George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents
Claim:  George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for their failure to control their son.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2013] Facebook is sharing that George Zimmerman is suing Trayvon Martin's parents for failure to control him. I find this very difficult tobelieve.  I think this is bogus.   Origins:  On 15 July 2013,  the National Report published an article ("George Zimmerman Files Civil Suit Against Trayvon Martin's Parents") about acquitted defendant George Zimmerman's having filed a civil lawsuit against the parents of the teenager he shot, Trayvon Martin: article George Zimmerman filed a civil suit today just before 5PM EST at the Seminole County, Florida, Courthouse. The suit alleges the parents of Trayvon Martin, failed to control their minor-age son on the evening of February 26, 2012, when Martin repeatedly assaulted Zimmerman, placing him in imminent fear for his life and  resulting in the death of Martin. The civil action specifies that Zimmerman acted in self defense resulting in the case being ruled a justifiable homicide by a jury trial that ended on Saturday with a verdict of not guilty. Desperate state prosecutors charged the victim with 2nd degree murder though they had no evidence of a crime and hoping to stay off more violence and having Florida put to the torch at the criminal hands of rioters months before the start of the states tourist season. The complaint further specifies Zimmerman shares "zero-liability" in the death of Martin as he acted without malice and solely in self-defense. The amount of damages Zimmerman is seeking are unspecified. By the following day links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.  However, the article was just a bit of satire from the National Report, a web site which publishes outrageous fictional stories such as "IRS Plans to Target Leprechauns Next," "Boy Scouts Announce Boobs Merit Badge," and "New CDC Study Indicates Pets of Gay Couples Worse at Sports, Better at Fashion Than Pets of Straight Couples." Last updated:  16 July 2013
In January2015, links began circulating on Facebook promisingusers free lifetime passes to popular fast food outlets such as KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, Starbucks, Subway, and Burger King, typically presented as promotions offeredin celebration of the brands' purported anniversaries: The embedded links led to severalURLs, and users who clicked through on them to claim the promised lifetime passes were routed to a pages that clonedthe style of Facebook-based content (but werehostedoff Facebook):    As noted, the visible URLs in the above-reproduced imagesdon't belong to any official domains owned by these fast food chains. The ads are survey/sweepstakes scams that urge usersto share their enticementsvia Facebook in order to recruit friends to further the fake promotions and dupevisitors intosubscribing to various expensive offers to claim their "free" passes.Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait byscammers, withmany of these scams aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users.A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau explainedhow userscan spot and avoid scammersimitating high-profilebrands on social media:Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender.Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy.When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information.Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions.A nearly identical scam commonin October 2015 promised a lifetime pass to Starbucks in the same manner. Many users who completed the steps were dismayed to discover that no such reward awaited them. As noted, the visible URLs in the above-reproduced imagesdon't belong to any official domains owned by these fast food chains. The ads are survey/sweepstakes scams that urge usersto share their enticementsvia Facebook in order to recruit friends to further the fake promotions and dupevisitors intosubscribing to various expensive offers to claim their "free" passes.Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among retailers used asbait byscammers, withmany of these scams aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau explainedhow userscan spot and avoid scammersimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. A nearly identical scam commonin October 2015 promised a lifetime pass to Starbucks in the same manner. Many users who completed the steps were dismayed to discover that no such reward awaited them. Starbucks A doctored image created to mock President Trump by purportedly showing an unflattering view of his profile was recirculated on social media in October 2017 along with the claim that the president was unhappy with the photograph and didn't want it shared on the internet: recirculated   This image was originally posted to Facebook on 14 July 2017 by Vic Berger, a viral video creator with a penchant for poking fun at Trump, along with the following tongue-in-cheek claim: Facebook Vic Berger A friend of a friend of mine works in the White House and said Trump is extremely unhappy with this photo of himself. Do NOT share this photo! I'm serious. It's not nice. Don't do it! The original post racked up tens of thousands of shares within a few weeks. When the image was re-circulated in October 2017 with a similar claim about Trump's dislike for the photograph, it gathered more than 400,000 shares.  This image, however, is fake. Berger created it using a photograph that Getty Images photographer Matthew Cavanaugh took on 27 April 2011 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Berger flipped the original photograph, enlarged Trump's throat, and colored his skin a darker shade of peach. Here's a comparison between the genuine image (left) and the doctored image (right). We flipped the doctored image back to its original position for an easier comparison: Getty Images    Berger scored several viral hits during the 2016 election with videos skewering the candidates. videos Raftery, Brian.  "Meet Vic Berger, the Genius Behind This Elections Dopest Viral Videos."
