The Tea Party of the United States is a new political movement.
Claim:  Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2009] Mailing Tea Bags to Washington, DC What a wonderful idea, I just wish it had been mine. I have a feeling that USPS is going to have a hell of a lot of tea to contend with, after all it only costs 42 cents to send a message, hopefully heard round the world!!! So please mark your Calendars There's a storm abrewin'. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us. We don't work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO's over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes. I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budget and I don't ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No one listened. They voted for it, pork and all. O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won't make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the reckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and "stimulate" without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall. So, here's the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington, D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, "New American Tea Party", several sites will come up. If you aren't the 'protester' type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes. This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the 'New American Tea Party' and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will. Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500. Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the website for more information about the 'New American Tea Party'. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can't guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.. What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent. We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late. Of course, if you agree with the way things are being done now, just delete!!!!! Origins:   On the evening of 16 December 1773, a group of American colonists who called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" furtively boarded the ship Dartmouth, which was docked in Boston harbor with a load of East India Company tea.  Working  through the night, the colonists dumped over 45 tons of tea into the waters of the harbor as a protest against the Tea Act passed by the British government.  The event, which came to be known as "The Boston Tea Party," was one of the seminal events of the American Revolution and remains one of the most iconic moments in all of U.S. history. In 2009, the iconic status of that event was referenced in the name of the New American Tea Party, described as a "coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government" who have begun coordinating events around the U.S. with the announced goal of protesting largesse in federal spending.   The item quoted above seeks to take up the "Tea Party" spirit by encouraging Americans to mail tea bags to the White House on 1 April 2009 (in order to arrive by 15 April, the day on which income tax filings are due) as a form of symbolic protest against "the way Washington is handling our taxes."  (The concept is vaguely reminiscent of a 1955 campaign that had citizens mailing small bags of wheat to President Eisenhower to encourage the U.S. to provide surplus food to flood victims in China.) New American Tea Party events wheat Of course, everyone is free to choose whether or not to participate in symbolic protests, so such actions don't have much in the way of verifiable "true" or "false" aspects  the only issue is how effective the chosen form of protest is likely to be.  With that in mind, we offer a few caveats for those inclined to participate:  An entry in the New American Tea Party blog states that they don't endorse the effort: entry We have received hundreds of questions about an email circulating that urges folks to send tea to Washington on April 1st or April 15th.  This effort is not endorsed by the New American Tea Party, so we can't answer any questions about it.  Given the more stringent security procedures for mail handling enacted after 9/11, there are no guarantees envelopes containing mailed teabags will get through to the White House without being discarded or significantly delayed, something also noted in the New American Tea Party blog: It is a neat idea, but things like that will likely either be held up getting scanned or end up getting thrown away due to security precautions. (A subsequent New American Tea Party blog entry suggested that just mailing the labels from tea bags might be a way of avoiding this potential pitfall.) entry  Envelopes that cannot be run through USPS sorting machines are subject to an additional 20 postage surcharge. A mailed item is considered  nonmachinable if: nonmachinable  It is a square letter (the minimum size for a square envelope is 5 x 5 inches) It is too rigid  does not bend easily It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter It contains items that cause the surface to be uneven The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5  The specific aims of the tea bag protest are not clearly articulated in the e-mail quoted above, so senders might wish to include explanatory notes with their envelopes stating the desired outcome, such as: "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that provide money to businesses without provisions for strict transparency and accountability in how that money is to be spent" or  "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that include earmarks." Last updated:  12 March 2009    Idaho Statesman.  "Local Group Stages 'Reckless Federal Spending' Protest."   27 February 2009.    WJXT-TV [Jacksonville, FL].  "'Tea Party' Protests Wasteful Spending."   MSNBC.  2 March 2009.
