event and left open the possibility that the user exploited an extant rumor about a UFO sightingto spread photogtraphs unrelated to the incident:  Several Facebook postsand multiple e-mails we received maintainedthe photographs were "deleted" (presumably by Facebook as part of a government cover-up of extraterrestrial sightings), but the user in question herself denied her pictures were removedby a third party. On 9 November 2015, a Facebook user asked her whether the mysteriously missing first image was deleted in that fashion, to which she replied "nope." When pressed for the location of the creature seen in the images, she replied that it was "buried."The Reddit thread in question was also presented as a first-person account, titled "Friend found this outside her house. Wtf indeed..." It's worth noting that r/WTF (the subreddit in which the images gained the most traction) was rife with "karma whoring," a practice wherein users re-purpose existing photographs with a compelling backstory appended to them in order to accumulate upvotes and amplify their status on the site. Theuser who shared the images to r/WTF had a scant comment history prior to publishing the thread and did not subsequently comment on it. A separate Reddit thread on r/aliens (titled "My sisters friend found this in her yard... Anyone have any idea what it is? In San Jose CA") similarly presented the claim as a first-person one, posting a comment in that discussion to share two additional mobile phone screenshots of the purported alien.The images were originally published to Facebook on 5 November 2015 by a user in Pleasant Hope, Missouri. As such, they were demonstrably not taken at a later date in San Jose, California.The Orange County Sheriff's Department addressed the "light in the sky" rumors on Twitter shortly after calls began flooding in, and prior to the publication of photographs of the San Jose "alien" on social media:#OCSDPIO: Light seen in OC sky was confirmed through JWA tower to be a Naval test fire off the coast. No further details.   OC Sheriff, CA (@OCSD) November 8, 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the unusual lights in the sky that same night:A mysterious light that streaked across San Diego's night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy.Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California, a Navy spokesman said.The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy's Third Fleet ... The test range is a massive area northwest of Los Angeles. The Navy periodically uses the range to test fire Tomahawk and Standard cruise from surface ships and submarines.  In fact, news of potential military activity in the airspace surrounding LAX was announced by the airport on 6 November 2015, prior to the sightings in the sky:Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) officials report that the Federal Aviation Administrations LAX Tower indicates that the military airspace to the west of LAX will be active for one week, creating traffic route limitations and requiring LAX to temporarily deviate from Over-Ocean Operations. The deviations begin tonight, November 6,and continue through November 12.LAX normally operates in Over-Ocean Operations from midnight to 6:30 a.m., wherein aircraft arrive and depart over the ocean to minimize noise disturbance to the communities directly east of the airport.Active military airspace will require the airport to temporarily deviate from this air traffic flow configuration and to remain in westerly operations (aircraft arriving and departing westbound) for the next seven nights.As a result, persons living near the airport may notice a change in aircraft flight activity and associated noise, airport officials said.  While its unlikely many folks kept abreast of LAX's latest news releases, the activity later reported as being alien-related was anticipated as part of scheduled military exercises. Here's a photograph of the phenomenon as captured by one of our correspondents in San Diego:  As with prior claims about alien corpses, the rumor's originators were unable or unwilling to produce more than a photograph of a photograph to substantiate their claims. One user stated that the remains were "buried," conveniently blocking them from any sort of examination. As one Reddit commenter pointed out, the images all closely resembled a partially consumed deer fetus more than anything else:  The 7 November 2015 "light in the sky" was not onlylater explained by the Navy, it had been previously announced by LAX. Multiple social media users claimed photographs of what looked to be a fetal deerdepicted a creaturefound dead in the area after the "sighting," even though no one stepped forward to further substantiate the assertion with additional proof or images. And although the rumor was spread in part by folks claiming the images were deleted in an attempt to conceal the discovery, that claim was contradicted by the appearance of thesame photographs across online outlets suchFacebook, Twitter, and Reddit.Last updated: 9 November 2015Originally published: 9 November 2015 subsequent screenshots    Several Facebook postsand multiple e-mails we received maintainedthe photographs were "deleted" (presumably by Facebook as part of a government cover-up of extraterrestrial sightings), but the user in question herself denied her pictures were removedby a third party. On 9 November 2015, a Facebook user asked her whether the mysteriously missing first image was deleted in that fashion, to which she replied "nope." When pressed for the location of the creature seen in the images, she replied that it was "buried." The Reddit thread in question was also presented as a first-person account, titled "Friend found this outside her house. Wtf indeed..." It's worth noting that r/WTF (the subreddit in which the images gained the most traction) was rife with "karma whoring," a practice wherein users re-purpose existing photographs with a compelling backstory appended to them in order to