In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.
EDITORS NOTE: Our original Half True rating was based on an interpretation that Obama was crediting his policies for the jobs increase. But we've concluded that he was not making that linkage as strongly as we initially believed and have decided to change the ruling to Mostly True. The original article is archivedhere. We also wrote an explanation of our reporting and why we changed the ratinghere. During his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, 2012, President Barack Obama offered some evidence about the nations improving economy. He began by urging listeners to remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores. Technology made businesses more efficient, but also made some jobs obsolete. Folks at the top saw their incomes rise like never before, but most hardworking Americans struggled with costs that were growing, paychecks that werent, and personal debt that kept piling up. In 2008, the house of cards collapsed, he continued. We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldnt afford or understand them. Banks had made huge bets and bonuses with other peoples money. Regulators had looked the other way, or didnt have the authority to stop the bad behavior. It was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work, saddled us with more debt and left innocent, hard-working Americans holding the bag. In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, weve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And weve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again. The state of our union is getting stronger. And weve come too far to turn back now. As long as Im president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. We decided to look specifically at Obamas claim that in the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. We checked Obamas claim by using data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency responsible for compiling employment data. We found that the U.S. economy has seen 22 consecutive months of private-sector job growth, beginning in Feb. 2010. During that 22-month period, the number of jobs grew by almost 3.16 million, or about 143,000 per month. We should note that there has also been a job-growth streak for all jobs in the economy -- not just in the private sector -- but this run of positive jobs numbers has been shorter since job losses in the government sector have offset gains in the private sector for much of that time. If you include both private-sector and government jobs, the economy has seen increases in total jobs for 15 straight months, not 22. But since this isnt what Obama said, we wont consider this in our ruling. As for whether 2011 was the best job-producing year since 2005, hes right if youre counting private-sector jobs, and slightly off if youre counting all jobs. In 2011, the number of private-sector jobs rose by about 1.83 million (if you count from the January amount to the December amount) or 1.92 million (if you count from December to December). Either way, the increase in 2011 represented the highest one-year total since 2005, when the number of private-sector jobs increased by either 2.22 million or 2.31 million, depending on the time period used. If you use total jobs, the increase in 2011 was the biggest since 2006, not 2005. But here too, thats not the measure Obama used, so we wont consider it in our rating. Finally, there's another dimension. In his remarks, Obama described the damage to the economy, including losing millions of jobs before our policies were in full effect. Then he describes the subsequent job increases. This suggests that hes taking a degree of credit for the job growth, which runs counter to the reality that no mayor or governor or president deserves all the blame or all the credit for changes in employment. Our ruling Obama is correct on the numbers. By mentioning his policies, he's making a modest linkage that they deserve credit for the improvement when economists say they are just one factor. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.
The hotly contested West Virginia primary for a U.S. Senate seat is now over. But it didnt take more than a few hours for the general election to start. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., appeared on West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kerchevals show, the morning after election night. In the general election, Manchin faces Republican state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in what most observers see as a competitive race. Manchin portrayed himself as a fiscal conservative both as governor and in the Senate in hisinterviewwith Kercheval. He expressed concern about the rising federal debt, which exceeds $21 trillion in the broadest measurement. By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country, Manchin said. Is Manchin right? We found that hes at least certainly close. You may not realize this, but as a nonprofit news organization, we depend on  and answer to  you. Your support directly impacts our abilility to provide objective, factual reporting  on issues that matter.Donate now to our Spring Campaign and go on the record as saying facts matter! In 2017, the last year for which complete data is available, defense spending stood at $590 billion. Net interest on the debt stood at $263 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan budget analysis arm of Congress. So defense spending is currently more than twice as big as net interest. However, net interest is expected to grow faster than defense spending over the next decade. Thats according to CBOs most recentBudget and Economic Outlookreport, which projects a variety of budget categories 10 years into the future. (See Fig. 2.1here.) Between 2018 and 2028, CBO projects, both defense and interest will rise, with interest overtaking defense spending in fiscal year 2023. In 2023, defense spending will be $679 billion and net interest will reach $702 billion. The gap will only grow from there. So CBO has it one year later than Manchin said. That said, things could change between now and then  and CBOs assumptions are not the only way to make these projections. CBOs projections assume that defense spending will return to tighter levels in 2020, after the current spending bill expires, said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. However, Congress has regularly raised the spending limits since they were first imposed in 2011. And if Congress acts as it has in the past, that would change the calculations. However, CBO does not specify the amounts under this alternative assumption, so that scenario is too speculative to consider. Manchin said, By 2022, just the interest payment on our debt will be greater than the defense of our country. The closest official estimate we could find says that net interest will pass defense spending in 2023, or one year later than Manchin said. But using a different set of unofficial assumptions, it could be different. We rate his statement Mostly True. President Barack Obama this week touted the progress his administration has made in recovering from the economic recession, focusing on developments in engineering and manufacturing. Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of the American people, the good news is the economy is growing stronger, he said in a speech on Jan. 15, 2014, at North Carolina State University. Our businesses have now created more than 8 million new jobs since we hit bottom. Because of an all-of-the-above strategy for American energy, for the first time in nearly two decades, we produce more oil here in the United States than we buy from the rest of the world. PolitiFact wanted to know if Obamas claim gives us an accurate picture of U.S. oil numbers. A spokesman offered up thisWhite House blog postthat touches on Obamas point in more detail. Domestic crude oil production surpassed crude oil imports in October 2013 for the first time since 1995. We also consulted the U.S. Energy Information Administration. According to theirNovember 2013 report, the United Statesproducedan average of 7.8 million barrels of oil per day in October andimported7.5 million barrels of oil per day. So Obamas numbers add up. How did we arrive at this point? Kenneth Medlock, an economics professor at Rice University who serves as the senior director for the Center for Energy Studies, said there are a couple of reasons why production exceeds imports. Yes, we are producing more than we import now, but that owes to both increased production domestically and reduced demand,Medlock said. The reduced demand is due in part to the recession. Its no surprise that people cut back on gasoline consumption when theres less money in their wallets, so that lowers demand. And if demand is down, the United States doesnt need to import as much oil supply. Another cause of reduced demand is increased energy efficiency. Over the last few years, rising popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles and other innovations have led consumers and businesses to spend less on utilities and at the pump, said John Lowe, a senior associate dean and energy law professor at Southern Methodist University. Aside from reduced demand, Medlock also mentioned increased production as another reason the United States is producing more oil than it's importing. We can credit increased domestic production to innovation in regulatory infrastructure. That includes factors like the ability for companies to negotiate directly with private landowners about mineral rights, as well as open access to pipelines. But we cant tie these developments back to one president, Medlock said. They go back a couple of decades. Still, its worth noting that Obama is a known supporter of energy efficiency. When he campaigned for office, he promised to reduce the countrys dependency on foreign oil. In 2012, we rated thatPromise Keptbased on projections of the impact of his administrations fuel efficiency standards. Our ruling Obama said the United States is producing more oil domestically than its importing from the rest of the world for the first time in nearly two decades. That claim is on the money. However, a lot of this has been in the works for awhile, including dynamics that pre-date the Obama administration. Experts told us the new dynamic is due to factors like the recession, increased fuel efficiency and ramped up domestic oil production. As a simple statement on where we stand on oil exports vs. imports, though, Obamas claim is accurate. We rate it True. On 3 December 2018, the Facebook page Pictures in History posted what appeared to be a prescription written by Elvis Presleys doctor, George Nichopoulos, the day before the singer died at his Graceland estate in Memphis on 16 August 1977: posted   Several clear indicators show this document to be a forgery. First, the ZIP code 34108 does not correspond to Memphis, Tennessee, but rather to part of Naples. The forger transposed a couple of digits, as the correct ZIP code for the Memphis address is 38104. Naples correct Second, we find it unlikely that a doctor would spell his own name incorrectly. Presley's controversial personal physician (colloquially referred to as "Dr. Nick" even after he lost his medical license in 1995) was Dr. George Nichopoulos, not George Nichopolous. Even if Dr. Nick had accidentally misspelled his name in this one instance, though, it's still the case that the handwriting on the prescription in no way matches Nichopoulos actual signature. Below is his real signature as it appeared on a loan agreement between Presley and Nichopoulos signed in 1975 and the signature on the forged prescription for comparison: loan agreement  Real     Not real  That being said, the forged document does speak to some historical realities. The faux prescription lists a variety of drugs that were frequently prescribed for Presley while he was a patient of Nichopoulos. Dilaudid (hydromorphone) and Percodan (oxycodone/aspirin) are both narcotic painkillers, Amytal (amobarbital) and Quaalude (methaqualone) are sedative drugs that Presley used to sleep, and Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine) and Biphetamine (amphetamine salts) are both stimulants similar to Adderall. Dr. Nichopoulos prescribed them all: prescribed Between 1975 and 1977, he had prescribed 19,000 doses of drugs. In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had written 199 prescriptions totaling more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis's name. Nichopoulos was blamed for the singers death and branded a Dr. Feelgood in the media. In September 1981 he faced trial on 14 counts of overprescribing uppers, downers, and painkillers to Presley, entertainer Jerry Lee Lewis, himself, and eight others: September 1981 The two counts of the indictment dealing with Presley allege Nichopoulos "unlawfully, wilfully and feloniously" prescribed for the entertainer "certain quantities" of the synthetic narcotic, Dilaudid; the painkillers Percodan and Demerol; the sedatives Quaalude and Parest; the barbiturate Amytal; the stimulants Dexedrine and Biphetamine; and the appetite suppressant Ionamine from May 17, 1976, to Aug. 16, 1977 -- the day Presley died at the age of 42. Nichopoulos was acquitted on all counts in November 1981, but in 1995 the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners permanently suspended his medical license, stating that he had been overprescribing to numerous patients for years. acquitted 1995 Nichopoulos died on 24 February 2016 at the age of 88. died EssentialElvis.com.  "Loan Agreement for the Nichopoulos' Home."
  Accessed 4 December 2018. Higginbotham, Adam.  "Doctor Feelgood."
  The Guardian.  10 August 2002. Murphy, Pamela.  "Elvis' Doctor Goes on Trial, Charged With Overprescribing Drug."
  United Press International.  26 September 1981. The New York Times.  "Presley's Doctor Acquitted on All Prescription Charges."