Following the 94th Academy Awards ceremony on March 27, 2022, a false tweet from Twitter user @fondasbian was posted with a decades-old video of actor Jane Fonda with the caption, "The Oscars only started providing closed captions in 2021." false tweet Twitter Jane Fonda Oscars While this misleading message was somewhat overshadowed by an incident involving comedian Chris Rock and actor Will Smith, that didn't stop the tweet from receiving tens of thousands of combined retweets and likes. Those shares only served to boost the false claim. an incident Chris Rock Will Smith The tweet in question claimed: "Jane Fonda signed her best actress speech in 1979 because the Oscars wouldn't offer closed captions. The Oscars only started providing closed captions in 2021." Jane Fonda Oscars Oscars   In the brief 30-second video from the 51st Academy Awards in 1979, Fonda did sign part of her acceptance speech for the hearing-impaired. She was accepting an award for best actress for her role in the 1978 film, "Coming Home." One of the main characters in the film is a disabled veteran. He was portrayed by actor Jon Voight. Fonda disabled veteran Jon Voight The full speech was uploaded to the official Oscars YouTube channel: the official Oscars YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_73XeE8fo&t=157sThe portion included in the tweet is bolded below: I'm so happy. I wanted to win very much because I'm so proud of "Coming Home," and I want many people to see the movie. I'm signing part of what I'm saying tonight because while we were making the movie we all became more aware of the problems of the handicapped. Over 14 million people are deaf. They are the invisible handicapped and can't share this evening. So this is my way of acknowledging them. The tweet in question claimed that the Oscars first started providing closed captions in 2021. In truth, the Oscars had been providing closed captioning for decades. Oscars Oscars On March 27, 1982, Wisconsin's Leader-Telegram newspaper published that a brand new way of providing captions during live television would be debuting at that year's Oscars: Leader-Telegram published Oscars A new method for providing closed captioning for hearing-impaired viewers will be unveiled by the National Captioning Institute during ABC-TV coverage of the 54th annual Academy Awards presentations March 29. Called Real Time, the method is a form of electronic computerized shorthand which will allow hearing-impaired viewers to receive closed captions throughout the entire telecast, including acceptance speeches the moment they are spoken. NCI spokesman John E. D. Ball said Real Time involves a courtroom style stenotype machine and a computer capable of transmitting phonetic symbols into words. Twitter user @bubbaprog pointed out that the March 27 tweet from @fondasbian was misleading. "This tweet has 5,000 retweets and it's completely false," @bubbaprog tweeted. "The Academy Awards were literally the first live program to utilize closed-captioning in 1982 and have been captioned ever since." pointed out tweeted It's true that the Oscars had featured closed captions during every ceremony since 1982. However, while the Academy Awards were the first program to utilize closed captions during a live broadcast, similar technology for prerecorded programs (not live) had already been partially implemented two years before. Oscars On March 16, 1980, the Chicago Tribune newspaper published that NBC, ABC, and PBS announced they would begin to "inaugurate a new service designed to enlarge the world of prime-time TV for Americans with impaired hearing." Chicago Tribune published According to the article, programs that received the first closed captions on American television were the "Wonderful World of Disney," ABC's "Sunday Night Movie," "Eight Is Enough," "Barney Miller," "Masterpiece Theater," "Once Upon a Classic," and "Mystery Theater." In sum, no, the Oscars did not wait until 2021 to start providing closed captions. The Academy Award ceremonies had been broadcast with closed captions since 1982 and were the first live program to utilize the technology. Oscars In August 2020, a photograph showing the figures "1f1b" written on the back window of a vehicle started to circulate on social media along with a warning about an alleged tactic being used by sex traffickers to flag potential targets. Those sharing this meme claimed that this term stood for either "1 female 1 boy," or "1 female 1 baby," and that cars were being tagged with these codes by sex traffickers. The meme received a viral boost when it was posted to actor James Woods' Twitter account: posted   The text read:  A very close friend of mine was out today doing shopping with her child at the Bricktown Walmart. When she left the store a lady stopped her and made her aware of what was written on her back window (1f1b) im just going to assume that it stands for 1 female 1 baby. She was then informed that this is now how sex traffickers are tagging cars.. please please mothers, fathers, grandparents.. aunts & uncles. Be AWARE! Feel free to share! Wont be tagging my friend for personal reasons. The claims made in this viral social media post are unfounded. Police in Bricktown, New Jersey, have said that they are unaware of any such activity. But before we get to the police statement about this matter, let's take a look at the game of telephone that helped this rumor go viral.  