Did the Bush, Clinton, and Obama Funeral Party Trash Air Force One?
On 6 December 2018, an article reporting that former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama trashed Air Force One after the funeral of former president George H.W. Bush was published by the WeAreTheLLOD website, which is part of the "Last Line of Defense" network of junk news sites: article President Trump was gracious enough to loan his personal airplane to the Bush family to transport dead President George H.W. Bush back home to Kennebunkport, Maine. They invited all the other past presidents and even the illegal Obama. In return, the grieving family showed their appreciation by leaving the plane a mess and vandalizing the bathroom and kitchen.   This was not a genuine news article, as WeAreTheLlod.com and the rest of the Last Line of Defense network are junk news sites that have a long history of publishing misinformation. Last Line of Defense  This article also included a number of obvious hints about the satirical nature of its content. For example, the label "Dead People and Satire with Hot Green Chili" can be glimpsed below the article's title. The web site banner also features the tagline "Information You Probably Shouldn't Trust" and the footer states that the site was paid for by the "liberal trolls of America." As well, all of the hyper-links in this article lead to unrelated content. For instance, where the text references the alleged legal terms "hapneus corpum and juris prumidential," it links to a Google Translation page for the sentence: "Because they don't exist and are possibly the dumbest things ever conceived." Eagleton, Flagg.  "BREAKING: Bush, Clinton, Obama Funeral Party Trashes Air Force One."
  WeAretheLLOD.com.  6 December 2018.
On the Feb. 24, 2011, edition of Fox NewsThe OReilly Factor, host Bill OReilly said that the jobs picture is better inright to work states-- that is, states in which workers can refuse to pay dues or fees to the union that represents them in bargaining.The right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do, OReilly said while interviewing Caroline Heldman, a political scientist at Occidental College.We thought wed check to see whether OReilly is correct.First, some background. According to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, 22 states have passed some form of right-to-work law (the exact provisions can vary) -- Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. The other 28 states do not have such laws.To test OReillys claim, we turned to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which is the official source for unemployment statistics in the United States. BLSmost recent state-by state datais for December 2010.We consulted with Gary Burtless, a labor economist with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution, about the fairest way to look at the data. We agreed that it was best to compare right-to-work and non-right-to-work states through data weighted according to state population. That way, Californias unemployment rate would be given more weight than, say, Wyomings.When we did the math, we found that the unemployment rate in the 22 right-to-work states was 9.17 percent, compared to 9.65 in the 28 non-right-to-work states. (The national unemployment rate that month was 9.4 percent that month -- right in the middle.) So OReilly is basically correct.His only shortcoming was his use of the phrase much lower level of unemployment. The difference for December 2010 was only about half a percentage point, which is fairly modest, given that the range of state unemployment figures stretched from 3.8 in North Dakota to 14.5 in Nevada.As always, theres a question about causation -- that is, whether right-to-work status actually produces low unemployment. Of the 11 states with the lowest unemployment (there was a tie for 10th place) eight were right-to-work states. Of those, seven states -- North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma -- are from the Great Plains and the Mountain West, which have in general been less hard-hit during the recent recession.To see whether today is an unusual situation, we asked the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation whether they had historical data on the unemployment gap. They said they did not. James Sherk, a senior policy analyst in labor economics at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that numbers hes run suggest that in 2008, before the worst of the recession set in, the gap was slightly larger -- about eight-tenths of a percentage point  -- but was in the same general ballpark.In any case, none of the economists we spoke to thought the gap was especially surprising, either now or historically.So where does that leave us in terms of OReillys claim? He said that right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do. To say its much lower is a stretch, but he's right that it is lower. On balance, we rate his statement Mostly True. Claim:  A debtor can discharge his obligations by sending his creditor a check made out for a fraction of the amount owed with the words 'Paid in full' written on it.  Example:  [Los Angeles Times, 2002]  A friend of a friend has racked up credit card debt and student loans totaling $100,000. Not securely employed, she has been planning on continuing her dinners out, lavish shopping trips, a car purchase and vacations, figuring it all will get wiped out soon enough. She says she is working with a lawyer who advised her to write $10 checks to all her creditors, with a note saying "paid in full" on the check. Origins:  "Get rich quick" (or, in this case, "get poor more slowly") schemes never seem to lose their appeal, even though common sense should warn that if getting rich quickly were truly so easy, everyone would be  wealthy. Obviously, if getting out of a debt were as simple a matter as executing the method described above, no one would ever lend money or extend credit.  