  Wired.  27 September 2017. A photograph purportedly showing President Trump kissing former U.S. Senator Bob Dole on the forehead was circulated on social media in the days following the funeral of former president George H.W. Bush in December 2018: social media   The internet's interest in this image, and Bob Dole in general, spiked in December 2018 after the 95-year-old politician rose from his wheelchair in order to salute Bush's casket. (Dole was gravely wounded by an artillery shell during World War II that left him with permanent disabilities.) wheelchair wounded Although this photograph is genuine, some viewers may have been left with the inaccurate impression that it was taken during Bush's funeral. The picture of Trump's kissing Dole on the forehead was actually taken in January 2018 during a ceremony held in the Capitol Rotunda, upon which occasion the former senator was bestowed with a Congressional Gold Medal. The original is available via UPI, who display it with the following caption: UPI During a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, Dole was presented Congress' highest civilian honor by President Trump, Vice President Pence and Senate and House leaders. President Trump kisses World War II veteran and former Senate majority leader Bob Dole as he received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor, "in recognition of his service to the nation as a soldier, legislator, and statesman.  Przybyla, Heidi.  "Former Senator Bob Dole Receives Congressional Gold Medal in Capitol Ceremony
  USA Today.  17 January 2018.  Cole, Devan.  "Bob Dole Helped Out of His Wheelchair to Salute George H.W. Bush."
  CNN.  4 December 2018.  Uria, Daniel.  "'True American Hero' Bob Dole Receives Congressional Gold Medal."
  UPI.  18 January 2018. On 24 October 2016, health insurance broker Tyler McClosky created a phenomenon on Facebook when he posted a screen shot of what it would cost for a family of four with a total household income of $98,000 in Lee County, Florida, to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act's marketplace: We were able to recreate McClosky's viral post using the shopping tool at healthcare.gov and the same data he entered (two non-smoking parents with a combined income of $98,000 and two 8-year-old children in Lee County, Florida): tool   But data sent by a Department of Health and Human Services official pointed out that 81 percent of families of that size on an Obamacare plan have household incomes of less than $48,000. So the average family currently subscribing to Obamacare would not be paying nearly as much as the image above depicts in their out-of-pocket premium costs. We entered the same data but changed the income to $48,000 here:   McClosky created the post on 24 October 2016, the same day a report by the Department of Health and Human Services was released detailing an average 25 percent increase in costs to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) customers: customers Across states using the HealthCare.gov platform, the median increase in the second-lowest cost silver plan premium is 16 percent, while the average increase is 25 percent. This figure varies based on locale. For instance, a table compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that people in Phoenix, Arizona will have a 145 percent premium increase, but a tax subsidy will mean a 40-year-old, non-smoking Phoenix resident with a $30,000 annual income will not have to pay any more than last year (which is roughly $207 a month, depending on the plan selected). table According to data sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a majority of consumers covered by the ACA (85 percent) qualify for tax credits that keep pace with premium increases, so many won't see much of an impact on their out-of-pocket costs. data But McClosky was addressing people whose income disqualifies them from that assistance. He told us he used the $98,000 annual income as an example because that is the threshold at which households of four with two children do not qualify for tax credit assistance (you qualify if you make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line). He said he created the post because he wanted to raise awareness about what it costs to insure a family in which each adult is making an annual salary of $44,000, and neither has access to employer-based health care  a fairly common situation in the United States. His concern, he said, is that only consumers who qualify for a tax subsidy can afford insurance under ACA. If their incomes are too high to qualify for assistance, they may simply go without. While the number of uninsured Americans dropped under ACA, as of 2015, 28.5 million people still lack coverage. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation: Even under the ACA, many uninsured people cite the high cost of insurance as the main reason they lack coverage. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage but did not because it was too expensive. Many people do not have access to coverage through a job, and some people, particularly poor adults in states that did not expand Medicaid, remain ineligible for financial assistance for coverage. Some people who are eligible for financial assistance under the ACA may not know they can get help, and others may still find the cost of coverage prohibitive. In addition, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid or Marketplace coverage. Eric Seiber, associate professor of health services management and policy at Ohio State, said that the health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, and costs have steadily increased over the years. Despite its name, the Affordable Care Act doesn't actually address the cost of health care itself: The ACA is not health care reform. Its health insurance reform. It really doesnt do that much about affordable care or patient protection beyond the subsidies and Medicaid. People's perception that their wages have