The text of this post states that this happened to a "friend of mine." When we read a little further, we see that this "friend" was warned about this new criminal tactic by a random stranger. Not a police officer, a news reporter, or even a Walmart employee  just an anonymous "lady." The original post received a few thousand shares, but this post received far wider circulation. And the farther we moved away from the rumor's origins, the muddier the details got. One poster, for instance, informed people that this incident took place in Bricktown, Oklahoma City, despite the fact that there is no Walmart in this location. post poster When we try to boil down this rumor to its origins, we see that the claim is based on something someone saw on Facebook, written by a person claiming that their friend had heard from a stranger that the code "1f1b" was being used by sex traffickers to flag future targets. In other words, this rumor doesn't exactly have credible origins.  The local Patch website reported: reported Brick Township Sgt. Jim Kelly said the department had not been notified. "We have no reports for anything like this," Kelly said. He also said the department has not been alerted by state or federal authorities of any information that indicates criminals are marking vehicles "as a method for anything." It's simply another Facebook rumor without any facts, Kelly said. A new variant of this rumor popped up on social media in July 2021.    AND THIS, THIS IS WHY I CARRY! Not only do I carry but Im educated in how to defend myself if ever put in a circumstance like this!! Please be aware of your surroundings AT ALL TIMES!7/27/2021Today around 3:30pm between Prairie Grove and Hogeye, this truck had a black Tahoe stop in front of it. A man got out and began asking the female driver of this truck for directions. She rolled down her window but had her seat belt on and doors locked. As the man approached he punched her in her left eye and cut her arm. Thankfully she was carrying and grabbed her gun. He took off. She called the police and they advised her this mark 1FW on her back window is a human trafficking mark. She was marked somewhere and this man followed and when she was on a road alone, he made a move to take her. Thankfully, she is home with her family tonight. Please be aware of your surroundings. We are told they often mark mailboxes and trash cans too. This particular marking stands for one female white. Nor was this the first time that this type of baseless warning has gone viral on social media. In July 2019, for example, we wrote about the false claim that sex traffickers were flagging targets by placing zip ties on houses, mailboxes, or vehicles. In December of that year, a false rumor circulated that sex traffickers were laying down in front of vehicles in order to trick them into stopping. That same month saw the spread of another false rumor holding that roses were being placed on cars to mark potential targets.  false claim false rumor false rumor Human trafficking is a real problem in the world, but the schemes described above are not based on any real-world threats. In fact, The Polaris Project, a non-profit that runs the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, writes that the forced kidnapping aspect of the aforementioned rumors is one of the most prevalent myths when it comes to trafficking: The Polaris Project Myth: Its always or usually a violent crime. Fact: The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as, tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.     Polaris Project.  "Myths, Facts, and Statistics."
  Retrieved 24 August 2020. Wall, Karen.  "Rumor Of Sex Traffickers at Brick Walmart Unfounded, Police Say."
  Patch.  13 August 2020. Updated [Aug. 2, 2021]: July 2021 variant added. Claim:  John McCain said he would define the income level that divides the middle class from the rich as $5 million. Status:  True. Example:   [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have heard many times that John McCain said (paraphrasing his comment, I'm sure) that the middle class includes people who make under $5 million. I am trying to find that IN PRINT to forward to relatives who say it is untrue. Origins:  On 16 August 2008, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain made back-to-back appearances at the Presidential Candidates Forum held at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where they responded to questions posed to them by Pastor Rick Warren.  During that forum, Pastor Warren asked both candidates to define "rich" for the purposes of taxation (although, since the candidates appeared separately, the question was not posed to both of them with the same wording). Presidential Candidates Forum To Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Pastor Warren said: "OK. Taxes, this is a real simple question. Define rich. I mean give me a number, Is it $50,000, $100,000, 200,000? Everybody keeps talking about who we're going to tax. How can you define that?"  Senator Obama didn't quite answer the question directly, saying that an income level of less than $150,000 per year was middle class and that his tax plan would call for a "modest increase" in taxes for those making more than $250,000 per year: Look, the  here's how I think about it. Here's how I think about it. And this is reflected in my tax plan. If you are making $150,000 a year or less, as a family, then you're middle class or you may be poor. But $150,000 down you're basically middle class, obviously depends on the region where you're living. I would argue that if you're making more than $250,000, then you're in the top three percent, four percent of this country. You're doing well. Now, these things are all relative. And I'm not suggesting that everybody is making over $250,000 is living on easy street. But the question that I think we have to ask ourselves is, if we believe in good schools, if we believe in good roles, if we want to make sure that kids can go to college, if we don't want to leave a mountain of debt for the next generation. Then we've got