Nonetheless, these schemes maintain their hold on the public because people are willing to entertain the fiction that they're a form of "secret knowledge"  that such loopholes do exist because only a select few are smart enough to know about and take advantage of them. It's not uncommon for creditors to agree to settle debts for less than the full amount due.  After all, some payment is better than none, and if debtors can be encouraged to pay at least a portion of their debts back through promises that they will relieved of any further financial obligations towards their creditors, then both sides come out ahead.  Better to accept a fraction of what you're owed than to risk your debtor's declaring bankruptcy or choosing to pay off other debts instead, leaving you with nothing. For such arrangements to be valid, however, both sides must agree to them.  A debtor cannot unilaterally declare a partial payment to be "payment in full" simply by attaching a note with those words to his check or writing them in the memo field and assuming that if the creditor fails to notice the notation then the entire debt has been discharged: This "paid-in-full" nonsense has achieved the status of urban legend, says J. Scott Bovitz, a Los Angeles bankruptcy lawyer. A creditor sometimes will reduce a claim for a disputed payment, but this kind of settlement usually won't happen if the debtor acts in bad faith, Bovitz says. The act of writing "paid in full" on a $10 check pretty much defines the term "bad faith." Section 3-311 of the Uniform Commercial Code does state that a debt can be discharged with a check designated as payment in full "if the person against whom the claim is asserted proves that the instrument or an accompanying written communication contained a conspicuous statement to the effect that the instrument was tendered as full satisfaction of the claim."  However, it's up to the claimant to prove "that within a reasonable time before collection of the instrument was initiated, the claimant, or an agent of the claimant having direct responsibility with respect to the disputed obligation, knew that the instrument was tendered in full satisfaction of the claim."  So if you receive a check marked "paid in full" made out for less than the amount you have agreed upon, you'd best not cross out the words "paid in full" or write "disputed" on it and cash it anyway, as you risk having the entire debt discharged.  However, this condition does not apply to "transactions conducted or performed, in whole or in part, by electronic means or electronic records, in which the acts or records of one or both parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course [of business]," which means that this scheme will not work at all for most bill or credit card payments, as those payments are typically handled by automated systems and not humans. Uniform Commercial Code The best method for paying off debts with small payments remains not to run up large debts in the first place. Last updated:  18 April 2011 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 On Oct. 31 2020, The New York Times reported that the Trump Campaign's fundraising landing page was "now automatically checking a box to create recurring weekly donations from supporters until mid-December." This is true, though the "automatically checked box" development is fairly old news. The Trump Campaign's primary fundraising platform  WinRed  changed the landing page to automatically check the monthly recurring donation option in March 2020. The shift to soliciting for weekly donations occurred in mid-September 2020, with that option also appearing as pre-checked. reported changed March 2020 shift September 2020 The more recent development is the change in when those weekly contributions would stop. Earlier solicitations committed people to donations that would stop automatically recurring on Election Day, Nov. 3 2020. In late October, the text was changed to read "make this a recurring donation until 12/14." It bears mentioning that well before any returns came in on Nov. 3, the campaign encouraged donations as a way to "keep fighting after election day" because "there will be voter fraud like you've never seen." late October Speaking to the Times, Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said that no one would receive a recurring charge without their knowledge and donors could opt out at any time. He argued that funds were needed because "this race will be very close, and it is possible that multiple states will require recounts and potential additional spending from our campaign.  Speaking From a factual standpoint, there is no guarantee that the money goes to fight election-related lawsuits. Some of the money goes to resolving Trump Campaign debt, much of the rest goes to the Republican National Committees' general operating account. Because the Trump Campaign is indeed accepting recurring donations until Dec. 12, and because that option is auto-checked on the campaign's primary fundraising platform, we rank this claim  the money The Los Angeles restaurant scene offers tourists and locals the chance to eat in the dark, do a juice cleanse, and sneak your way into a secret courtyard by walking through a freezer. According to a 10 January 2018 fake news article, it also affords some elites -- namely Meryl Streep, Chelsea Clinton, and Katy Perry -- the opportunity to dine on human flesh: dark juice freezer article   What do Katy Perry, Meryl Streep, Anderson Cooper and Chelsea Clinton have in common? They have all eaten human flesh at LAs notorious cannibal restaurant, Cannibal Club. The private restaurant has long operated under the radar in Los Angeles, with rumors circulating about who has attended and what is really served behind closed doors. Now a leaked Cannibal Club document has exposed some of the notorious restaurants elite patrons. The Cannibal Club does not exist. Your News Wire based their article on two components: first, a fake "Cannibal Club" web site, which has been online since at least 2009; and second, a "leaked" document purportedly listing Streep, Clinton, and Perry as members.  