been flat is an effect of compensation increases going to cover rising healthcare costs instead of into their paychecks, Seiber said. McClosky, who sells health and life insurance plans in Florida, said that the Affordable Care Act has had the effect of diminishing competition among carriers. For instance, Lee County residents can only purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield. Prices in Miami-Dade are lower than in Lee County, because there are more carriers competing with each other. McClosky says insurance carriers have been squeezed by part of the mandate which requires them to spend 80 to 85 percent on claim payouts and health care quality improvement. He pointed to Assurant, a 123-yea-old insurer that specialized in individual and small business plans. They could not survive under the ACA and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Health care is a source of roiling political debate for years. While the cost of health plans under Obamacare will go up an average 25 percent as of 1 November 2016, the majority of consumers won't experience much change in their out-of-pocket costs when open enrollment starts for 2017, because the tax credits will buffer that increase. Further, as the New York Times pointed out, many Americans are shielded from the immediate costs of health care by employer-based insurance or the public programs: pointed out These increases really matter only for those who buy their own insurance. Most people are unaffected by the rate increases because they get their insurance through an employer or are covered through government programs like Medicare, Medicaid or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Only a small fraction of Americans who have insurance buy individual policies. There are about 10 million people in the Obamacare markets and around an additional seven million who buy health plans outside the marketplace, according to Obama administration estimates. The published rate increases apply only to people who shop in the markets, but premiums are expected to go up sharply for the other plans as well. However, as McClosky's post makes clear, whether people notice it or not, American health care costs are high  and not everyone can qualify for available assistance. Kaiser Family Foundation. "2017 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Acts Health Insurance Marketplaces."
25 October 2016. ASPE Research Brief. "Health plan choice and premiums in the 2017 health insurance marketplace."
24 October 2016. Abelson, Reed, and Sanger-Katz, Margaret. "A Quick Guide to Rising Obamacare Rates."
The New York Times. 25 October 2016. Boulton, Guy. "Milwaukee-based Assurant Health to be sold off or shut down."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 28 April 2015. On Jan. 21, 2021, as U.S. President Joe Biden settled into the Oval Office the day after his inauguration, a report started circulating that the newly-elected president had removed a "Diet Coke button" from the Oval Office. This, of course, begged the question: Did former President Donald Trump have a Diet Coke button in the Oval Office? report started circulating   Trump truly had a button in the Oval Office that he used to order Diet Cokes. However, this call button wasn't the invention of the Trump administration. Photographs show that former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also had service buttons in the Oval Office that they could use in a similar fashion. Presidents Barack Obama George W. Bush It should also be noted that Biden still has access to this usher call button and photographs show him in the Oval Office with this button on his desk. It's unclear how Biden will use this service button, but he will be able to use it, like his predecessor, to order Diet Cokes or anything else available at the White House.  photographs Richard Branson, the CEO of Virgin Airlines, wrote in his autobiography that Obama once told him the button was used to order tea for his guests: autobiography As we stood up to leave I noticed the red buttons on his desk. Obama saw me looking at them. "They used to be there for emergencies, but now I use them for ordering tea for my guests." "They used to be there for emergencies, but now I use them for ordering tea for my guests." Trump's soda button first made the news in April 2017, when news outlets published articles concerning Trump's first 100 days in office. At the time, reports stated that this button summoned a regular "Coke" for the president. Here's an excerpt from reporter Julie Pace's article "Nearing 100 days, Trump says his presidency is different" that was published by The Associated Press: Associated Press "A man accustomed to wealth and its trappings, Trump has embraced life in the Executive Mansion, often regaling guests with trivia about the historic decor. With the push of a red button placed on the Resolute Desk that presidents have used for decades, a White House butler soon arrived with a Coke for the president." Demetri Sevastopulo relayed a similar anecdote for the Financial Times. Like Pace, Sevastopulo also noted that Trump could press the button to "order some Cokes": Financial Times Sitting across from Donald Trump in the Oval Office, my eyes are drawn to a little red button on a box that sits on his desk. This isnt the nuclear button, is it? I joke, pointing. No, no, everyone thinks it is, Trump says on cue, before leaning over and pressing it to order some Cokes. Everyone does get a little nervous when I press that button. While the initial reports noted that this button summoned Cokes, not Diet Cokes, Trump had a known affection for Coca-Cola's lighter offering. In December 2017, The New York Times reported that Trump, who once tweeted "I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke," would consume as many as 12 Diet Cokes a day: New York Times tweeted "Watching cable, he shares thoughts with anyone in the room, even the household staff he summons via a button for