to pay for these things, they don't come for free, and it is irresponsible. I believe it is irresponsible intergenerationally for us to invest or for us to spend $10 billion a month on a war and not have a way of paying for it. That, I think, is unacceptable. So nobody likes to pay taxes. I haven't sold 25 million books but I've been selling some books lately, and so I write a pretty big check to Uncle Sam. Nobody likes it. What I can say is under the approach I'm taking, if you make $150,000 or less, you will see a tax cut. If you're making $250,000 a year or more, you're going to see a modest increase. What I'm trying to do is create a sense of balance, and fairness in our tax code. One thing I think we can all agree on, is that it should be simpler so that you don't have all these loopholes and big stacks of stuff that you've got to comb through, which wastes a huge amount of money and allows special interests to take advantage of things that ordinary people cannot take advantage of. To Republic candidate John McCain, Pastor Warren said: "Ok, on taxes, define 'rich.' Everybody talks about taxing the rich, but not the poor, the middle class. At what point  give me a number, give me a specific number  where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it $100,000, is it $50,000, is it $200,000? How does anybody know if we don't know what the standards are?"  Senator McCain responded by stating that he didn't think "rich" should be solely defined by income level and that the question was moot because he wanted cut spending rather than increase taxes on the rich; along the way he mentioned an income level of $5 million (immediately noting that "I'm sure that comment will be distorted"): Some of the richest people I've ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich should be defined by a home, a good job, an education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don't want to take any money from the rich  I want everybody to get rich. I don't believe in class warfare or re-distribution of the wealth. But I can tell you, for example, there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as  quote  "rich," my friends, and want to raise their taxes and want to raise their payroll taxes. Let's have  keep taxes low. Let's give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the government take over the health care system in America. So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million? But seriously, I don't think you can  I don't think seriously that  the point is that I'm trying to make here, seriously  and I'm sure that comment will be distorted  but the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues. And, my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in way that mortgaged our kids' futures. Although this item is "true" in the strictly literal sense that John McCain did make the remark attributed to him, how much importance to place upon it is a subjective issue. Predictably, Democrats painted Senator McCain's remarks as indicative of his being out of touch with ordinary Americans and desirous of giving tax breaks to the rich, while the McCain campaign dismissed the candidate's statement as an obvious joke. (A Democratic National Committee video spotlighted Senator McCain's "$5 million" statement while omitting the remarks that surrounded it; the full exchange in context can be viewed here.)  Meanwhile, economists asked to comment on the issue observed that the definition of "rich" is a murky one, and that the dividing line between "poor" and "middle class" (rather than between "middle class" and "rich") is probably the more significant one: video here Economists said in interviews that neither candidate was wrong because there are no agreed-upon definitions for the terms that describe income segments. "To be fair to both of them, 'rich' is an adjective," said James P. Smith, a senior economist at the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think thank in Santa Monica. "Economic science is not going to tell you that 'this' is the cutoff point." Yet the $5-million level, Smith said, includes "almost nobody." Experts said that of all the households in the nation, fewer than one-tenth of 1% had an annual  income of $5 million or more. Ken Goldstein, an economist for the Conference Board, a business-research group based in New York, said he would define rich as income about $500,000 or more. "If you set the bar at half a million, you're talking about the top 1% of taxpayers. If you think about the last eight years, those are the folks who have benefited the most." Other economists said they would have gone with a lower figure. Even the moderator who asked the question of the candidates, Pastor Rick Warren of Orange County's Saddleback Church, did not seem to anticipate a reply beyond the lower six figures, urging each man to "give me a specific number ... is it 100,000 [dollars], is it 50, 200?" Most ordinary Americans tend to massage the definitions of such terms in an attempt to crowd themselves into what many consider the least offensive category. "If you do surveys, 95% of people think they are middle class," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that has analyzed the candidates' tax proposals. "This is including people who are objectively quite poor and people who are objectively quite rich." Burman added: "I guess it says something nice about America that rich people don't want to act like they're better than anybody else and poor people don't like complaining about how tough it is to pay their bills." Economists tend to spend more time debating the definition of poor, in large part because that cutoff has consequences for an array of social programs designed to assist those whose incomes fall below the poverty line. Last updated:  13 September 2008    Sources:   Miller, Greg.  "Who's Rich? McCain and Obama Have Very different Definitions."   Los Angeles Times.  18 August 2008.    Montopoli, Brian.  "DNC Looks to Exploit McCain's '$5 Million' Comment."   CBSNews.com.  19 August 2008.    Reuters.  "Obama Rips McCain for $5 Million 'Rich' Definition."   18 August 2008. 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). Claim:  Diet Coke (or Diet Pepsi) contains more calories than claimed, but the company gets away with the deception by paying a yearly fine.  Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003] There was an old rumour that stated that a particular diet soda company (Coke I believe) paid a fine to print their cans as stating that the soda had 'just one calorie'.  According to the rumour, companies who knowingly printed misinformation on the nutritional facts of their product would have to pay a fine.  The company in question figured it could make more money by convincing people the product only had 1 calorie than it would cost to pay the fine, meaning a higher profit margin for them.  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] I heard a rumor today that Diet Coke actually contains 40 calories, and the Coca-Cola company pays a huge fine to the FDA every year to keep "0 calories" on the can.  Have you heard anything of this?  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Comment: Is it true that Pepsi One is really not one calorie and that Pepsi Co. pays a fine every year for false advertising (because the calorie count is a lot higher than that)? Origins:  How long this particular belief about low-calorie sodas has been around is anyone's guess, but we have recorded sightings of it dating back to 1990. We've encountered claims of Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, or Pepsi One (which are listed as containing zero, zero, and one calories per 12-oz. can, respectively) actually containing 25, 50, 70, or 90 calories, in each case with the parent   company's paying an annual fine to continue falsely listing the beverage's caloric content.  (A can of non-diet cola typically contains about 120 calories.) The rumor associates most strongly with Diet Coke (which is known as Coca-Cola Light outside the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Great Britain).  In the U.S., laws governing the disclosure of nutritional and caloric content of ingestibles prevent the rumor from being true. The Federal Trade Commission serves as the watchdog in this area: under the Federal Trade Commission Act, it is empowered to "prevent persons, partnerships, or corporations" from using "unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce." At various times in its history it has fined corporations for their having made false or misleading nutritional claims about their products. Such fines are a reaction to what has already taken place; they are not grants of immunity against continued breaking of the rules. Consumers have legal remedy available to them against corporations that have deceived them through certain provisions of the Lanham Act. Many other countries have similar safeguards in place. Federal Trade Commission Act Lanham Act Common sense should also serve to rule out what the whispers say about an annual payoff.  For health reasons, many potential consumers of diet drinks have to carefully monitor what they ingest. Were the rumor true, diabetics with a love of Diet Coke, for instance, would experience glucose levels spiraling out of control. Imagine the lawsuits resulting from  that! This false belief enjoys a measure of popularity because of what it says about common perception of large companies and of the government agencies tasked with shielding consumers from harm: that one will bamboozle its customers for the sake of financial profit, the other will sell out those it is mandated to protect, and neither is to be trusted. Such misgivings also find voice in other rumors, such as the one about bananas imported from Costa Rica being infected with a flesh-eating bacteria. bananas If there is the tiniest bit of truth to this rumor, it's that even though sodas such as Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are advertised as having zero calories, they do have some caloric content from ingredients such as artificial sweeteners, citric acid, and caramel coloring.  However, the number of calories per can is still less than one, and FDA regulations allow any food product that contains fewer than five calories per serving to be advertised as calorie-free. Barbara "calorie countered" Mikkelson Last updated:  26 August 2013 In March 2021, a Pepsi.com Facebook page  no affiliation with the official Pepsi Facebook page  posted a message claiming that the company was giving away mini fridges in honor of its 100th anniversary:   This is not a genuine giveaway from Pepsi.  For one, this picture comes from the "Pepsi.com" Facebook page. This page, which was was created in March 2021, is not affiliated with PepsiCo. The company's real Facebook page can be found here. When this scam was brought to Pepsi's attention, a representative wrote on Facebook: "Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This is not a legitimate promotion." March 2021 here wrote It should also be noted that PepsiCo was founded in 1965. In other words, this "100th anniversary" giveaway is about 45 years early. (If we count from the invention of the soft drink Pepsi-Cola, which has been around since 1898, this anniversary scam is 20 years late.) 1965 The above-displayed image represents a common Facebook scam. While users are promised a free gift (such as a vacation, a grocery coupon, or, in the case above, a mini fridge), they often have to provide personal information in order to "claim" the prize. There is, however, no prize to claim.  