web site The "staff" photographs on cannibalclub.org all come from stock photo web sites. Whoever designed the site used a photograph labeled "Beauty at her forties" for Elspeth Blake, the supposed proprietor; "Beatnik Nick" as the photograph for "Art Director" Hero Conners; and "Japanese woman in a tank top" for "Service Manager" Raven Chan. The photograph purportedly showing Chef de Cuisine Sophie Laffite is also an iStock photograph that was once used on an auto insurance web site: staff Beauty at her forties Beatnik Nick Japanese woman in a tank top auto insurance   The web site also promotes a regular Friday and Saturday night show (the same event has been listed on the web site since 2009), but does not provide any information about where the supposed restaurant is actually located. The FAQ section attempts to explain this by saying that "it is necessary for us to operate privately and to vette [sic] our members in order to avoid disruption from the less enlightened." Yet, we're doubtful that this club could have a permanent (or even roving) physical location where they host concerts while simultaneously avoiding detection from the authorities for nearly a decade.  FAQ authorities For the Your News Wire story cover image, the site used images of Katy Perry, Meryl Streep and Chelsea Clinton over a photograph purportedly showing The Cannibal Club. The image actually shows a restaurant in Spain called the "Cannibal Raw Bar." And no, they don't serve human meat there either.  Cannibal Raw Bar either  The only "evidence" Your News Wire provides of Streep, Perry, and Clinton's supposed membership at this nonexistent club is a single document uploaded to Scribd: Scribd:   There's no evidence that this "leaked" document actually came from a cannibal club in Los Angeles. Rather, it was likely created using digital editing software.  This is at least Your News Wire's second attempt to tarnish Katy Perry's reputation by connecting her to cannibalism. The web site, which has a long history of publishing false information, posted a fake news story in November 2017 claiming that the singer had revealed that she had an appetite for human flesh.  history fake news We all dream of rich relatives kicking the bucket and leaving us their fortunes, which is why this "unexpected inheritance" scam works as well as it does. My name is Becky J. Harding, I am a senior partner in the firm of Midland Consulting Limited: Private Investigators and Security Consultants. We are conducting a standard process investigation on behalf of HSBC, the International Banking Conglomerate. This investigation involves a client who shares the same surname with you and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client at HSBC Republic, the Private Banking arm of HSBC. The HSBC Private Banking client died in testate and nominated no successor in title over the investments made with the bank. The essence of this communication with you is to request you provide us information/comments on any or all of the four issues: 1-Are you aware of any relative/relation who shares your same name whose last known contact address was Brussels Belgium?2-Are you aware of any investment of considerable value made by such a person at the Private Banking Division of HSBC Bank PLC?3-Born on the 1st of october 19414-Can you establish beyond reasonable doubt your eligibility to assume status of successor in title to the deceased? It is pertinent that you inform us ASAP whether or not you are familiar with this personality that we may put an end to this communication with you and our inquiries surrounding this personality. You must appreciate that we are constrained from providing you with more detailed information at this point. Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to close this investigation. Thank you for accommodating our enquiry. Becky J. Harding.For: Midland Consulting Limited.09/02/2004 Imagine being transformed overnight from office drudge to a member of the jet set  it's the stuff of daydreams! (or at least the impetus to buy lottery tickets). Because this urge for the big "something for nothing" runs so deep in us, it makes us vulnerable to the machinations of con men, which is what these e-mailed come-ons areabout.This scam has been part of the grifters' bag of tricks for many a year. It was only a matter of time before it began showing up on the Internet, where those who make their livings by defrauding others have an even easier time vending their cons to the unwary. Though the text quoted above as our example is one of the more common forms this sort of come-on takes in the wilds of cyberspace, the scam can be dressed out any number of ways. How it is worded is far less important than its thrust  its "hook" that you might be entitled to an inheritance you had no reason to expect was coming your way. Although the names change from e-mail to e-mail, the scam itself is immutable: potential victims receive notification they share the surname of a recently deceased person who failed to leave a will. This notification purportedly comes from a representative of a firm of "Private Investigators and Security Consultants," with said representative stating he or she is "conducting a standard process investigation on behalf of[name of large financial entity, such as Barclays or HSBC]." Recipients of those e-mails are then asked three or four questions along the lines of the following: How the about-to-be-scammed answer the questions is unimportant  the queries are there merely to lend a patina of legitimacy to the inquiry. Regardless of whether potential victims respond with the news that none of their relatives have been to Brussels or whether they claim great-uncles whom the family subsequently lost track of after they