Military Pay Freeze
Claim:  President Obama plans to implement a pay freeze for active duty military personnel in 2011.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2010] On Facebook, there is the following message "reposted" by a friend, and who knows how far gone it has been around: "Dear Mr. President, I hear you would like to freeze pay rates for active duty starting next year. Would you also consider cutting your own pay to save more money for our country? While you're at it, lets cut congressman's pay too. If the people who risk their lives don't get an increase in pay, why would we continue raising pay for those who take no risks and reap the benefits? Repost if you agree!"    Origins:  As of the time this item was circulating via Facebook postings in November 2010, it was not true that President Obama had announced an intention to freeze the pay of active duty military personnel starting in 2011.  (In fact, President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget proposal, submitted in February 2010, called for a 1.4% military pay bump for the following year.) budget proposal The November 2010 circulation of this item was prompted by a draft report prepared by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR), a bipartisan body created by President Obama "to address our nation's fiscal challenges."  Among the 58 recommendations included in that draft report, released in November 2010, was a recommendation for a three-year freeze on basic non-combat military pay and allowances: draft report NCFRR Freeze non-combat military pay at 2011 levels for 3 years Regular Military Compensation (excluding combat pay) for military personnel, which includes basic pay, basic allowances for housing and subsistence, and federal income tax advantages that go along with the allowances, is expected to grow by $9.2 billion from 2011 to 2015. A three-year freeze at 2011 levels for these compensation categories would save the federal government $7.6 billion in compensation and tax expenditures, as well as another $1.6 billion in less retirement accrual, or $9.2 billion total discretionary savings in 2015. However, as noted above, the NCFRR's report was merely a draft, and a military pay freeze was but one of several dozen potential items offered to achieve the goal of saving $200 billion in federal expenditures through 2015. Any such proposal, even if considered, would still have to overcome several hurdles before being enacted, including approval by 14 of the 18 commissioners who comprise the NCFRR and then subsequent approval by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.    In December 2010, Congress approved President Obama's recommended 1.4% pay increase for military personnel, while President Obama announced that he would freeze for two years the salaries of all other federal government workers. As for presidential compensation (which is currently set at $400,000 per year, with a $50,000 expense allowance), the salary of the President of the United States is established by Congress, so a president cannot technically "cut his own pay" (although he might opt to decline some or all of his salary, or donate it to charity).  Members of Congress could vote to decrease their salaries (which are currently set at $174,000 per year), although they have already voted to decline their cost-of-living pay increases in 2009 and again in 2010. decline Last updated:  13 January 2011    Pincus, Walter.  "House Approves Defense Bill with Lower Pay Raise for Military."   The Washington Post.  18 December 2010.    Vinch, Chuck.  "Panel Calls for 3-Year Freeze on Military Pay."   Army Times.  11 November 2010.
Claim:  Photograph shows a traffic speed measurement unit embedded in a guardrail.  Examples:  [Collected via Facebook, May 2013] This photo has shown up across Facebook and the interwebs getting Speeders in a panic since it claims to be a speed trap camera or radar. My own research into the matter has turned up little other than the rumor is far flung including England, Germany, and Malaysia.  New Police Radar Will Catch You Off Guard You know how when your late or on a trip trying to make time you become a little bit of a lead foot? Well now you not only have to watch for police cars. Here is the all new guardrail embedded radar system! Less staff needed. Which is good in one way, when you call for help more police will be available. Bad, because now you have to watch for bulging Guardrails as well!  Origins:  Although we can't say for sure exactly where it's located or whether it's currently operational, the object embedded in a roadside guardrail is an example of an automated LIDAR (light detection and ranging) device used for traffic speed enforcement.  LIDAR systems are similar to the radar systems currently employed for the detection of speeding motorists, but they use lasers rather than radio waves and therefore offer the advantages of working better in congested traffic conditions and are less detectable than radar (although the latter has greater range): LIDAR Lidar uses a time-of-flight method for taking measurements to determine the target vehicle's speed. When a pulse is transmitted, the timer starts, and when that pulse hits its target and returns, the timer stops. The calculation of distance traveled over time is computed to determine speed. In many respects, this sort of technology may not sound like anything new. After all, we've been using radar in a similar fashion for years. The difference lies in the type and shape of the pulse being transmitted. Radar shoots out a short, high-intensity burst of high-frequency