Elena Kagan Tied to Obama's Birth Certificate
Claim:  President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court as a reward for her help in getting nine challenges to his eligibility dismissed.   Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August  2010] Well, someone figured out why Obama nominated Elana Kagan for theSupreme Court. Pull up the Supreme Courts website, go to the docketand search for Obama. She was the Solicitor General for all the suitsagainst him filed with the Supreme Court to show proof of natural borncitizenship. He owes her big time. All of the requests were denied of course.They were never heard. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it? The American people mean nothing any longer. It's all about paybacktime for those that compromised themselves to elect someone thatreally has no true right to even be there. We should be getting sosick of all of this nonsense. The USA has finally become the laughingstock of the world. GOD help and deliver us. Variations:  An e-mailed screed claiming that thisarticle is wrong is itself wrong. screed Origins:  Rumors that Elena Kagan was nominated for a position on the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama as a tit-for-tat payment of Kagan's assistance in using her position as U.S. Solicitor General to fend off lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility for the presidency began circulating in August 2010, prompted by a 4 August 2010 online article published byWorldNetDaily (WND). That article claimed that Kagan "has actually been playing a role forsome time in the dispute over whether Obama is legally qualified to be in the White House" and that a "simple search of the high court's own website reveals Kagan's name coming up at least nine times on dockets involving Obama eligibility issues," then went on to suggest that all nine of the referenced docket items  article were dismissed due to Kagan's influence, an action for which President Obama "owes her big time" and has rewarded her with a quid pro quo Supreme Courtnomination. One small problem for the advocates of this political conspiracy theory: None of the nine docket items cited by WND was about "whether Obama is legally qualified to be in the White House."  The WND article simply cites the results of a non-specific search on all Supreme Court docket items containing the names "Obama" and "Kagan" and misleadingly claims them all as "involving Obama eligibility issues," without regard for the real underlying issues of those cases.*  search * Each of the docket items included the name of the lower court from which it was appealed, as well as a case number.  Using those pieces of information as reference points for looking up the subject of each of the cited docket items (as WND utterly failed to do) revealed that NONE of the nine entries cited by WND had anything at all to do with cases challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the office of President of the United States; in fact, most of them actually stemmed from cases which were originally filed against the federal government long before the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama (but which since "rolled over" to the current administration). The nine entries cited by WND comprised cases filed by:  Gary William Holt, a federal prisoner in Tennessee who was convicted of firearms-related offenses and whose case is a prisoner civil rights issue filed during the Bush administration. Gary William Holt  Jerome Julius Brown, whose case not only long antedates the Obama administration, but is also largely incomprehensible and has nothing do to with eligibility issues.  The case was originally dismissed by a lower court that could not discern either "which claims are made against which defendants on what basis" nor what "relief [the] plaintiff demands," and a description of the case provides some idea of why the lower court found it unworthy of consideration: Jerome Julius Brown description This matter is before the Court on the Complaint filed by Plaintiff Jerome Julius Brown ("Brown"), who refers to himself as "U.S. Bounty # 1014, U.S.A., Mr. Jerome Julius Brown Sr. et al." On June 7, 2010, Brown filed a one-page Complaint accompanied by 167 pages of attachments. The one-page Complaint is incomprehensible. It consists of several disjointed sentence fragments that do not make sense. It refers to a "petition for writ and attachments," an appeal from a magistrate judge, the United States Marshals Service, "assessment & taxation no real property data land condemnation business check card" and demands $70,000.00. The attachments include copies of his Maryland Driver's License, a business check card apparently issued to him by Chevy Chase Bank, and a Federal Express account card.  Other attachments demonstrate that he has filed other lawsuits against Chevy Chase Bank, and that he has filed other lawsuits against other various persons and entities. Also included among the attachments are copies of various checks drawn on what appears to be a business account for "Zip One Mail Contractor Courier" and "Jerome Julius Brown," an "ID Theft Affidavit" that refers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a credit report for Brown that includes handwritten notes regarding purported fraud and identity theft, and what appears to be a copy of a home equity loan application.  Louis Lutz, a truck driver who was employed as a U.S. Army civilian contractor in Iraq between 2004 to 2006 (long before the advent of the Obama administration) and whose case has to do with the combatant status of civilian contractors and employees working in Iraq and Afghanistan, not presidential eligibility issues. Louis Lutz Two filings involving Abdul Hamid Abdul Salam Al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan citizen seeking release from his incarceration at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station.  (Al-Ghizzawi was finally released in March 2010, after seven years of imprisonment.) Abdul Hamid Abdul Salam Al-Ghizzawi released  Three filings involving Jamal Kiyemba, a Ugandan who was incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station for four years beginning in 2002. (Although Kiyemba was released from  Guantanamo in 2006, due to "some procedural detail of the American legal system, Jamal Kiyembas name remains in the headlines of the highly public legal battle that began as Kiyemba v. Bush and which sits now on the desks of the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States under its new name: Kiyemba v. Obama." The case is a separation-of-powers issue that has nothing to do with presidential eligibility.) Jamal Kiyemba The Real Truth About Obama, Inc., a case which, although the plaintiff's name might suggest a presidential eligibility issue, is actually a challenge to three Federal Election Commission regulations which the plaintiff organization alleges are "unconstitutionally overbroad" and thereby infringed their right "to disseminate information about presidential candidate Senator Obama's position on abortion." The Real Truth About Obama, Inc.  