settled there, the game is now afoot. In either case, they will be assured there is a very real chance significant inheritances are about to come their way, provided one small insignificant detail is first taken care of: payment of a fee to advance the matter. Similar to the Nigerian Scam and the foreign lottery fraud, the promise of untold wealth is used to distract the overly trusting away from the sorry fact that they are being asked to send money. In all three cases, the con works the same way: after being mesmerized by the vision of riches to come, those being taken advantage of are required to open their wallets and whip out their checkbooks to bring about the happy event. Nigerian Scam lottery There is no dead Uncle Fred, no rich deceased Reese. It's all a lie told to part you from your cash. So far we've seen versions of this scam emanating from supposed private investigating firms named Cappa Consultants, Midland Consulting Limited, and De Rosenberg Consulting, but the names the fraud artists choose to adopt for the purpose of parting the unwary from their money are unimportant; it's all a con. The names of genuine banking concerns (such as HSBC and Barclays) are dragged into the fray willy-nilly by the ill-intentioned to make the matter look more credible, but these real entities have nothing to do with the con. Indeed, as one official at HSBC responded to a query about these supposed windfall inheritances: It has come to our attention that a variation on an email is being circulated that has no connection to HSBC Republic. The email claims that HSBC Republic has employed investigators to contact the family of a deceased client who died intestate. To our knowledge such claims have no validity and we strongly recommend that recipients of such emails do not respond to the sender. Regards Web AdministrationHSBC Republic In another form of the scam, folks are contacted through regular mail by "estate locators" who say those receiving their notices are named beneficiaries of unclaimed family inheritances. Recipients are lured into mailing fees for estate reports, which will supposedly explain where their inheritances are located and how they can be claimed. These "estate locators" may also offer to process claims against these estates for a fee. It does occasionally happen someone so contacted does eventually find he or she has a right to claim against the estate of a distant relative who died without leaving a will. But in those cases, the amount garnered generally proves not to have been worth going after (indeed, often less than what was paid to the "locator" for the information). Estates do hire actual "heir locators" to find missing beneficiaries, but those so engaged are paid by the estate, not by the folks they find. There are also heir locators who freelance on a contingency basis, entering into agreements with those they connect with their rightful inheritances for percentages of sums so recovered. While this might sound like the scam being described above it's not  these legitimate heir locators receive payment only after estates are settled and heirs so found have received their bequests. Ergo, if a "locator" is asking you to pay up front, it's a scam. Those still clinging to the hope that there might still be something to their pie-in-the-sky e-mail, that hints at a life of luxury are just in the offing, should pause to consider that professionals in the process of contacting legitimate heirs do so through recognizable law firms, with the contact coming in the form of an actual letter (as opposed to an e-mail) on that firm's letterhead. We find it somewhat amusing that "intestate" (meaning to die without leaving a will) is so often mis-rendered in the e-mails distributed by the defrauders: it either comes out as "in testate" or as "interstate" (which we presume means to die between two highways). What You Can Do: Additional information:  Phony Inheritance Scam  (United States Postal Service) Phony Inheritance Scam  (United States Postal Service) Last updated:  27 November 2011   Choney, Suzanne.  "Key Flaws Reveal Truth Behind New E-Mail Hoax."Copley News Service.  7 July 2003. Bangor Daily News.  "Be Wary of Inheritance Notifications."2 February 2004  (p. A5). 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. Rumors are surging in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting protests against police violence and racial injustice in the United States. Stay informed. Read our special coverage, contribute to support our mission, and submit any tips or claims you see here. Read contribute here A widely circulated poem dedicated to the work of law enforcement was shared more than 125,000 times in late summer 2020 after the original user insinuated that actor Kurt Russell had shared it  and with it his alleged opposition to defunding the police.  "The Badge" went viral in the months following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while in police custody. Protesters in the wake of Floyds death called for the defunding of police in an effort to redirect funds to make law enforcement training more robust and increase social services for communities that face a greater risk of police brutality and incarceration. George Floyd defunding of police   We looked into the poem and found no evidence Russell is connected to it in any way, or that he had made political statements opposing the defunding of police. Russell is known for his distaste of social media and, despite dozens of fake profiles pretending to be the veteran actor, does not have verified accounts on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. In general, Russell is not active on social media and had not recently appeared in public making such declarations. distaste In fact, since the poem's original posting in June 2020, language and imagery shared alongside of it underwent several changes that show the kind of manipulation a social media post may experience in a