lunch or for one of the dozen Diet Cokes he consumes each day." Former Trump administration communications aide Cliff Sims also mentioned this Diet Coke button in a passage from his White House memoir, "Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House." Sims was describing a meeting between Trump and Housing Secretary Ben Carson when he wrote: I could see Trump starting to lose interest as Carson continued articulating the detailed plans inside his notebook. First, the President shifted in his chair and readjusted a small pillow he'd placed behind his back. Then, as Carson talked about different phases of his program and whatnot, Trump glanced around the room. At some point he noted his Diet Coke was nearly gone and went back to his button routine, but his heart wasn't quite in it this time. "People always wonder about this button," he told a confused Carson. Finally, he pressed it again. Diet Coke arrived and Trump was done. Trump's Diet Coke button was also featured in the monologues of at least one late night talk show. In April 2017, Stephen Colbert talked about Trump was "turning the Oval Office into a treehouse" by putting a diet coke button on the Resolute Desk.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpqTpzg3hYE&feature=emb_title Trump did indeed have a button in the Oval Office that he used to order Diet Cokes. This service button, however, was not novel to the Trump administration.   Updated [25 January 2021]: Updated to note that President Trump was not the first president to have a call button on his desk and that President Biden still has access to this service button. Status changed to Mixture. Claim:  Several million fewer dependents were claimed on federal income tax returns the year the IRS started requiring taxpayers to list the Social Security numbers of their children. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] I had read at some point that millions of dependents dropped off the 1040 forms the year that the IRS required social security numbers. This seems incredibly high, but I know that it was a fact that there had been a lot of divorced parents both claiming the same children as dependents and people claiming their pets.   Origins:  The U.S. federal income tax code requires residents to be responsible for their own taxes  that is, it's up to each taxpayer to reckon his income, determine his allowable deductions, and file a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service (or to hire someone to do it for  him).  Such a system allows (some say it even encourages) taxpayers to cheat, engaging in everything from fudging the line between business and personal expenses to hiding large amounts of unreported income.  Although tax fraud may never be completely eliminated, the increasing use of automated record-keeping and tracking technology has made many of the more common cheating schemes quite difficult, if not impossible, to pull off successfully these days. Given how often we're asked to provide our Social Security numbers  (they seem to used for just about everything these days), those of us who began paying federal income tax only in the last twenty years might be surprised to discover that not until 1987 did the IRS begin requiring taxpayers to include the Social Security numbers of all dependent children claimed on their returns.  After all, listing phony dependents in order to claim illegitimate extra deductions has historically been one of the more common forms of tax fraud, so it makes sense the IRS would always have wanted to track such information as closely as possible. This is the notion behind the legend  made familiar to many readers by the 2005 best-seller Freakonomics  that the  year the IRS did begin asking taxpayers to provide Social Security numbers for all dependent children, the number of claimed dependents suddenly dropped significantly: Some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. Suddenly, seven million children  children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year's 1040 forms  vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States. The "seven million" figure appears to be accurate, as noted in a December 2000 National Tax Journal article by Jeffrey B. Liebman that drew its data from a 1990 Internal Revenue Service conference report: article Another way in which taxpayers without children might claim a dependent child is to invent a fictional one. The strongest evidence for this possibility is that in 1987, the first year in which taxpayers were required to list social security numbers of dependents on their tax returns, 7 million fewer dependent children were claimed than in the previous year. The suggestion by the Freakonomics authors that most or all of that drop in the number of dependents claimed in 1987 was directly attributable to fraud was an obvious one but not necessarily the only one, as alternative explanations could have accounted for a substantial portion of the reduction in number of claimed dependents.  For example, it was not until 1987 that the IRS first demonstrated a program to allow parents to automatically obtain Social Security numbers for their newborn children when those births were registered, and the program did not become nationwide until 1989.  Since the average citizen doesn't generally keep abreast of all the changes made to the tax code from year to year until they directly affect him, perhaps many taxpayers sat down to fill out their returns in 1987 and didn't realize until it was too late that they had never applied for Social Security numbers for their children. 