  5 November 1981. Grimes, William.  "George C. Nichopoulos, Elviss Last Doctor, Dies at 88."
  United Press International.  26 February 2016. On 1 October 2017, pseudoscientific alternative health website NaturalNews.com, which is geared primarily toward supplement enthusiasts with a discerning taste for deep state conspiracy theories, posted an article ("Dont Look Now, But Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012") that attempts to cast doubt on the scientific veracity of global warming by first presenting the following grotesque caricature of a straw man argument: article straw man One of the most popular pieces of "evidence" that climate alarmists just love to bring up to prove the global warming narrative is the "all the ice is melting in the Arctic and the polar bears are dying" line. Weve all seen the documentaries where a polar bear is desperately clinging to a tiny piece of ice and you just know hes going to die soon. They article then presents two observations that make the generally factual point that there has been relatively more sea ice in the Arctic and glacial ice on Greenland in 2017 than there have been at specific times in the recent past: The latest figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, located at the University of Colorado, show that sea ice extent has increased by 40 percent since 2012. [...] [The Danish Polar Portal reports that]: If we rank the annual surface mass balance since 1981 from low to high, the lowest on record was 2011-2012 (38 Gt) and this year is the 5th highest out of the 37 year record. Danish Polar Portal To be clear, the primary data scientists use to document global warming are records of Earth's temperature over time, not doomed polar bear imagery. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist for the independent, nongovernmental Berkeley Earth research group told us in an e-mail that, in this area, pretty much "all groups who provide estimates" of global temperature unequivocally point to nearly uninterrupted temperature rises since the 1970s, as shown in this comparison of various estimates produced by the climate and energy policy website Carbon Brief: Zeke Hausfather produced   "People interested in global warming are best-served looking at actual global temperatures," Hausfather said. While this temperature trend is uncontroversial and clear, the climate system as a whole is a complex beast with numerous entangled parts. The basic approach to writing a blog post that "debunks" the concept of global warming is to highlight without explanation various parts of that system at a single point in time. NaturalNews.com is no exception to that basic strategy here. Arctic Sea Ice Natural News cites a climate change denial blog called ClimateDepot.com as evidence of the claim that sea ice has grown 40 percent since 2012. In reality, the claim made by this website was more specific and less useful. In a post dated 18 September 2017, Climate Depot stated: stated Arctic sea ice extent is up 40% from this date five years ago. "Sea ice extent" is one of many different metrics used to characterize the presence of sea ice, and is generally defined as "the area of ocean [based on pixels in satellite imagery] where at least 15 percent of the surface is frozen". On the day of 17 September 2017, sea ice extent was indeed higher than it was on 17 September 2012: defined   This does not mean, however, that sea ice has grown almost 40 percent since 2012, nor does it mean that the overall trend in arctic sea ice is toward growth  it hasn't and it isn't. The issue here is that sea ice extent is quite variable from year to year, and thus looking at two discrete points is a fairly useless exercise without the full context. "We don't expect it to monotonically decrease every year," Hausfather told us.  This chart (using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center) shows September sea ice extent compared against the same average used in the maps cited by Climate Depot, showing both this aforementioned variability but also an overall trend of reduced ice extent. Note that the year 2012 was no random year to select for comparison; it is actually the record lowest year in terms of Arctic sea ice extent  making anything compared to it necessarily higher: from   The overall trend of declining sea ice is even clearer when you look at a different measure: sea ice volume (presented by the Polar Science Center, below). Not only do such records show a clear negative trend, they also show just how anomalous 2012 was as a data point: Polar Science Center   In reality, 2017 was the eighth lowest year on record for Arctic sea ice extent since satellite measurements began in 1978. But in no world but the pseudo-scientific fringe internet would the concept of global warming rely on every single year breaking the previous year's record for sea ice minimum. eighth Tom Karl, the former director of NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information, told us that 2017's sea ice extent was still much lower than the 1980-2010 average (by two standard deviations), and that, despite claims to the contrary, "one can't look at a trend over 5 years and say much about the impact of global warming as other factors are also important on these short time scales." director Glacial Ice on Greenland The NaturalNews.com approach for glacial ice on Greenland was similarly lacking scale and context. The main source for these arguments was a completely legitimate end-of-year report put out by the Danish Polar Portal, a website run by the Danish Meteorological Institute. In that report, the organization makes this factual statement: report Heavy snow and rain in winter with a relatively short and intermittent summer melt season have left the Greenland ice sheet with more ice than has been usual over the last twenty years  in fact we have to go back to the 1980s and 90s to see a year similar to this one in terms of snow fall and ice melt. This statement, and the figures presented by NaturalNews.com, are referring to a metric known as Surface Mass Balance (SMB), which Polar Portal describes: describes Each year glaciers gain ice from snow and freezing rain and lose ice by melt that runs off. Adding these together gives the surface mass budget (SMB) in Greenland, the ice sheet typically gains mass from around September to May and loses more mass than it gains in the ablation [melting] season of June, July and August. Importantly, however, this measurement only presents half the picture in terms of how much mass is being lost from year to year from Greenland's glaciers. That's because it does not include the rather significant portion of ice that breaks  or calves  off into the ocean to melt elsewhere. On average this accounts for about 500 Gt [gigatons] of further ice loss. This, as stated in the Polar Portal post, nearly matches the estimated gain in SMB reported by Natural News, effectively canceling it out. In a post on Carbon Brief, analysts with the Danish Meteorological Society put this years measurement in context: post While the Greenland ice sheet has seen a neutral, or small positive, change in ice for this year, it should be noted that Greenland has lost approximately 3,600bn tonnes of ice since 2002. Like the record of Arctic sea ice earlier, when put in the context of the entire trend of Greenland's ice mass over time (presented by Polar Portal below), 2017's measurement does nothing to change larger and completely unambiguous trends of overall melting: Polar Portal    Further, in the case of Greenland's ice sheet, there is not much of a mystery surrounding the lackluster amount of melting this year; a massive storm  the remnants of Hurricane Nicole  parked itself atop the continent, dumping a large amount of snow on the ice-covered continent: Hurricane Nicole dumping Heavy rain and snow in October in especially eastern Greenland gave record totals of precipitation in the main east coast town of Tasiilaq as the remnants of former hurricane Nicole passed by and, much as with Harvey in Houston this year, got lodged over eastern Greenland for some days. However, after Nicoles extreme precipitation, the rest of the winter was actually pretty average in terms of the amount of snow that fell. Because neither the higher-than-2012 arctic sea ice from 17 September 2017 nor the neutral amount of ice loss in Greenland in 2017 do anything to disrupt the overall trends of decreasing ice, and because climatological science does not require (nor does it expect) ice or temperature records to be broken every single year, we rank the claim that these observations are reasons to doubt the tenets of climate change as false. Watson, Tracey.  "Dont Look Now, but Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012."
