Under economic sanctions, now Iran is suffering 30 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment.
An Iranian president says hesready to resolvethe nations nuclear standoff with the West  what gives? Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich gives at least partial credit to economic pain orchestrated by the United States and international allies. While the United States must still be very cautious, he saidon ABCsThis Week, one of the big lessons here is that economic sanctions do seem to work. Right now Iran is suffering 30 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment, he told a roundtable including CNNs Newt Gingrich, ABCs Jonathan Karl and PBS Gwen Ifill. I mean this nation is hurting and our economic sanctions, because we've been patient with them, because we have actually rounded up almost every other nation to support us, have had a huge impact. Is Iran suffering such high inflation and unemployment under economic sanctions? Tumbling oil exports Now, economic sanctions are nothing new for Iran, which hasfaced U.S. sanctionssince its 1979 Islamic revolution. But the pressure has been rising. Other nations have joined in sanctions since 2006 in response to Irans efforts to develop a nuclear weapon,according to a report by Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service, which provides nonpartisan analysis to Congress. Oil exports, which fund nearly half of Irans government spending, have fallen by about half since 2011, from about 2.5 million barrels a day to about 1.25 million. The drop has been driven, Katzman says, by a European Union embargo and U.S. pressure on Iranian oil customers. Iran also lost access to the international banking system. The combination has caused a sharp drop in the value of Irans currency, the rial, Katzman says. Meanwhile, sanctions helped trigger a recession thats driving up unemployment. Has that meant 30 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment, as Reich told ABC viewers? Theres not a simple answer. Inflation estimates range from30 percent to 70 percent. Official unemployment statistics, meanwhile, are out of date, and outside experts question their accuracy, anyway. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development dont have up-to-date figures for Iranian unemployment. Still, Reichs in range. Gary Hufbauer, a former U.S. Treasury official and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has studied sanctions for 30 years, said Reichs numbers seem reasonable. Heres how the Congressional Research Service put it in June: Inflation: 30 percent plus, according to Iran Central Bank in May 2013, but believed to be over 50 percent by outside experts. Unemployment rate: Official rate is 15.3 percent as of the end of 2011, but outside experts believe the rate is higher. Reich pointed us to news articles from theAssociated Pressand energy news siteOilPrice.com which offer some support for his numbers while highlighting the uncertainty. The Associated Press reported in June inflation over 30 percent, though it cited a 14 percent unemployment rate. OilPrices.com noted Sept. 19 that analysts outside the country found that unemployment rate impossible to believe, and quoted an estimate from Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian-born economic adviser to the European Union, of more than 20 percent. (The OilPrices.com report echoes a Reuters report from thesame day.) So reasonable seems like a fair assessment for Reichs numbers. We should also note theres not universal agreement on the size of sanctions role in all that financial pain, which experts also attribute to Iransfiscal management. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley with a background in economics, told PolitiFact it just makes sense unemployment and inflation would follow a slash in oil exports. The typical consequence for a nation dependent on exports when those exports are cut is high inflation and high unemployment, he said. Michael Malloy, a professor at the University of the Pacifics McGeorge School of Law who specializes in banking regulation and economic sanctions, told PolitiFact it's likely to be a much more complicated picture. Our ruling Reich told ABC viewers that under economic sanctions, now Iran is suffering 30 percent inflation and 20 percent unemployment. Irans own statistics arent widely trusted and international organizations dont have recent unemployment figures. But those numbers fall within a broad range of expert estimates cited by news reports and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Its worth noting that Irans economic struggle has been exacerbated by its own economic policies and other factors, not just sanctions. Still, theres good evidence theyve had a huge impact, as Reich said. We rate his claim Mostly True.
