Is This a Real Photograph of Bowie and Lemmy?
InJanuary 2016, a photograph purportedly showing musicians David Bowie and Motrhead frontman Lemmy together at a party started circulating online. The photograph was originally posted to the image sharing web site Imgur on 11 January 2016, along with a caption that referenced the deaths of both musicians. Lemmy passed away on 28 December 2015, and Bowie passed a short time later on 10 January 2016: Imgur Bowie Bowie and Lemmy are about to start the most rocking, stellar band ever.Rock In Peace you legends. The photograph went viral as fans of Motorhead and David Bowie mourned the loss ofthe two rock legends. Unfortunately, the above-displayed image is fake. The fake imageof David Bowie and Lemmy isa combination of two photographs: A 1972photoof Lemmy and an unidentified girlfriend, and another image of David Bowie and singer Claudia Lennear: photo     It's possible that David Bowie and Lemmy Kilmister met at some point during their careers, but the above-displayed photo is not proof of such a meeting.
In thevideoannouncing his run for California governor, RepublicanTravis Allensaid he wants to reduce the states crime rate and its high taxes. We recently fact-checked Allens claims on crime in the video. The Orange County state assemblyman earned aMostly Falsefor his statement that crime is on the rise in all the states major metros. We found he cherry-picked data from an uptick in crime in 2015 and ignored the states decades-long decline in crime which continued in early 2016. Given the importance of taxes in California, we also decided to examine Allen's claims on this topic. Ive seen our taxes increase to be among the highest in the nation, Allen said in the campaignvideoon June 22, 2017. In California, we must get serious about cutting our taxes. Californians pay among the highest taxes in the entire nation. Allen makes his claim at about the 0:15 minute mark of the video above. Was Allen right? Are Californias taxes really among the highest in the nation? We set out on a fact check. Our research We decided to examine where California ranks in key tax categories, including income, sales and property taxes. Additionally, we looked at how California measures up in a more comprehensive category: Its overall state-local tax burden. We also spoke with several tax experts for some context on these rankings. They all said comparing tax rates is doable but messy, noting that states assess taxes in different ways. Allens campaign did not respond to our request for evidence to support his claim. Heres what we found in each key tax category: Income tax Californias top tier income tax rate is the highest in the nation at 13.3 percent, according to theTax FoundationandCalifornia Taxpayers Association. Its the rate paid by Californians who earn more than $1 million annually. Maine had the second highest top rate at 10.15 percent, followed by Oregons 9.9 percent, as of Jan. 1, 2017. Several states have no income tax, including Nevada, Washington, Texas and Florida. Of course, only a fraction of Californians pay the top income tax rate, noted Annette Nellen, professor and director of the graduate tax program at San Jose State University. A recentSacramento Bee analysisof state tax data found 61,000 households, or 0.4 percent of the states 16 million total, reported income of more than $1 million in 2014. This is a very small percentage of the population, Nellen said. Not everybody is paying that. So, if someone was to say we have really high taxes in California, sometimes thats interpreted as everybodys paying a really high tax when in California we also have a fairly high exemption for individuals and children which might cause some lower-income folks to not pay any California income tax at all, at least not directly. Per capita, Californians pay $1,991 annually in state income taxes, which ranks fourth highest in the country, according to the Tax Foundation. Sales tax While only a fraction pay the states top income tax rate, everyone who lives here or visits pays Californias highest-in-the-nation sales tax rate of 7.25 percent. Four states tie for the second-highest statewide sales tax rate, at 7 percent: Indiana, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, according to the Tax Foundation. States with no sales tax include Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire and Delaware. When adding state and local sales taxes, California rank drops to 10th highest. This combined tax rate varies across the state. In some parts of Los Angeles County, for example, it tops 10 percent, said David Kline, a spokesman for the California Taxpayers Association. The association researches tax data and opposes what it calls unnecessary taxes. Property tax Unlike Californias income and sales tax rates, the state's average effective property tax rate is among the lowest in the nation, at 0.72 percent, or 36th among states, according to the Tax Foundation. Thats due to voter approved Proposition 13, which limited property tax increases to no more than 2 percent per year. New Jersey had the highest property tax rate at more than 2.1 percent, according to a2016 reportby the Tax Foundation. Still, Kline said, property tax in California is compounded by additional taxes, such as parcel taxes and Mello-Roos assessments, or fees charged to property owners in a specific area to pay for public improvements such as streets and parks. Those can add hundreds or thousands of dollars every year, he added. Total tax burden In addition to ranking individual tax categories, the Tax Foundation produces a more comprehensive category it calls the State-Local Tax Burden. It measures the share of income in the state that goes to state and local taxes. California ranked sixth highest on this list at 11 percent. New Yorkers faced the highest burden at 12.7 percent, followed by Connecticut at 12.6 percent. Alaskans paid the smallest share of their income, 6.5 percent, in state and local taxes. We asked Joe Henchman, vice president of the Tax Foundation, about the accuracy of Allens claim that Californias taxes are among the highest in the nation. I think its a fair comment to make, Henchman said. Unless youre being really specific about a particular type of tax, California is usually at the high end of the states. Its almost always in the top half of the states in terms of a tax or its burden or how much people pay. And its often in the Top 10. Exceptions do exist, he said, such as Californias low taxes on wine (44th highest), spirits (40th) and beer (28th), compared with other states. Nellen, the San Jose State University tax professor, agreed Californias taxes are generally high and said Allens claim is mostly backed up by the facts. Growth and taxes In recent years, top Democrats in California have deflected criticism about the states high taxes by pointing to strong employment and GDP growth. Gov. Jerry Brown, for example, has repeatedly pointed to themore than 2 million jobsCalifornia has created since he returned to office in 2011. Allen has criticized Browns recent signing of a 12 cent per gallon increase in the states gas tax. That move is expected to make Californias gas tax second highest in the nation, behind Pennsylvanias, once it goes into effect in Nov. 1, 2017. Henchman said, for