After we published our article on this topic, WND hurriedly scrubbed the original article from their site without explanation, then misleadingly replaced it three days later with a thoroughly rewritten article on a different topic which was prefaced by an Editor's Note acknowledging their error: replaced Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described a series of cases for which Elena Kagan represented the government as eligibility cases. Those cases, in fact, were a series of unrelated disputes pending before the Supreme Court and the references have been removed from this report. Many people unfamiliar with the function of the Solictor General's office have claimed that even if the referenced docket items are not cases involving eligibility issues, they somehow demonstrate a questionable or inappropriate connection between Barack Obama and Elena Kagan, as if the latter personally represented the former in court and was rewarded for her efforts with a Supreme Court nomination.  This claim is also false One of the duties of the Solicitor General is, in layman's terms, to act as advocate for the United States before the Supreme Courtin any lawsuits filed against the federal government over abridgements of constitutional rights; thus the current Solicitor General's name will appear on virtually every Supreme Court docket item entered during his or her tenure.  (Indeed, a simple search of docket items for the name "Elena Kagan" turns up over 500 matching entries.)  Because such lawsuits often name the President of the United States as a respondent, it is also not uncommon for the current president's name to appear on such docket items (even if he was not yet in office at the time the underlying cases were originally filed in lower courts).  In all such cases, however, the Solicitor General functions as a representative of the interests of the federal government, not as personal counsel for the President.  (Several dozen Supreme Court docket items still identify Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, as a respondent, and in every one of those cases the Solicitor General is likewise listed as an attorney for the respondent.) search George W. Bush *NOTE: Immediately after we published this piece, WND scrubbed all references to the original article from their web site without explanation. Three days later, WND misleadingly replaced the original with a thoroughly rewritten article on a completely different topic.  Last updated:  3 August 2015
On 24 October 2016, health insurance broker Tyler McClosky created a phenomenon on Facebook when he posted a screen shot of what it would cost for a family of four with a total household income of $98,000 in Lee County, Florida, to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act's marketplace: We were able to recreate McClosky's viral post using the shopping tool at healthcare.gov and the same data he entered (two non-smoking parents with a combined income of $98,000 and two 8-year-old children in Lee County, Florida): tool   But data sent by a Department of Health and Human Services official pointed out that 81 percent of families of that size on an Obamacare plan have household incomes of less than $48,000. So the average family currently subscribing to Obamacare would not be paying nearly as much as the image above depicts in their out-of-pocket premium costs. We entered the same data but changed the income to $48,000 here:   McClosky created the post on 24 October 2016, the same day a report by the Department of Health and Human Services was released detailing an average 25 percent increase in costs to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) customers: customers Across states using the HealthCare.gov platform, the median increase in the second-lowest cost silver plan premium is 16 percent, while the average increase is 25 percent. This figure varies based on locale. For instance, a table compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that people in Phoenix, Arizona will have a 145 percent premium increase, but a tax subsidy will mean a 40-year-old, non-smoking Phoenix resident with a $30,000 annual income will not have to pay any more than last year (which is roughly $207 a month, depending on the plan selected). table According to data sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a majority of consumers covered by the ACA (85 percent) qualify for tax credits that keep pace with premium increases, so many won't see much of an impact on their out-of-pocket costs. data But McClosky was addressing people whose income disqualifies them from that assistance. He told us he used the $98,000 annual income as an example because that is the threshold at which households of four with two children do not qualify for tax credit assistance (you qualify if you make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line). He said he created the post because he wanted to raise awareness about what it costs to insure a family in which each adult is making an annual salary of $44,000, and neither has access to employer-based health care  a fairly common situation in the United States. His concern, he said, is that only consumers who qualify for a tax subsidy can afford insurance under ACA. If their incomes are too high to qualify for assistance, they may simply go without. While the number of uninsured Americans dropped under ACA, as of 2015, 28.5 million people still lack coverage. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation: Even under the ACA, many uninsured people cite the high cost of insurance as the main reason they lack coverage. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage but did not because it was too expensive. Many people do not have access to coverage through a job, and some people, particularly poor adults in states that did not expand Medicaid, remain ineligible for financial assistance for coverage. Some people who are eligible for financial assistance under the ACA may not know they can get help, and others may still find the cost of coverage prohibitive. In addition, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid or Marketplace coverage. Eric Seiber, associate professor of health services management and policy at Ohio State, said that the health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, and costs have steadily increased over the years. Despite its name, the Affordable Care Act doesn't actually address the cost of health care itself: The ACA is not health care reform. Its health insurance reform. It really doesnt do that much about affordable care or patient protection beyond the subsidies and Medicaid. People's perception that their wages have been flat is an effect of compensation increases going to cover rising healthcare costs instead of into their paychecks, Seiber said. McClosky, who sells health and life insurance plans in Florida, said that the Affordable Care Act has had the effect of diminishing competition among carriers. For instance, Lee County residents can only purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield. Prices in Miami-Dade are lower than in Lee County, because there are more carriers competing with each other. McClosky says insurance carriers have been squeezed by part of the mandate which requires them to spend 80 to 85 percent on claim payouts and health care quality improvement. He pointed to Assurant, a 123-yea-old insurer that specialized in individual and small business plans. They could not survive under the ACA and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Health care is a source of roiling political debate for years. While the cost of health plans under Obamacare will go up an average 25 percent as of 1 November 2016, the majority of consumers won't experience much change in their out-of-pocket costs when open enrollment starts for 2017, because the tax credits will buffer that increase. Further, as the New York Times pointed out, many Americans are shielded from the immediate costs of health care by employer-based insurance or the public programs: pointed out These increases really matter only for those who buy their own insurance. Most people are unaffected by the rate increases because they get their insurance through an employer or are covered through government programs like Medicare, Medicaid or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Only a small fraction of Americans who have insurance buy individual policies. There are about 10 million people in the Obamacare markets and around an additional seven million who buy health plans outside the marketplace, according to Obama administration estimates. The published rate increases apply only to people who shop in the markets, but premiums are expected to go up sharply for the other plans as well. However, as McClosky's post makes clear, whether people notice it or not, American health care costs are high  and not everyone can qualify for available assistance. Kaiser Family Foundation. "2017 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Acts Health Insurance Marketplaces."
25 October 2016. ASPE Research Brief. "Health plan choice and premiums in the 2017 health insurance marketplace."
24 October 2016. Abelson, Reed, and Sanger-Katz, Margaret. "A Quick Guide to Rising Obamacare Rates."
The New York Times. 25 October 2016. Boulton, Guy. "Milwaukee-based Assurant Health to be sold off or shut down."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 28 April 2015. After the police shooting of 20-year-old Latrell Allen in Chicago's Englewood community on the afternoon of Aug. 9, 2020, unrest in that city extended through that night and into the early morning hours of the following day, with looters hitting some stores in Chicagos wealthiest shopping district on North Michigan Avenue. Latrell Allen extended The following evening, members of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement held a solidarity rally in that city with some of the people who had been arrested for looting the night before. Shortly after those events, social media users began circulating a meme stemming from that event, quoting a "BLM leader & organizer" named Ariel Atkins as saying, "I don't care if someone decides to loot, because that makes sure that person eats or has clothes. Anything they want to take, they can, because these businesses have insurance":  That was an accurate quote, according to Chicago NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV, who reported on the Aug. 10 event: reported Members of Black Lives Matter held a solidarity rally on Monday night [August 10] with the more than 100 individuals who were arrested after a night of looting and unrest in Chicago. The rally was held at the South Loop police station where organizers say those individuals are currently being held in custody. I dont care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macys or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats, Ariel Atkins, a BLM organizer, said. That makes sure that person has clothes. Black Lives Matter Chicago organized the rally after overnight unrest throughout the city, with police saying that more than 100 individuals were taken into custody for a variety of offenses, including looting. That is reparations, Atkins said. Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance. Atkins said essentially the same thing a few days later, when she was interviewed by Chicago NPR station WBEZ on the subject of "why she supports looting": interviewed A lot of people are really attacking our pages. Theyre like, Oh, you support the looters. And yeah, we do, 100%. Thats reparations. And like however people choose to protest, especially if it was definitely in line with what happened with the shooting, which would be powerful to see people reacting ... without organizers just being like, Were angry and this is what were gonna do. Were gonna take the power back. I feel like these stores, these Macys, these Guccis, the PNC Banks, theyre not here for us. The city puts way more money and investment into spending time and protecting their spaces and making sure that they exist. And yet our people are constantly being pushed out of the city ... Unemployment is incredibly high, like we are in an incredible situation, and the fact that anybody gives a s*** about these businesses over what is happening in this city right now and the pain that people are in and the suffering that is taking place, I dont care. I will support the looters till the end of the day. If thats what they need to do in order to eat, then thats what youve got to do to eat .... The whole idea of criminality is based on racism anyway, because criminality is punishing people for things that they have needed to do to survive or just the way that society has affected them with white supremacist B.S. So its like her deciding what is criminal and what isnt. WMAQ-TV [Chicago].  "Black Lives Matter Holds Rally Supporting Individuals Arrested in Chicago Looting Monday."
  10 August 2020. Black, Curtis. &nbps; "Latrell Allen Police Shooting Exposes Gaps in Body Camera and Foot Pursuit Policies."
  The Chicago Reporter.  14 August 2020. Yoon-Ji Kang, Esther.  "Officers Disrespected Englewood Residents Following Police Shooting, Activists Say."
  WBEZ [Chicago].  10 August 2020. Wildeboer, Rob and Chip Mitchell.  "Officers Disrespected Englewood Residents Following Police Shooting, Activists Say."