short amount of time. "The Badge," a poem that recognizes police officers and their efforts to help society, was originally credited to an anonymous source and was first posted to social media on June 7. It begins: June 7 This badge ran towards certain death as the Towers collapsed on 9-11. This badge ran into the line of fire to save the people in the Pulse Night Club. This badge sheltered thousands as bullets rained down from the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas. This badge protected a BLM rally that left five officers dead in Dallas. This badge ran into the Sandy Hook School to stop a school shooter. The poem goes on to highlight other roles and responsibilities of law enforcement officers, including escorting the elderly across the street and helping to return crying children to their mothers. But since it was originally shared to Facebook, the 22-line composition underwent several iterations. A second version of the poem surfaced in a post shared to the Victor Valley News Facebook page, a media outlet in Victorville, California, with an additional introduction that read: shared Victor Valley News Yes ... lets all join in the hatred of all police for the sins of a few. Lets defund one of the most important public institutions in our countries history. Lets have all badges removed and allow people to tend to their own safety and security. This wording above appears to have originated in a blog post titled, "In Honor of Uncle Bob Roberts Killed in the Line of Duty," posted on June 14 by a self-described entrepreneur. blog post The post in question that Snopes readers asked us about added the above introduction and, in its most recent iteration, social media users included a headshot of Russell accompanied by the following: Amazing Post!! Kurt Russell. The additional wording insinuated that the actor had an affiliation with the Aug. 6, 2020 post. In less than a week, the post had been shared over 125,000 times on Facebook. Aug. 6, 2020 The libertarian actor has been at the heart of several viral claims falsely linking him to supporting U.S. President Donald Trump, including a 2016 image that showed him and partner, Goldie Hawn, wearing photoshopped pro-Trump shirts. In 2018, a fake Twitter account using Russells face as a profile picture incorrectly quoted the actor as having called Trump relentless, dedicated, and determined. The following year, a right-leaning Facebook page posted a meme that falsely insinuated Russell referred to Democrats as enemies of the state. libertarian 2016 image quoted enemies of the state. Memesclaiming that former President Ronald Reagan continued his golf vacation after nearly300 people were killed in an attack in Beirut in 1983 are frequently circulatedon Facebook:      The above-displayed memes have been circulating for several years, but they regained popularity in March 2016 as President Obama was criticized for remaining in Cuba (where he was making a state visit) after 31 people were killed during terrorist bombings in Brussels, Belgium. criticized While these images correctly reflect that Ronald Reagan was on vacation when a suicide bomber crashed a truck full of explosives into an airport building that was being used as barracks for U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, on 23 October 1983 (killing 241 American servicemen), the former president did not continue his golf vacation after receiving the news.The first image showing Reagan on the golf course was taken the day before the bombing, not the day after: before President Reagan playing golf at the Augusta National Golf Club. 10/22/83. An article published by theNew York Timesthe day after the attack also noted that Reagan cut his vacation short to return to the White House: noted "There are no words that can express our sorrow and grief over the loss of those splendid young men and the injury to so many others,'' the President said gravely this morning, standing in the rain outside the White House after a hurried return from a golfing weekend in Augusta, Ga. The second photo displayed abovewas also taken the day before the Beirut bombings: before President Ronald Reagan, clad in pajamas and bathrobe, talking on telephone to Robert McFarlane and Secretary of State George Shultz, re urgent request from five members of Eastern Carribbean States on the situation in Grenada. However, the former president wasn't always necessarily quickto react after deadlyinternational incidents. After a Korean airliner was shot down by the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983, President Reagan remained at his ranch in Santa Barbara: remained At this point, (White House spokesman Larry Speakes) Speakes was interrupted and asked if Reagan was going back to Washington. He ignored the question and read a statement on the Middle East. Asked again if Reagan was going back to Washington, Speakes answered, "There are no plans for the president to return to Washington earlier than anticipated." Speakes walked away from the podium and then came back to take questions. He announced, as he does every day in California, what Reagan intended to do that day: "The president, as usual, is planning at horseback ride this morning and will generally work around the ranch in the afternoon. The weather there is as it is here, sunny and warm." Thesememes are based on an assumption that a U.S. president has to react immediately to breaking news of a violent incident or crisis by returning to the nation's capital, even when such an action does not facilitate the handling of the situation. When President Obama was criticized in 2014 for his reaction toMalaysian Airlines Flight 17 being shot down (reportedly by pro-Russian insurgents), reporter ChrisWallace noted that sometimes, "the best thing presidents can do is nothing": criticized I know there's like an immediate reaction, that you want to say he should have run back to Washington and gone back to the Situation