now, Californias economy has succeeded despite its high taxes. Nobody moves to California because of taxes, he said. They move in spite of the taxes, because of other positive benefits. Theres good weather, theres Silicon Valley, theres great universities, theres Hollywood, etc., etc. Those, for a lot of people, make it worth paying the taxes, to a point, Henchman added. Our ruling Republican candidate for governor Travis Allen recently claimed Californias taxes are among the highest in the nation. Allens statement is broad and needs clarification. But when looking at some of the most important tax categories, including income, sales and gasoline taxes, theres a lot of truth to his claim. California has the highest top tier income tax and the highest state sales tax in the nation. Its important to note that the top rate income tax is paid by only a fraction of households in the state, and that the sales tax rate drops to 10th in the nation when local and state sales taxes are examined state-by-state. Notably, it does not have one of the nations highest property tax rates, at 36th highest. Allens claim is accurate but needs this additional information. We rate it Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. UPDATE:An earlier version of this fact check described California's property tax rate as 0.72 percent. We have clarified that this is the state's average effective property tax rate. Visit our Tracking the Truth serieshereto see all of our 2018 governor's race fact-checks. Governors race Allenis one of several Republican candidates to announce a run for California governor. The others include John Cox, a venture capitalist from San Diego County and former state Assemblyman David Hadley of Manhattan Beach. Several prominent Democratsare also competing in 2018 to succeed Jerry Brown as governor. They include former Los Angeles MayorAntonio Villaraigosa, California TreasurerJohn Chiang; Delaine Eastin, the states former superintendent for public instruction; andGavin Newsom, the states current lieutenant governor. Apollreleased in June 2017 showed a tightening race. Newsom was in the lead among all candidates, with 22 percent support from likely voters. Villaraigosa had 17 percent support, up from his 11 percent three months earlier. Tracking the Truth: Hear a claim you want fact-checked? Email us at[email protected], tweet us@CAPolitiFactor contact us onFacebook. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here Throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has frequently referred to his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Some social media users questioned whether this was the same "Scranton" from the U.S. sitcom "The Office" (and whether Scranton was indeed a real American city). Meanwhile, Biden's political rival, U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Biden of exaggerating his connections to the small Pennsylvania city.  This topic came up once again during the final presidential debate of 2020. Twice during the debate, Biden mentioned his small-town roots while talking about middle-class families. Here are transcripts from these two moments: mentioned Where I come from, in Scranton and Claymont, the people don't live off of the stock market. This isn't about me. There's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the substantive issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family, and your family's hurting badly. If you're making less than, if you're a middle class family, you're getting hurt badly right now. You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning deciding, well, we can't get new tires, theyre bald, because we have to wait another month. Or, so are we going to be able to pay the mortgage? Who's going to tell her, she can't go back to community college? They're the decisions you're making in the middle class families like I grew up in Scranton and Claymont. They're in trouble. We should be talking about your families but that's the last thing he wants to talk about. Later in the debate, Trump disputed Biden's connections to Scranton: And he doesn't come from Scranton. That's like, what -- he lived there for a short period of time before he even knew -- And he left. And the people of Pennsylvania will tell you that. In the past, Trump has pushed an exaggerated version of this claim, saying that Biden "wasn't born here" in Scranton. wasn't born here The president is wrong. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Here's a November 1942 newspaper clipping of Biden's birth announcement from The Tribune, a local Scranton newspaper: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/61652359/ For fans of "The Office," this is the same Scranton that serves as the home of the fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin.  Scranton Biden lived in Scranton until he was 10 years old. His father struggled to find work and eventually landed a job cleaning boilers in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden's father made the two-hour commute for a time, but in 1953 he moved the family to Claymont to be closer to work. The New York Times reported: reported Though Scranton was sharing in the postwar economic boom, Joe Sr. had trouble finding steady work, and nothing that measured up to his previous success. For a time, he commuted to Wilmington to clean boilers for a heating and cooling company. In 1953, he moved the family there. [...] After a few years in a drab apartment in Claymont, Del., the Bidens moved to a nondescript split-level home on Wilson Road in Wilmington, where they stayed until the children were grown. While the Bidens moved out of Scranton when he was 10 years old, the family maintained some connections to his hometown. In 1987, Jean Finnegan Biden, the former vice president's mother, told the Scrantonian Tribune, "Scranton's our hometown... we have fond memories of it." In 2008, Delaware's The News Journal published an article about Biden's hometown friends and his authentic connection to the city: Scrantonian Tribune  Mon, Sep 1, 2008  Page 10  The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)  Newspapers.com  Mon, Sep 1, 2008  Page 10  The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)  Newspapers.com In an interview with GQ, Biden talked about his childhood in Scranton and noted that his family spent most holidays and summers visiting friends in Scranton until he was about 16 years old. Biden also said that a few of his friends from Scranton were in his wedding: GQ I go back [to Scranton] lot. For the last thirty-five years, any time Scranton needs something I don't know how to say no to them. For real. I really don't. You know, it's still home. I moved outta there when I was 11 years old, but probably till I was 16, we spent every holiday up there. And almost every summer. And when I got married, to Neilia, my deceased wife, there were six, seven guys in the wedding and three of them were from Scranton. In short: 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in November 1942. This is the same Scranton that is featured in the show "The Office." Biden lived in Scranton for about 10 years until his father moved the family a few hours away to Clayton after getting a job in Delaware.  The Associated Press.  "The Office sheds light on Scranton, Pa."
