Illegal Alien Denied Cops Service, 'We Don't Serve Pigs'
On 18 July 2016 the web site Conservative Daily Post published an article reporting that an "illegal alien" had been fired after she declined to serve police officers at an Alabama McDonald's, declaring that we dont serve pigs. article The outrage-provoking article was set against the backdrop of a month of tensions between police officers and community members in July 2016. The shooting deaths of civilians Alton Sterling and Philando Castile led to national protests, and police officers were killed in ambush shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Alton Sterling Philando Castile Dallas Baton Rouge In that period, several rumors of police officers "shunned" or mistreated at restaurants circulated online. A group of policemen in Pennsylvania said they paid the bill of a couple who refused to sit near them, a sheriff in Washington reported that a Chinese restaurant's owners had said law enforcement was not welcome there, and officers in Baton Rouge maintained that a server at Las Palmas restaurant had put mucus in their drinks.  Pennsylvania reported Las Palmas After those claims became virally popular, Conservative Daily Post asserted: Its pretty sad to look around and see how police officers are being treated right now. They put their lives on the line every single day to defend our freedoms within the local community. We are more than thankful for our military, yet we fail to recognize the very people that keep us safe in our homes at night. Police officers dont get paid a lot either. They knowingly walk into possible gunfights almost every day. They do it because they heard the call to serve. They do it because they are true American patriots. Well, there was just another case of disrespect against cops. In Alabama, last week a cashier decided that she didnt want to serve the cops. Maria Englesia pictured above told the officers to get out of here because they didnt serve pigs. This was blatant. McDonalds stepped in as soon as they heard what happened. They immediately fired the woman and issued a formal apology to the police department of Alabama. Social media users accepted that report at face value: @McDonalds #Illegal Alien Denied Cops Service, We Dont Serve Pigs https://t.co/5n3esRSePy #BoycottMcDonalds @McDonalds #Illegal https://t.co/5n3esRSePy #BoycottMcDonalds  Jan Johnson (@JanJohnsonFL) July 18, 2016 July 18, 2016  Illegal Alien McDonald's clerk tells police: "We don't serve your kind" Get the fuck out of my country, you bitch!! https://t.co/3HGU4ml3ow  obamasucksballs (@obamasucksballs) July 19, 2016 https://t.co/3HGU4ml3ow July 19, 2016  Conservative Daily Post claimed McDonald's had fired the employee and apologized, but no mention of any such controversy (by the company or by commenters) was visible on the hamburger chain's Twitter account, nor on McDonald's Facebook page save for one cryptic comment: Twitter  Aside from the single comment, no one appeared to be asking about any incidents involving a Maria Englesia in Alabama.  Had the story been genuine, it would have generated news coverage from other outlets.  Conservative Daily Post's article also waved another very large red flag:  The image doesn't depict a "Maria Englesia" or anyone else recently fired from any McDonald's, anywhere, for any reason. It's a stock photograph dating to at least 2012:  Conservative Daily News doesn't carry any sort of warning or disclaimer advising readers about hosting fabricated content, but this story was clearly untrue. No public apology was tendered by McDonald's over an employee's purported refusal to serve Alabama cops, no news outlets or blogs reported on the incident, and the image of the woman "pictured above" was a stock photograph swiped from Getty.
As many others have pointed out, one of the pitfalls of the Internet as a means of communications is that it can be used to spread misinformation as rapidly as accurate information, but all too often the former is set loose to spread far and wide, and correction comes too late, if at all. Here is a case in point of why even a simple memory of a recent event  a television appearance by someone of prominence  spread via e-mail cannot be trusted as accurate. Even though the gist of the message is true, nearly every detail it contains is wrong. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Bryant Gumbel recently interviewed Billy Graham's daughter on the Today Show.Gumbel: "Why didn't God stop this or do something about this?" Billy Graham's daughter: "For years we have told God we didn't want Him in our schools. We didn't want Him in our government and we didn't want Him in our finances and God was being a perfect gentleman in doing just what we asked Him to do. We need to make up our mind  do we want God or do we not want Him. We cannot just ask Him in when disaster strikes." Bryant Gumbel was silent. On September 13, Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of the Reverend Billy Graham, appeared on on CBS's Early Show, not NBC's Today program. She was interviewed by Jane Clayson, not Bryant Gumbel. Neither the question posed to her nor her response is quoted accurately above. Her interviewer was not "silent" after her remarks; the interview proceeded as before after this exchange: Jane Clayson: I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say? Anne Graham Lotz: I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it. Ms. Lotz did say, in effect, that we cannot simultaneously reject God in our daily lives yet still expect His protection when disaster strikes, but now a paraphrase of one response she made in the course of a longer interview has been offered as a direct quote, and all the details about the context in which she made the remark have been gotten wrong. Additional Information:    Transcript of Anne Graham Lotz Interview On April 29, 2020, a large asteroid is expected to fly by earth at a distance of approximately 4 million miles. That may be of interest to stargazers, but the previous sentence isn't very alarming or attention-grabbing. Yet many media outlets wrote headlines about this incoming asteroid as if it posed an immediate and catastrophic threat to the planet. An article in the Daily Express, for instance, was headlined: "Asteroid warning: NASA tracks a 4KM asteroid approach - Could end civilisation if it hits." The site used a similar message when promoting this article on Twitter:  headlined   While these headlines may bring clicks, they also may lead readers to falsely believe that this asteroid poses an immediate threat to life on Earth. That isn't the case. While Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) will approach Earth in April 2020, the asteroid is not expected to come within 3.9 million miles of the planet.  