  Natural News.  1 October 2017. Mottram, Ruth, et al.  "Guest Post: How the Greenland Ice Sheet Fared in 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  1 September 2017. Polar Portal.  "End of the SMB Season Summary 2017."
  12 September 2017. Morano, Marc.  "Massive Arctic Ice Gain (Up 40%) Since Low Point of 2012.
  Climate Depot.  19 September 2012. Hausfather, Zeke.  "State of the Climate: Warm Temperatures and Low Sea Ice Mark First Half of 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  21 July 2017. National Snow and Ice Data Center.  "Arctic Sea Ice at Minimum Extent."
  19 September 2017. Polar Science Center.  "PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis."
  Accessed 4 October 2017. NASA.  "End-of-Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Eighth Lowest on Record."
  19 September 2017. NASA.  "NASA Sees Tropical Storm Nicole Going Extra-Tropical."
  18 October 2016. As President Donald Trump weighed imposing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, some commentators have warned that this would be a misguided approach. Noah Smith, a columnist for Bloomberg View and a former finance professor, wrote acolumnin which he noted, among other things, that a crucial issue facing metals-producing industries isnt foreign competition  its automation. Tariffs, Smith wrote, wont bring back good jobs at steel and aluminum factories. Since 1990, production of metals in the U.S. has held roughly constant, but the number of people employed in the industry has fallen steadily. Thats due to technological improvements, he wrote: Productivity has improved, even as demand has stayed more or less constant. Mathematically, that means fewer jobs for steel and aluminum workers. Tariffs wont change that equation. If anything, by hurting downstream industries like car and equipment manufacturers, the new import taxes will probably kill more factory jobs than they save. We cant predict what will happen in the future, but we wondered whether Smith is right about the trend lines for production and employment in the American metals-producing sector since 1990. And when we took a closer look, we found that hes on target. We found data for employment in the primary metals-producing sector, which incorporates five subcategories: iron and steel mills, steel product manufacturing from purchased steel, aluminum production and processing, production and processing of metals other than iron and aluminum, and foundries. Employment levels in this sector have declined reasonably steadily since 1990, despite a period of stable employment during the late 1990s, a sharp but temporary fall during the Great Recession, and a modest uptick over the past year or two in which metals employment growth has outpaced that of the overall economy, said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the jobs site Indeed.com. Overall, since 1990, employment has declined by about 42 percent. At the same time, production in primary metals has remained roughly the same since 1990 except for the Great Recession. For most of that period, production has ranged between 90 percent and 110 percent of the benchmark level (the amount produced in 2012): If you put these two statistics together, the overall pattern becomes clear: As production stays roughly the same and as fewer workers make it happen, productivity rises over time. The idea that steel in particular has experienced a productivity revolution due to technology is the same story I have been telling since the early 1990s, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. The basic story is that one person can produce a lot more metal today than he or she could produce a few decades ago. Burtless said he has a brother whos been working in the coke oven of a steel plant since the mid 1970s and who has seen first-hand the dramatic reduction in person-power needed to keep integrated steel mills running at full capacity  as well as improvements in quality. Michael J. Hicks, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, agreed that Smiths analysis is on target. I would agree that the most likely cause of the productivity gains are technology, though I would interpret technology broadly to include not just machinery but the way that factories organize production, such as internal logistics and the reduction of redundant operations that might be enabled by technology, Hicks said. And J. Bradford Jensen, a professor of international business at Georgetown Universitys McDonough School of Business, added that imports did have something to do with the loss of employment in steel and aluminum, but the more important factor is technological change and productivity growth, he said. Tariffs won't change that, much like relaxing regulations on coal and pollution will not bring back many coal-mining jobs, he said. Smith wrote, Since 1990, production of metals in the U.S. has held roughly constant, but the number of people employed in the industry has fallen steadily. His numbers are solid, and experts agree that automation has done significant harm to employment levels in the metal industry. We rate the statement True. During ongoing national debate over a novel policy of separating families at the border, a photograph circulated (originally from Joshua Feuerstein, a self-styled "American evangelist, Internet and social media personality" who last made headlines in 2015 when he manufactured a so-called "Christmas cup controversy") that purportedly depicted a room full of immigrant children that former President Barack Obama had supposedly removed from their parents' custody: novel policy a photograph circulated self-styled Christmas cup controversy immigrant children The attached text read:As you stare at this picture of innocent children being separated from their parents at the border and feel your hatred toward President Trump start to boil over from the bowels of your soul...I'd just like to point out it was taken in 2014 .. when Obama was President! #shareSome versions were shared with no accompanying text, inviting readers to project their own interpretation onto the image:Images of its type (dated to the Obama administration) were often described as having been ignored at the time they were originally taken. However, this image did appear in anti-immigration memes from 2014 and 2015, such as one framing the photograph as evidence the Obama administration (described here as a "cabal") was encouraging ("seducing") immigrant ("illegal alien") children to come to the United States:The meme's text read:INSIDE AN OBAMA APPROVED REFUGEE CAMP140,000 Illegal Alien Children Seduced into coming to America By the Obama Cabal. MORE COMING NEXT YEAR TOOHey Obama.. Why not use the FEMA CAMPS??Or are those being prepped for Patriot Resistance Fighters!!The first iteration we could find of that image was alongside a 5 June 2014 post published by Breitbart. Although Breitbart shared the photograph on Facebook on 21 June 2018, the outlet did not include a link to its earlier reporting. In its original article, the children were described as "unaccompanied," indicating that they came without