accumulate upvotes and amplify their status on the site. Theuser who shared the images to r/WTF had a scant comment history prior to publishing the thread and did not subsequently comment on it. A separate Reddit thread on r/aliens (titled "My sisters friend found this in her yard... Anyone have any idea what it is? In San Jose CA") similarly presented the claim as a first-person one, posting a comment in that discussion to share two additional mobile phone screenshots of the purported alien. thread karma whoring history thread comment The images were originally published to Facebook on 5 November 2015 by a user in Pleasant Hope, Missouri. As such, they were demonstrably not taken at a later date in San Jose, California. published The Orange County Sheriff's Department addressed the "light in the sky" rumors on Twitter shortly after calls began flooding in, and prior to the publication of photographs of the San Jose "alien" on social media:#OCSDPIO: Light seen in OC sky was confirmed through JWA tower to be a Naval test fire off the coast. No further details.   OC Sheriff, CA (@OCSD) November 8, 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the unusual lights in the sky that same night:A mysterious light that streaked across San Diego's night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy.Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California, a Navy spokesman said.The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy's Third Fleet ... The test range is a massive area northwest of Los Angeles. The Navy periodically uses the range to test fire Tomahawk and Standard cruise from surface ships and submarines.  In fact, news of potential military activity in the airspace surrounding LAX was announced by the airport on 6 November 2015, prior to the sightings in the sky:Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) officials report that the Federal Aviation Administrations LAX Tower indicates that the military airspace to the west of LAX will be active for one week, creating traffic route limitations and requiring LAX to temporarily deviate from Over-Ocean Operations. The deviations begin tonight, November 6,and continue through November 12.LAX normally operates in Over-Ocean Operations from midnight to 6:30 a.m., wherein aircraft arrive and depart over the ocean to minimize noise disturbance to the communities directly east of the airport.Active military airspace will require the airport to temporarily deviate from this air traffic flow configuration and to remain in westerly operations (aircraft arriving and departing westbound) for the next seven nights.As a result, persons living near the airport may notice a change in aircraft flight activity and associated noise, airport officials said.  While its unlikely many folks kept abreast of LAX's latest news releases, the activity later reported as being alien-related was anticipated as part of scheduled military exercises. Here's a photograph of the phenomenon as captured by one of our correspondents in San Diego:  As with prior claims about alien corpses, the rumor's originators were unable or unwilling to produce more than a photograph of a photograph to substantiate their claims. One user stated that the remains were "buried," conveniently blocking them from any sort of examination. As one Reddit commenter pointed out, the images all closely resembled a partially consumed deer fetus more than anything else:  The 7 November 2015 "light in the sky" was not onlylater explained by the Navy, it had been previously announced by LAX. Multiple social media users claimed photographs of what looked to be a fetal deerdepicted a creaturefound dead in the area after the "sighting," even though no one stepped forward to further substantiate the assertion with additional proof or images. And although the rumor was spread in part by folks claiming the images were deleted in an attempt to conceal the discovery, that claim was contradicted by the appearance of thesame photographs across online outlets suchFacebook, Twitter, and Reddit.Last updated: 9 November 2015Originally published: 9 November 2015 #OCSDPIO: Light seen in OC sky was confirmed through JWA tower to be a Naval test fire off the coast. No further details. #OCSDPIO    OC Sheriff, CA (@OCSD) November 8, 2015 November 8, 2015   The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the unusual lights in the sky that same night:A mysterious light that streaked across San Diego's night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy. reported Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California, a Navy spokesman said. The test was part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy's Third Fleet ... The test range is a massive area northwest of Los Angeles. The Navy periodically uses the range to test fire Tomahawk and Standard cruise from surface ships and submarines.   In fact, news of potential military activity in the airspace surrounding LAX was announced by the airport on 6 November 2015, prior to the sightings in the sky:Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) officials report that the Federal Aviation Administrations LAX Tower indicates that the military airspace to the west of LAX will be active for one week, creating traffic route limitations and requiring LAX to temporarily deviate from Over-Ocean Operations. The deviations begin tonight, November 6,and continue through November 12. announced airport LAX normally operates in Over-Ocean Operations from midnight to 6:30 a.m., wherein aircraft arrive and depart over the ocean to minimize noise disturbance to the communities directly east of the airport. Active military airspace will require the airport to temporarily deviate from this air traffic flow configuration and to remain in westerly operations (aircraft arriving and departing westbound) for the next seven nights. As a result, persons living near the airport may notice a change in aircraft flight activity and associated noise, airport officials said.   