An image purportedly showing a screenshot from a Russian state TV news program featuring eight Republican U.S. senators -- Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Burr (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and John Thune (R-SD) -- made its way online in January 2019, along with the claim that the pictured American lawmakers were being "honored" or "thanked" for lifting sanctions against three companies controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska:   This image has been posted to social media accompanied by a variety of descriptive captions: posted social media This image is a genuine screenshot from the news program "60 " (60 Minutes) aired on Channel 1 Russia on 17 January 2019. The graphic featuring the 8 GOP lawmakers originally appeared on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show (the MSNBC logo is visible in the bottom right hand corner of the graphic) the day prior during a segment concerning the lifting of sanctions that had been imposed on three companies controlled by oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska. sanctions The graphic appears at the 9:30 mark of the following video, while a transcription from Maddow's report on these sanctions appears below the video: transcription  Shortly before Christmas, the Trump administration quietly released plans to lift U.S. government sanctions on companies connected to Deripaska. Deripaska is sanctioned because of the U.S. -- because of the Russian government interfering in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. Now, the sanctions on Deripaska's companies are consequential. The companies linked to Deripaska happen to be huge companies. So, even if you set aside the sanctions' effects on Deripaska personally, unsanctioning these huge Russian companies will also be really substantially economically beneficial to the Russian economy as a whole. Under American law governing sanctions like this, Congress has 30 days to review any decision by the administration to lift these kinds of sanctions. Within that 30-day window, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer brought forward legislation to in fact challenge that decision by the Trump administration, to block the lifting of the Deripaska-related sanctions. As we reported last night, every Democrat in the Senate chamber voted with Schumer on this, as did 11 Republican senators, a heterogeneous bunch of Republican senators, who broke ranks with Mitch McConnell and sided with the Democrats to stop the Trump administration from lifting these Deripaska-related sanctions. That's a big number of Republican senators breaking ranks, especially after the Trump administration lobbied the Senate and the House really aggressively on this issue. Well, today, this afternoon, despite those 11 Republican senators breaking ranks and being willing to side with the Democrats on this, it turned out to be not enough because today there was a crucial vote on this matter which came with not a 50-vote threshold, but a 60-vote threshold to stop the Trump administration from lifting these Deripaska-related sanctions. Schumer and the Democrats and the breakaway Republicans were able to put together 57 votes, but 57 isn't 60, and so you can thank top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell. You can thank all of these other Republican senators who get all of this public credit for supposedly being so hawkish and so realistic on Russia. You can thank them all for voting today to give Vladimir Putin's government in Russia a huge big economic present and voting to give Oleg Deripaska the biggest break of his life, even while his potential role in the Russian attack on our election remains a critical matter that is under ongoing investigation related to multiple criminal cases. Julia Davis, an investigative journalist and Russian media analyst, was one of the first to notice Maddow's graphic being featured on Russian State TV. Davis shared this screenshot on Twitter along with a brief message explaining its context. Twitter Davis wrote: "#Russia's state TV reports that for the first time since 2014, the US is lifting sanctions from Russian companies [#Deripaska's Rusal et al.] The host laughs out loud about the Democrats not getting enough votes to block the effort, expresses hope that this is just the beginning." We've included the relevant segment below from the "60 " broadcast, which starts around the 31-second mark (00:31) below: A rough translation of the video via Google shows that the host says at one point: "Thank all these people who have always been known for their irreconcilable attitude towards Russia. Thank them all, for today they voted and made big economic gift to the government of Putin."  A rough translation of the video via Google shows that the host says at one point: "Thank all these people who have always been known for their irreconcilable attitude towards Russia. Thank them all, for today they voted and made big economic gift to the government of Putin." MSNBC.  "Transcript: 1/16/19, The Rachel Maddow Show."