radio waves in a cone-shaped pattern. Officers who have been through the painfully technical 40-hour Doppler radar training course know it will detect a variety of objects within that cone pattern, such as the closest target, the fastest moving target or the largest target. Officers are trained to differentiate and properly match targets down range to the radar readings they receive. Under most conditions, skilled users get good results with radar, and it is found to be most effective for open stretches of roadway. But for more congested areas, locking radar on a specific target is more difficult. Lidar utilizes laser technology, allowing for superior target acquisition in high-volume traffic areas. According to Carl Fors of Texas-based Speed Measurement Laboratories Inc., "Laser systems are the most accurate means of providing traffic and speed analysis compared to other systems. A laser can pinpoint one vehicle in a group while radar can't. A laser beam is a mere 18 inches wide at 500 feet compared to a radar beam's width of some 150 feet." In congested traffic areas, an officer can very effectively use lidar to pick out a specific target, site it and read its speed without any concern for interference from other close-by targets. This small beam width has another added benefit  it cannot be detected until after a speed measurement is already made. Testing of the most advanced detectors has shown that when officers aim properly (at the vehicle's front license plate instead of the windshield where the detector usually sits), the signal often goes undetected. A company sales brochure for the LMS-06 Traffic Observer digital traffic surveillance unit illustrates and explains how the particular LIDAR system shown above works: sales brochure    Note that the "hidden" guardrail unit shown in these photographs simply measures the speed of passing cars.  In this particular type of traffic enforcement system, a second and much more conspicuous unit is located slightly farther down the road from the speed measurement device to record and store images of offending vehicles:  Some older blog posts indicate the photographs displayed above were taken along the A8 motorway in Belgium in 2007.   A Google Maps Street View captured a view of a similar roadside LIDAR unit in Switzerland: blog posts Google Maps Street View  We note that LIDAR systems like the one shown above are not authorized for law enforcement use in all countries and jurisdictions, and that they can be employed for traffic monitoring purposes as well as speed limit enforcement.  As far as we know, the system pictured above is not currently being used in the United States. Last updated:  22 June 2013 <!--    National Home Center News.  "Penny-Wise, (3,000) Pound Foolish."    11 December 2000  (p. D1).   ISSN 0192-6772; Volume 26, Issue 22. Claim:  E-mail reproduces interview with documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov about the psychology of terrorism. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombings By Pierre Rehov, documentary filmmaker On July 15, MSNBC's "Connected" program discussed the July 7th London attacks. One of the guests was Pierre Rehov, a French filmmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the intifada by going undercover in the Palestinian areas. Pierre's upcoming film, "Suicide Killers," is based oninterviews that he conducted with the families of suicide bombers and would-be bombers in an attempt to find out why they do it. Pierre agreed to a request for a Q&A interview here about his work on the new film.  Q - What inspired you to produce "Suicide Killers," your seventh film? A - I started working with victims of suicide attacks to make a film on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) when I became fascinated with the personalities of those who had committed those crimes, as they were described again and again by their victims. Especially the fact that suicide bombers are all smiling one second before they blow themselves up. Q - Why is this film especially important? A - People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem, showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has become their only certitude. Q - What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know? A - I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil.  Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on Earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution. Q - What was it like to interview would-be suicide bombers, their families and survivors of suicide bombings? A - It was a fascinating and a terrifying experience. You are dealing with seemingly normal people with very nice manners who have their own logic, which to a certain extent can make sense since they are so convinced that what they say is true. It is like dealing with pure craziness, like interviewing people in an asylum, since what they say, is for them, the absolute truth. I hear a mother saying "Thank God, my son is dead." Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize. This system of values works completely backwards since their interpretation of Islam worships death much more than life. You are facing people whose only dream, only achievement goal is to fulfill what theybelieve to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed or the family of a shaheed. They don't see the innocent being killed, they only see the impure that they have to destroy. Q - You say suicide bombers experience a moment of absolute power, beyond punishment. Is death the ultimate power? A - Not death as an end, but death as a door opener to the after life. They are seeking the reward that God has promised them. They work for God, the ultimate authority, above all human laws. They thereforeexperience this single delusional second of absolute power, where nothing bad can ever happen to them, since they become God's sword.  