1987 However, the assumption that many taxpayers had previously claimed non-existent children until the newly-implemented Social Security number requirement made it much more difficult for them to safely do so is certainly an obvious one, and seems to be supported by additional information provided by Liebman: Further evidence that nonexistent children may have been claimed comes from the 1988 TCMP [Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program]. In 1988, taxpayers were required to list on their tax returns the social security numbers of all dependents who were at least five years old. On tax returns where the TCMP auditor disallowed an EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit] claim, 39 percent of the disallowed dependent child claims were dependents for whom the taxpayer checked the box stating the child was under five and did not provide a social security number  possibly because the children did not exist. Likewise, although followup reports in subsequent years noted that some portion of the previously claimed dependents who went "missing" in the 1987 tax year were indeed real people who were not claimed as dependents in 1987 for reasons other than their being fictitious (e.g., they were children who had in earlier years been unlawfully claimed as dependents by each of two divorced parents), the pattern of disappearing dependents in 1987 was indicative of widespread fraud: Starting in 1987, the I.R.S. required that taxpayers report the Social Security number of all dependents over the age of 5. That year 7 million American children disappeared from the nation's tax returns, representing a 9 percent drop in the 77 million dependents claimed the previous year and $2.9 billion more in yearly tax revenue. The tax agency said about 20 percent of the vanished dependents were children who had been claimed as dependents by both parents after a divorce. Under the law, only one parent may claim the child as a deduction. Most of the others probably never existed, John Szilagyi, an I.R.S. researcher, said. And some families apparently became quite greedy in creating dependents, each worth a $1,080 deduction in 1986, and $1,900 in 1987. About 66,000 taxpayers who claimed four or more dependents in 1986 claimed none in 1987, after the Social Security identification rule went into effect. And more than 11,000 families claimed seven or more dependents in 1986, but none in 1987. Those returns are now under investigation, with more than 1,000 audits in which the 1986 dependents were disallowed, and back taxes and fines collected. Mr. Szilagyi said some cases of apparent fraud have also been referred to the authorities for criminal investigation.  "In any individual family, you can imagine that one or two children might legitimately have stopped being dependents in 1987, but it's hard to imagine a legitimate situation in which a taxpayer had seven dependents one year and none the next," said Mr. Szilagyi, who drafted the proposal to require Social Security numbers from dependents and baby sitters. Mr. Szilagyi said his research indicates that there are probably four million to five million more dependents being claimed illegally, either because they are fictitious or do not legally qualify as dependents. Last updated:  15 April 2014 Freakonomics    Lewin, Tamar.  "I.R.S. Sees Evidence of Wide Tax Cheating on Child Care"   The New York Times.  6 January 1991.    Liebman, Jeffrey B.  "Who Are the Ineligible EITC Recipients?"   National Tax Journal.  December 2000  (pp. 1165-1186). A photograph supposedly showing two women in the moment just before they were executed by an unidentified man is often shared with the claim that the gunman seen in the picture is the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary figure Che Guevara, despite the fact that the executioner's face is not visible in the photograph:   This photograph is nearly always shared with anti-socialist sentiments and often posted along with barbs directed at politicians such as Bernie Sanders orAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Most commonly it is shared as a meme with the caption "This is the image of Che Guevara that should be seen on t-shirts." Bernie Sanders Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meme caption Che Guevara is a controversial historical figure, regarded as anything from a cultural hero to little more than a wanton murderer. A number of articles, books, movies, and documentaries can assist those curious about the Marxist revolutionary in forming an educated opinion about his legacy, but this photograph should not be included in a hypothetical course on the subject, as it doesn't show Che Guevara. articles books movies documentaries Our investigation into the origins of this photograph took us from baseless claims on social media to archival photographs documenting wars in places such as El Salvador and Yugoslavia. Ultimately, however, our search ended in an unlikely location: Atlanta, Georgia. Before this image was first associated with Che Guevara in late 2017, the photograph was circulated attached to a different claim. In 2011, this picture was included in a gallery about the Farabundo Mart National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the Salvadorian Civil War, a bloody conflict which started in 1980 (thirteen years after Guevara's death): included   However, we could not confirm that this photograph truly shows a member of the FMNL during the Salvadorian Civil War. When we reached out to Martn lvarez Alberto, an El Salvadorian historian with a special interest in the FMNL, to ask if he was familiar with this photograph, he told us that he had never seen it and that he doubted that the picture was taken in El Salvador. Alberto noted that the men looked Caucasian, not Salvadorian, and that the building in the background was more typical of locations such as Europe or the United States. Susan Meiselas, a documentary photographer who worked in El Salvador during the Civil War, came to a similar conclusion: The buildings in this image did not resemble those in El Salvador. Meiselas also hypothesized that the photograph was taken in eastern Europe. The relatively modern wardrobe of the two women, and the suggestion that this photograph was taken in Eastern Europe, led us to examine photographs of theYugoslav Wars in the early 