  WBEZ [Chicago].  12 August 2020. In early October 2019, readers searched the Snopes.com website for a story that, were it not for the internet, might otherwise have been long forgotten. "Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature," the supposed headline of interest read: read  The article underlying that headline, as published by National Geographic, was true -- but the event took place in 2010, shortly before that article was written. Accompanied by a dramatic photograph of a massive chasm in an urban center, the Geographic article reported: Human activity, not nature, was the likely cause of the gaping sinkhole that opened up in the streets of Guatemala City on Sunday, a geologist says. A burst sewer pipe or storm drain probably hollowed out the underground cavity that allowed the chasm to form, according to Sam Bonis, a geologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, who is currently living in Guatemala City (map). The Guatemala City sinkhole, estimated to be 60 feet (18 meters) wide and 300 feet (100 meters) deep, appears to have been triggered by the deluge from tropical storm Agatha. But the cavity formed in the first place because the cityand its underground infrastructurewere built in a region where the first few hundred meters of ground are mostly made up of a material called pumice fill, deposited during past volcanic eruptions. The crater formed in the center of an intersection, and perhaps because aerial photographs are so visually striking, they have been shared throughout the years since the event occurred: This 30-story sinkhole appeared smack in the middle of Guatemala City. https://t.co/QlIPV4EVZi pic.twitter.com/hglMjoKJYT https://t.co/QlIPV4EVZi pic.twitter.com/hglMjoKJYT  David Plotz (@davidplotz) May 26, 2017 May 26, 2017  That wasn't the first time a massive sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City. A similar, deadly event took place in 2007, resulting from a combination of geography, nature, and poor regulation according to National Geographic. took place Guatemala City is situated on volcanic material that is relatively loosely-composed. That placement, combined with swift-running water from unfixed underground leaks, contributed to formation of the craters "In Guatemala City [the pumice is] unconsolidated, it's loose," Dartmouth geologist Sam Bonis told the Geographic in 2010. "It hasn't been hardened into a rock yet, so it's easily eroded, especially by swift running water." Tropical storm Agatha, coupled with leaking sewage pipes, likely triggered the collapse in 2010. Bonis added that because the event wasn't driven by natural forces, it technically shouldn't be called a "sinkhole." There was no scientific term, he said, to describe this type of collapse. Than, Ker.  "Guatemala Sinkhole Created by Humans, Not Nature."
  National Geographic.  5 June 2010. Associated Press.  "Third Body Pulled from Giant Sinkhole."
  NBC News.  24 February 2007. 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 On Dec. 21 2020, the U.S. Senate passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Its aim was to merge a COVID-19 relief bill with the annual appropriations bill that allocates funds for the federal government. For COVID-19 relief, the bill authorized a one-time payment of $600 to most Americans  an amount criticized as inadequate compared to the economic suffering it seeks to mitigate. passed most Americans criticized One popular tweet expressing this frustration asserted that each member of "Congress made almost $100,000 during the time they were arguing whether or not we deserved $600." popular tweet   The veracity of this statement depends at least in part on how the assertion is specifically defined, but in general it is factually defensible. Members of Congress  both senators and representatives  each get paid $174,000 per year. What remains to be defined is the amount of time they spent "arguing" over the bill that provided a $600 stimulus check. $174,000 per year In our view, it is fair to say that the fight for a second stimulus check began the moment after the CARES Act (which included authorization of a $1200 stimulus payment) was signed into law on March 27, 2020. There was bipartisan recognition that this massive spending bill would be insufficient to combat the economic problems caused by COVID-19. "The minute were done with phase three," Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt said to The Hill on March 27, referring to the CARES act, "well start talking about phase four because all of us know that phase three cant have included everything that needs to be included. For Democrats, this explicitly included a desire for further direct payments to individual American citizens. Even before CARES officially became law, on March 25, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN, "We'll get more direct payments in another bill." CARES Act said told CNN The "fight" over these direct payments, then, started as the first checks were authorized. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 was approved and sent to the president for his signature (or potential veto) on Dec. 21, 2020. potential veto Dec. 21, 2020 Using these endpoints, the period of time "during" which this debate occurred would be 269 days. This represents 74% of the year. The most straightforward solution to the question would be to take 74% of the annual $174,000 salary. By this math, each lawmaker made at least $128,760 "during" the time it took the bill to pass. 269 days $128,760 More restricted definitions might argue for a shorter time period of debate or argue that only days in which Congress was in session should count. The fact that politicians were talking about a second check even before CARES act was signed, however, makes that argument a hard sell. Because debates surrounding COVID-19 stimulus are not limited to session days, the latter argument does not make much sense either. As such, a simple approach that looks only at the amount of time it took members of Congress to pass a second bill suggests earnings of over $100,000 each, leading us to rank the claim  in session Twenty-three years into his Senate tenure, Wisconsins Herb Kohl hasnt announced whether he will seek another six-year term in 2012.But as Republicansstep up their criticismof him, Kohl is making crystal