Q - Is there a suicide bomber personality profile? Describe the psychopathology. A - Generally kids between 15 and 25 bearing a lot of complexes, generally inferiority complexes. They must have been fed with religion. They usually have a lack of developed personality. Usually they are impressionable idealists. In the western world they would easily have become drug addicts, but not criminals. Interestingly, they are not criminals since they don't see good and evil the same way that we do. If they had been raised in an Occidental culture, they would have hated violence. But they constantly battle against their own death anxiety. The only solution to this deep-seated pathology is to be willing to die and be rewarded in the afterlife in Paradise. Q - Are suicide bombers principally motivated by religious conviction? A - Yes, it is their only conviction. They don't act to gain a territory or to find freedom or even dignity. They only follow Allah, the supreme judge, and what He tells them to do. Q - Do all Muslims interpret jihad and martyrdom in the same way? A - All Muslim believers believe that, ultimately, Islam will prevail on earth. They believe this is the only true religion and there is no room, in their mind, for interpretation. The main difference between moderateMuslims and extremists is that moderate Muslims don't think they will see the absolute victory of Islam during their lifetime, therefore they respect other beliefs. The extremists believe that the fulfillment of theProphecy of Islam and ruling the entire world as described in the Koran, is for today. Each victory of Bin Laden convinces 20 million moderate Muslims to become extremists. Q - Describe the culture that manufactures suicide bombers. A - Oppression, lack of freedom, brain washing, organized poverty, placing God in charge of daily life, total separation between men and women, forbidding sex, giving women no power whatsoever, and placing men in charge of family honor, which is mainly connected to their women's behavior. Q - What socio-economic forces support the perpetuation of suicide bombings? A - Muslim charity is usually a cover for supporting terrorist organizations. But one has also to look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are also supporting the same organizations throughdifferent networks. The ironic thing in the case of Palestinian suicide bombers is that most of the money comes through financial support from the Occidental world, donated to a culture that utterly hates and rejects the West (mainly symbolized by Israel). Q - Is there a financial support network for the families of the suicide bombers? If so, who is paying them and how does that affect the decision? A - There used to be a financial incentive in the days of Saddam Hussein ($25,000 per family) and Yasser Arafat (smaller amounts), but these days are gone. It is a mistake to believe that these families would sacrifice their children for money. Although, the children themselves who are very attached to their families, might find in this financial support another reason to become suicide bombers. It is like buying a life insurance policy and then committing suicide. Q - Why are so many suicide bombers young men? A - As discussed above, libido is paramount. Also ego, because this is a sure way to become a hero. The shaheeds are the cowboys or the firemen of Islam. Shaheed is a positively reinforced value in this culture. And what kid has never dreamed of becoming a cowboy or a fireman? Q - What role does the U.N. play in the terrorist equation? A - The U.N. is in the hands of Arab countries and third world or ex-communist countries. Their hands are tied. The U.N. has condemned Israel more than any other country in the world, including the regime of Castro, Idi Amin or Kaddahfi. By behaving this way, the U.N. leaves a dooropen by not openly condemning terrorist organizations. In addition, through UNRWA, the U.N. is directly tied to terror organizations such as Hamas, representing 65 percent of their apparatus in the so-called Palestinian refugee camps. As a support to Arab countries, the U.N. hasmaintained Palestinians in camps with the hope to "return" into Israel for more than 50 years, therefore making it impossible to settle those populations, which still live in deplorable conditions. Four hundred million dollars are spent every year, mainly financed by U.S. taxes, to support 23,000 employees of UNRWA, many of whom belong to terrorist organizations (see Congressman Eric Cantor on this subject, and in my film "Hostages of Hatred"). Q - You say that a suicide bomber is a 'stupid bomb and a smart bomb' simultaneously. Explain what you mean. A - Unlike an electronic device, a suicide killer has until the last second the capacity to change his mind. In reality, he is nothing but a platform representing interests which are not his, but he doesn't know it. Q - How can we put an end to the madness of suicide bombings and terrorism in general? A - Stop being politically correct and stop believing that this culture is a victim of ours. Radical Islamism today is nothing but a new form of Naziism. Nobody was trying to justify or excuse Hitler in the 1930s. We had to defeat him in order to make peace one day with the German people. Q - Are these men traveling outside their native areas in large numbers? Based