  3 March 2006. Tavernise, Sabrina.  "Biden Says He Gets Places Like Scranton. Some in Town Arent So Sure."
  The New York Times.  23 Otober 2020. Calefati, Jessica.  "Fact-Checking Trumps Frequent Claim That Joe Biden Abandoned Scranton.'"
  PolitiFact.  29 August 2020. Depaulo, Lisa.  "$#!% Joe Biden Says."
  GQ.  19 November 2010. Solender, Andrew.  "He Wasnt Born Here: Trump Birthers Biden Near Scranton Ahead Of DNC Acceptance Speech."
  Forbes.  20 August 2020. Broder, John.  "Fathers Tough Life an Inspiration for Biden."
  The New York Times.  23 October 2008. USA Today.  "Debate Transcript: Trump, Biden Final Presidential Debate Moderated by Kristen Welker."
  23 October 2020. Compared to immigration and terrorism, the growth of the federal debt may not be quite as big a subject for Republicans running for president this year. But it never went away entirely. In a Feb. 5, 2016,Medium postabout his approach to Social Security, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush reiterated a talking point that many Republicans have used before. Barack Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together, Bush wrote. Its been awhile since we last checked a claim of this sort, so we decided to take a closer look. Bush phrased his claim carefully, and it largely holds up by the numbers. Its also important to note, though, that Obama isnt the only one responsible for the growth of the federal debt. Running the numbers We first turned to the U.S. Treasury Departments Debt to the Penny calculator, which allows you to track the federal debt on a daily basis. The website lists two kinds of debt -- publicly held debt and gross federal debt. The difference is that federal debt is calculated by taking the amount of publicly held debt and adding to it the debt that is held by the government. These are typically IOUs between one governmental entity and another, such as the money owed by the general treasury to the Social Security trust fund. On Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the public debt stood at about $6.31 trillion. By the day Bushs column ran, it stood at about $13.67 trillion. Thats an increase of $7.36 trillion, which is short of the $8 trillion Bush mentioned. But remember that Bush said Obamawill addthat much on his watch, which can be reasonably interpreted to mean the amount by the end of Obamas second term. If the debt continues to rise at the same pace it has increased over the past seven-plus years, it will end up at nearly $8.4 trillion when Obama leaves office. Using this measurement, then, Bush is right that Obama will see the debt increase by north of $8 trillion on his watch, and that this amount will exceed the amount accumulated by the previous 43 presidents ($6.31 trillion). Bush isnt correct, however, using gross federal debt. Using the same method of estimating, Obama should see an increase of $9.51 trillion in gross federal debt by the end of his second term. Thats less than the $10.63 trillion he inherited from his 43 predecessors. Experts say that either publicly held debt or gross federal debt could be used to define the term national debt that Bush uses. Still, economists told us that publicly held debt is often the most popular measurement among specialists, so we wont quibble with Bushs decision to focus on publicly held debt. The size of debt production under Obama is reinforced by looking at debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. At the end of fiscal year 2008, publicly held debt accounted for 39 percent of gross domestic product. By the end of fiscal year 2016, its expected to be almost 77 percent. Even if bad timing has exaggerated this increase  -- fiscal 2008 ended four months before Obama took office, right as the economy was collapsing -- its certainly a big percentage jump over eight years. All this said, well note a few things that are important to keep in mind. How much blame does Obama deserve?Bush makes it sound as if Obama simply flipped a switch and debt started pouring out. Obviously, its a lot more complicated than that. It isnt as if we were projecting balanced budgets and Barack Obama came into office and signed legislation increasing spending and cutting taxes, said Marc Goldwein, a budget analyst at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In fact, Goldwein said, the January 2009 estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt would be around $9 trillion today. So Obama could -- at most -- be assigned the blame for adding an additional $4.5 trillion to the debt, and thats only if you absolve Congress (which has been controlled by Republicans for most of his tenure) of any responsibility, and if you blame Obama for all of the long-lasting effects of the recession that he inherited. Also, a lot of the debt comes from entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, which are increasing largely on autopilot due to demographic trends that are out of any presidents control. So while Obama does bear some responsibility for the debt accumulation on his watch, he certainly doesnt deserve sole responsibility. Bushs own party played a role, too, as did the inevitable grind of demographic trends. Any president today would be in much the same situation.Another type of inevitable grind -- inflation -- is worth factoring in as well. Every year, inflation puts an upward pressure on the scale of the debt. Inflation erodes the numbers and makes them a bit meaningless, Goldwein said. For a comparison, lets take a look at Obamas predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush -- a Republican, and Jeb Bushs brother. The Debt to the Penny calculator doesnt offer daily tallies for publicly held debt around the time of Bushs inauguration, but it does offer daily data for gross federal debt, so well use that. When Bush came into office on Jan. 20, 2001, the gross federal debt stood at $5.73 trillion. At the end of Bushs term eight years later, the debt had risen to $10.63 trillion -- an increase on Bushs watch of $4.9 trillion. Thats not quite equal to what his 42 presidential predecessors accumulated, but its 86 percent of the way there. That increase under Bush is a little smaller than the expected increase during Obamas full tenure -- 89 percent -- but its not off by much. Our ruling Bush said that Obama will somehow manage to add more than $8 trillion to the national debt, which is more debt than the 43 presidents who held office before him compiled together. On the numbers, Bush is right, as long as you measure the nations publicly held debt, the most commonly cited statistic, and as long as you project forward to the end of Obamas tenure. But Bush leaves out some important context when he focuses the blame solely on Obama, and when he ignores that the percentage increase in the debt under George W. Bush was similar. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so we rate it Mostly True. Claim:  The Obama administration is proposing a 1% tax on debit card usage and/or banking transactions.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2010] The Transaction Tax!  