Room. I know that a lot of folks at Fox here are saying that. As somebody who covered the White House and saw for six years Ronald Reagan in various situations, sometimes the best thing presidents can do is nothing, to continue on. If he had gone back to Washington and gone to the situation room  first of all, there's not much he can do, we're not in control of the situation. And it would have dialed it up. I was covering Ronald Reagan at that time [i.e., when the Korean airliner was shot down].He was in Santa Barbara at his ranch when that happened, and quite frankly he didn't want to leave. And his advisers realized how terrible this looked, and eventually persuaded him he had to fly back to Washington and had to give this speech to the nation, but it did take him four days. Wendy Davis, asked if shes unethically profited while in public office, suggested her opponent has committed infractions including one that resulted from hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations. Responding to a reporter at the Sept. 30, 2014,gubernatorial debatein Dallas, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee and Fort Worth state senator accused Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, her Republicanfoe, of selling out Texans to serve the interests of people who make donations to his campaign. As an example, Davis pointed out payday lenders who have given Abbotts campaign $300,000 and then received a ruling from him that they can operate in a loophole in the law that allows them to charge unlimited rates and fees. Davis was revisiting a topic shes consistently explored: that a 2006 letter from Abbotts state office allowed payday lenders to skirt state lending laws. After Davis proclaimed link between Abbotts campaign donations and official action wasdescribedby theEl Paso Timesin January 2014, we foundHalf Trueher statement that Texas payday lenderswere charging 1,000 percent interest. In rare instances, lenders charged 1,000 percent annual interest, but payday loan rates then averaged 465 percent. For this fact check, we gauged whether Abbott piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations and then issued a ruling favorable to payday lenders, which offer low-dollar, high-interest short-term loans targeting low-income people who live paycheck to paycheck. The loans are generally for $100 and $500 and are most often issued for two weeks. Theyre considered risky because low-income borrowers are relatively unlikely to be able to pay them back. Abbott campaign contributions To our inquiry about the $300,000 described as given to Abbott, Davis campaign spokesman Zac Petkanas emailed usrecordsof Abbott campaign contributionsas filed in campaign reports atthe Texas Ethics Commission covering Sept. 16, 2002 nearly through July 2014. Our own sampling of state records showed Abbotts campaign fielded: --$80,000 from Trevor Ahlberg, CEO of Irving-based payday lender Cash Store, in eight  installments from Aug. 16, 2006 to June 16, 2014; --$57,500 from Roderick Aycox, founder of Georgia-based payday lender LoanMax, in five installments from Nov. 12, 2009 to June 9, 2014; --$30,500 from Cash America International Inc. PAC in 14 contributionsfrom Sept. 16, 2002 to July 29, 2014; --$30,000 from Ace Cash Express Inc. PAC, in eight donations from Oct. 5, 2005 to July 29, 2014. Then again, according to Petkanas and state records, less than 5 percent of the tallied payday-lender donations, or $13,000, had come in by Jan. 12, 2006, which was the date Abbotts office issued the ruling criticized by Davis. By phone, Petkanas said Davis did not mean to sayin the debate that all the $300,000 was given before Abbotts office ruled on payday lending. Texas Payday Lenders: Regulation and Evasion There's a lot of background to state actions involving payday lenders. In 1999, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, Abbotts predecessor,filed lawsuitsagainst selected payday lenders, saying the companies were dodging state laws regulating interest rates. Separately, ausury provisionin the Texas Constitution caps interest rates on short-term loans from unlicensed lenders at 10 percent. Cornyn,saying lenders were getting away with interest rates of up to 1,000 percent, said: This kind of abusive payday lending is illegal in Texas, and those companies who continue this practice will face serious consequences. An October2000 reportby the Sunset Advisory Commission found that in recent years, different types of lending businesses have attempted to evade regulation including payday lenders. It recommended the Legislature authorize the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner to regulate payday loans in order to help control unlawful interest rates. In 2001, state lawmakers agreed tochanges in lawbringing payday lending under the offices regulation and directing the Texas Finance Commission to adoptrulesguiding the industry. According to a May 2001bill analysisby the House Research Organization, the requested rules would prohibit a lender from using a device, pretense, or subterfuge to avoid regulation of the lenders transactions, including by recharacterizing fees on a loan as a purchase of a good or service. Resulting additions to Texas law includea chartspecifying acceptable fees for payday loans of various dollar amounts and durations. But in subsequent years, according toAustin American-Statesmannews reports, Texas payday lenders found a way around the law by partnering with out-of-state banks, which financed payday loans out of the reach of Texas laws. State and national legislators then raised concerns about payday lenders dodging the restrictions; the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation cracked down in 2005,limiting the numberof payday loans a bank could issue and constricting the profitability of partnerships between payday lenders and banks. Thats when Texas payday lenders, under pressure from regulation, started transitioning to a new business model, called acredit service organization(CSO) in summer 2005, theStatesmanreported In January 2006. Its news story said Texas payday lenders ditched partnerships with FDIC-regulated banks and began working with third-party unregistered lenders. It also said Texas payday lenders got a boost recently from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in the form of a letter affirming the legality of the CSO model. Between 2004 and 2014, payday lender storefronts increased more than tenfold in Texas, theEl Paso TimesreportedFeb. 