We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers On the evening of Feb. 11, 2024, shortly afterthe Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII,an image of U.S. President Joe Biden with glowing red laser eyes circulated online, along with the caption, "Just like we drew it up."Screenshots of the post indicated that Biden's official account on X (formerly Twitter) made the post. image Screenshots The post referenced the "Dark Brandon" meme  that is, imagerydepicting Biden as a nonhuman villain with laser eyes and is a satirical response to critics. Prior to the championship game, many right-wingconspiracy theorists made posts about Democrats secretly scheming with Chiefs tight Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift to help Biden's 2024 presidential campaign. They believed high-profile Democrats worked with the NFL to rig the season so that Kelce and Swift would end up at the highly watched event and endorse Biden there, CNN reported. Dark Brandon depicting response conspiracy CNN reported (Screenshot via Reddit) Biden's official X account did indeed share the image, a reference to the Dark Brandon meme, along with the words, "Just like we drew it up," after the Chiefs' Super Bowl victory. We thus rated the claim  The original tweet is viewable on Biden's X account and archived here. (The account is distinct from the one he uses for presidential matters, which is @POTUS.) here POTUS Just like we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 12, 2024 February 12, 2024  The notion that Biden or Democrats had any role in the outcome of Super Bowl LVIII was nothing but an unfounded conspiracy theory. We reached out to the White House asking what it meant by, or why it authored, the post  which appeared to be trolling people who believed the conspiracy theory to be true. We'll update this report if, or when, we receive a response. unfounded conspiracy theory As wereported before, critics of the president started referring to him as "Brandon" around 2021, and memes depicting him as a cartoonish villain with laser eyessurfacedaround that time, too. As a response, supporters of the president  including White House DeputyPressSecretary Andrew Bates (tweet below) attempted toreclaim the "Dark Brandon" imagery tomock people who genuinely posted it. reported surfaced White House DeputyPressSecretary Andrew Bates reclaim  According to The Associated Press, the "Brandon" name stemmed from an incident in which a reporter mistook a crowd'schant of "F*** Joe Biden" for "Let's go, Brandon" in support of a NASCAR driver. Since then, anti-Biden people have used "Let's go, Brandon" as a rallying cry, putting it on T-shirts, merchandise and more. The Associated Press "Dark Brandon" memes  i.e. images of alaser-eyed Biden  are an apparent attempt by the president's supporters to comment on the conspiratorial nature of some of his critics. Bidenreferencedthe internet trend at the 2023 White House Correspondents Association dinner. referenced Kaczynski, Andrew and Oliver Darcy. "Right-Wing Media Figures Target Taylor Swift with Absurd Conspiracy Theory Ahead of the Super Bowl | CNN Business." CNN, 30 Jan. 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/media/taylor-swift-super-bowl-right-wing-conspiracy/index.html. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. "'Let's Go Brandon': A Collection of Stories." Snopes, 2 Nov. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//collections/lets-go-brandon/.Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. Navlakha, Meera. "Joe Biden's Laser-Eyed Alter Ego Returns for Super Bowl Meme." Mashable, 12 Feb. 2024, https://mashable.com/article/joe-biden-dark-brandon-meme-taylor-swift-donald-trump.Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. Romano, Aja. "The 'Dark Brandon' Meme  and Why the Biden Campaign Has Embraced It  Explained." Vox, 11 Aug. 2022, https://www.vox.com/culture/23300286/biden-dark-brandon-meme-maga-why-confusing-explained.Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. Sforza, Lauren. "Biden Trolls MAGA Republicans with Super Bowl Tweet." The Hill, 12 Feb. 2024, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4462750-biden-trolls-maga-republicans-super-bowl-tweet/.Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. Thompson, Alex, and Allie Bice. "Dark Brandon Begins: How WH Aides Appropriated the Meme of Their Boss as an Underworld Kin." POLITICO, 8 Aug. 2022, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2022/08/08/how-a-meme-of-biden-as-an-underworld-king-became-appropriated-by-his-aides-00050405.Accessed 12 Feb. 2024. In April 2020, Facebook posts circulating online offered coupons supposedly good for two free large pizzas from the Domino's pizza chain:  Users who clicked on the offer were taken to an external website where they were instructed to answer survey questions in order to receive their coupons:  After completing the questionnaire, however, users were then required to click a button to share the "offer" with their Facebook friends before they could retrieve their coupons. Those who complied by spamming their friends were then allowed to click a "Receive the Coupon" button, but there was no actual coupon to receive. Like innumerable other "free merchandise" offers on Facebook, this offer was another variation of a common scam. other free merchandise offers Facebook We've had many occasions to alert readers to this kind of fraud: These types of viral coupon scams often involve websites and social media pages set up to mimic those of legitimate companies. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who want to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions. The Better Business Bureau offers consumers several general tips to avoid getting scammed: offers consumers On 8 June 2016, the Facebook page "God First Ministries" shared a message claiming that posts containing the word "Amen" were being banned by the social media site: Speak up America! Don't let our Freedom of Speech be silenced!Share to show FB we will say AMEN!    The comment section of the Facebook post displayed above quickly filled with messages (including many simply consisting of the word "amen"). On 17 June 2016, more than week after this message was posted to Facebook, it had accumulated close to 7,000 comments and had been shared more than 60,000 times. But curiously, Facebook had not deleted this message:   In addition to the proliferation of "amen" posts on Facebook, several groups and pages containing the word "Amen" (such as Peruvian band Amen, the advertising agency Amen Communications, and the political group Trump Amen Time To Win) are still operating on the web site, showing that the word has not been flagged for removal, either. Amen Amen Communications Trump Amen Time To Win The Facebook post displayed here (like all "type amen" posts) is a version of the common like farming scams, in which a Facebook page shares a salacious, outrageous, and often inaccurate post for the sole purpose of gaining likes and shares. Typing "amen"  or anything else  below a post contributes to its popularity on the site and bypasses certain algorithmic controls Facebook has against scams in advertisings. This social popularity can later be leveraged for monetary gain.  like farming popularity Facebook hasn't banned "type amen" posts. However, since Facebook is a private company and users of the site have to agree to its terms of service in order to sign up for an account, placing controls on its content would not constitute a violation of freedom of speech. terms As news broke in June 2018 that children were being separated from their families by immigration agents as they crossed into the United States from Mexico, an intense round of whataboutism ensued as the usual bots, paid trolls, unpaid trolls, and useful idiots took the opportunity to claim that President Barack Obama did the same thing during his time in office (he didn't). One piece of "evidence" supporting this argument was a photograph of a group of protesters holding a sign reading "Obama Don't Separate Me From My Mommy."  whataboutism he didn't This image was frequently shared along with statements claiming that it destroyed "the liberal narrative," and that Obama, too, had kept children in cages after separating them from their mothers: statements   This is indeed a genuine photograph that was taken during the Obama era in 2014. However, there major differences between the immigration policy at the center of the pictured protest and the child detention centers that were at the center of public outrage in June 2018. In a nutshell: Families were separated under President Barack Obama as the result of deportation of undocumented people from the United States. Families were separated under President Donald Trump as parents and children were put into different detention facilities after they crossed the border to ask for asylum in the United States. Obama was referred to by some border activists as the "Deporter-in-Chief" during his time in office, as he deported more people from the United States (thanks in part, but not completely, to a change in definition) than any other president in modern history. Many of these deportations resulted in families being separated, because children born in the United States were allowed to stay in the country but their parents were forced to leave.  deported definition A June 2014 article published by the American Civil Liberties Union criticized Obama, saying that he was not living up to the promises he made on immigration during the 2008 campaign, and that deportation was still separating children from their parents under his watch: criticized During the 2008 campaign, Senator Barack Obama seemed to understand their pain and promised to fix our broken immigration system. He promised to enact comprehensive immigration reform and create a pathway to citizenship for the millions of hardworking people who labor for little money at often thankless jobs to make their children's lives  and for that matter our lives a little bit easier. He pledged to no longer separate children from their parents. Today 4 million children call an undocumented immigrant mom or dad. Children who hug their parents extra tight before they leave for work for fear they'll never see them again. The viral photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Jose Luis Magana on 2 August 2014 as demonstrators asked Obama to modify his deportation policies. Associated Press Obama attempted to mitigate the issue a few months later when he announced the "Immigration Accountability Executive Action plan. One of the central points of the plan was to focus on felons rather than families; another was to provide undocumented immigrants already living in the United States a chance to avoid deportation by passing a background check and paying taxes.  Immigration Accountability Executive Action plan This photograph shows a group of protesters urging President Barack Obama to modify his policies in order to ease deportations that result in family separations. The sign does not refer to children that were taken away from their parents and placed in detention centers. Timm, Jane.  "Fact check: Did Obama Administration Separate Families?."
  NBC News.  19 June 2018. Bichir, Demian.  "Exiled: The Obama Administration's Horrifying Deportation Record."
  ACLU.  10 June 2014.