While its unlikely many folks kept abreast of LAX's latest news releases, the activity later reported as being alien-related was anticipated as part of scheduled military exercises. Here's a photograph of the phenomenon as captured by one of our correspondents in San Diego:  As with prior claims about alien corpses, the rumor's originators were unable or unwilling to produce more than a photograph of a photograph to substantiate their claims. One user stated that the remains were "buried," conveniently blocking them from any sort of examination. As one Reddit commenter pointed out, the images all closely resembled a partially consumed deer fetus more than anything else:  The 7 November 2015 "light in the sky" was not onlylater explained by the Navy, it had been previously announced by LAX. Multiple social media users claimed photographs of what looked to be a fetal deerdepicted a creaturefound dead in the area after the "sighting," even though no one stepped forward to further substantiate the assertion with additional proof or images. And although the rumor was spread in part by folks claiming the images were deleted in an attempt to conceal the discovery, that claim was contradicted by the appearance of thesame photographs across online outlets suchFacebook, Twitter, and Reddit.Last updated: 9 November 2015Originally published: 9 November 2015   As with prior claims about alien corpses, the rumor's originators were unable or unwilling to produce more than a photograph of a photograph to substantiate their claims. One user stated that the remains were "buried," conveniently blocking them from any sort of examination. As one Reddit commenter pointed out, the images all closely resembled a partially consumed deer fetus more than anything else:  The 7 November 2015 "light in the sky" was not onlylater explained by the Navy, it had been previously announced by LAX. Multiple social media users claimed photographs of what looked to be a fetal deerdepicted a creaturefound dead in the area after the "sighting," even though no one stepped forward to further substantiate the assertion with additional proof or images. And although the rumor was spread in part by folks claiming the images were deleted in an attempt to conceal the discovery, that claim was contradicted by the appearance of thesame photographs across online outlets suchFacebook, Twitter, and Reddit.Last updated: 9 November 2015Originally published: 9 November 2015 alien corpses    The 7 November 2015 "light in the sky" was not onlylater explained by the Navy, it had been previously announced by LAX. Multiple social media users claimed photographs of what looked to be a fetal deerdepicted a creaturefound dead in the area after the "sighting," even though no one stepped forward to further substantiate the assertion with additional proof or images. And although the rumor was spread in part by folks claiming the images were deleted in an attempt to conceal the discovery, that claim was contradicted by the appearance of thesame photographs across online outlets suchFacebook, Twitter, and Reddit.   Last updated: 9 November 2015 Originally published: 9 November 2015 A series of imagespurportedly showinga UFO photographed by several different people began circulating via social media in October 2015: Yesterday afternoon in Memphis 4-6 random people posted these pictures on social media. The weirdest thing is that each of these individuals did not know each other and they all captured the same thing! Why isn't this being broadcasted on all major media outlets?! Somebody has some explaining to do. While the example Facebook post shown above reported that the alien ship was spotted over Memphis, Tennessee, other iterations of the photo set have claimed that the UFO was actually spotted inBenguela, Angola: claimed We'vehad a lot of people visiting the site over the past few weeks looking specifically for information about a remarkable UFO sighting in Banguela, Angola. The sightings were originally reported to MUFON and included a rather stunning image of the gigantic UFO that was not featured here on the UFOMG! copies of the reports. Here it isnow:  Even though these images all feature different settings, the UFO, as well as the surrounding cloud formations, pictured in each photograph are exactly the same. This means one of two things: Either a race of aliens has developed an efficient form of replicating technology, or the above-displayed photographs were created using the same stock image of a UFO. In fact, this series of photographs purportedly showing a UFO over Memphis (or Benguela) was created using a piece of fan art related to the V science fiction television series (about alien visitors to Earth) created bydigital artist Jukka Korhonen: artist   I was a big fan of V when it first came out. My love for the series has been growing bigger ever since they released the show on the DVD. The biggest news for V fans was the possible release of a sequel-series titled "V: The Second Generation". I quickly scetched out a few concept works and a fanmade poster to celebrate the announcement. As with many times in the media-mentality of amercan television, the "V: Second Generation" was not considered a mainstream series and so the network decided to freeze the project at the final meters. For this portfolio, I took out the V model I had made for the poster and combined it with one of my matteclouds. This image was one of the "doom" concept ideas that I had in mind when I first heard about the new series.  Modelled in trueSpace and postwork in Corel GS. This is NOT official art for the series, its merely fan-art from a dedicated admirer of Kenneth Johnson's work. I hope one day we will see the series come to life and see these iconic ships rise again to the LA skies ... FACT CHECK:  Are minimum wage Seattle workers asking for fewer hours in order to retain welfare benefits?  Claim: Minimum wage workers in Seattle are asking for their hours to be cut so they can retain welfare benefits.   : WHAT'S   Five full-time Seattle caregivers may have asked to adjust their hours in order to remain in subsidized housing.     WHAT'S UNPROVEN:  More than five to seven workers have deliberately reduced their working hours to retain subsidized housing, workers are spending fewer hours on the job to retain benefits other than subsidized housing, the Seattle minimum wage law has caused an reduction in overall hours worked by low-wage workers. Examples: [Collected via Twitter, June 2015] Workers Now Requesting To Work Less Hours In Order To Still Qualify For Welfare https://t.co/IzHMno6bJD #fightfor15 pic.twitter.com/KiC53fO12c https://t.co/IzHMno6bJD #fightfor15 pic.twitter.com/KiC53fO12c  The Patriot (@ThePatriot143) July 25, 2015 July 25, 2015 In Seattle, which now has a $15 minimum wage, workers are now demanding fewer hours to remain eligible for welfare. Obama's America.  Ken Gardner (@kesgardner) July 25, 2015 July 25, 2015 <!--Hey #Fightfor15 if workers just want to get out of poverty, why are they asking for fewer hours to stay on WELFARE? https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf el Sooper  (@SooperMexican) July 25, 2015This is just pathetic: Workers making $15 min wage in Seattle are asking for fewer hours just to stay on WELFARE: https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf el Sooper  (@SooperMexican) July 26, 2015-->   Hey #Fightfor15 if workers just want to get out of poverty, why are they asking for fewer hours to stay on WELFARE? https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf #Fightfor15 https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf  el Sooper  (@SooperMexican) July 25, 2015 July 25, 2015 This is just pathetic: Workers making $15 min wage in Seattle are asking for fewer hours just to stay on WELFARE: https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf https://t.co/2MIvc3QQLf  el Sooper  (@SooperMexican) July 26, 2015 July 26, 2015 -->   Origins: On 22 July 2015, Fox News published an article titled "Seattle Sees Fallout from $15 Minimum Wage, as Other Cities Follow Suit." Credited to correspondent Dan Springer (who also recently reported that Oregon was providing 15-year-olds with sex change surgeries), the article lamented what it claimed were "unintended consequences" resulting from a Seattle law raising the minimum wage there to $15 per hour. article Oregon The Fox News article and video reported that "evidence is surfacing" to suggest Seattle workers have begun to work less in order to claim a higher hourly wage while still qualifying for government assistance: Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise  in a bid to keep overall income down so they don't lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent. Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less. "If they cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn't actually help get them out of poverty, all you've done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people," said Jason Rantz, host of the Jason Rantz show on 97.3 KIRO-FM. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com  video.foxnews.com However, if Springer found "evidence" of such a trend, he did not include it in his 22 July 2015 article (claims from which have since been aggregated to multiple web sites). While Springer pointed to a Seattle home nursing nonprofit (Full Life Care), he only vaguely referenced a statement an unidentified individual there made to a third party, then quoted an opinion provided by a local radio host who speculated upon what might happen if workers opted to cut their hours based on a higher minimum wage in order to retain government assistance. Lacking from this narrative was any actual evidence that such claims were rooted in any measurable labor trend in Seattle. aggregated multiple sites It appears Springer's entire premise was lifted from an 8 June 2015 report by television station KIRO which provided additional context that painted the claim in a slightly different light: report Nora Gibson is the executive director of Full Life Care, a nonprofit that serves elderly people in various homes and nursing facilities. She is also on the board of the Seattle Housing Authority. Gibson told KIRO she saw a sudden reaction from workers when Seattle's phased minimum-wage ordinance took effect in April, bringing minimum wage to $11 an hour. She said anecdotally, some people feared they would lose their subsidized units but still not be able to afford market-rate rents. For example, she said last week, five employees at one of her organizations 24-hour care facilities for Alzheimer's patients asked to reduce their hours in order to remain eligible for subsidies. In that same article, Full Life Care's executive directly explicitly stated that the issue was not one of worker laziness or an intent by employees to "game the system" for additional "welfare benefits," but rather one of necessity due to Seattle's exceptionally high market rate for private housing: "This has nothing to do with people's willingness to work, or how hard people work. It has to do with being caught in a very complex situation where they have to balance everything they can pull together to pull together a stable, successful life," Gibson said. Gibson said she fully supports a minimum wage increase but was not surprised when her employees asked for fewer hours. "The jump from subsidized housing to market rate in Seattle is huge," she said. While two other Seattle residents spoke to KIRO about the specter of being shut out of subsidized housing by earning a slightly higher wage, a Seattle city council member told the outlet that the accounts did not reflect any measurable trend of which he was aware: Seattle Councilmember Nick Licata said he hadn't heard of purposeful reduction of hours before. "We need more information, for one thing. This is anecdotal," Licata said. Still, he said people need more options, especially after breaking the threshold that pushes them