on your research, would you predict that we are beginning to see a new wave of suicide bombings outside the Middle East? A - Every successful terror attack is considered a victory by the radical Islamists. Everywhere Islam expands there is regional conflict. Right now, there are thousands of candidates for martyrdom lining up in training camps in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Inside Europe, hundreds of illegal mosques are preparing the next step of brain washing to lost young men who cannot find a satisfying identity in the Occidental world. Israel is much more prepared for this than the rest of the world will ever be. Yes, there will be more suicide killings in Europe and the U.S. Sadly, this is only the beginning. Origins:  Pierre Rehov is an Algerian-born filmmaker (his family left Algeria for France in 1961, when he was nine years old) who has Pierre Rehov  produced a number of documentaries about the Middle East, primarily focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In the wake of the 7 July 2005 terrorist bombings in London, he made a number of appearances on television news programs to discuss the causes and nature of terrorism and his experiences in producing films about the subject.  Those appearances included a 15 July 2005 interview for MSNBC's Connected: Coast to Coast, the text of which is reproduced above. documentaries bombings appearances Connected We haven't yet been able to obtain a transcript of the 15 July 2005 Connected program, so we can't guarantee that what is reproduced above is a 100% complete and accurate reproduction of Pierre Rehov's interview.  However, we have verified that he was interviewed on Connected that day, that the substance of his remarks matched what is contained in the e-mail quoted at the head of this page, and that he offered substantially similar comments on other news programs around the same time as his Connected appearance. comments Last updated:  17 August 2006    Sources:   CNN Live Saturday.   "The Psychology of a Suicide Bomber."   CNN.com.  23 July 2005. On 5 March 2019, a conspiracy-minded Twitter account shared a video purporting to be from the site of a construction project funded by West Virginia taxpayer money for the purpose of housing 321 Syrian refugees. The video also claimed this was being done at the expense of regular Americans who, the man claims, were being pushed into substandard housing. He asserted that the area he was standing in will be a sharia zone, and no non-Muslims will be allowed to enter: a video  Several factual problems exist with assertions in this video. Chief among them is the fact that this video shows the Littlepage Terrace housing project, a low-income, housing tax-credit property allocated through the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, which houses zero Syrian refugees and many regular Americans. Several lines of evidence support this conclusion. First, someone who works next to the project refers to it as Littlepage: Littlepage Terrace   Second, a wider, composite view of the mans video shows clearly identifiable markers of the Littlepage housing complex, including a tell-tale smokestack and buildings that exactly match the structures built at Littlepage:   For comparison, heres video shot at Littlepage:  Third, Mark Taylor, the chief executive officer of Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority, which works with the Littlepage Terrace project, confirmed to us by email that the suspect video was taken at that site during renovations that likely occurred in May 2017. He also confirmed to us that the community houses no Syrian refugees. Another significant oversight in the tweeted narrative is that the entire state of West Virginia has taken in far less than 321 Syrian refugees in total. In 2016, the year the United States took in the largest number of Syrian refugees, West Virginia resettled only five of them in their state. On 1 February 2017, the Trump Administration announced Executive Order 13769, commonly referred to as the travel ban," which indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States. In 2017, West Virginia took in 13 refugees, but these individuals were not necessarily Syrian. largest number only five travel ban 13 refugees It is true that Littlepage was torn down and rebuilt, but that decision had nothing to do with refugee housing. Instead, the renovations aimed to reduce crime and revitalize the area, as reported by West Virginias WCHS television station in 2016: reported The Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority is now on the last phase of revitalizing three housing projects. Similar to Orchard Manor and Washington Manor, Littlepage Terrace will be demolished and rebuilt as two-story town homes.  This housing project was built nearly 80 years ago with no air conditioning and poor visibility. Now it is simply not a secure living space.  The goal for these new developments is to reduce crime and revitalize the area. Because the housing complex displayed was not built for Syrian refugees, and because the state has taken virtually no Syrian refugees at all, we rank the claims made in this video as aggressively and demonstrably false. Charleston-Kanawha Housing.  Developments - Littlepage Terrace."
  Accessed 14 March 2019. Zong, Jie, and Jeanne Batalova.  Syrian Refugees in the United States
  Migration Policy Institute.  17 January 2017. Beck, Erin.  Few Syrian Refugees Resettle in WV, At Least for Now.
  Charleston Gazette-Mail.  2 September 2016. Whitehouse.gov.  Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States."