  16 January 2019. Vogel, Kenneth.  "Democrats Fall Short in Russia Sanctions Vote."
  The New York Times.  16 January 2019. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO As the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of March 2020 threatened to shut down businesses across America for an extended period of time, the U.S. government faced the difficult task of deciding which industries should be provided economic assistance to keep them afloat for the duration. Public sentiment in some quarters was strongly against government bailouts for businesses such as airlines and cruise companies, on the grounds that over the last several years many of the major operators had spent billions of dollars in profits buying up their own stock rather than paying down their debts. In USA Today, John M. Griffin and James M. Griffin wrote: strongly against Start with the airlines. Rather than using their profits from the past five years to pay off debts and save for a rainy day, the big four  American, United, Delta and Southwest  instead grew their combined liabilities to $166 billion, all while spending $39 billion on share repurchases. That number, which is only from the big four, is almost 80% of what theyre asking for now from U.S. taxpayers. Similarly, the three largest Cruise companies -- Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean -- have liabilities of $47.5 billion and engaged in share repurchases of $8 billion. Had these companies paid down liabilities instead of using stock repurchases to bid up their stock prices, they would have been far better prepared to weather this emergency. Of course, higher share prices made their stock options more valuable. This allowed top airlines executives to pay themselves $666 million in compensation over the five-year period. The top cruise executives managed to haul in $448 million. Now, taxpayers are unwillingly being called upon to bail out their profligate behavior. A widely circulated meme on social media offered another reason why cruise lines were supposedly unworthy of government bailouts -- because although they might be headquartered in the U.S., their ships were foreign-flagged in order to put them out of reach of U.S. law:  That nearly every major cruise line registers their ships somewhere outside the U.S. is hardly a disputable point. As a 2011 news report noted, only a single major cruise ship at the time was U.S.-flagged: news report [O]nly one major cruise ship -- NCL America's Pride of America -- is registered in the United States, according to data from CyberCruises.com. Most of the big boats fly Bahamian flags, but other popular registries include Panama, Bermuda, Italy, Malta and the Netherlands. In fact, according to Cruise Lines International Association, 90% of commercial vessels calling on U.S. ports fly foreign flags. The three cruise lines called out by name in the meme -- Disney, Celebrity, and Carnival -- do indeed engage in this practice. It's not difficult to verify that Disney cruise ships are registered in the Bahamas, Celebrity ships in Malta, and Carnival ships in Panama. Of course, the cruise industry and their critics offer differing reasons for why cruise ships are flagged in countries other than the U.S., with the former asserting that: Bahamas Malta Panama reasons CLIA [Cruise Lines International Association] maintains there are reasons for such policies: "There are many factors that determine where a cruise ship -- or for that matter, any maritime vessel -- is flagged. Those determinations are made by individual cruise lines and other ship operators based on varying factors including the capabilities of the flag to deliver the services needed; representation and reputation of the flag in the international shipping community; the performance of the flag state, which dictates how a ship is prioritized by port states; the pool of seafarers able to meet the needs of the flag; and the flag's fees/charges and taxes," the association said by e-mail. This can be viewed as a robust free-market debate. Some maintain burdensome U.S. regulations have forced cruise operators to plant their flags elsewhere, while others say these corporations are seeking to attract American dollars while skirting American safety and consumer protection laws. On the other hand, an academic paper by Caitlin E. Burke of the University of Florida about "Legal Issues Relevant to Cruise Ships" made no bones of observing that reflagging of ships had long been used as a means of avoiding U.S. federal taxes, labor and safety laws, environmental laws, lawsuits, criminal investigations, and other regulations: paper Aside from the majority revenue generated by U.S. passengers, cruise lines are independent of the U.S. economy. Even though nearly 75 percent of passengers are U.S. citizens, cruise line corporations and their ships are not traditionally American-owned or registered ... (Tomlinson, 2007) Cruise line companies are not concerned about increasing minimum wage, rising insurance premiums, or higher corporate taxes. Cruise lines escape federal taxes and labor laws by registering their corporations and vessels in foreign countries [such as] Panama, Liberia, and the Bahamas. In fact, employees of cruise lines are often mistreated due to lackadaisical labor laws. Worst of all, employees will find little to no recourse pursuing litigation. Likewise, a U.S. citizen passenger faces the same predicament. A vessels country of registration is commonly referred to as the "flag of convenience" (FOC). Flagging a ship under a foreign flag for the convenience of the cruise line is nothing new, nor is it rare. The majority of cruise ships today are registered to Panama, Liberia, or the Bahamas. It is important to pay close attention as many vessels within the same fleet are often registered to different countries. Carnival Corporation, for example, has flagged their cruise vessel Celebration under Panama and Destiny under the Bahamas. Cruise lines often avoid drawing attention to the FOC of by using the term "headquartered in Miami, Florida." It is important to understand that while the majority of these cruise lines have their headquarters in Miami, they are not registered in the U.S. Thus, U.S. laws do not apply and passengers are at the mercy of maritime law. That the practice of ship-reflagging is common and regular is undeniable. Whether cruise lines headquartered in the U.S. but operating ships registered in foreign countries "deserve" government bailouts in a time of pandemic is a subjective issue with no definitive answer, but certainly some critics have argued that they do not: critics Even in a crisis, companies with prudent balance sheets will survive and in time, thrive. Despite what politicians might tell you, the airplanes and ships of imprudent companies are physical property that will not suddenly disappear. They will fly or sail again under the same or different name, but hopefully with cheaper prices, better service and different executives. Like a college student sleeping off a hangover, a crisis is a time to sober up by removing debt from the system. Its not time for another drink. McGee, Bill.  "What Every Cruiser Should Know Before They Book."