clear his disdain for the kind of rough-and-tumble campaign environment that almost surely would be part of another campaign.Compared to his last couple races when Kohl used his massive personal fortune to vanquish underfunded opponents with soft-sell TV ads, it would be a new environment for the senator who owns the Milwaukee Bucks and built the Kohls department and grocery store chains.Inremarks to reportersin Madison on April 28, 2011, Kohl ruminated about the state of todays campaigns. He said people dont like anybody in public life because of venomous attacks and sniping among congressional members, something he said he engages in hardly at all.Then he got specific: Ive been through four campaigns and have not done any negative campaigning. And I dont get into any personal jousts with other people in public life. But thats just my style.So has Kohl really avoided any negative campaigning?Thats quite a claim in this age of mud-slinging and aggressive campaign tactics. We decided to check it out.Of course, it would be impossible to track down every campaign statement Kohl made since 1988 and copies of decades-old TV ads. So we focused our look-back to media descriptions of TV ads, debates and the candidates strategies in his four races. We also talked to the people who should know best: several of his former opponents or their aides, Kohls campaign staff, and a longtime political reporter.Kohl has of course benefited from negative attacks launched by groups supporting his campaigns, but he spoke only of his own campaigns conduct, so well limit our review to that.One more note before we begin: Because there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes negative campaigning, we asked Team Kohl what exactly he meant by his claim.Sen. Kohl has said that he believes campaigning is about telling the people of Wisconsin what hes done and what he plans to do, not tearing down his opponent or telling people not to vote for them, Kohl press secretary Lynn Becker said. He has not been deliberately malicious or factually dishonest in his campaigns or while serving in public office.Indeed, his two most recent opponents said there was no negative campaigning in their contests -- and had high praise for Kohl.He never did anything negative in his campaign. Hell have the job as long as he wants the job, said John Gillespie, founder of Rawhide Boys Ranch, who lost to Kohl in 2000.Say hi to Herb if you talk to him. Tell him I owe him a dinner, said Robert Lorge, Kohls 2006 rival.Fair enough. Those were landslide wins.What about the earlier contests?1988:Kohl was a surprise entrant in the Democratic primary, winning the nomination comfortably over former Gov. Tony Earl, Ed Garvey and Doug La Follette. Hefrustrated hisrivalsby limiting his debate participation and spending millions on TV ads.At the time,Earls media consultant David Axelrod chargedthat Kohls popular slogan -- Nobodys Senator But Yours -- was an implicit negative attack. It implied that candidates who -- unlike Kohl -- have to raise most of their campaign money are beholden to donors, said Axelrod, who later went on to help a guy named Barack Obama get elected president.Earlattacked Kohl as uninformed and error-prone, prompting Kohl campaign aide Bill Christofferson to call Earl desperate and guilty of misrepresentation.Insiders on both sides agree that Kohl ran no attack ads in the primary -- and none in the very tight general election that saw Republican state legislator Susan Engeleiterclose the gap to just a fewpointswith a series of ads targeting Kohl in the closing weeks.Engeleiter herself told us she has nothing but positive recollections of a pretty cordial campaign. She also praised Kohls dealing with her when she later was confirmed as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.La Follette and Garvey say today that they wouldnt call Kohls primary race negative. Regarding Kohls slogan, La Follette agreed with Kohl aide Christofferson, who said:  Herb Kohl was talking about himself, not anyone else, when he promised to be 'nobody's senator but yours. 'Indeed, Kohl explicitly used his positive campaign ads as a selling point, and called his victory a blow against negative campaigning.1994:In his first re-election campaign, Kohl wasted little timeaggressively portraying Republican opponent Robert Welch, a state lawmaker from Redgranite, as an extreme conservative and flip-flopper. At an early debate, he cited Welchs no-exceptions stance against abortion and his vow never to vote for a tax hike as extreme. According to media accounts, he did not explain the flip-flop charge.Afterwards, Welch told reporters Kohl was nastier than I expected.Later, after Welch attempted to tie Kohl to President Clinton, Kohl launched arare TV ad that focused on an opponentby name. Another followed. The ads accused Welch of distorting Kohls record. One said that fellow Republicans had criticized Welchs tactics -- something deemed misleading in aMilwaukee Journal fact check.The exchange led Welch to accuse Kohl of running a multimillion dollar mudslinging campaign. Kohl said it was Welch who went negative.The rhetoric heated up. At one point in the race, after Welch accused Kohl of religion bashing, Kohl spokesman Jeffrey Gillis said that  Welch's attack again shows that he'll say or do anything to get elected.So, that seems like quite a bit of snarling.Looking back, though, Welchs campaign manager Mike Maxwell doesnt have strong opinions about the back and forth.I dont know that Kohl was particularly negative through that election, he told us. He didnt recall the distort ad that Kohl ran. He did say that some might consider the extreme charge a negative attack.Kohl, Maxwell recalled, just had overwhelming resources and then he signed (Bucks first round draft choice Glenn Robinson) six days before the election. (We could not reach Welch for comment).Kenneth Lamke, a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter who covered the 1994 race, offered the strongest opinion we heard on whether Kohl went negative against Welch. He says yes.Lamke said the extreme charge by Kohl was within bounds but uncharacteristic of Herb. Lamke viewed the attack as unprovoked and an exaggeration; Gillis, the Kohl aide, said it was a response to the drumbeat of criticism of Kohl during the Republican primary. Lamke, we should