their parents, not that they were separated from their families by American authorities:Breitbart Texas obtained internal federal government photos depicting the conditions of foreign children warehoused by authorities on U.S. soil on Wednesday night. Thousands of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas along the U.S./Mexico border. Unaccompanied minors, including young girls under the age of 12, are making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico, through cartel-controlled territories, and across the porous border onto U.S. soil.The photograph was subsequently disseminated by numerous web sites and news outlets. National Review's "Immigration Bedlam" said of the children in the photo:Some 6,775 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) crossed the U.S.Mexican border in 2011, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement reports. (The first bar in the ORRs chart, above, should read 20032011.) ORR expects 60,000 UACs this year. This number could reach 130,000 in 2015. Detaining them for $252 each, per day, will cost taxpayers $453.6 million per month this year and could cost $982.8 million per month next year.The image and events around it were widely reported for several months, appearing in the Houston Chronicle, Splinter News, the Los Angeles Times, Mashable, and Reuters, among others.Stories during that time specifically reiterated that the photographs showed unaccompanied minor children in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection and temporarily housed at a Texas Air Force base:The photos have a timestamp of May 27, 2014.A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency has not officially released any photos at this time in order to protect the rights and privacy of unaccompanied minors in our care.... A temporary shelter at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland has housed and provided services to 1,820 unaccompanied minors from Central America since May 18, San Antonio Express-News reporter Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje reported. The immigration is part of a surge of children said to be fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, she reported.Although the photograph is real, it does not show children separated from their parents by the Obama administration. In June 2014, the image was published as part of numerous news stories (and occasionally alongside editorial pieces objecting to the presence of the unaccompanied minor children.) The image did not develop a different backstory until June 2018, during a controversy that specifically involved family separation at the behest of the Trump administration.  The attached text read: As you stare at this picture of innocent children being separated from their parents at the border and feel your hatred toward President Trump start to boil over from the bowels of your soul...I'd just like to point out it was taken in 2014 .. when Obama was President! #share Some versions were shared with no accompanying text, inviting readers to project their own interpretation onto the image: Images of its type (dated to the Obama administration) were often described as having been ignored at the time they were originally taken. However, this image did appear in anti-immigration memes from 2014 and 2015, such as one framing the photograph as evidence the Obama administration (described here as a "cabal") was encouraging ("seducing") immigrant ("illegal alien") children to come to the United States: described   The meme's text read: INSIDE AN OBAMA APPROVED REFUGEE CAMP 140,000 Illegal Alien Children Seduced into coming to America By the Obama Cabal. MORE COMING NEXT YEAR TOO Hey Obama.. Why not use the FEMA CAMPS??Or are those being prepped for Patriot Resistance Fighters!! The first iteration we could find of that image was alongside a 5 June 2014 post published by Breitbart. Although Breitbart shared the photograph on Facebook on 21 June 2018, the outlet did not include a link to its earlier reporting. In its original article, the children were described as "unaccompanied," indicating that they came without their parents, not that they were separated from their families by American authorities: published Breitbart Breitbart unaccompanied Breitbart Texas obtained internal federal government photos depicting the conditions of foreign children warehoused by authorities on U.S. soil on Wednesday night. Thousands of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas along the U.S./Mexico border. Unaccompanied minors, including young girls under the age of 12, are making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico, through cartel-controlled territories, and across the porous border onto U.S. soil. The photograph was subsequently disseminated by numerous web sites and news outlets. National Review's "Immigration Bedlam" said of the children in the photo: National Review Immigration Bedlam Some 6,775 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) crossed the U.S.Mexican border in 2011, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement reports. (The first bar in the ORRs chart, above, should read 20032011.) ORR expects 60,000 UACs this year. This number could reach 130,000 in 2015. Detaining them for $252 each, per day, will cost taxpayers $453.6 million per month this year and could cost $982.8 million per month next year. The image and events around it were widely reported for several months, appearing in the Houston Chronicle, Splinter News, the Los Angeles Times, Mashable, and Reuters, among others. widely reported Houston Chronicle Splinter News Los Angeles Times Mashable Reuters Stories during that time specifically reiterated that the photographs showed unaccompanied minor children in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection and temporarily housed at a Texas Air Force base: The photos have a timestamp of May 27, 2014. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency has not officially released any photos at this time in order to protect the rights and privacy of unaccompanied minors in our care. ... A temporary shelter at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland has housed and provided services to 1,820 unaccompanied minors from Central America since May 18, San Antonio Express-News reporter Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje reported. The immigration is part of a surge of children said to be fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, she reported. Although the photograph is real, it does not show children separated from their parents by the Obama administration. In June 2014, the image was published as part of numerous news stories (and occasionally alongside editorial pieces objecting to the presence of the unaccompanied minor children.) The image did not develop a different backstory until June 2018, during a controversy that specifically involved family separation at the behest of the Trump administration. family separation DeRuy, Emily and Jorge Rivas.  "Disturbing Photos Allegedly Show Texas Border Patrol Facility Packed With Immigrant Children."