4, 2014. Abbotts interpretation of state law Next, we looked at the Abbott ruling declared by Davis. It turned out to be an aide's legal analysis. In 2005, the attorney generals office, headed by Abbott, fielded two requests to review the legality of payday-lender CSOs, agency spokesman Jerry Strickland said by email, one an August 2005 verbal request from the consumer credit commissioner, who inquired after a court case raised questions about whether the state had any sway over CSOs. In Lovick v. Ritemoney Ltd., the plaintiff accused payday lender Ritemoney Ltd. of disguising illegal interest fees as service charges. A state district judge, Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, wrote that Texas law does not construe such credit service fees as disguised interest, and the complaint was dismissed. Strickland said the other request for Abbotts judgment camein writingSept. 8, 2005 from then-state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso. Shapleigh wrote that as a CSO, a payday lending company dodges both federal guidelines restricting payday loans and the interest-rate limits established by the Texas Finance Commission. As the states leading enforcement agency, it is imperative that your office investigate this new business model and take necessary enforcement actions against businesses purposefully and illegally skirting Texas laws. On Jan. 12, 2006, Barry McBee, the states first assistant attorney general,signed a letterresponding to the commissioner, Leslie Pettijohn, saying there was nothing patently illegal about payday lender CSOs under state lawand there was no statutory limit to the fees they could charge. McBees letter pointed out that, in keeping with state law, payday lender CSOs were charging the maximum-permitted 10 percent interest on loans plus service fees to arrange the loan between a borrower and third-party lender. He wrote that, according toChapter 393 of the Texas Finance Code, there is not any limit on the amount of fees a CSO can charge in such transactions. Any discussion of whether the use of this model is the best public policy choice for the State of Texas, McBee wrote, is one that must be addressed by the Legislature and has not been explored by this office. Legislative Review In the 2013 legislative session, lawmakersdebatedreformingpayday lending practices, but attemptsstalled. Expert Analysis By phone, Don Baylor, a former senior policy analyst for the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for programs serving low-income Texans, said that after the Lovick v. Ritemoney ruling, payday lenders remained uncertain if they could legally operate as CSOs. But, Baylor said, its fair to say the OAG letter provided enough regulatory certainty for the entire (payday lending) industry to jump on board with the CSO model. Baylor also said that after the Lovick ruling, the attorney general doesnt have the authority to prohibit loans from being made under the CSO model. He credited the explosion of payday lender CSOs to ambiguous wording in the 1987Credit Services Organization Act, which was written to help Texans improve credit scores and not with payday lenders in mind, he said. Payday lenders found the CSO costume and dressed up in the costume, said Baylor. Its a very creative way they came up with to get around the constitutional usury limits. Our Ruling Davis said paydaylenders gave Abbott $300,000 in campaign donations and then received a ruling from him that they can operate in a loophole in the law that allows them to charge unlimited rates and fees. This statement references a 2006 legal analysis -- not a ruling -- from a top state aide to Abbott that tracked with a court ruling permitting payday lenders to charge unlimited fees in spite of state caps on related interest. Clarification is needed in that only 5 percent of the described $300,000 in donations occurred before the analysis was issued. Regardless, Abbott's office reaffirmed a way for politically supportive payday lenders to squeeze Texas borrowers. We rate this statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. The Social Security "middle digit" rumor is yet another Big Brother conspiracy theory, this one purporting that the federal government and its policies help promote racism. We're told the fifth digit of Social Security numbers denotes race, thus identifying blacks and minorities to mortgage lenders, university admissions officers, employers, and others in application processes that should be color blind. Armed with the foreknowledge of who is black and who is white, perhaps the resumes and applications of African Americans are being shuffled to the bottom of the pile. It's a chilling thought because we know in our heart of hearts if an exploitable resource did exist for pegging sight unseen what color any of us was, there are bigots out there who would not hesitate to use it. Thankfully, it doesn't.   The e-mailed warnings quoted above are bunk; none of the digits in a Social Security number has anything to do with race. The only information 'hidden' in an SSN is where and when it was issued.  