note, asked us to describe his personal politics as leans Republican.We asked several political scientists to characterize the language of the Kohl ad. They reacted cautiously because we could not provide the ad itself, just direct quotes from it in media accounts. That makes it impossible to fully judge the tone. Vanderbilt professor John Geer, an author of a much-cited book on negative campaigning, said it sounded like a tame response ad -- not the kind of classic negative ad the public doesnt like. Darrell West, of the Brookings Institution, agreed. UW-Madisons Ken Goldstein said Kohls ad met the academic research definition of negative because it focused on Welch, not Kohl. The test of whether it was unfair is whether it was accurate, he said. So Kohls campaigns have been remarkably low-confrontation affairs, with the most notable exception being 1994, the first -- and perhaps only -- time Kohl aired TV spots going after an opponent.So how does Kohl fare on his statement that he has never campaigned negatively?Clearly, Kohl has spent the vast bulk of his time and money on upbeat, positive ads. Even his opponents agree strongly with that -- one even wants to buy him dinner.The only ad that pops up as arguably negative is the 1994 distort spot against Welch. It drew some critical attention, but is viewed as a pretty tame response ad. Beyond that, Kohls campaigns have engaged in some labeling and name calling. And Kohls aggressive 1994 portrayal of Welch as an extremist was arguably negative.Kohl is mostly on target here, with some minor exceptions.Mostly True. Since November 2020, an identically worded bit of text alleging that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "is a private nonprofit corporation" has been shared across multiple social media platforms. The claim has its origins on the website Armstrong Economics  which sells a variety of self-published conspiracy books by the titular Martin Armstrong  and would become a well-shared bit of copy-and-paste "copypasta," reproduced in part below: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention its origins well-shared Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation? [...] The CDC is quasi-government under the Department of Health and Human Services which strangely has sources of funding that are predicated on the fact that it also has a private 501(c)(3) public charity, like the Clinton Foundation. The CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, NGOs and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is NOT a government-funded organization. It is not exclusively a government-funded [sic]  very curious. Natural News, which boasts a massive audience of conspiracy theorists, republished it in December 2020. At the time of this writing, versions of this copypasta still creep up on various social media platforms. On May 3, 2021, a Facebook account named The Daily Callout published it along with a picture of purported CDC funding sources. Commenters to that post were evidently confused: republished published   The allegations leveled against the CDC are not all that coherent in these posts. The copypasta suggests the CDC is both a non-profit and a "quasi-government" agency. Further, those issues are tangled up in the separate issue of corporate donations to the CDC. The title of the post, however, provides Snopes with a clearly stated contention: "Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation?" You most likely did not know this, because it is, in fact, not true. The CDC is a federal agency housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The confusion stems from the fact that, in 1992, Congress mandated the creation of a non-profit foundation  the CDC Foundation  that would "not be an agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government" and whose purpose would be "to support and carry out activities for the prevention and control of diseases, disorders, injuries, and disabilities, and for promotion of public health." As part of that goal, the foundation has an endowment and accepts charitable gifts from a variety of entities, including corporations, which are forwarded to the CDC to support specific initiatives.  housed in in 1992 mandated the creation CDC Foundation "The government has unique capacities as well as limitations. The same is true for the private and philanthropic sectors," the CDC Foundation argues on its website. "We believe that people, groups and organizations have greater positive impact and can accomplish more collectively than individually." Funds raised by the CDC foundation are donated to various programs and initiatives within the CDC. its website The CDC Foundation is one of two ways corporations can legally provide funds to the CDC. Donations to the CDC foundation are an indirect route as, by law, "officers, employees, and members of the board of the Foundation shall not be officers or employees of the Federal Government." Direct gifts by corporations to the CDC are also allowed under a portion of the U.S. Code that authorizes the secretary of HHS "to accept on behalf of the United States gifts made ... for the benefit of the Service or for the carrying out of any of its functions." by law a portion For both direct gifts to the CDC and gifts made via the CDC Foundation, conditional funding is allowed so long as those requirements are not, as outlined in CDC policy documents: policy documents The acceptance of corporate donations earmarked for specific causes  both to the CDC Foundation and to the CDC itself  have caused apparent conflicts of interest. In 2015, the medical journal BMJ published an editorial outlining several examples of potential conflicts, including these examples: an editorial In 2010, the CDC, in conjunction with the CDC Foundation, formed the Viral Hepatitis Action Coalition, which supports research and promotes expanded testing and treatment of hepatitis C in the United States and globally. Industry has donated over $26m to the coalition through the CDC Foundation since 2010. Corporate members of the coalition include Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, OraSure Technologies, Quest Diagnostics, and Siemenseach of which produces products to test for or treat hepatitis C infection. [...] In 2012, [a company named] Genentech earmarked $600,000 in donations to the CDC