  Splinter.  6 June 2014. Darby, Brandon.  "Leaked Images Reveal Children Warehoused In Crowded U.S. Cells, Border Patrol Overwhelmed."
  Breitbart.  5 June 2014. Hennessy-Fiske, Molly.  "Hundreds Of Migrant Youths Held At Texas Military Base."
  Los Angeles Times.  5 June 2014. Murdock, Deroy.  "Immigration Bedlam."
  National Review.   13 June 2014. Parker, Kolten.  "Leaked Photos Show Immigrant Children Packed In Crowded Texas Border Facilities."
  Houston Chronicle.  6 June 2014. Roug, Louise.  "How The U.S. Border Became A Humanitarian Crisis."
  Mashable.  8 July 2014. Reuters.  "U.S. To Open Third Military Base To Illegal Child Immigrants."
  9 June 2014 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 In August 2021, as a new wave of COVID-19 cases rose in Kentucky, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul urged Americans to resist mask mandates and other guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) related to stopping the now nearly two-year pandemic in a video posted to his Twitter account. Paul captioned his video: COVID-19 cases rose in Kentucky Rand Paul resist mask mandates We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children? Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom. As this video went viral, many Twitter users responded by posting a photograph of Paul that supposedly showed him receiving the COVID-19 vaccination. This photograph was frequently shared with captions claiming that Paul was a hypocrite, as he was urging others to "resist" the CDC while the picture supposedly showed him receiving a vaccine urged by the CDC.    The picture was taken in 2015, and shows Paul receiving a booster vaccination for Hepatitis A from a physician at the U.S. Capitol. You can read more about the benefits of a Hepatitis A vaccine on this page from the CDC.  shows Paul receiving a booster vaccination Hepatitis A vaccine The New York Times reports that Paul received this vaccine shortly after he set off an "uproar" when he seemingly made anti-vaccination comments amidst a measles outbreak. The following day, the Kentucky senator invited a New York Times reporter to go along with him as he received a vaccination. New York Times reports anti-vaccination comments From the NY Times: NY Times On Tuesday, Mr. Paul sought to clarify those comments, inviting a New York Times reporter to accompany him to the Capitol physicians office to watch him receive a hepatitis A booster vaccination. During the visit, Mr. Paul said he believed that the science was definitive on the matter and that vaccines were not harmful. It just annoys me that Im being characterized as someone whos against vaccines, he said as he rolled up his T-shirt sleeve before the shot. Thats not what I said. I said Ive heard of people whove had vaccines, and they see a temporal association and they believe that. As for the COVID-19 vaccinations, it doesn't appear that Paul ever received his vaccine. The senator tested positive for COVID-19 back in March 2020. Paul survived the ordeal and appears to have been largely asymptomatic. Afterward, Paul claimed that since he had COVID-19, there was no need for him to get the vaccine. This claim  that natural immunity provides better protection than vaccines  is disputed by the science. tested positive Paul claimed that since he had COVID-19 On Aug. 6, 2021, the American Hospitals Association publicized two recent studies from the CDC that showed those with "natural immunity" were more than twice as likely to be reinfected than those who had received vaccines.  The AHA writes: AHA writes The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released a study confirming the comparative effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines versus natural immunity, including immunity gained from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Researchers found that, among hundreds of Kentucky residents with previous infections through June 2021, those who were unvaccinated had 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully vaccinated. CDC says the research suggests that among people who have had COVID-19 previously, getting fully vaccinated provides additional protection against reinfection. A second CDC study, published concurrently, shows the extent to which vaccines prevented COVID-19-related hospitalizations among the highest risk age groups. In August 2020, a widely shared image claiming to depict a 392-year-old shark resurfaced on social media, garnering thousands of shares on both Facebook and Twitter. Facebook Twitter   This was a variation of a familiar meme, which we identified as "false" in December 2018. We are rating the newer variation as "mixture" because the image that circulated in 2020 was, indeed, a photograph of a Greenland shark. However, we were unable to determine the exact age of the shark in question, though the age of a given Greenland shark can be estimated by its length (more on that later).  December 2018 Both viral memes originated from a study published in the journal Science in August 2016. In the study, researcher Julius Nielsen, who was then a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen, set out to define the life history of the Greenland shark, scientifically known as Somniosus microcephalus. These deep ocean fish have been described as an "iconic species of the Arctic seas" and remain one of the most enigmatic creatures on Earth (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picture below), mainly due to their unique ability to survive at depths of at least 7,200 feet. Science Julius Nielsen at least 7,200 feet   When the research was first announced in 2016, many mainstream media publications picked up the study and declared that the Greenland shark was the longest-lived vertebrate known on the planet. In the years following the publication of the study, various iterations of the photograph's subject and its age have recirculated in different forms. A reverse-image search found 56 results, dating back to as far as 2018. Following another round of social media virality, Nielsen took to Instagram in December 2017 to address misleading claims related to the age of the shark in question: media publications declared everse-image search Instagram Social media are going beserk over old Greenland sharks these days?? All of this is just the same story coming to life from August 2016 and please note that we have not found any sharks to be 600 or 500 yr old.... we have ESTIMATED (meaning that it has not been verified) that one shark was AT LEAST 272 yr old or in more detail that this shark was between 272-512 yr old with 95.5% certainty (the later also being an unverified estimate). Over the course of a three-year project to study the biology of the Greenland shark, the team used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 specimens that had been accidentally caught as by-catch over several years. The findings concluded that the slow-maturing species grows by about .4 inches each year, and can reach lengths stretching to over 16 feet. The largest shark analyzed in the study was measured at nearly 16.5-feet long, and was believed to have been around 392 years old in 2016  which would make her about 396 in August 2020. However, radiocarbon dating studies typically determine age ranges rather than point to a specific age. Based on the analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks  each of which measured between 2.5 and 16.5 feet long  the study authors estimated an average species lifespan of at least 272 years. If the estimates followed the annual growth of .4 inches to a tee, then one might calculate the largest shark to be 502 years old. Range estimates, on the other hand, showed that the largest shark was likely 392 years old, give or take 120 years.  A University of Copenhagen news release published at the time of the study described Greenland sharks as "among the largest carnivorous sharks on the planet," whose role as an apex predator in the Arctic ecosystem is "completely overlooked." Greenland sharks can reach lengths of up to 24 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds. news release What remains unclear is whether the shark featured in the meme was that same large shark mentioned above, or another one photographed as part of the research. So, while the photograph does, in fact, depict an individual, long-lived Greenland shark, the exact age of the specimen is not made readily clear in the research. Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know Nielsen, Juilius, et al.  "Eye Lens Radiocarbon Reveals Centuries of Longevity in the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus)."