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??President Obama's finance team and Nancy Pelosi are recommending a 1% transaction tax on all financial transactions.The bill is HR-4646 introduced by US Rep Peter deFazio D-Oregon and US Senator Tom Harkin D-Iowa.Their plan is to sneak it in after the November election to keep it under the radar.See what Nancy has to say about this wonderful idea!https://tinyurl.com/24dn5udIt's only 1%! This is a 1% tax  on all transactions to or from any financial institution i.e. Banks, Credit  Unions, Mutual funds,  Brokers, etc.Any deposit you make will have a 1% tax charged.Any withdrawal you make, 1% tax.Any transfer within your account, a transfer to or from savings and checking, will have a 1% tax charged.Any ATM transaction, withdrawal or deposit, 1% tax.If your pay check or your Social Security is direct deposited, 1% tax.If you carry a check to your bank to deposit, 1% tax.If you take cash in to deposit, 1% tax.If you receive any income from a bond or a dividend from stock, 1% tax.Any Real Estate Transaction, 1% tax.This is from the man who promised that if you make under $250,000 per year, you will not see one penny of new tax! Remember, he is completely honest and trustworthy.Keep your eyes and ears open.   https://tinyurl.com/24dn5ud Folks, Nancy says this would be a minimal tax on the people, but 1 percent every time you pay a bill or make a deposit is not minimal. This would no doubt tax investment  transactions as well as bank account transactions.This woman is nuts!!!If you know someone in California get this to them!  While at the checkout of Wal-mart in Greeneville, TN I heard that in the future the government may be planning to place a 1% tax on people using debit cards at the check out.  I have heard discussion and seen on emails the fear that the Obama administration is going to pass a 'banking tax' that will take 1% of each deposit and 1% of every transaction out of a bank account. Summary:  The Obama administration has not proposed or recommended placing a 1% tax on all financial transactions.  The idea of the 1% transaction tax stemmed from a bill repeatedly introduced by a single congressman which had no support from any other member of Congress and no chance of passing. Origins:  Some members of Congress have what might be termed "hobby horse" issues: concepts about which they introduce legislation in Congress after Congress although their bills not only never come close to passing, but never even clear committee to be put to  votes in the first place.  The hobby horse of Representative Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania is the notion of eliminating all federal taxes on individuals and corporations and replacing them with a revenue-generating system based on transaction fees (a concept he originally called the "Transform America Transaction Fee" and later referred to as the "Debt Free America Act"). Chaka Fattah Transform America Transaction Fee In 2004 Rep. Fattah presented a bill calling on Congress to fund a study regarding the replacement of the federal tax code with a transaction fee-basedsystem (H.R. 3759), he introduced a similar bill in 2005 (H.R. 1601), again in 2007 (H.R. 2130), and again in 2009 (H.R. 1703).  None of these bills was ever put to a vote, and only one of them had so much as a single co-sponsor. H.R. 3759 H.R. 1601 (H.R. 2130), (H.R. 1703) In 2010, Rep. Fattah moved beyond proposing studies and submitted the Debt Free America Act (H.R. 4646), a bill calling for the implementation of  a scheme to pay down the national debt and eliminate federal income tax on individuals by imposing a 1% fee on specified financial transactions: H.R. 4646 pay down One idea for raising taxes to pay down the debt is the bill introduced this February [2010] by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.). His "Debt Free America Act" (H.R. 4646) would impose a 1 percent "transaction tax" on every financial transaction  whether paid by cash, credit card or any form of financial transfer, the only exception being transactions involving the purchase or sale of stock. Theoretically, everyone would pay one cent on the dollar for every such transaction in America every day  whether $3 million on a $300 million business acquisition, $300 on the purchase of a $30,000 car, or $5 on a $500 ATM withdrawal. Specifically, the text of the bill stated that: The purpose of [the transaction fee] is to establish a fee on most transactions. Such [a] fee:  is different than a sales tax in that a sales tax is charged only on sales to the final consumer, [while] the transaction fee would apply to intermediate users as well as end users   is different than a value added tax (VAT), commonly used in European and other countries, in that a VAT is imposed only on a portion of a transaction's value (roughly the difference between an item's selling price and its cost), [while] the transaction fee would apply to the entire amount of the transaction  is intended to raise sufficient revenue to eliminate the national debt, which was $10.6 trillion in January 2009, during a period of 7 years, and to phase out the income tax on individuals. [This bill would] impose on every specified transaction a fee in an amount equal to 1 percent of the amount of such transaction. The term 'specified transaction' means any transaction that uses a payment instrument, including any check, cash, credit card, transfer of stock, bonds, or other financial instrument. The term 'transaction' includes retail and wholesale sales, purchases of intermediate goods, and financial and intangible transactions. Persons become liable for the fee at the moment the person exercises control over a piece of property or service, regardless of the payment method. (The bill provided for individuals earning $125,000 or less to receive a credit equal to 1% of their income against the tax, and it gave the Treasury Department discretion to exempt certain transactions on which lower-income people disproportionately relied.) Like Rep. Fattah's other Congressional efforts along these lines, his Debt Free America Act had no sponsors other than himself,  languished in committee after being introduced, had no realistic chance of being passed. Thus, although e-mailed warnings about a "1% transaction tax" do reference a once-real piece of proposed legislation, the amount of attention those warnings garnered vastly, vastly outstripped any real possibility that such legislation would actually be enacted. Moreover, some of the additional details contained with such e-mailed warnings were erroneous:  Neither "President Obama's finance team" nor Nancy Pelosi is "recommending a 1% transaction tax."  The proposal for the  Debt Free America Act was purely the effort of a single congressman, with no outside support.  Neither Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon nor Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa introduced the Debt Free America Act, co-sponsored it, or publicly supported it.  