  27 January 2017. U.S. Department of State.  Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2019."
  24 September 2018. Gunderson, Kaela.  Residents, Housing Officials Hope Littlepage Terrace Project Will Boost Safety.
  WCHS/WCAH ABC 8.  3 August 2016. An Internet meme circulating in August 2016 paired two racially charged statements previously attributed separately to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump:  While neither attribution was new, the conjunction of the two statements created the impression that Trump must have at some time opined that no black person would be President of the United States again any time soon because "laziness is a trait in blacks." There is a public record of Donald Trump's having stated, more or less, that no black person would be president again any time soon because of the poor performance of his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama:  When called upon to explain the statement in a 2 August 2015 interview with Jonathan Karl on ABC News' This Week, Trump offered: interview TRUMP: Well, I think he's been a very poor president. I think he has done a very poor job as president. We have $18 trillion right now in debt and going up rapidly. KARL: But what did you mean? What  TRUMP: Wait a minute. The world is  we don't have victories anymore. China is killing us on trade. Mexico's killing us at the border and also killing us on trade. Mexico's doing unbelievably against us in trade. You look at what's going on with Japan. You look at what's going on with Vietnam. You look at Saudi Arabia, makes $1 billion a day and we defend them. We get nothing. KARL: I understand your critique. But why do you say that means we won't see another black president for generations? TRUMP: Because I think that he has set a very poor standard. I think that he has set a very low bar and I think it's a shame for the African American people. And by the way, he has done nothing for African Americans. You look at what's gone on with their income levels. You look at what's gone on with their youth. I thought that he would be a great cheerleader for this country. I thought he'd do a fabulous job for the African American citizens of this country. A source attributing the statement "Laziness is a trait in blacks" to Donald Trump dates to the early 1990s. It should be noted, however, that that source was a book written by a disgruntled former employee of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, John R. O'Donnell, and neither the statement nor the sentiment behind it has been corroborated elsewhere. book As one might expect, O'Donnell's account, Trumped!, paints an unflattering portrait of its subject overall but offers this anecdote specifically as evidence of Trump's low opinion of the African Americans in his employ: "What do you think of him?" Donald asked. I said I was familiar with his abilities, and he had shortcomings. "To be honest, I don't think he's the best we can have," I said. "I'd like to see him either come up to speed, where he can help me a lot more, or maybe there's something else he can do." Instantly, Donald was enthused. "Yeah, I never liked the guy. I don't think he knows what the fuck he's doing. My accountants up in New York are always complaining about him. He's not responsive. And isn't it funny, I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else." I couldn't believe I was hearing this But Donald went on, "Besides that, I've got to tell you something else. I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything they can control.... Don't you agree?" He looked at me square in the eye and waited for my reply. "Donald, you really shouldn't say things like that to me or anybody else," I said. "That is not the kind of image you want to project. We shouldn't even be having this conversation, even if it's the way you feel." "Yeah, you're right," he said. "If anybody ever heard me say that ... holy shit ... I'd be in a lot of trouble. But I have to tell you, that's the way I feel." Although Trump didn't deny any of O'Donnell's specific allegations in a subsequent (1997)Playboy magazine interview -- "The stuff ODonnell wrote about me is probably true," Trump said at the time -- he vehemently denied O'Donnell's account of the conversation when asked about it during a 24 October 1999 interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press: denied MR. TRUMP: I never said it. I don't even know ... MR. RUSSERT: Donald Trump ... MR. TRUMP: I hardly know this guy. He was running one of my casinos for a short period of time. He was fired, we fired him because he wasn't doing a very good job. He wrote this nasty book. He made up stuff. This is like Jon Lovitz on "Saturday Night Live," the liar. "I went to Harvard. Yeah, I went to Harvard." This guy, I hardly know him. He made up this quote. I've heard the quote before, and it's nonsense. MR. RUSSERT: You've never said anything like that? MR. TRUMP: I've never said anything like it, ever. As the Washington Post noted, it is, at best, a secondhand quote from a private conversation, written down years after the fact, and should be viewed "with some skepticism." noted Kessler, Glenn. "Did Donald Trump Really Say Those Things?"
  The Washington Post.  25 July 2016. O'Donnell, John R. and James Rutherford.  Trumped! The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump -- His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall.
  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.  ISBN 0-67173-735-X. Reilly, Ryan J. "Donald Trump: No Black Presidents for Awhile Because of Obama."
  Huffington Post.  15 August 2015. 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. 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 March 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump faced widespread scrutiny for various aspects of his administration's response to the economic and public health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other points of criticism was his repeated insistence on referring to the disease as the "Chinese virus," despite widely-accepted public health authority guidelines that warn against naming disease outbreaks after nations or regions of the world, due to the unfounded stigmatization such names can cause. scrutiny Chinese virus guidelines The president used that name again during a White House briefing on March 19. Afterwards, social media users shared a photograph purportedly taken at the event, which appeared to show that Trump was even ignoring the guidance of his aides in insisting on referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus." Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford tweeted the following: briefing tweeted   Those images were authentic. The original, official photograph was taken by Botsford himself and published by the Getty Images agency on March 19. The website described the image as follows: published "A close up of President Donald J. Trump's notes shows where Corona was crossed out 'Corona' and replaced with 'Chinese' Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Thursday, March 19, 2020 in Washington, DC."  Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images      Trump did call COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" in his March 19 remarks, although perhaps ironically, he referred to it simply as "the virus" in the place where "Corona" had been scratched out and replaced in handwriting by "Chinese" in his notes. As shown in the video below, he actually said at that point: "As you know, my administration is working every day to protect the American people and the American economy from the virus [...]":  It's not clear who made the handwritten edit in black marker on March 19, but the handwriting style certainly appeared consistent with that seen in notes which Trump famously held in his hand as he spoke to reporters in November 2019 at the height of Congressional hearings held in advance of his own impeachment trial: held  Left: Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Right: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images  Lucey, Catherine. "Trump's Message on Virus Draws Scrutiny."
 The Wall Street Journal. 5 March 2020. Rogers, Katie; Jakes, Lara. "Trump Defends Calling the Coronavirus the 'Chinese Virus.'"
 The New York Times. 18 March 2020. World Health Organization. "WHO Issues Best Practices for Naming New Human Infectious Diseases."