out of public housing. "We do not want this to be an improvement on one side of the scale, and then decrease in living conditions on another," Licata said. "We should not be using this as an excuse not to address the overall problem." What has been reported is that several full-time workers at a single Seattle non-profit may have expressed a desire to adjust their hours to retain subsidized housing, but more "evidence" of workers requesting fewer hours on the job after the minimum wage increase hasn't turned up yet. Moreover, the source originally quoted about the issue stated that workers earning the higher hourly rate would likely be unable to afford private housing in Seattle due to market conditions, but they were not seeking other "welfare" benefits nor unwilling to work. Last updated: 28 July 2015 Originally published:  28 July 2015 On 15 February 2016, the Facebook page "The Original Wake Up People" posted a years-old memefeaturing a quote ostensibly uttered by Vladimir Putin:   This is not a real quote from the Russian president.The above-displayed quote has been circulating since 2009 in one form or another (usually in the form of a meme such as the above image) when it was originally published on the satirical web siteScooter's Report: published Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin haswarned the Obama administration against adopting further socialism, saying Russian historyclearly proves it is a recipe for failure. "Any fourth grade history student knows socialism has failed in every country, at every time in history," saidPutin. "President Obama and his fellow Democrats are either idiots or deliberately trying to destroy their own economy." Scooter's Report, whichfrequently featured anti-Obama rhetoric, has adisclaimer on the web site that states, "Like I have to tell you: This isfictitious satire and any resemblance to persons, places, or events is coincidental." Putin has, however, addressed the responsibilities of businesses to the community in the past: addressed We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich. The economic equity issues that proved pivotal in the 2012 presidential campaign are again shaping up as big factors this year. Both major parties are pushing to make sure their talking points prevail. Democrats cite statistics showing a yawning pay gap between men and women, with Republicans countering that young women are out earning men in some urban areas. The Claim The National Partnership For Women & Families, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, released a new analysis April 8, 2014, to coincide with Equal Pay Day. It cited U.S. Census data showing that women who work full time in Oregon are paid 79 cents for every dollar paid to men -- a claim PolitiFact Oregon has investigated previously and found solid. But it went further. If the wage gap were eliminated, it said, a working woman in Oregon would have enough money per year for 2,877 gallons of gas, 72 more weeks of food for her family or nearly 12 more months of rent. We wondered if the specific pieces of the claim were on the money. The Analysis The basis of the groups claim comes from the U.S. Census Bureaus Current Population Survey. It lists, state by state, median annual earnings for year-round, full-time workers and draws on statistics from 2012, the most recent year available. Men in Oregon earned $47,402, compared with $37,381 for women, according to the data. Thats 79 cents on the dollar and adds up to a gap of $10,021 a year. The gap persists for a variety of reasons, said Mary King, a Portland State University economics professor, including a gender division of labor under which womens jobs are paid less, lack of strong family-leave policies, and women disproportionately ending up in low-paying retail and service work. Satisfied that women do earn 79 cents for every dollar earned by men -- the gap would be 21 cents -- we emailed Sadie Kliner, the National Partnership for Women & Families communications director. She directed us to a separate fact sheet. Gasoline prices, according to the sheet, were provided by Oil Price Information Service in cooperation with Wex, Inc. A gallon of regular gas in Oregon currently costs $3.697, it read. We checked that against AAA Oregon/Idahos website, which shows regular gas in Oregon right now averaging $3.69 per gallon. Then we did the math, dividing the wage gap of $10,021 by $3.69. The group claimed a woman could buy 2,877 gallons, but we found closing the gap would enable a woman to buy only 2,715 gallons. We contacted Kliner again, who noted that Oregons gas prices were $3.48 when the fact sheet was prepared in early March. A check of AAAs gas-price information confirmed Kliners point. We moved on to the 12 months worth of rent piece of the claim. The group, citing data from the Censuss 2012 American Community Survey, put the median cost for rental housing in Oregon at $862 a month. It showed a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percent. Independently verifying that number wasnt easy, since no county or or state organization tracks it. We called Multifamily NW, whose members manage more than 150,000 rental units from southern Washington to Medford. Jonathan Clay, the associations research and communications analyst, pointed us to a semi-annual survey released in October. Two-bedroom, one-bath units averaged $818 per month across the metro area, according to the survey, putting it within range of the margin of error in the Census data. We calculated that $10,021 would pay for 11.5 months of rent, just over half a month shy of the groups original claim of 12 months. Again contacting Kliner about the discrepancy, she noted that the group rounded the figure up, using the word nearly to account for the difference. Finally, in assessing food costs, we noted that the original claim said 72 more weeks of food for her family. While the claim didnt specify the number of children, we settled on two. We then checked the U.S. Department of