  Science.  12 Aug 2016.  Morelle, Rebecca.  "400-Year-Old Greenland Shark Longest-Living Vertebrate."
  BBC.  12 Aug 2016.  Bates, Mary.  "272-Year-Old Shark Is Longest-Lived Vertebrate on Earth."
  National Geographic.  11 Aug 2016.   "Greenland Sharks Live For Hundreds of Years."
  University of Copenhagen.  11 Aug 2016.  Putterman, Samantha.  "Viral Photo Does Show Longest-Living Shark Species, But Exact Age Is Unclear."
  PolitiFact.  28 Jan 2016. Democrats criticized Rick Perry for college costs the day the Republican governor gave his valedictory speech to Texas lawmakers. Among the beefs in a Jan. 15, 2015, email blast from the Democratic National Committee: College tuition rates in Texas jumped by 55% since 2003, putting the dream of earning a college degree further out of reach for many Texans. That year should ring a bell; its when Perry and the Republican-controlled Legislatureagreed to deregulate public college tuition, handing control to appointed college and university governing boards. Committee's source We wondered how much tuition ultimately escalated. By email, Miryam Lipper, a committee spokeswoman, pointed out a September 2012news storyin theDallas Morning Newsthat said by the papers analysis, Texas students are paying 55 percent more for tuition and fees at state universities a decade after lawmakers lifted restrictions on costs. The story also said: State officials used to brag about the affordability of college, but the costs have ballooned since 2003, even when inflation is factored in. Updated data Seeking up-to-date information, we reached out to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, where a staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, pointed out aFebruary 2014 board documentshe described as the most recent publicly available report on Texas tuition and fees. The document said, in part: From fall 2003 through fall 2013, the statewide average total academic charges for a student taking 15 SCHs at a public university has increased by 104 percent. An SCH is a semester credit-hour. According to the document, the boards calculations were rooted in tuition and fees charged students. Then again, the board said, a student's actual charges may vary based on the student's classification and level of enrollment, the college the student attends within the university, the student's specific personal circumstances, or for other reasons deemed appropriate by the institution. Charts in the board analysis indicate the tuition and fees each year from fall 2003 through fall 2013 for nearly 40 institutions, most of them in the University of Texas or Texas A&M University systems. On average in fall 2003, tuition and fees were $1,934 for 15 semester credit-hours, according to the report. The average in fall 2013 was $3,951, the board said. By phone, Polden confirmed the boards results didnt take inflation into account. So we employed a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsinflation calculatorto estimate that tuition and fees at the states public colleges and universities escalated 61 percent, in real terms, from fall 2003 through fall 2013. But that didnt bring us to the 2014-15 school year. So we asked for comparable charges on average for a student as of fall 2014. By email, Polden said the fall 2014 statewide average for someone taking 15 SCHs was $4,091, lifting the raw average tuition increase since fall 2003 to 112 percent. Adjusted for inflation, we calculated, the increase was 64 percent. UT Austin Separately, we asked the University of Texas at Austin for its fall 2014 charge for that many credit hours. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed the amount, $4,905, which we compared with the fall 2003 charge for that university of $2,721. Adjusted for inflation, the hike over the years came out to 40 percent. Out of governor's control? Worth mention: After signing tuition deregulation into law, Perry subsequently had no sway over tuition hikes except to appoint higher education governing boards. In recent years too, Perrycalled for $10,000, four-year degree programs and for institutions to freeze tuitionso an entering student would pay the same tab each year while earning a degree. Our ruling The Democratic group, zeroing in on Perry, said Texas college tuition rates increased 55 percent since 2003. That figure is outdated--the increase through fall 2014 was 64 percent--and it's also worth clarifying the governor didn't directly control tuition, though he approved of the 2003 law deregulating rates and appointed ruling public college and university governing boards. We rate the statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. On 25 February 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted to complain that the news media were not reporting his success in reducing the national debt during his first month in office: tweeted The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 February 25, 2017  As noted by news media from the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, the tweet appeared closely after a "Fox & Friends" segment in which guest (and former presidential candidate) Herman Cain reported the same numbers. That story appeared to have its origins in a post on the conservative blog Gateway Pundit ("Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month") which took credit for the Trump tweet in an update to their story. Los Angeles Times Washington Post took credit There are two claims implicit in the tweet. The first claim is simply the factual nature of the figures reported. The second is that the numbers represent an item worthy of coverage. The numbers are factual in a literal sense, according to the online debt history search application offered by the US Treasury Department: application   Though the numbers regarding the debt at the end of Trumps and President Obamas first month are