 8 May 2015. Palma, Bethania. "Did Trump Use Notes to Self in Sharpie Pen That Said 'I Want Nothing.'"
 Snopes. 22 November 2019. Claim:  The U.S. government prohibits high mileage Volkswagen Passat automobiles from being purchased by U.S. customers.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, May 2012] VW Passat 78.5 MPG in the UK  Below is an email about the VW Passat that is made in the USA which gets over 70MPG but is not allow to be sold in the USA.  Just one more Washington Red Flag.I have included a short youtube video and a link to VW UK web site which confirms video is correct. Checked out VW web site and you can order any car they have for sale unless you are a US Citizen. As a US Citizen VW will not deliver the higher mileage cars they manufacture in the US to US Citizens. This is true and can be verified by just trying to buy one of these cars with the blue motion engine for shipment from the US to any destination in the US. I didnt go to the Ford UK web site to check out Ford but Rick has and he says Ford has several models for sale manufactured in the US with mileage of better than 71 miles per gallon on the highway that also are available for sale in Europe but not the US.  VW Web Site: https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/passat-estate-vii/which-model/engines/fuel-consumption/ https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/passat-estate-vii/which-model/engines/fuel-consumption/  Origins:  May 2012 saw the circulation of the message cited above, one which claimed that Volkswagen Passat vehicles with 70+ miles per gallon (MPG) figures manufactured in the U.S. were readily available in the UK, but U.S. government regulations prohibited their being sold to U.S. customers.  These claims appear to be misleading, however. First of all, a UK gallon is not the equivalent of a U.S. gallon: 1 UK gallon = 1.2 U.S. gallons, so MPG figures for automobiles in the UK are inflated by 20% relative to U.S. figures.  Additionally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) process for determining average mileage ratings is generally more stringent than the process used  in other countries, so EPA ratings tend to be on the conservative side.  Therefore, taking both factors into consideration, a car rated at 70 MPG in the UK would likely be EPA rated somewhere around the mid- to high-40 MPG range.  Second, we found no evidence of U.S. government regulations that would prohibit the sale of automobiles such as the referenced Volkswagen Passat in the United states solely because of their mileage ratings.  In general, when an automobile manufacturer offers a particular model of vehicle in other parts of the world but not the U.S., it's because that model has features that don't appeal to U.S. buyers or because the model does not meet U.S. safety or environmental standards.  In the case of the Volkswagen Passat models mentioned here, their lack of availability in the U.S. is likely due to a combination of those factors. Others have noted that U.S. consumers tend to focus less on mileage and prefer gasoline-powered cars with automatic transmissions and larger, higher-performance engines, but the UK version of the Passat cited here is a diesel-powered car with a manual transmission and a smaller, lower-performing engine: The UK Passat engine is very small (the 0-60 time is 12.5 seconds with a manual transmission) and most Americans won't accept such poor performance. Diesel fuel doesn't have a tax-preferred status here in the U.S. either, and the engine is probably at a premium cost due to new technology. What's more is that vehicles in the UK (but not the U.S.) are taxed by carbon emission, so vehicles in the UK are sold with a much wider choice of engines, usually including diesels and far smaller engines than are available for these vehicles in the U.S., because there is a high cost of operating the vehicle already (i.e., higher fuel prices) and these engines minimize the carbon tax portion. The dynamics of car ownership and manufacturing cars in the US versus the UK is vastly different: it's not really the regulations that are to blame.  Manufacturers don't bother to get U.S. EPA certifications because they know that the demand isn't there, especially right now when the demand is for hybrid (or at the really high end, electric). I doubt that such a car would be viable to sell: people in the U.S. don't put much stock in to gas mileage in comparison to power demands. If you are going to charge a premium, you have to offer something noticeably different, and diesel probably isn't going to pass muster for most folks.  Diesel vehicles in the U.S. have a bad reputation. Also, as reported in a Pure Energy Systems News (PESN) article on this topic, a Manager of Product and Technology Communications for Volkswagen of America Inc. stated that: article VW used to sell the same (or similar?) Passat as is sold in Europe here in the US. But it didn't sell very well. It was too expensive and too small in the mid-size sedan segment. So they came up with a larger version with a better price point; and of course the size effects the mileage. Volkswagen's response to our query was non-committal, stating only that they could not say when Bluemotion technology vehicles like the UK version of the Passat would be available in the U.S. We recognize that in this current economic climate, the desires of the driving public have changed.  