  USA Today.  26 April 2011. McGee, Bill.  "Why Are Cruise Ships Registered in Foreign Countries?"
  USA Today.  11 December 2012. van Doorn, Philip.  "Airlines and Boeing Want a Bailout  But Look How Much Theyve Spent on Stock Buybacks."
  MarketWatch.  22 March 2020. Griffin, John M. and James M. Griffin.  "Coronavirus Bailout for Airlines and Cruise lines Is Socialism for the Undeserving Rich."
  USA Today.  20 March 2020. Burke, Caitlin E.  "A Qualitative Study of Victimization and Legal Issues Relevant to Cruise Ships."
  Accessed 23 March 2020. In November 2015, a photograph began circulating online via sites such Imgur and Facebook showing a restaurant bill from a customer who purportedly stiffed his waitress and mocked her for being an immigrant: Imgur Facebook  The identity of the original friend of a friend who posted the image wasn't clear, but a FoxNews.com article provided some additional information about the circumstances under which the controversy began: article After serving a customer at Bamboo Thai Bistro in Redondo Beach, Calif., an Asian waitress received a short note scribbled on the receipt instead of a tip, according to NBC Los Angeles. It read, Tip for U.S. citizens only." The server is from Thailand and in the U.S. legally on a visa with the hope of obtaining a green card one day. According to NBC, on Nov. 11 a male diner paid for his meal of kung pao spaghetti that totaled $22.84 --which would have meant the server got $3.43. But after discovering the nasty note, it's believed another diner snapped a photo of the receipt, which included the man's name--and posted it online. An earlier report from Los Angeles television station KNBC included a brief video segment about the ensuing controversy: report Despite massive social media interest in the receipt and its unpleasant message, the man whose name appeared on the slip of paper hasn't responded to media requests for his version of events. He's neither confirmed nor denied he left the message, and hasn't e-mailed a response to any of the several media outlets covering the viral controversy. Although KNBC included CCTV footage of the man purportedly entering Bamboo Thai Bistro in Redondo Beach, California, on 11 November 2015, that clip didn't definitively indicate he signed a receipt (much less left a rude, anti-immigrant message on a piece of paper which included his full legal name). A report from the Daily Breeze of Los Angeles County's South Bay left it unclear whether the man was a take-out customer or a diner who was waited upon by the server: report A 15 percent tip would have been $3.43, but the male customer wrote Tip for U.S. Citizens Only on the tip line for his $22.84 receipt for kung pao spaghetti. It was really bizarre, said the owner, who asked to be identified only as Adison. She thought she did something wrong. She is one of the best workers here. The man ordered his food and got up and left. I went outside to go do something and, when I came back in, my waitresses were showing me the receipt, Adison said. This guy left this. Searches for Jason Naglich restricted to a few days before the 11 November 2015 date supplied by the restaurant revealed he had no Internet presence of which to speak. How a fellow customer who was not party to the transaction came to view the receipt (as the restaurant claimed) was unclear. The restaurant's owner later said he feared litigation as a result of the controversy. restricted So while the story has drawn massive interest from across the country, little about Naglich and the purported receipt (beyond the original assertion) has been confirmed. It's possible that a diner by that name chose to add insult to injury by stiffing his waitress and blaming it on her immigrant status. It's similarly possible that as with prior claims of this variety, someone somewhere along the line fabricated the slip's message. However, diners swept up in previous hoaxes have quickly spoken up to correct the story once it came to their attention, whereas Naglich has yet to address the rumor. fabricated In February2016, links began circulating on Facebookpromising a treasure trove of Sharpie brand markers to users who completed a short series of steps:   The embedded links led toURLs which were generated seemingly at random and didn't link to Sharpie's web site. Users who clicked through to claim the promised prize were routed to pages which appeared plausibly Facebook-esque(but werehostedoff Facebook):   As evidenced by the above-reproduced screenshots, the associatedURLs don'tmatch the official domains of Sharpie or Facebook. The fake giveaway was another version of the common survey/sweepstakes scams which urge readers to share freebie bait on Facebook, which then spreads the scam to more friends and groups. Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among brandsused as enticementsbyscammers, many aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauexplained how to identify and avoidbad actorsimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., falsely claimed that when Hillary Clinton was running for president against former President Donald Trump, Ukraine was her top donor. Greenes remarks came before a rally for a congressional candidate in Texas, where she toggled between attacks on Democrats and critiques of the media. They would rather talk about Russia, Russia, Russia, and Ukraine, and talk about possible war, than talk about the real truth that Ukraine  dont forget this  Ukraine was the No. 1 donor to Hillary Clinton when she was running for president, Greenesaid Feb. 19in comments captured by Right Side Broadcasting Network, a right-wing website known for streaming Trumps events. Thats not the real truth. The claim about Clinton was part of a torrent of falsehoods from Greene that also included inaccurate claims that the southern U.S. border iswide open; that President Joe Biden has dementia; and that Clinton and her campaign hackedinto the White House andspied on the presidentof the United States. Clinton did notreportreceiving any campaign donations from the Ukrainian government or Ukrainian nationals during her bid for president in 2016, said Anna Massoglia, the editorial and investigations manager at OpenSecrets, a nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. Such contributions are illegal under federal law, said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. Thelawprohibitscontributions, donations, expenditures and disbursements from foreign nationals in connection with any U.S. election. OpenSecrets website shows the actualtop donationsmade to Clintons campaign, as well as a breakdown of donationsby geographic location. The breakdown shows that all the locations are in the U.S.  Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally Sept. 8, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina. (AP) In an emailed response to PolitiFacts inquiry, Greene spokesperson Nick Dyer did not cite any donations that Ukraines government or Ukrainian nationals made to Clintons campaign. Instead, he cited a2015 chartfrom The Wall Street Journal that dealt with donations to the Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by former President Bill Clinton. But the donations listed in that chart were not from the Ukrainian government, and they did not happen while Hillary Clinton was running for president against Trump. The chart was part of an article examining large donors to the Clinton Foundation in the years after Hillary Clinton became former President Barack Obamas secretary of state in 2009. The graphic mapped individual contributions of more than $50,000 that foreign donors sent to the Clinton Foundation between 1999 and 2014, grouped by nationality. It showed people of Ukrainian nationality contributing at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, more than any other nationality. Helping push Ukraine to the top of that list were donations between 2009 and 2013 from a foundation created by Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel mogul and former parliamentarian. Those contributions accounted for at least $8.6 million, the Journal reported at the time. But misinterpretations of the graphic inspired a flurry of misinformation in 2019 and again in 2020, as Trump was impeached in the House for conduct related to Ukraine. Conservative websites and social media posts wrongly claimed that the Ukrainian government threw millions of dollars at the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton worked in the Obama administration. AsFactCheck.org,SnopesandPolitiFactreported, The Wall Street Journal chart ranked the top donations by nationality  not by foreign governments. A false meme from 2019 asserted that the Clinton Foundation received $10 million from the government of Ukraine, the Clinton Foundation press office told PolitiFact for this fact-check. The Clinton Foundation has never received any funding from the government of Ukraine. The time span covered in the chart also ended the year before Clintonannouncedthe launch of her 2016 presidential campaign on April 12, 2015. So the chart Greenes spokesperson cited doesnt support her claim about donations while Clinton was running for president. Greene said, Ukraine was the No. 1 donor to Hillary Clinton when she was running for president. Clintons 2016 presidential campaign did not report any donations from Ukraine or Ukrainian nationals  a move that would have broken the law. Asked for evidence to support Greenes claim, the congresswomans spokesperson did not cite any campaign donations. He pointed instead to a Wall Street Journal chart that mapped large individual donations between 1999 and 2014 to the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit organization. The chart was a ranking of the top foreign donors by nationality, not contributions from foreign governments. The Clinton Foundation said it has never received any funding from the Ukrainian government. We rate Greenes statement False. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of 2020, social media was rife with misinformation about the disease and potential treatments for it, as exemplified by the following meme:   All of the substantive statements contained in this meme are false or purely speculative, as detailed below: "The COVID-19 vaccine will be mandatory in order to go back to school." As of this writing (mid-2020), no effective COVID-19 vaccine exists, nor is it known when (or if) one will become available. Should such a vaccine be produced, whether children will be required to take it before returning to school is a decision that will be made at local levels and based on a variety of factors. No one can assert at this time with any reliability that all schoolchildren everywhere will have to be vaccinated to attend school again. "They will contain RFID chips." The notion that citizens will be subjected to compulsory, involuntary implantation with RFID chips (so the government can better track them) is an old conspiracy theory trope with no basis in fact. The specific claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as a pretext to push a vaccine with a microchip capable of tracking Americans (along with the rest of the world's population) is one that we have already debunked at length. RFID chips debunked at length "The Bible says you will break out into boils."  