The included link that supposedly showed Nancy Pelosi endorsing the Debt Free America Act antedated the introduction of that bill to Congress; her comments actually referred to a different, earlier transaction tax proposed in December 2009 by Rep. Peter DeFazio.  That bill, known as the "Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act" (H.R. 4191), called for the funding of investment in middle class jobs by levying small percentage value taxes on the buying and selling of stocks, futures, swaps, options and other securities. (Although Rep. DeFazio's bill had 31 co-sponsors, it too languished in committee without being brought to a vote.) proposed H.R. 4191  Later versions of this item opened with the statement that "ON JANUARY 1ST 2012, THE GOVERNMENT IS REQUIRING EVERYONE TO HAVE DIRECT DEPOSIT FOR SS CHECKS. WONDER WHY?"  The Social Security program did switch over to an electronic payments system as of 1 March 2013 that provided recipients with the options of receiving their benefits payments either through direct deposit to a bank account or via the reloading of a debit card, but that change had nothing to do with the Congressional bill discussed above. Rep. Fattah reintroduced his Debt Free America Act (as H.R. 1125) to the 112th Congress on 16 March 2011. Like Rep. Fattah's previous efforts along these lines, Govtrack.us tagged it with the prognosis "This bill has a 0% chance of being enacted." H.R. 1125 Govtrack.us Last updated:  22 October 2013 Claim:  List demonstrates the concept of "a billion." Status:  Multiple  see below. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2003] A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.  A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it. Origins:  We   don't know the specific origins of this piece illustrating the enormousness represented by the number one billion, but it's reasonably accurate as far as the arithmetic goes.  We collected the example quoted above and first published this article back in 2003, and rather than updating this page annually, we've chosen to keep our comments relative to that year. We have to start out by noting that the definition of "billion" is not standardized.  In some places and usages, a billion is a one followed by nine zeros, or one thousand million; in other cases, a billion is a one followed by twelve zeros, or one million million.  In the U.S., the common usage of "billion" refers to a one followed by nine zeros (or 1,000,000,000), so that's the standard we employ here. billion  A billion seconds: One billion seconds is about 31.7 years, so going back in time a billion seconds would put us in 1972.  (The discrepancy in the version cited above, which puts the year at 1959, might have come about because the example we collected was compiled or last updated in 1990.)  A billion minutes:  One billion minutes is approximately 1901 years, so travelling back to a time one billion minutes ago would land us in the year A.D. 102.  This date is about seventy years too late to encompass the life of Jesus according to traditional accounts. (The discrepancy of several decades might be the result of someone's faulty arithmetic or historical knowledge, or it could be an indication that this piece originated back in the 1930s.)  A billion hours:  One billion hours ago represents a time a bit over 114,000 years in the past, an era generally classified as the Lower Paleolithic era, or the "Old Stone Age."  A billion days ago: Some versions of this piece include the line "A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet."  A billion days is approximately 2.74 million years; the era defined by that time period is generally estimated to be about when the first species of the genus Homo appeared in Africa, having diverged from the Australopithecines. Homo  A billion dollars ago:  If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion.  In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, someone politicized the "billions" piece by adding the following coda to it: Some interesting statistics While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans  It'samazing what you can learn with some simple division ... Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean? Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every  man,  woman, child), you each get $516,528. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787 Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012. Are all your calculators broken in Washington, D.C.? Maybe all of us should just flood their houses, then we can all be on the "big easy" street for the rest of our lives, and forget about working, and paying taxes and all that useless stuff! In September 2005, the two U.S. Senators from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu (a Democrat) and David Vitter (a Republican), jointly introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act in Congress, a bill that sought a total of $250 billion in federal funds to provide long-term relief and assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.  Of course, the legislation didn't propose that the entire amount be spent on New Orleans alone, or that the money literally be distributed to New Orleans  residents  the point of the coda was to provide some perspective on how much $250 billion is by presenting it relative to the number of people in the area hardest hit by the hurricane. Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act In any case, the arithmetic is a little bit off.  Assuming the population and home figures provided to be correct, dividing $250 billion equally among all New Orleans residents would mean:   Each person would receive $515,810.   The money/home ratio would be $1,328,014.   A family of four would take in an aggregate total of $2,063,240. Last updated:  22 April 2008    Sources:   Grunwald, Michael and Susan B. Glasser.  "Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions."   The Washington Post.  26 September 2005  (p. A1). During an Oct. 4, 2011, interview on MSNBC, host Ed Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., discussed the Occupy Wall Street protests, which are targeting the financial services sector. Sanders offered a statistic designed to demonstrate the power of American banks.Sanders suggested that many of the protesters have not seen the president be as strong as he should be on Wall Street, saying they want the federal government to take tougher measures against financial-services companies.Ed, today, you have six financial institutions, the largest six, that have assets that are the equivalent of 60 percent of the GDP of the United States of America, Sanders said. (GDP stands for gross domestic product. )We wondered whether Sanders math was correct.When we contacted Sanders office, a spokesman providedtestimonyto a congressional oversight panel by Simon Johnson, a professor of entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School ofManagement. Our six largest bank holding companies currently have assets valued at just over 63 percent of GDP, Johnson testified, citing figures for the fourth quarter of 2010. This is up from around 55 percent of GDP before the crisis (e.g., 2006) and no more than 17 percent of GDP in 1995.We wanted to find the original statistics, and we located them in achartposted by the National Information Center, the federal repository of data about banks and other institutions for which the Federal Reserve has a supervisory, regulatory or research interest. The chart lists the 50 biggest bank holding companies as of June 30, 2011.Here are the top six and their total assets:1.Bank of America Corp., $2.264 trillion2.J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., $2.246 trillion3.Citigroup Inc., $1.957 trillion4.Wells Fargo & Co., $1.260 trillion5.Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $937 billion6.Morgan Stanley, $831 billionTogether, the top six companies assets were $9.495 trillion.For the second part of the equation -- gross domestic product -- we turned to the U.S. Commerce Departments Bureau of Economic Analysis.Though the time spans dont line up perfectly, we decided to use the GDP figure for 2010, the most recent full year. That figure is $14.527 trillion.Dividing these top banks assets by the national GDP produces a result of 65 percent -- which is actually a slightly larger percentage than Sanders had indicated, but certainly in the ballpark.To make sure we werent missing something, we contacted a few experts on financial services issues. They offered a few caveats:The comparison is a bit of apples vs. oranges.The banks asset figures are an aggregation measured at a single point in time, whereas the GDP figure is an aggregation of goods and services measured over time. This distinction is the equivalent to a comparison of your net worth with your personal income, said Lawrence White, an economist at New York Universitys Stern School of Business. Economists generally don't find these sorts of comparisons very useful or interesting. So the best that can be said is that these comparisons provide a rough sense of comparative magnitudes.The data are constantly moving.Several of these banks, especially Bank of America, have lost significant value since the figures were published in June 2011, said Satya Thallam, director of the Financial Markets Working Group at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. The denominator, GDP, is always changing, as well. So, any estimate is true for a specific point in time, but possibly out of date not long after its made.Banks overseas holdings significantly complicate the comparison.For starters, the comparison Sanders is making doesnt mean that these banks own 60 percent of the U.S. wealth, because some of these banks assets are in overseas holdings. However, Sanders appears to be on safe ground with his phrasing, since all he said was that the two dollar figures were equivalent.Potentially more problematic for Sanders is that the assets-to-GDP ratio for the top six bank companies in the U.S. are actually quite modest when compared to the biggest banks in other nations.A2010 study by J.P. Morganlisted the 25 biggest banks internationally in 2008, along with the percentages of their home countrys GDP. The highest was UBS, with 376 percent of Switzerlands GDP. And six other banks all had assets as large as their home countrys GDP -- Credit Suisse Group of Switzerland (218 percent), Dexia of Belgium (180 percent), Fortis of the Netherlands (155 percent), Royal Bank of Scotland of the United Kingdom (131 percent), Barclays of the United Kingdom (112 percent) and BNP Paribas of France (101 percent).All of these dwarf the combined holdings of the top six banks in the U.S., in part because Americas GDP is so much larger than the GDP of these other nations.The significance of this fact for Sanders assertion, however, is less clear.This doesn't tell us what is a proper or appropriate number, Thallam said. One might reply that other countries are much more concentrated, but that only means they're worse -- not that we're in a good position. Some scholars, he added, have said that even at current concentration levels, U.S. banks should be broken up because they create a too big to fail problem. On the other hand, people for years said that banking exhibited economies of scale, so consolidation was natural, Thallam said.Our rulingSanders math is correct -- in fact, the percentage he offers is actually a little low. And hes careful to say only that the banks assets are only equivalent to 60 percent of the United States GDP, not that the banks own 60 percent of the United States. Sanders doesnt note that big banks in other countries are far bigger, compared to their nations GDP, than the U.S. banks are. Still, on balance, we rate his statement True. In April 2020, Facebook posts circulating online offered coupons supposedly good for two free large pizzas from the Domino's pizza chain:  Users who clicked on the offer were taken to an external website where they were instructed to answer survey questions in order to receive their coupons:  After completing the questionnaire, however, users were then required to click a button to share the "offer" with their Facebook friends before they could retrieve their coupons. Those who complied by spamming their friends were then allowed to click a "Receive the Coupon" button, but there was no actual coupon to receive. Like innumerable other "free merchandise" offers on Facebook, this offer was another variation of a common scam. other free merchandise offers Facebook We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers Here's a glimpse into a particularly brazen attempt at producing "clickbait" by making a huge claim about a beloved celebrity with an attraction-grabbing headline that is literally unrelated to the story underneath. A 17 November 2017 post on the web site ConservativeSociety.net bore a headline that featured a quote misattributed to actress Jennifer Aniston: "Me and All The Trump Supporter Celebrities Decide To Make A Company Named 'Celebrities For Trump,' Which Fight Against All Anti Trump Celebrities, I Think President Trump Needs Our Support."The idea, presumably, was that viewers would distribute the post online based solely on their reaction to the headline rather than the underlying story  because that story does not include Aniston's fabricated "quote," and no interview, no publication, nor any other proof of her interest in this subject is offered.To boot, this piece of clickbait appeared to be a mishmash of off-topic information and wholesale reproduction of another site's work.Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson.Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a "report" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com.A Gossip Cop spokesperson told us they first encountered the story on another questionable web site, DailyNewPosts.com, in October 2017:The word-for-word use of our story, which is clearly unrelated to Donald Trump, is a clear example of willful copyright infringement. We plan to seek all legal remedies and demand the site remove our material immediately.Conservative Society's "story" lists DailyNewPosts.com as its source; however, the latter web site's version of the piece is no longer available.  