1990s. An image of DraganVasiljkovi, the commander of a Serb paramilitary unit called the Kninde who was found guilty of war crimes by the Republic of Croatia, appears to show similar fatigues: war crimes   This, of course, is not hard evidence that the photograph was taken during the Yugoslav Wars. In fact, when we talked tophotojournalistRon Haviv, who documented the Yugoslav Wars, he told us that he did not recognize the uniform of the man in the viral picture. So where was this photograph taken and whom does it show? Although our focus so far has been on war crimes, we had our doubts that this photograph even documented such a historical event. The nonchalant posture of the second man watching this alleged execution, the various people in the background who seem to be wearing backpacks, and the smoking bucket (which we hypothesize could be a makeshift fog machine), lead us to believe that this might be a photograph taken on the set of an obscure film production:   As it turns out, that's pretty much what this photograph shows. We uncovered another copy of this image on the web site for CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), where it is presented as a photograph taken in 1989 of a "Guerrilla Theatre" performance at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia: CISPES   We reached out to CISPES for more evidence that this was a theatrical production and they provided us with images showing a physical copy of this photograph which featured the words "Emory College Atlanta Mar 89" scrawled on the back:   This photograph does not document Che Guevara executing two women. It was taken in the late 1980s at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and depicts a performance by a local "guerrilla theater" group. Mastinu, Luca.  "Bufala Acchiappalike 'Quanto Era Benevolo Il Che.'"   Bufale.net.  12 October 2017. Cosgrove, Ben.  "Che Guevara: The Rorschach Revolutionary."   TIME.  28 October 2014. El Torogoz.  "Album 12 De La Memoria Historica."   Retrieved 28 July 2018. Magnay, Jacquelin.  "Captain Dragan Convicted of War Crimes."   The Australian.  27 September 2017. Claim:  Three former Fannie Mae executives served on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign as chief economic advisors.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street. Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, 'Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that 'mistakes were made' and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.' Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. Raines left with a 'golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. The Government noted, 'The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.' These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits. Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard 'was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a 'stable pattern of earnings' at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, 'Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,' On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million! Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million.' Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee  IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS - HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE - THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street? Origins:  When one of the hottest issues of a presidential campaign is the meltdown of the mortgage lending industry and the collapse of the economy, a candidate's having economic advisors on his staff who are strongly associated with the system and practices that helped create the current mess likely wouldn't sit well with the public.  That's the premise of the above-quoted e-mail, which claimed that three men formerly associated with the Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly known as "Fannie Mae") were serving as "chief economic advisors" with the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama.  However, although some of these men had at least tangential connections to the Obama campaign at one time or another, none of them had ongoing roles with that campaign as chief economic advisors. Franklin Raines, who formerly headed the budget office for the Clinton administration, became the first black CEO of a Fortune 500 company when he took over at Fannie Mae" in 1999.  Raines,  who had earned $20 million in salary and bonuses from Fannie Mae in 2003, resigned from his CEO position in 2004 after regulators determined that the company had violated accounting rules and created an illusory $9 billion in past profit.   Raines had some dealings with the Obama campaign, but he never held any actual position within the campaign (much less as its "chief economic advisor"), and his involvement with it was not nearly as substantial as implied above.  As the Washington Post reported when a McCain campaign commercial attempted to link Raines with the Democratic candidate, the whole substance of the connection between the two men was that Raines "had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign" in which they talked about "general housing and economy issues."  reported commercial Franklin Raines' predecessor, James A. Johnson, (former chief of staff to Vice President Walter F. Mondale), was CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. After Johnson left the company, regulators later discovered that Fannie Mae had engaged in fraudulent accounting practices in 1998 which manipulated its earnings so that executives could earn performance bonuses (up to $1.9 million in Johnson's case) they would not otherwise have been entitled to. discovered In May 2008, Senator Obama tapped James Johnson to be one member of a three-person panel tasked with vetting potential vice-presidential running mates.  