Many consumers have realized that efficiency and economy are the true values of an automobile. Emissions standards have increased, and we are working to be both ecologically responsible and provide fuel efficient vehicles people want. VW continues to research all options for fuel efficiency. We have no further information at this time if, or when the Bluemotion technology will be available in the US. Last updated:  14 May 2012 In late 2020 and early 2021, multiple Snopes readers asked us to examine the accuracy of a viral Facebook meme that claimed a Chinese company was set to purchase General Electric for a sum of $5.4 billion. The post, published by Hal Downing on Dec. 23, 2020, read: read General Electric is being sold to a Chinese company for 5.4 billion dollars. Americans are you concerned yet???     The warning "Americans, are you concerned yet?" appears to be a reference to the imminent inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden in January 2021, and a slew of baseless conspiracy theories that allege sinister connections between Biden and China. conspiracy theories Several other Facebook posts by Downing demonstrate a belief that: "Democrats are owned by China"; that Biden's elevation to office will represent a moment of calamity for the United States; and that Democrats committed treason by "colluding" with China by deploying millions of fraudulent, Chinese-made ballots in order to secure Biden's victory. owned calamity colluding In reality, we found no record of any announcement, or reliable news report, of a deal to sell General Electric (GE) to any Chinese company in 2021. Rather, the figure of "5.4 billion dollars" refers to the sale of GE's appliances division to the China-based company Haier. That sale was announced in January 2016 and completed in the summer of 2016  before that year's U.S. presidential election took place, and long before Biden had even announced his intention to run for president four years later. announced completed That sequence of events fatally undermines the broader suggestion that Biden's presidency will "open the floodgates" for aggressive Chinese involvement in the American economy, as part of an underlying, sinister relationship between Biden and the Communist Chinese regime.  Furthermore, the Chinese company in question bought one of GE's divisions, not the entire entity  an additional, highly significant inaccuracy in the widely shared meme. During the tour to promote his presidential memoir,Decision Points, George W. Bush defended his fiscal record in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC'sToday Show. In the interview, Bush said that the ratio of the deficit to gross domestic product during his time in office was lower than Ronald Reagan's by half. Lower than my dad's. And only [worse than] Bill Clinton among modern presidents. ... My debt to GDP was the lowest or one of the lowest of modern presidents. My taxes to GDP was the lowest and my spending to GDP was too. We thought it would be worthwhile to see if Bush was correct. So we turned to a historical table from the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP -- essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole.The challenge is figuring exactly how to compare recent presidents.Let's start with the deficit. The most obvious way to do it is to add up all of the annual percentages for a president and divide by the number of years served, to produce an average.Calculating it this way -- and beginning our list of modern presidents with President Dwight Eisenhower -- we came up with the following order: Eisenhower (deficits averaged 0.53 percent of GDP), Clinton (0.76 percent of GDP), Richard Nixon (0.93 percent), Lyndon Johnson (1.1 percent),George W. Bush (2.0 percent), Jimmy Carter (2.4 percent), George H.W. Bush (3.98 percent), Reagan (4.23 percent). (We excluded John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford because of their short tenures. )You can do the same with spending and tax receipts.For spending as a percent of GDP, the ranking from low to high is Eisenhower (18.1 percent of GDP), Johnson (18.7 percent), Nixon (19.2 percent),George W. Bush (19.6 percent), Clinton (19.8), Carter (20.8), George H.W. Bush (21.9), and Reagan (22.4).For tax receipts as a percentage of GDP, the ranking from low to high is Eisenhower (17.5 percent of GDP), Johnson andGeorge W. Bush (tied at 17.6 percent), George H.W. Bush (17.9 percent), Reagan (18.2 percent), Nixon (18.3 percent), Carter (18.4 percent) and Clinton (19 percent).Whether Bush is correct depends heavily on which presidents you consider modern. If you only go back to Reagan -- the earliest president that Bush himself cited by name in the interview -- then Bush is basically correct. Only Clinton did better when measured by deficit as a percentage of GDP, while no president dating back to Reagan scored better on spending or tax receipts as a percentage of GDP.By contrast, if you go back to Eisenhower -- the first fully post-World War II president -- Bush is in the middle of the pack on the deficit and on spending, and he's near the top on tax receipts.But there's another way to look at the deficit -- to compare a president's first deficit as a percentage of GDP to their last. This shows what direction the deficit went during their tenures.And on this one, George W. Bush does the worst of any president dating back to Eisenhower.The younger Bush went from a 1.3 percent surplus to a 3.2 percent deficit, a decline of 4.5 percentage points. The best was Clinton, who moved the deficit from a 3.9 percent deficit to a 2.4 percent surplus -- a positive change of 6.3 percentage points. The other presidents all had changes up or down that were roughly two percentage points or smaller.This suggests that Bush's fiscal record wasn't so sterling if you use a different measure than the one he did. But to analyze the accuracy of his statement, we'll stick closely to the words he used. George W. Bush is correct that he outperformed his father, Reagan and (mostly) Clinton. So