A 17 November 2017 post on the web site ConservativeSociety.net bore a headline that featured a quote misattributed to actress Jennifer Aniston: "Me and All The Trump Supporter Celebrities Decide To Make A Company Named 'Celebrities For Trump,' Which Fight Against All Anti Trump Celebrities, I Think President Trump Needs Our Support."   The idea, presumably, was that viewers would distribute the post online based solely on their reaction to the headline rather than the underlying story  because that story does not include Aniston's fabricated "quote," and no interview, no publication, nor any other proof of her interest in this subject is offered. To boot, this piece of clickbait appeared to be a mishmash of off-topic information and wholesale reproduction of another site's work. Instead of a reported story, the story under the headline opened seemingly in the middle of a recap of a December 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch concerning the president and a 16-year-old supporter, Pete Davidson. sketch Four paragraphs later, the story turned into a "report" on a rumored collaboration between Aniston and singer Sheryl Crow on a clothing line. But this text was taken, verbatim, from a 26 October 2017 report published on the gossip site GossipCop.com. report A Gossip Cop spokesperson told us they first encountered the story on another questionable web site, DailyNewPosts.com, in October 2017: The word-for-word use of our story, which is clearly unrelated to Donald Trump, is a clear example of willful copyright infringement. We plan to seek all legal remedies and demand the site remove our material immediately. Conservative Society's "story" lists DailyNewPosts.com as its source; however, the latter web site's version of the piece is no longer available. Evans, Greg.  "'SNL' Pokes at Donald Trump's CNN Tweets  And Gives Shout-Out to Real-Life High School Supporter."
  Deadline.  3 December 2016. Weiss, Shari.  "Jennifer Aniston Launching HSN Clothing Collection?"
  GossipCop.  26 October 2017. During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic in the spring of 2020, questions arose about protective measures. Social media users shared related images, and in one case, a newspaper column claimed that continual or prolonged use of face masks resulted in breathing too much of one's own exhaled carbon dioxide, which can lead to health concerns.  images,  one case, "Dr. Dennis A Castro B" wrote in the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard, for instance, that prolonged use of face masks causes hypoxia:  Vanguard Breathing over and over exhaled air turns into carbon dioxide, which is why we feel dizzy. This intoxicates the user and much more when he must move, carry out displacement actions. It causes discomfort, loss of reflexes and conscious thought. It generates great fatigue. In addition, oxygen deficiency causes glucose breakdown and endangered lactic acid rise. The post does not specify what kinds of masks cause these issues (though the article image does show N95 respirator masks), nor does it indicate whether this affects people with respiratory conditions more. It should be noted that hypoxia is a condition in which the tissues of the body are starved of oxygen.  hypoxia Another post on Facebook argued that prolonged mask usage caused hypercapnia, a condition arising from too much carbon dioxide in the blood.  Facebook hypercapnia  Image via Facebook.  Symptoms cause hypoxia But research articles and experts suggest that such extreme symptoms are unlikely to occur in most people. Dr. Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, an epidemiologist and lecturer at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at University of New South Wales Australia, says the risk of hypoxia and hypercapnia are unlikely to take place with cloth and surgical masks, because they are not tight-fitting:  Dr. Abrar Ahmad Chughtai Some people with pre-existing respiratory illnesses (like asthma, COPD), may face breathing difficulty with use of certain types of tight fitted masks, called respirators. [There is] less chance of hypoxia as they may discontinue using masks in that case. Risk is very low with cloth and surgical masks as they are not tight around [the] face. He also argued that in the case of prolonged usage of any of these masks, "Dizziness [was] less likely, but fatigue may occur." The N95 respirator is an example of personal protective equipment (PPE) usually worn by health workers to protect the wearer from airborne particles and from liquid contaminating the face. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public use these masks because health workers and other medical first responders need them more.  N95 respirator A team of Stanford engineers is developing an N95 face mask to counteract the side effects of oxygen deficiency. In an interview, John Xu, a mechanical engineer behind the effort, said: interview N95 masks are estimated to reduce oxygen intake by anywhere from 5 to 20 percent. Thats significant, even for a healthy person. It can cause dizziness and lightheadedness. If you wear a mask long enough, it can damage the lungs. For a patient in respiratory distress, it can even be life threatening. And their focus is on getting these masks to healthcare workers first. We are targeting this to anyone who has to wear a mask for the long term, first responders, doctors, nurses and even patients who dont want to infect others. In the near term, we hope to get these into healthcare workers as soon as possible. The general public is unlikely to wear masks for a prolonged period other than for short stints outside of homes, according to Reuters. A CDC representative spoke to Reuters:  Reuters The CO2 will slowly build up in the mask over time. However, the level of CO2 likely to build up in the mask is mostly tolerable to people exposed to it. Youmight get a headache but you most likely [would] not suffer the symptoms observed at much higher levels of CO2. The mask can become uncomfortable for a varietyof reasons including a sensitivity to CO2 and the person will be motivated to remove the mask. It is unlikely that wearing a mask will cause hypercapnia. The CDC recommends that the general public wear cloth masks, leaving N95 respirators and surgical masks to healthcare workers. They also offer exceptions for who should be wearing them: recommends exceptions Cloth face coverings should not be placed on young children under age 2, anyone who has trouble breathing, or is unconscious, incapacitated or otherwise unable to remove the mask without assistance. With these recommendations comes the additional guidance that face masks should not be a substitute for social distancing.  