Johnson (who was not serving as an economic advisor to the Obama campaign) resigned from that position shortly afterwards when news accounts reported that he had received more than $2 million in home loans at below average market rates from Countrywide Financial (a partner of Fannie Mae). Tim Howard, the former CFO (chief financial officer) of Fannie Mae, was caught up in the same accounting scandal that undid Franklin Raines, and (like Raines) resigned from the company in 2004.   We found no substantive connection between Tim Howard and the Obama campaign, however, much less any information supporting the claim that Howard was ever a "Chief Economic Advisor to Obama."   Last updated:  3 January 2012    Smith, Elliot Blair.  "Former Fannie Mae Execs May Face Investigation."   USA Today.  14 June 2006.    Superville, Darlene.  "Rise and Fall of Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines."   San Diego Union-Tribune.  30 December 2004.    Weisman, Jonathan and David S. Hilzenrath.  "Obama's Choice of Insider Draws Fire."   The Washington Post.  11 June 2008  (p. A1).    The Washington Post.  "Linking Obama to Ex-Fannie Mae Chief Is a Stretch."   20 September 2008. In September 2008, Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston, Texas, the site of the deadliest hurricane in American history 108 years earlier, and caused multiple deaths and an estimated $30 billion in property damage throughout Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes before and during the storm. estimated According to the National Hurricane Center, the Bolivar Peninsula suffered the worst devastation and most destructive storm surges in the United States. That narrow stretch of land between Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico was also the site of one of the iconic images to emerge in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike: the "Last House Standing." Associated Press photographer David J. Phillip took a series of photographs of the house that were captioned as picturing "a beachfront home stand[ing] among the debris in Gilchrist, Texas on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 after Hurricane Ike hit the area." photographs Another view of the same house was provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):   Over the intervening years, the remarkable image became the subject of a viral meme which claimed that supernatural forces, rather than pure chance, were to thank for the house's escaping destruction.  For example, in May 2018, the "Scary Facts" Facebook page shared this meme: meme   The beachfront home, which stood surrounded by debris from neighboring properties, belonged to then 53-year-old cost analyst Pam Adams and her husband Warren, a 63-year-old retired electrical designer and U.S. Marine veteran. In 2005, Hurricane Rita had destroyed the couple's home in Gilchrist, so they rebuilt a house on the same site. Therefore, the claim made in the meme, that an exorcism in 1988 later saved the Adamses' home, is false because the house didn't exist until 2006. The real reason the house survived the hurricane was more prosaic. In a 2008 interview with the Houston Chronicle, Warren Adams suggested elevation played a key role: Houston Chronicle It was built to Galveston County code, he said, which anticipates 130-mile-per-hour winds on the seaward side of the county. But the elevation may have helped. Adams said he built high, in part, to get a break on flood insurance. The home sits 15 feet above ground. "The piece of land my house is sitting on was probably one of the highest above sea level in the area, about 8 or 9 feet above sea level before we even started the house," he said. "I think the house is about 16 inches higher than it needs to be." Although the structure remained standing, the interior did not survive unscathed, as CNN reported that "Everything was waterlogged and covered in mud. [Pam] Adams said they had to throw clothing, furniture and other destroyed possessions out their windows to stop mold from growing." CNN For a time after the storm, the Adamses resided in an apartment in Baytown, Texas, and seriously considered abandoning Bolivar Peninsula and moving on. But in the end, they stayed put and rebuilt the house again, along with some (though not all) of their neighbors.  In a blog post, Pam Adams later explained the couple's decision to stay: post One day, I was driving down Hwy. 87 towards my home, and the sunset shining under my home caused me to pull over and just sit and look at her. I knew at that moment that I could not walk away. The feeling I had was that this picture was the most beautiful, heartfelt sight that Id ever seen. My crippled home sat engulfed in the sunset on the Gulf. Somehow, I knew at that moment that we could not walk away from her. She didnt float away from us, or be blown to pieces, so we had to roll up our sleeves and give it one more try to live by the water. The Last House Standing was inhabitable again within a year, and in 2010 Pam Adams even opened a bar and restaurant nearby called FantaSea BBQ & Grill. (Warren Adams died in 2016 at the age of 71.) opened died The survival of the Adams home amid the devastation Hurricane Ike caused on the Bolivar Peninsula was truly remarkable, and aerial photographs of it standing alone in the immediate aftermath of the storm have proven iconic. But an exorcism supposedly performed in 1988, a full eighteen years before the house was built, had nothing to with any of it. Berg, Robbie.  "Tropical Cyclone Report -- Hurricane Ike."
  National Hurricane Center.  23 January 2009. Galeshouse, Maggie.  "Owners Return to Last Home Left in Bolivar Town."
  Houston Chronicle.  26 September 2008. Hawkins-Gaar, Katie.  "Christmas at the 'Last House Standing.'"
  CNN.  22 December 2008. Adams, Pam.  "Sister of the Salt Shares Why She Loves Bolivar."
  Crystal Beach Local News.  Unknown publication date. Hanna, Jason.  "Owners of 'Last House Standing' Part of Peninsula's Comeback."
  CNN.  26 July 2011. The [Galveston County] Daily News.  "James Warren Adams -- Obituary."