Foundation for CDCs efforts to promote expanded testing and treatment of viral hepatitis. Genentech and its parent company, Roche, manufacture test kits and treatments for hepatitis C. The CDC argues that it has policies in place to prevent such conflicts. Its website states that "when we engage with the private sector  we maintain our scientific integrity by participating in a gift review process that is rigorous and transparent. CDCs gift acceptance policy requires a comprehensive gift review prior to accepting a gift. This includes CDC Foundation (CDCF) gifts and gifts given directly to [the] CDC, whether they are monetary or non-monetary." These processes have been refined and standardized several times since 2014. has policies since 2014 While the issue of potential corporate influence over public health policy merits scrutiny, it is also important to consider the scale of private funding compared to the overall congressionally appropriated budget of the CDC. In the 2020 fiscal year, the CDC received $13 million in conditional gifts from the CDC Foundation and $10 million in conditional and unconditional direct contributions from the private sector. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $8 billion in funding the CDC receives from Congress: 2020 fiscal year compared to   Even from a rhetorical standpoint it would be a stretch to argue the CDC proportionally is awash in corporate funding. Narrowly speaking, however, the assertion that the CDC is a non-profit, non-government organization is incorrect because that claim conflates the CDC (a federal agency) and the CDC Foundation (a 501(c)(3) charity). As such, the claim is In September 2016, Facebook pages (including "Mobile Trend" and "Lady Trend") purportedly kicked off tiny house giveaway contests: Mobile Trend Lady Trend     As with all like-farming Facebook scams, the purported tiny house contests adhered to a simple format: users were instructed to like a separate page, like the original post, and share the post on their own Facebook timelines (thereby validating its legitimacy and enticing others to do the same). Although the tiny houses purportedly up for grabs appeared visually different in various posts, the instructions for "winning" them were virtually identical. The first clue these tiny house giveaways were not legitimate were the images of the homes used in the Facebook posts. The red "tiny house" was a Getty stock photo commonly pinned to Pinterest (and unlikely to be a contest prize), and the second was likewise a stock photograph of a tiny house:      Moreover, neither page was linked with any major home improvement company or other commercial entity (e.g., Home Depot, HGTV, or a real estate firm) one might imagine would offer up a free tiny house in exchange for social media advertising. Were any legitimate company to engage in such a giveaway, their incentive would be exposure, yet no attendant promotional return on advertising investment was evident in these Facebook giveaway claims. The manner in which users were lured was similar to scams involving Costco, Kroger and Amazon gift cards, but the six-figure jackpot attached to some of the tiny house scams proved a far more difficult-to-resist enticement for some users, advancing the hoax more quickly than those which linked out to sketchy signup pages. The contests bore all the hallmarks of standard "like farming" gambits, intended to quickly build and sell popular Facebook pages to the highest bidder. Costco Kroger Amazon like farming Even if the page creators intended only to build an audience, participation in the scam created an environment amenable to scammers of the same ilk seeking to exploit users' desires and needs to pump and dump a relatively new Facebook page. A large audience could also be exploited by scammers' mining varying levels of personal data from those who have liked pages of dubious origin. Facebook users enmired in like and share fake giveaways not only unwittingly help spammers litter the social network with scams, they may also risk being exposed to malware, clickjacking, or other unpleasantries (such as finding their names and identities endorsing a scam, hate page, or other undesirable activity). Legitimate product giveaways, particularly of high-value merchandise, are exceptionally rare and are almost always conducted through the official channels of major brands and related large companies. Claim:  President George W. Bush proclaimed, "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." Status:  False. Origins:  Yet another   "George W. Bush is dumb" story has been taken up by those who like their caricatures drawn instark, bold lines. According to scuttlebutt that emerged in the British press in July 2002, President Bush, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and France's President Jacques Chirac were discussing economics and, in particular, the decline of the French economy. "The problem with the French," Bush afterwards confided in Blair, "is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." The source was Shirley Williams, also known as the Baroness Williams of Crosby, who claimed "my good friend Tony Blair" had recently regaled her with this anecdote in Brighton.  Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post was unable to reach Baroness Williams to gain her confirmation of the tale, but he did receive a call from Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications and strategy. "I can tell you that the prime minister never heard George Bush say that, and he certainly never told Shirley Williams that President Bush did say it," Campbell told The Post. "If she put this in a speech, it must have been a  joke." This is far from the first time Bush has been made the butt of a jibe meant to showcase what some perceive as his less than stellar intellectual abilities. Without straining our memories too hard, we can come up with three other instances we've chronicled on this site. In the summer of 2001, the joke of the moment centered upon a supposed study that had resulted in the ranking of Presidential IQs, with George W. Bush being pegged as the Chief Executive who scraped the bottom of the intelligence barrel. In December 2000 it was a fake Nostradamus quatrain which pontificated that the "village idiot" would win the 2000 Presidential election. And in the spring of 2002, it was the story of Bush's waving at Stevie Wonder that set folks to chortling up their sleeves. Presidential IQs Nostradamus quatrain waving Stories that illustrate this widely believed intellectual shortcoming will always waft after George W. Bush because they seemingly confirm what many already hold as true about this public figure, that he's not the brightest fellow that's ever been. It is human nature to revel in yarns that the hearer at some level agrees with, thus tales of this sort will always fall upon appreciative ears. Barbara "ears of corn" Mikkelson Last updated:  23 September 2007    Sources:   Fitchett, Joseph.  "The Global Class: Word for It."   The International Herald Tribune.  11 July 2002  (p. 18).    Grove, Lloyd.  "The Reliable Source."   The Washington Post.  10 July 2002  (p. C3).    Malvern, Jack.  "Bush and Blair."   The [London] Times.  9 July 2002  (p. 18).    Smith, Liz.  "Stovepipe Dreams."   Newsday.  12 July 2002  (p. A13). Claim:   Video clip shows Tacoma  housing development "built for illegal immigrants" who are receiving "refugee pay."  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2011] I want to move to Tacoma.. to the good life!  Here is a development in Tacoma WA (Salishan) that was built for Illegal Immigrants! 1325 Homes created! Refugee Pay offers them $2642 per month in SSI benefits, plus Food Stamps, plus Section 8 Housing. You will see new expensive cars in this video. Wouldn't you like to get a free ride like the illegals?  Origins:  As noted by Kathleen Merryman of the Tacoma News Tribune the video clip linked above about the Salishan housing development on Tacoma's East Side has garnered a good deal of attention for that community: William B. Mount is going viral on Salishan. The Tacoman once used public access television to air his world view, and now posts videos on YouTube. About five months ago, he and a woman named Jane drove through Salishan on Tacoma's East Side with a video camera and a big box of misinformation. They delivered a 10-minute commentary on the mixed use and mixed-income redevelopment of the worn-out public housing site and posted it on the video sharing site. The stew of untruths simmered there. It's at a boil now. Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) and Tacoma City Council members are getting e-mails from people hot over what he calls misuse of Social Security funds. As Ms. Merryman described in considerable detail in an excellent analysis of the video, virtually all of the claims made within it regarding Social Security, foreigners, and illegal immigrants are false: analysis  Claim: "What you are looking at is a $225 million complex, $225 million complex, of housing out of the Social Security budget for 1,300 units." False: No Social Security funds were used to redevelop Salishan. Claim: "All welfare housing. All Social Security housing for foreigners will get $2,642 a month. All of that comes out of the Social Security budget."  False: Of Salishan's renters, 97 percent are citizens of the United States, according to THA Executive Director Michael Mirra. "We know of no government program that pays $2,642 per month to foreigners," Mirra said. Claim: "The average income in here is about $13,000 per year, not including welfare, not including Social Security refugee pay, not including Women, Infants and Children."  False: The $13,000 figure is based on out-of-date 2000 Census data. As for the other sources, Mirra said: "We do not know of anyone who gets something called 'Social Security refugee pay.'"  Claim: "This school was built by Tacoma specifically to house foreigners and welfare recipients."  False. Lister Elementary School does not "house" any foreigners or welfare recipients.  Claim: "They mollycoddle these foreigners who come across the border illegally."  False. THA does not rent to people who are in this country illegally, and 97 percent of Salishan residents are U.S. citizens.  Claim: "And they don't pay taxes. This housing is free if you are on Social Security refugee pay."  False. Anyone who buys non-food goods and services in Washington State pays sales tax, and every Salishan household with earned income is subject to federal income taxes. Every Salishan rental household with an income pays rent. For complete information, we recommend reading the News Tribune's thorough debunking of the video. debunking Last updated:  28 July 2011 Claim:  EverPet brand dog and cat food is made in China and has caused pets to fall ill and die in the U.S. Example:  [Collected via Facebook, February 2015]   Origins:   On 2 November 2014, the above-quoted message about EverPet brand pet food was posted on Facebook and subsequently shared hundreds of thousands of times. Although that particular warning came in late 2014, rumors about adverse pet reactions to  Facebook EverPet brand cat and dog food (commonly sold at Dollar General stores) have circulated on the internet since at least as far back as 2010. It is not uncommon to find stories on social media attributing a pet's death to a particular brand of cat or dog food, as people  brand who have experienced the untimely loss of a beloved animal companion attempt to spare other families the trauma they have endured. Similar warnings have circulated about brands such as Purina, with grieving owners similarly convinced the food their pet consumed was responsible for the animal's illness or death. Purina In the absence of confirmation or denial from Dollar General, well-intentioned pet owners seized on anecdotal information about the brand on the web, but the owner of the dog referenced above later admitted that the pet's death had not been linked to EverPet:   Unlike Purina, discount brand EverPet has no dedicated website or social media presence where they address such complaints. Consequently, rumors of recalls continue to circulate even though there has never been a recall of EverPet pet food. Representatives from Dollar General have replied to some of the rumors about EverPet food and stated unequivocally that the product is manufactured in the United States (not China), and that no recalls have been ordered for EverPet products. On 20 December 2013, Dollar General's Facebook page published the following response to a user who asked about EverPet rumors: response   Last updated:  20 February 2015