Agricultures website, which publishes monthly food plans representing a well-rounded diet at four different cost levels. Drawing from the low-cost plan, two children could be fed on $97.50 per week. Food costs for an adult female would bring the familys weekly total to $144.90. That compares with the $139.10 per week for the 72 weeks in the groups pay-gap claim. Our Ruling A national advocacy group, in spotlighting Equal Pay Day, claimed that a pay gap between men and women exists in Oregon. PolitiFact Oregon has looked at the gap before and found that its real, but we took the next step by fact-checking the groups claim that the gap is big enough to pay for 2,877 gallons of gasoline, 72 months of food or nearly 12 months of rent. All three elements of the claim checked out -- or were very close -- according to independent sources. We rate the claim True. On 29 August 2017, a satirical Facebook page called "The Cajun Navy" (not to be confused with the actual Cajun Navy, a nonprofit organization whose members have been conducting rescues of Harvey victims on the ground) posted a now-viral meme that appeared to exploit Internet-driven outrage over the misleading rumor that "Prosperity Gospel" preacher Joel Osteen had closed his 16,000-capacity megachurch in Houston to refugees from floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Harvey, which made landfall in southeast Texas in late August 2017. satirical Cajun Navy organization rumor The meme stated that only 60 of Houston's 1,566 churches had opened their doors to flood victims. It was shared thousands of times although it provided no citation for the figures:  meme   Only 60 (4%) out of 1566 have opened their doors to help the flood victims and the needy during hurricane Harvey. Let that sink in for a moment. "The Cajun Navy" page has shared several other posts mocking Osteen and his church for their response to Hurricane Harvey.  mocking church Despite the fact none of the figures in the meme are attributed, it was picked up by a Huffington Post community blogger who used it as leverage in arguing that churches should be taxed because they do an inadequate job of providing charity. blogger However, according to the Internal Revenue Service, religious organizations are tax exempt to promote religious freedom, not because they provide charity: exempt Congress has enacted special tax laws that apply to churches, religious organizations and ministers in recognition of their unique status in American society and of their rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Churches and religious organizations are generally exempt from income tax and receive other favorable treatment under the tax law; however, certain income of a church or religious organization may be subject to tax, such as income from an unrelated business. The meme was shared on 29 August 2017, just a few days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas  and it seems highly unlikely someone conducted a survey of all of the churches in Houston during this time. Although we don't know the exact percentage of churches that opened their doors (or the number that couldn't, due to flood damage), we have come across multiple reports of churches coming to the aid of those in need in the wake of Hurricane Harvey: flood damage multiple reports churches aid The firefighters put a call out for help, asking if anyone could take the evacuees in. One local youth pastor answered the call. The rescue teams picked up Pastor David McDougle, 26, and his wife from their flooded home so they could open the First Baptist Church North Houston as a makeshift shelter for those stranded. McDougle said he got a call Sunday evening asking if he would let evacuees sleep at the church, so he and his wife took all the food and water they had gotten and brought it to the church. Though they now have a roof over their heads, the church is not a designated shelter and has no food or water for the evacuees. The church reached capacity with nearly 300 people laying on the floor of the gym, and the food supply ran out around 5 a.m. People are nervous to drink tap water. The restrooms at the church will not flush, creating a mess of the place. Houston's First Baptist Church, led by Pastor Greg Matte, is also participating in relief efforts, providing food and shelter to those in need. Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, a former faith adviser to George W. Bush and pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, announced that as of Monday, his church would house those affected by another round of evacuations.  announced Max Moll, a spokesman for Houston Controller Chris Brown, told us that churches have in fact been helping in various capacities, depending on their ability and circumstance in relation to flood damage. Some have been volunteering while others have been donating clothing and other supplies. Others have opened their doors to shelter stranded residents. Moll told us: Its up to each individual entity to decide what they can and can't do. Some [of the churches] are without power, or are flooded, or the roads around them are impassable. There are a lot of ways to respond and a lot of churches have responded in strong ways. In general terms, the city has three official shelter locations where thousands are being housed  the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Toyota Center and NRG Center. Osteen told "CBS This Morning" that his church has been coordinating its relief efforts with the city and opened the church for shelter when the city's overflowed: told We worked with the city constantly. The city set up a shelter about four miles from here that can house 10,000 people, showers, dormitories, kitchens, security, all that. They didn't need us as a shelter at that point. They wanted us to be a distribution center. ... When they filled up, they said "we need shelter," we started our shelter. Shellnut, Kate.  "Houston Churches Fight Flooding After Harvey Cancels Services."