factual, their significance as a reportable bit of information or as an indicator of the impact or success of Trumps policies is questionable. Speaking to CBS News, Maya MacGuineas, director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget, said: said It is true the debt outstanding declined by $12 billion in the first month of Donald Trumps presidency. We applaud the president for focusing on the debt as an important metric of success and economic health, but would point out that the improvement this early in his term has to do with normal fluctuations in spending and revenues rather than new policies he has implemented. Indeed, in terms of newsworthiness (or lack thereof), sporadic reductions of the debt are not uncommon (in red, below) on a month-to-month basis, according to The "Monthly Statement of the Public Debt of the United States" reports released during the course of President Obama's second term in office: reports     In fact, the Washington Posts Wonkblog reports that, even on a day-to-day basis, fluctuations even greater than the one Trump referenced are not unheard of: reports The Gateway Pundit article says that the change in debt under Trump translates to a 0.1 percent reduction in the U.S. debt burden. Actually, it's .06 percent between Jan. 20 and Feb. 21  a very small change. (The national debt has gone up or down by as much .19 percent on single days this year.) Secondly, there are few mechanisms by which any actions Trump has taken as president would affect the national debt thus far, as he has not signed into law any financial measures related to federal borrowing. While there are arguments to be made that other factors related to Trumps presidency could affect the debt, the Post has said it is unlikely, and also impossible to quantify: Its impossible to know whether Trumps election has really had time to filter through to concretely affect the economy. Congress has not passed any of his policies yet. The stock market has certainly continued to boom, but it was already rising before the election. While it's possible anticipation of tax cuts or regulatory relief is heating up the economy and leading to increased government receipts, investors might also be choosing not to sell assets to avoid current capital gains tax rates and waiting to see whether the Republican-dominated Congress successfully slashes rates. Keith Hennessey, a former director of the U.S. National Economic Council appointed by George W. Bush, wrote a hypothetical memo to Congress analyzing the 45th Presidents tweet. In this document, he stated that neither Obama nor Trump had any effect on the national debt in their first month in office: hypothetical memo document Government borrowing in January and February is the byproduct of spending and tax policies set by Congress the year before. President Obama signed the fiscal stimulus law on February 17, 2009, but it took months before that began to change government cash flows and borrowing requirements. President Trump has so far not measurably affected fiscal policy in general or government borrowing in specific. Its unfair to assign any responsibility for borrowing in the first month to either president. Hennessey added that it is equally unfair to compare the 2009 economic situation with the 2017 one: GDP was plummeting when President Obama took office. Tax revenues were down, automatic stabilizer payments (e.g., unemployment insurance and safety net spending) were up, and funds were being spent from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In early 2009 government was borrowing a lot because the economy was weak, not because of President Obamas policies. In contrast, the U.S. economy is now growing. The smaller borrowing requirement for this month is mostly a result of this economic difference, and may also in part be simply an artifact of choosing such a short timeframe for comparison. More to the point, however, the fact that the day-to-day and month-to-month fluctuations of the national debt are so volatile, he argued, is why analysts dont typically look at the data for these time periods, accordingo to Hennessey: Had the president / Mr. Cain ended his timeframe one day earlier this tweet would have been invalid and debt would have increased (by just $1 B) in the first month. This is why analysts look at debt on an annual basis rather than daily/weekly/monthly. It should also be noted that, as the Fox and Friends segment aired on one of the nations most popular national cable news networks, "the media" did indeed report on this story. The reason it didnt pick up much steam is that the numbers were not newsworthy because they were taken out of context and are likely irrelevant to President Trump's actions in office. UPDATE: 28 February 2017 -- Modified the status of this article to "" to better explicate the difference between the accuracy of the debt figures and their newsworthiness. Hennessey, Keith.  "Memorandum for a Member of Congress: The Presidents Debt Tweet."
  keithhennessey.com.  25 February 2017. Swanson, Ava.  "Trump Is Upset the Media Is Not Reporting a Meaningless Statistic About the National Debt."
  The Washington Post.  25 February 2017. Hoft, Jim.  "Amazing! Trump Cuts US Debt by $12 Billion In His First Month  UPDATE: Trump Tweets Our Numbers"
  thegatewaypundit.com.  23 February 2017. treasurydirect.gov.  "The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It." Shabad, Rebecca.  "Fact-Checking Trump's Claim About Debt Dropping by $12b in Last Month."
  thegatewaypundit.com.  25 February 2017. treasurydirect.gov.  "Monthly Statement of the Public Debt (MSPD) and Downloadable Files." Morin, Rebecca.  "Former Economic Council Director Derides Trump's Debt Tweet."
  Poltico.  25 February 2017. Wilber, Del Quentin.  "Trump Brags About the National Debt, But His Comparison Is Misleading."
  Los Angeles Times.  25 February 2027.