  27 November 2016. "Black Friday" is the (originally derisive, now mainstream) term for the phenomenon that takes place in the U.S. on the day after Thanksgiving Thursday, when millions of consumers who get the day off from work or school crowd into stores for what is traditionally considered the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The origins of the term "Black Friday" have become somewhat obscured in the mists of time, however, leading people to invent fanciful explanations for how that phrase became attached to the day after Thanksgiving. One example posits that the term started with a tradition of slaveowners or slave traders using that day as an opportunity for selling their wares:  The use of "Black Friday" as a descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the selling of slaves, though, and the term didn't originate until nearly a century after the practice of slavery was abolished in the U.S. The earliest known use of "Black Friday" in such a context stems from 1951 and referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving in order to have four consecutive days off (because that day was not yet commonly offered as a paid day off by employers): 1951 WHAT TO DO ABOUT "FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING" "Friday-after-Thanksgiving-itis" is a disease second only to the bubonic plague in its effects. At least that's the feeling of those who have to get production out, when the "Black Friday" comes along. The shop may be half empty, but every absentee was sick  and can prove it. What to do? Many companies have tried the standard device of denying Thanksgiving Day pay to employees absent the day before and after the holiday. Trouble is, you can't deny pay to those legitimately ill. But what's legitimate? Tough to decide these days of often miraculously easy doctors' certificates. Glenn L. Martin, Baltimore aircraft manufacturer has another solution: When you decide you want to sweeten up the holiday kitty, pick Black Friday to add to the list. That's just what Martin has done. Friday after Thanksgiving is the company's seventh paid holiday. We're not suggesting more paid holidays just to get out of a hole. But, if you can make a good trade in bargaining, there are lots of worse things than having a holiday on a day that was half holiday anyway. Shouldn't cost too much for that reason, either. By 1961 the term "Black Friday" (and "Black Saturday" as well) was being commonly used in a derisive sense by Philadelphia police, who had to deal with the mayhem and headaches caused by all the extra pedestrian and vehicular traffic created by hordes of shoppers heading for the city's downtown stores on the two days after Thanksgiving: 1961 For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest shopping days normally are the two following Thanksgiving Day. Resulting traffic jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in Philadelphia, it became customary for officers to refer to the post-Thanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday. In a 1994 article, former Philadelphia Bulletin reporter Joseph P. Barrett recalled how he took part in popularizing the term "Black Friday" throughout Philadelphia in the early 1960s, from which it eventually spread into nationwide usage: article The term "Black Friday" came out of the old Philadelphia Police Department's traffic squad. The cops used it to describe the worst traffic jams which annually occurred in Center City on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was the day that Santa Claus took his chair in the department stores and every kid in the city wanted to see him. It was the first day of the Christmas shopping season. Schools were closed. Late in the day, out-of-town visitors began arriving for the Army-Navy football game. Every "Black Friday," no traffic policeman was permitted to take the day off. The division was placed on 12 hours of duty, and even the police band was ordered to Center City. It was not unusual to see a trombone player directing traffic. Two officers were assigned to intersections along Market Street to control the throngs of pedestrians. The department also placed police officers outside parking garages because the "lot filled" signs failed to deter motorists from lining up on the curb lane outside the garage. This reduced street size from two lanes to one. This caused traffic to back up and block traffic at the next intersection. This caused massive gridlock. In 1959, the old Evening Bulletin assigned me to police administration, working out of City Hall. Nathan Kleger was the police reporter who covered Center City for the Bulletin. In the early 1960s, Kleger and I put together a front-page story for Thanksgiving and we appropriated the police term "Black Friday" to describe the terrible traffic conditions. [W]e used it year after year. Then television picked it up. One popular alternative explanation for the origins of "Black Friday" is that it is the day on which retailers finally began to show a profit for the year (in accounting terms, moving from being "in the red" to "in the black") after operating at an overall loss from January through mid-November: If the day is the year's biggest for retailers, why is it called Black Friday? Because it is a day retailers make profits  black ink, said Grace McFeeley of Cherry Hill Mall. "I think it came from the media," said William Timmons of Strawbridge & Clothier. "It's the employees, we're the ones who call it Black Friday," said Belle Stephens of Moorestown Mall. "We work extra hard. It's a long hard day for the employees." However, the earliest known use of this accounting-related explanation for the origins of the term "Black Friday" dates from 1981, many years after Philadelphia police had been using the phrase in reference to traffic issues. Barrett, Joseph P.  "This Friday Was Black with Traffic."     The Philadelphia Inquirer.  25 November 1994. Drum, Kevin.  "Black Friday."     Mother Jones.  26 February 2010.