The Bible does not say that humans will "break out into boils" as a result of COVID-19 vaccinations or RFID chips. The Bible is silent on both these subjects, as vaccination and RFID technologies were not developed until many centuries after the texts that comprise the Bible were written and compiled. "Many kids will die from the COVID-19 vaccine. Just to remind you the 4 kids that took the vaccine, died immediately." As no effective COVIO-19 yet exists, no one can say that "many kids" will die from it, nor, obviously, that any children have already died from it. The latter rumor is also one we previously debunked at length here on Snopes.com debunked at length Another video seemingly offered to malign refugees started to spread online in August 2018, in this case one purportedly showing a group of dark-skinned people smashing glass cases and stealing foodstuffs froma small caf. The video bore the caption "Refugees Welcome to Spain," an apparent nod to the "Refugees Welcome" sign that was hung on Madrid City Hall a few years prior: spread Refugees Welcome   This video (the original footage can be viewed below) does not feature refugees, was not recorded in Spain, and does not depict a recent incident. This footage was actually taken in a cafeteria at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa in November 2015. At the time, students at several South African Universities were engaged in protests against fee hikes and inadequate funding. The South African Independent Online (IOL) news outlet reported that 16 protesting students at two Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) campuses were arrested for the incident depicted in this video and were released the following day: reported The Gencor Hall, the main exam centre at the South campus, along with the information centre and two security vehicles, were torched. The protests started to take an ugly turn when protesting students vandalised a cafeteria at the South campus. That same day, police arrested 16 students in connection with the violence, but released them a day later. South African History Online provided the context behind that student protest: provided Student protests at public universities and colleges over financial exclusions speak directly to the issue of inadequate governmental and other funding into education in South Africa. An estimated R900-million per annum for student funding is needed for TUT to function as an institution that still works for qualifying students requiring financial aid. NFAS, a loan and bursary scheme the government introduced in 1999 to give financially poor matrics access to university education, provides only a portion of this amount to students who need financial aid at TUT. For example, in 2014, the state scheme funded half the university students that qualified for its loans and bursaries at TUT. NSFAS was still unable to fund an estimated 10 000 students across TUTs campuses who needed and qualified for financial aid in 2014, despite having obtained an additional allocation of R1-billion for that year; of which R270-million was allocated for TUT. In 2015, the situation was further exacerbated as the NSFAS allocation excluded that portion. The 2015 SRC estimated that over 20 000 returning students across the Universitys six campus regions, were excluded that year. Many of these students were funded by NSFAS in 2014, but were left out in 2015, and were not allowed to register without an upfront payment and were also barred from receiving their results without settling their debt. Students at institutions including the Vaal University of Technology, the University of Johannesburg, the University of Venda and the Walter Sisulu University were also facing similar issues around the same time. Academic activities at the university were suspended for the remainder of the school year after the protests turned violent in November 2015. YouTuber Arphalia Meyer contemporaneously posted a series of videos of the protesters looting the campus, with the video that formed the basis of the later viral "Refugees Welcome to Spain" clip being put online on 23 November 2015.  That original video was accompanied by the caption "Security cam footage of the mob looting Kantina, the tuck shop on campus at TUT PTA. It's clear enough that this was premeditated and they are no strangers to it": suspended Arphalia Meyer  This footage was taken at a University in South Africa and shows a group of students vandalizing a cafeteria amidst protests in 2015 against inadequate school funding. It has nothing to do with Spain or refugees, and it was nearly three years old when it was re-captioned and circulated online. South African History Online.  "Student Protests at Tshwane University of Technology -- Timeline."
  Retrieved 16 August 2018.  El Pais.  "'Refugees Welcome,' Reads Sign on Madrid City Hall."