  Christianity Today.  28 August 2017. Rombow, Dennis.  "Texas LDS Meetinghouse Becomes Shelter, Boat Command Center."
  Deseret News.  29 August 2017. Sullivan, Kevin.  "Texas Officials Say at Least Nine Dead as Harvey Flooding Continues"
  Washington Post.  28 August 2017. LA Times.  "Why Don't Churches Pay Taxes?"
  23 September 2008. McGowan Mellor, Gail."One of the Most Telling Things Ive Heard This Week."
Huffington Post blog.30 August 2017. Internal Revenue Service."Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations." In April 2021, as Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was being investigated for lewd and potentially illegal behavior involving underage women, some social media users started to mockingly share a picture of Gaetz with unusually tall hair: investigated   This is not a genuine image of Gaetz' hair.  It comes from a July 2020 hearing before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee concerning the online dominance of companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple. Here's a genuine screenshot of Gaetz from this hearing (left) and the doctored image (right). It's clear that the height of his hair was embellished in the fake image. House Judiciary Committee   A video of the full "Online Platforms and Market Power: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google" hearing can be seen below. Gaetz speaks several times during this hearing. He can be glimpsed, for example, around the 3:03:00 mark: Seventeen-year-old Alyssa Carson has garnered media attention for her determination to be part of a space mission to Mars. But although her desire has been recognized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), she is not officially in training with that organization to become an astronaut or to take part the first human mission to Mars.  Carson first began generating media attention when she was 12, at which point she had already attended three different space shuttle launches and taken part in NASA space camps in three different countries. She was also the first person to complete the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's "Passport to Explore Space" program, which requires visiting each of 14 NASA visitor centers across nine different states in the U.S. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, though, is managed by a NASA contractor and is not funded by the agency itself. attention complete contractor Completing the "Passport to Explore Space" program also led to Carson's being a panelist at an event hosted by NASA and the Smithsonian, marking ten years of exploration by the Mars Exploration Rovers. As well, Carson has her own call sign," Blueberry." panelist Blueberry However, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to us that Carson is not currently training with or being "prepped" by that agency, as some reports have suggested. Also contrary to some reports, NASA's Astronaut Candidate Program has no age requirement for applications, although according to the agency "astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46, with the average age being 34."  prepped reports age requirement In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed White House Space Policy Directive 1, which his administration said would "lay the foundation" for a mission to Mars. Carson's father, Bert, told Teen Vogue magazine that private companies have "considered" sending her on missions into space  although not to Mars. signed told "If we can find a mission for her in the next two years, she will be the first kid in the world to go to space," he said. "If we can get it together before she's 20, she'll be the first teenager." One private group, Mars One, has already selected Carson to be one of their ambassadors. Carson  wrote on that group's website about her interest in visiting the Red Planet: wrote I would love to go to Mars because it is a planet that no one has been before. It's about the same size as the Earth and there are ice caps at the top and bottom of Mars. That means there is water on Mars. This could possibly be our next Earth. Just think about all the things that are in Space. For example: planets we have never explored, galaxies that we have never heard of, stars that are just babies, black holes that are as wide as the Sun to Pluto multiple times and has the mass of a billion suns, parts of the universe that we have never seen. Just think of all that stuff just floating around. It's more than you can imagine. Quinn, Katra.  "The Making of an Astronaut."
  Astronaut.com.  6 February 2014. Astronaut.com.  "First Person to Complete NASA's Passport Program Is Astronaut.Com's Friend Alyssa Carson."
  26 November 2013. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  "NASA, Smithsonian Host 10-Year Mars Rover Events."