guidance The CDC also responded to Snopes about the impact an N95 respirator would have on healthcare workers:  Hypoventilation (deficient ventilation of the lungs) is a primary cause of significant discomfort while wearing an N95 filtering facepiece respirator (FFR). However, studies [indicate] that hypoventilation did not pose a significant risk to healthcare workers over the course of less than one hour of continuous N95 use. When healthcare workers are working longer hours without a break while continuously wearing an N95 FFR, CO2 may accumulate in the breathing space inside of the respirator and continuously increase past the 1-hour mark, which could have a significant physiological effect on the wearer, including headache, altered cognitive judgement, and increased breathing frequency, among other symptoms. deficient To fix the problem of breathing too much CO2 that has built up within the respirator facepiece, a worker can simply remove the respirator. Some facilities practice oxygen supplementation during these breaks from respirator use, but there really is no need for this as the oxygen in the environment is more than enough to relieve most of the symptoms listed above. The Vanguard piece also says it is dangerous to use masks in cars: Some people drive their car with the mask on, that is very dangerous, because, the stale air can make the driver lose consciousness. Chughtai said he believed such danger was "less likely," and that running while wearing such a mask also was "unlikely" to cause breathing issues, unless the runner had a pre-existing respiratory illness. In all, little research has been done on the impact of masks on wearers, according to Chughtai. In some studies, participants noted breathing difficulties, but not hypoxia.  Ultimately, the impact of a mask on its wearer depends on the wearer's health, any pre-existing respiratory illnesses, the type of mask, and the length of time the person wears it. In most instances, the effects of prolonged cloth mask usage are small. Masks, like most short-term measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, should be worn only if the wearer has to be in close proximity to others, and be used in addition to necessary measures like social distancing, and more. As such, we rate this claim about the dangers of masks as "false."  only if Castro B, Dennis A. "WARNING: Prolonged use of facemask produces hypoxia."
 Vanguard. 3 May 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "How to Protect Yourself & Others."
 24 April 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of COVID-19."
 13 April 2020. Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Hypoxia."
 Updated 17 October 2019. Medical News Today. "What to know about hypercapnia."
 5 January 2018. Medical News Today.  "What to know about COPD hypoxia."
 4 December 2019. Reuters. "Partly false claim: Continually wearing a mask causes hypercapnia."
 5 May 2020. Stanford. "COVID-19 prompts Stanford engineers to rethink the humble face mask."
 14 April 2020. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks (Face Masks)."
 5 April 2020. On 23 December 2016, a woman identifying herself as Catherine Elizabeth Clennan created a GoFundMe campaign destined for viral attention, in which she asked donors to supply her with US$5,000,000 in order to fulfill her "lifelong dream" (of having five million dollars). Clennan's bid for money stated that at 27, she dreamed of one day being independent of her family who "pay for everything" for her. Although she said that she hoped to raise $2,000,000 to buy a home in California, the campaign's goal was set at more than twice that amount: My name is Catherine Elizabeth Clennan and my whole life I have been trying to live by other's definitions of who I 'should be'. I have been trying so hard to live this lie that I came face to face with a choice: either live as others definitions of you and die OR strike out on your own and find for yourself who you really are. Well I chose life. I chose to live by my own definition ... With this choice I am in the process of turning my life in a new direction. Currently I live in Laramie, Wyoming. in a property owned by my family. They pay everything for me - and I am 27 years old. I feel that as long as I live by their definition I am 'taken care of', but this definition is leading me to deaths door - it forces me to live a lie - to turn my back to who I really am; a free spirit, an artist, a woman, a lesbian, a civil rights activist, a woman who goes against the grain, a woman who knows that not everything is as it seems. I need $2,000,000 dollars to purchase my dream home in California. I need the money to help me walk out of the lie that I am living, but more importantly I need the money to live my dream - which is to live as much as my life in the spiritual dimension as possible. The money will go towards the purchase of a new home, new transportation, and the various fees and taxes that accumulate with a move across the country. These funds will help me live the life that I feel I am meant to live, the life I want to live - the life defined not by other people - but by me. These funds will help me break free from the tyranny of what other people think is 'right'. The 'right' job, the 'right' education, the 'right' way to earn a living...   Although GoFundMe marked the campaign as "trending" as of 28 December 2016, Clennan had only received $21 of that goal on that date:   Although she has not indicated that her campaign is a hoax or prank (and GoFundMe has not flagged or removed it), Clennan does not appear to have much of an online footprint other than this campaign, aside from a LinkedIn profile and what may be a Huffington Post contribution (which as of April 2016 indicated she was an active student). That single article led some social media users to claim Clennan worked for the Huffington Post, but it looked as if she had submitted only one piece as a contributor. LinkedIn contribution In that article, Clennan expressed a desire to "be a public figure": Exposing my vulnerabilities publicly and confidently gave that girl the strength she needed to participate. Thats when I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life  I want to use computer science to inspire other women to explore computer science. I want to be a public figure in computer science that is the exact opposite of what you would typically expect to find in the field. I want to be that girl who no one thought she could, who had all the odds against her, that everyone thought was dumb, and yet she becomes incredibly successful in computer science. Then I want to turn that success around and use it as a pedestal to expose every wound, every failure, every painful vulnerability I have, even with my hands trembling, Clennan invited potential donors to visit her Facebook page for more information, but few additional details were available there. It remains possible that her goal is genuine and presented honestly with no expectations that it would go over poorly or go viral, but also within the realm of possibility that the GoFundMe request was a step in her stated aim to become a public figure. Facebook Clennan, Catherine.  "The Benefits Of Being A Dumb Girl In Computer Science."
  Huffington Post.  12 April 2016.