if you consider those the modern presidents, he's essentially right. If you broaden the modern presidents to include those serving in the entire post-World War II period, Bush is about average. While we wouldn't have chosen to define the modern presidents to include just the four that Bush mentioned by name, we'll give him some deference in framing the question. So we rate his statement Mostly True. In July 2023, a series of imageswent viral depicting elderly women with what appeared to begiant crocheted cats. went viral  The images were reposted on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and 9GAG, gaining millions of views. We also found them on Chinese and Russian-speaking websites. Facebook Twitter Instagram Reddit 9GAG Chinese Russian The pictures in question were originally posted on July 3, 2023, by Instagram account @ai.artandcat. In the bio section of that profile, we found a link to aFacebook pagetitled, "Lydia's AI Art and Cats," with a user namedLydia Masterova marked as the page's owner. Masterova had a history online of sharing AI-generated pictures. posted @ai.artandcat page  Wywietl ten post na Instagramie  Post udostpniony przez Cats and art (@ai.artandcat) Post udostpniony przez Cats and art (@ai.artandcat)  Masterova's images of crocheted cats had telltale signs of being generated by artificial intelligence (AI) software. For instance, the women in the photographs had abnormally large hands or an incorrect number of toes. Each picture depicted an elderly lady with white hair; however, the women did not appear to be the same person as various characteristics, such as their hairstyles and eyeglasses, varied significantly.   (Instagram account @ai.artandcat)   (Instagram account @ai.artandcat) AI-detection tools, such as AI or Not and IIlluminarty, confirmed the images were created using artificial intelligence software. Therefore, we have rated this claim as "Fake." AI or Not IIlluminarty In July 2023, Masterova shared a message via herInstagramaccount and Facebook page thatintroduced herself and explained that she started creating AI-generated content to distract herself from the war in Ukraine, which is where she is from: Instagram Facebook Here's a bit about me (and giant crochet cats). My name is Lydia, and I'm from Ukraine ??. A couple of months ago, to distract myself from the horrors of war, I immersed myself in the imaginative world of AI. Before that, I was a cat photographer and had always loved cats and animals in general, so it was only natural to start with them. At first, I incorporated cats into paintings by famous artists, hence the word "art" in my page name. However, I soon realized that almost everyone had already drawn the Mona Lisa with a cat or as a cat. Then, I attempted to draw hybrids of cats and other animals, but AI struggled to achieve that.When my parents, family, and friends in Ukraine were under bombing, I thought posting random stuff on my Facebook account was inappropriate, so I created a new page and Instagram account.And now, let's talk about these giant crocheted cats! She said her passion for various crafts inspired her to create the images of crocheted items. Since posting the images, she acknowledged they have circulated online without proper attribution, or disclaimers to note that they're not real. In the Instagram and Facebook post, she said she did not write captions for her original posts sharing the AI-generated images because"it's considered a bad form to use watermarks" in online groups dedicated to such content, and she did not have access to a computer to do so.The message continued: I used to do lots of various crafts, from crocheting and knitting to sewing soft toys. Now, I draw whatever comes to my mind first. During my vacation in early July, these crocheted cats were born. In AI groups, it's considered a bad form to use watermarks. It was very late at night, and I couldn't access a computer, so I posted them on my page and in the Midjourney Cat group without a caption. By morning, I found that the images had spread across various pages and groups. People from Europe, Asia, Australia, and even South Africa write to me saying they find these cats in crochet groups. I never posted them as actual crochet, and unfortunately, I can't do anything about it. Every day, I come across posts with titles like "My 80-year-old grandma finally finished her cat," and so on. Someone even posted it on National Geographic. When I tried to message them, 90% didn't reply, and a couple of times, I received rude responses, claiming that since it's AI, I have no rights to these images. But a few pages did credit me in their posts, though still with headlines not of my creation. Lesson learned. Now, I'll always add captions. The cat photographs aside,most of Masterova's images on Facebook and Instagram appeared tohavea watermark, including a series of elderly women riding what appeared to be crocheted motorcycles. That series was captioned, "Badass grandmas on their crochet bikes." most have   (Facebook page Lydia's AI Art and Cats) Masterova said the viral crochet images have brought her new attention online, including from people who do not like her work: Before the crochet cats, I had around 100 followers, and now the haters have come. Some send me to hell, others wish for my hard drive to burn, and some think using AI is stealing from real artists. It's just a hobby. I don't sell anything. I don't make money. I simply come up with nonexistent things, using my imagination. If someone doesn't like it, they can always scroll past it. AsAI-generated content becomes more prevalent on social media, it's worth knowing how to spot such images. We encourage you to read our tips. AI-generated read our tips