Each SSN is composed of nine digits, commonly written as three fields separated by hyphens: AAA-GG-SSSS. The first three-digit field is the area number and indicates what state was listed in the applicant's mailing address when the number was issued. Someone with a mailing address in Oregon, for instance, would have a SSN beginning with 540 to 544, while the SSN of someone with a mailing address in Alabama would begin with 416 to 424. The second set of numbers (a grouping of two, which includes the supposed infamous 'race' digit) shows when the SSN was issued, not to whom. Note that it does not directly correspond to the year of issue: a 42 in this field does not indicate this particular SSN was handed out in 1942. Different states go through this two-digit code at different rates.  Moreover, when a state is done with a particular group number, the next one it begins using comes off the line according to a numbering system which makes perfect sense to the government, but to no one else. (Even so, we're going to attempt to explain it here.) Before 1965, only half of the potential group numbers were used: odd numbers below ten and even numbers above nine. In 1965, the system was changed so that assignments continued with the low even numbers and the high odd numbers. Therefore, group numbers for each area number are exhausted in the following order:   Odd numbers, 01 to 09 Even numbers, 10 to 98 Even numbers, 02 to 08 Odd numbers, 11 to 99 The last four digits on an SSN are unique to the individual and are known as the series numbers. They are handed out in chronological order within each area and group number. Simply put, if two people living in the same area apply for a SSN during the same year, the first five digits of both numbers will be identical. If their applications hit the desk at the SSA at the same time, there will be a one-number difference, say, 3456 vs. 3457. Getting back to the 'race' digit  possessed of a better understanding of how the SSA assigns that number, we find that prior to 1965, a bushelful of SSNs with even numbers in this position were  generated (45) as compared to a mere handful of odd (5). The more densely populated the area, the greater the amount of group numbers exhausted, resulting in SSNs in highly-populated areas more closely patterning themselves to the pre-1965 nine-to-one optimal result for this field. In less populated areas, however, the discrepancy between odd and even is less noticeable, because the five odd numbers are used up first (e.g., if in Alaska only twenty group numbers have been used up, then five are odd and fifteen even, resulting in a three-to-1 ratio.) From 1965 on, group numbers continue to be assigned on the above basis, but now with the second set of potential codes (49 only this time; there is no 00) being called into service when the first fifty are used up. Consequently, group codes have to achieve a ten-to-one even-to-odd imbalance before the numbers begin resetting themselves towards parity. So how does this impact the rumor? At the wildest point of the numbering swing, the odds are 10-to-1 any given person's SSN group code is an even number. Therefore, the claim that "I polled 35 African-Americans, 34 had an EVEN fifth digit in their SS#, the 35th person was White/Puerto Rican," isn't all that surprising. Especially when you consider that the five odd group numbers were handed out first, it's almost a leadpipe cinch that the SSNs of most of the people you meet will contain an even group code. All of the foregoing can be summed up thusly: The first five digits of an SSN say nothing about who the number is assigned to  they merely reflect the state and year of issue. The last four digits are particular to the individual subscriber, but they're handed out randomly, with the sole determining factor being when the paperwork is processed. Other than his state of residence at the time of application, nothing about the SSN-holder's identity is coded into the number assigned to him. Let's face it, many of us don't trust the government. Any random tidbit that seems to confirm the rightness of that stance will be seized upon by those who already believe the worst of Uncle Sam. In this case, because Social Security numbers are constructed to conform with certain arcane and almost incomprehensible numbering schemes, it's not that far of a stretch to conclude that some of the 'secret information' encoded into them could be used against us. We already harbor mistrust over being identified by a number, and the revelation that secret stuff is going on with how the numbers are handed out only serves to heighten that anxiety. White, black, or green, no one likes being reduced to a number; it smacks too much of governmental impersonalization, and its Orwellian overtones disturb us. In the case of African-Americans, this more general unease is further enhanced because of how their government treated them in the past, as Patricia Turner, a University of California-Davis African-American and African Studies professor noted in her book, I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture:  There is no denying that African Americans have suffered unduly at the hands of the government. The Social Security number theory's got that sort of element of the government wanting to track Black people.  It's a theory typical of a suspicion or mistrust of the government that also exists in the non-Black community. Segments of the white community initially resisted implementation of the Social Security card system because they didn't like the idea of Big Brother government nationally numbering people" Additional information:  The SSN Numbering Scheme  (Social Security Administration)    A Myth About Social Security Numbers  (Social Security Administration)   Blocksma, Mary.   Reading the Numbers.
  New York: Penguin, 1989  ISBN 0-140-10654-5  (pp. 162-164).
 Reading the Numbers Johnson, L.A.  "Cyberconspiracy Theories."
  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  30 July 1998  (p. E1).  Turner, Patricia.  I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
  Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California, 1993.   ISBN 0-520-08185-4  (pp. 103-104). I Heard It Through the Grapevine