  6 January 2014. NASA.gov. "New Space Policy Directive Calls for Human Expansion Across Solar System."
  11 December 2017. Krueger, Alyson. "17-Year-Old Alyssa Carson Wants to Be the First Person on Mars."
  Teen Vogue.  21 March 2018. In December 2021, a meme circulated on social media that claimed Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads the U.S. COVID-19 response and has become a bogeyman for pandemic conspiracy theorists, was the real-life model for the villain in the 2013 movie "Dallas Buyers Club." bogeyman   The meme contains images from the movie's promotion materials, including stars Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Jared Leto, next to a black-and-white photograph of a young Fauci. It also contains text that reads: "Remember the movie 'Dallas Buyers Club' about a group of AIDS patients fighting for the right to use cheap, effective drugs against government bureaucrats in the pocket of Big Pharm? The bad guy was Dr. Anthony Fauci." First of all, we note that movies are not real life. Even if it were true that the villain in the movie was based on Fauci, that doesn't mean the story is completely factual rather than dramatized for the purpose of making a good movie. Producer Rachel Winter said as much in a comment published by Slate in 2013: Slate [Screenwriters] Craig [Borten] and Melisa [Wallack] found the right blend of accuracy, not only for the medical details, but for the legal and government issues that Ron faced. There was only so far we could go into 'procedural' mode; the movie had to be entertaining." And entertaining it was, racking up six Academy Award nominations and winning the Oscar for actor, supporting actor, and best makeup and hairstyling. Various aspects of the movie's script don't align with the claim that the villain in the film was modeled after Fauci, and we couldn't find any public statements made by anyone involved with the film indicating that the antagonist was modeled after him. The film is the classic tail of the heroic man who uses his ingenuity and grit to go toe-to-toe with the uncaring and callous Big Government bureaucrats. And though the protagonist in the story is a real person, the antagonists appear to be fictional characters. We don't know whether they are based on real people, or amalgamations of people the protagonist dealt with during his life. McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, a hard-living Dallas electrician and rodeo rider who gets diagnosed with HIV in 1985. At that time, an HIV/AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence, because there was no treatment for the new epidemic. Woodroof is placed in a clinical trial for azidothymidine (AZT). The thrust of the movie is that there is a conspiracy between the government and medical establishment to push "toxic" AZT on HIV patients, while Woodroof circumvents the system by going to Mexico and getting an unapproved cocktail of drugs and supplements from a doctor who lost his license to practice in the U.S.. Woodroof then returns to form the Dallas Buyers Club with a transgender woman named Rayon (Jared Leto), where they illicitly sell the cocktail, at first for profit and later to save lives, only to be hounded an FDA agent. thrust The antagonist (or "bad guy") in the film is an FDA investigator, which is not an equivalent position to the one Fauci held at the time the events portrayed in the film took place. Fauci was an important public health figure during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but he wasn't an FDA agent. He spent his career at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (part of the National Institutes of Health), becoming that agency's director in 1984, one year before the events in the film. important The Washington Post reported in 2014 that neither the portrayal of AZT or Woodroof's legal trouble were accurate in the film, noting, "AZT is actually a very effective therapy against HIV/AIDS." It was known to prolong life after a diagnosis. It's true that the doses it was prescribed at early in the epidemic were often too high, resulting in deleterious effects, but those effects could easily be countered by lowering the dose or stopping the drug. reported The Post noted that AZT became an important part of lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatment for about a decade and as such, saved "millions" of lives. The film included a title card at the end admitting as much. Its portrayal of the FDA's actions vis-a-vis such buyers clubs was also factually problematic, in that in reality, the FDA did cooperate with them. Peter Staley, an HIV/AIDS activist who informally consulted on the film told the Post: The true story was that we made the system bend, and we used the system and needed the system. I wouldn't be alive today without the companies this film paints as evil, and I wouldn't be alive today without civil servants at the FDA who worked incredibly hard in the 1990s to get these drugs out there quickly. Furthermore, Woodroof's issues with the FDA largely stemmed from "his reluctance to stop using harmful treatments." In sum, there isn't any evidence that the antagonist in the movie was based on Fauci, and even if that were the case, that doesn't mean one should draw any real-world conclusions about Fauci based on a movie made for entertainment purposes. Dallas Buyers Club (2013) - IMDb. www.imdb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790636/plotsummary. Accessed 17 Dec. 2021. Westenfeld, Adrienne. Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci Sparred During the AIDS Crisis. In the End They Were Friends. Esquire, 27 May 2020, https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a32688094/anthony-fauci-larry-kramer-aids-friendship-legacy/. What Dallas Buyers Club Got Wrong about the AIDS Crisis. Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/12/10/what-dallas-buyers-club-got-wrong-about-the-aids-crisis/. Harris, Aisha. How Accurate Is Dallas Buyers Club? Slate, Nov. 2013. slate.com, https://slate.com/culture/2013/11/dallas-buyers-club-true-story-fact-and-fiction-in-the-matthew-mcconaughey-movie-about-ron-woodroof.html. Correction [Dec. 17, 2021]: "Dallas Buyers Club" won three Academy Awards, not six as previously reported.