  8 September 2015. Makhetha, Tankiso.  "Two TUT Campuses Shut Down."
  IOL.  24 November 2015. In May 2022, a fake quote was attributed to former congressman Trey Gowdy in an attempt to hype the film "2000 Mules" on social media:    This is not a genuine quote from Gowdy. It doesn't appear on Gowdy's social media feeds, nor does it appear in any genuine news articles about "2000 Mules" or Gowdy.  Gowdy confirmed to The Associated Press that this quote is fake and that he had never seen or even heard of the film: Both assertions are completely false. Never said it. Didnt attend. Never heard of the movie much less seen the movie. So, its false at every level. confirmed to The Associated Press "2000 Mules" is a documentary released in May 2022 by Dinesh D'Souza, a right-wing political commentator who received a pardon from former U.S. President Donald Trump after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws in 2014. The film attempts to further the discredited premise that the 2020 election was marred by widespread voter fraud.  pardon from former U.S. President Donald Trump A number of news organizations looked into the movie's claims and found them to be sorely lacking. The Washington Post said the film offered the "least convincing election-fraud theory yet." The Associated Press wrote that there were "gaping holes" in the film's claims, and the Denver Post wrote that the film used "faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data." Washington Post said the film Associated Press wrote Denver Post wrote The movie has received little to no attention from mainstream conservative media outlets.  mainstream conservative media outlets Analysis | 2000 Mules Offers the Least Convincing Election-Fraud Theory Yet. Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/11/2000-mules-offers-least-convincing-election-fraud-theory-yet/. Accessed 12 May 2022. PolitiFact - The Faulty Premise of the 2,000 Mules Trailer about Voting by Mail in the 2020 Election. Politifact, https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/04/faulty-premise-2000-mules-trailer-about-voting-mai/. Accessed 12 May 2022. Press, Ali Swenson |. The Associated. Fact-Checking 2000 Mules, the Movie Alleging Ballot Fraud. The Denver Post, 8 May 2022, https://www.denverpost.com/2022/05/08/2000-mules-fact-check/. Staten, Adam. Dinesh DSouza Slams Tucker Carlson, Newsmax over New Documentary Coverage. Newsweek, 9 May 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/dinesh-dsouza-slams-tucker-carlson-newsmax-over-new-documentary-coverage-1704863. A big part of President Barack Obama's first State of the Union speech on Jan. 27, 2010, focused on the economy.To set the stage, he said his predecessor was largely responsible for the country's fiscal shape.At the beginning of the last decade ... America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion, Obama said. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.We've checked several claims to this effect in the last year,most recently one by Obama adviser David Axelrod. Indeed, we found that the government was enjoying a surplus of about $236 billion circa 2001. Later, when Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported the deficit was over $1.2 trillion. A good chunk of the deficits racked up by the Bush administration came from tax cuts, the war in Iraq and actions that Bush and a Democratic Congress took to prop up the economy right before he left office.In the same report, the CBO projected a 10-year deficit of about $3.1 trillion. But Obama said $8 trillion, based on budget numbers published by the White House Office of Management and Budget shortly after Obama took office.Why the discrepancy? When we checked the similar claim by Axelrod, we spoke with Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition. He said it has to do with how the two offices estimate the future. The CBO bases its projections on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010 and that a patch to fix the alternative minimum tax would expire, among other things. The White House does not; instead, it assumes that nothing changes in current law.So, Obama's overall point is correct that the government was enjoying a substantial surplus when Bush took office and had a big deficit when he departed; he's spot on about the surplus Bush began with. He's also correct about the deficit at the end of Bush's presidency, but there are two different ways to measure the 10-year projection when Bush left office. The CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. So given that discussion, we'll take Obama down a notch to Mostly True. Call it the war over the wives. An ad suggesting that Donald Trump's wife, Melania, might not be modest enough to be first lady started a series of nasty exchanges between Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz that have been the talk of the campaign for more than a week. CNN's Anderson Cooper grilled Trump about the ad during aMarch 29interview in Wisconsin, questioning Trump about his accusation, made ina March 22 tweet, that Cruz was responsible for the picture. I did not start this, Trump told Cooper seven days after the tweet. He sent out a picture and he knew very well it was a picture ... He didn't send out a picture, Cooper interrupted. It was an anti-Trump super PAC. When Cooper asked Trump if he had any proof that Cruz was behind the ad, Trump said, No. Everybody knows he sent it out. He knew the people in the super PAC. He knew. I would be willing to bet he wrote the phrase, a reference to the words that accompanied the nude photograph of Mrs. Trump, a model, posed on a rug. Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady, the ad said. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday, a reference to the March 22 Utah primary. I didn't send the photo to everybody in the state of Utah. He did, said Trump. It was his people, who were his friends. For this fact-check, we'll look at whether Trump is correct that Cruz distributed this Facebook ad containing a nude photograph of Trump's wife. Federal law says political ads must clearly identify their source, and this one lists the source as a political action committee calledMake America Awesome. Such groups are called super PACs because they can spend limitless amounts of money advocating for or against a candidate or a point of view. Super PACs have one major restriction: They can't coordinate their efforts with a candidate's official campaign, which is restricted in its spending. If Cruz did arrange for the ad under the auspices of the super PAC, it would be a serious violation of federal law. The super PAC says . . . The Cruz campaign had nothing to do with this ad whatsoever. We didnt get the image or the idea for the ad from them, said Republican strategist Liz Mair, who is behind the super PAC. Make America Awesome, based in Virginia, was founded in December and reports $20,752 in contributions through February, with most of the money that it spent going to small purchases of air time in nine states, according to the Federal Election Commission website. I would guess that including money that has come in since our last filing, we have raised about $35,000, said Mair. There's also no evidence that the PAC is a front for the Cruz campaign. When we checked the PAC'sYouTube page, we found four commercials, only two of which are the standard length for broadcast. The Jan. 20 Buyer Beware commercial, obviously made on a shoestring budget, includes a light-hearted rundown of nine Republican presidential candidates as breakfast cereals. They include Jeb Bush (Good source of experience and wonkiness. The brand you know. ), Ben Carson (With extra nice guy doctorness. ), Chris Christie (100% RDA of telling it like it is.) and Ted Cruz (Two Scoops of Conservatism!). In the ad, the shopper buys the Trump cereal (Guaranteed success and a free 'Screw the Liberal Establishment!' voucher inside) and ends up regretting the purchase. Mormon women targeted The only ads we've run in favor of any candidate are the three Facebook ads we ran targeting Mormons in Utah and Arizona, of which the Melania one was one, and the one with the least money put behind it (about $300, maybe even less than that, honestly), Mair wrote in an email. The Melania ad, she wrote, was targeted only to Mormon women of (if I recall correctly) ages 45-65 living in Utah and Arizona who self-identified as moderate, conservative or very conservative. The shot we used was chosen because of the presence of handcuffs, which was particularly bothersome to the target audience, Mair said. However, there are definitely racier shots of her out there that would no doubt be considered more scandalous by a lot of voters across the entire political spectrum  too racy for us to use in Facebook ads, candidly. Although the ads urge voters to support the Texas senator, he was only one of two viable alternatives to Trump currently on the ballot in those states. Picture purchased? In a March 27 interview with ABC News, Trump claimed Cruz or his campaign bought the rights to the Melania photo and gave it to the super PAC. There's no evidence that Cruz, the campaign or Mair's group purchased rights to the photo, taken when she was Trump's girlfriend. The image was, at the time we concepted out and then created the ad, already republished all over the Internet at numerous sites, Mair told us in an email. The photographer who took the image for the 2000 photo spread inBritish GQ, Antoine Verglas, told our friends at FactCheck.org thatnobody contacted himto buy rights to the picture. The magazine reprinted that photo, along with other pictures from the shoot,onlineMarch 4 under the headline, The Future First Lady? Sexy Melania Trump's Nude Photo Shoot. As for Cruz himself, Mair said, I think I've met him at gatherings attended by many people maybe once or twice in my life (and it will have been some time ago), and I have never spoken to him privately. We contacted the Trump campaign but didn't get a response. Our ruling Trump said Cruz was responsible for the racy ad questioning whether people wanted Melania Trump to be first lady. One of the tenets of PolitiFact is that the person making the claim is responsible for substantiating it. Trump said on CNN that he has no real proof. And all the evidence we found points to the ad being the work of a political action committee whose goal has been to block Trump's nomination. Theres no proof of Cruz working with that committee, which would be illegal. We rate Trump's claim as False.