NASA is constantly monitoring the skies for asteroids and meteors that pose a potential threat to Earth. When these near-Earth objects (NEOs) are discovered, NASA monitors them to find out when they will approach Earth, how fast they will be traveling, how large they are, and how close they will get. All of this data is publicly available on the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) website.  Center for Near Earth Object Studies Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) was first discovered (as its name implies) in 1998, so this asteroid isn't making a sudden and scary appearance above Earth. NASA has been monitoring it for more than two decades and has learned quite a bit. For instance, the asteroid is relatively large with a diameter between 1.1 and 2.5 miles, and it will be traveling at just under 20,000 mph when it makes its closest approach to Earth.  discovered While an asteroid of this size would cause catastrophic damage if it hit Earth, there's practically no chance that will happen in April 2020. According to NASA, this asteroid won't come within 3.9 million miles of Earth. In other words, it will approach no closer than about 16 times the distance between us and the moon. Asteroid Watch, the official Twitter account of the CNEOS, attempted to quell fears about this asteroid, writing that it will "safely pass" Earth and that NASA did not issue a "warning" about a possible catastrophic collision. Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) is not currently listed on NASA's list of potential future Earth impact events.  Twitter account  potential future Earth impact events CNEOS writes (emphasis ours):  CNEOS  On a daily basis, about one hundred tons of interplanetary material drifts down to the Earths surface. Most of the smallest interplanetary particles that reach the Earths surface are the tiny dust particles that are released by comets as their ices vaporize in the solar neighborhood. The vast majority of the larger interplanetary material that reaches the Earths surface originates as the collision fragments of asteroids that have run into one another some eons ago. With an average interval of about 10,000 years, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 100 meters would be expected to reach the Earths surface and cause local disasters or produce the tidal waves that can inundate low lying coastal areas. On an average of every several hundred thousand years or so, asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters. In this case, the impact debris would spread throughout the Earths atmosphere so that plant life would suffer from acid rain, partial blocking of sunlight, and from the firestorms resulting from heated impact debris raining back down upon the Earths surface. Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches. It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterize their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories. [...] No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs. Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted. At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them. NASA is currently tracking about 20,000 NEOs. While these objects routinely pass by Earth without incident, every now and again a media outlet will write an outlandish story about how one of these objects is posed to wipe out life on earth. While we've seen several of these fear-mongering rumors over the years, these "doomsday" asteroids never seem to arrive.  fear-mongering rumors years Kettley, Sebastian.  "Asteroid Warning: NASA Tracks a 4KM Asteroid Approach - Could End Civilisation if it Hits."
  Daily Express.  4 March 2020. Strickland, Ashley.  "Large Asteroid Will Fly by the Earth Next Month, But Won't Hit Us, Reassures NASA."
  CNN.  3 March 2020. Claim:  In 2006, U.S. Senator Barack Obama spoke out against raising the U.S. government debt limit.   Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2011]   'The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.'    Origins:  In 2006, while serving his first term as a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack Obama made the remarks attributed to him above during discussion in the U.S. Senate prior to the call for votes on raising the debt limit. The full text of his remarks in the Senate on 16 March 2006 are:     The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is "trillion" with a "T." That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President's budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we'll spend on Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like    bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans  a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.    But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators Conrad and Feingold, the Senate continues to reject a return to thecommonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending. As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.    Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.    Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here.'' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.    I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.    The shortened quote now attributed to him is a verbatim capture of the opening and closing paragraphs of his remarks of 16 March 2006. (The Senate vote held later that day on a resolution to increase the debt limitpassed by a 52-48 margin, with Senator Obama voting against it.) passed President Obama has undergone a change of position regarding raising the debt limit. In a 15 April 2011 Good Morning America interview, President Obama said this of his reasons for doing so:     Last updated:  7 October 2013    Congressional Record.  "Remarks by Sen. Barack Obama."    16 March 2006.   Farley, Robert.  "Obama Says Reagan Raised Debt Ceiling 18 Times; George W. Bush 7 Times."    St. Petersburg Times.  26 July 2011.   Stephanopoulos, George.  "President Obama One-on-One."    Good Morning America.  15 April 2011.   Werner, Erica.  "WH: Obama Regrets Vote Against Raising Debt Limit."    Associated Press.  11 April 2011. Canada doesnt often get mentioned in political debates in the United States, but our northern neighbor had a cameo in the vice presidential debate, cited as a bastion of low taxes.Seeking to draw a contrast with the tax policies of President Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin native, said, Where I come from, overseas, which is Lake Superior  the Canadians  they drop their tax rates to 15 percent. The average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent.We wondered whether Canada was really as much of a low-tax haven as Ryan indicated.Canadian corporate taxesWe found two measurements of Canada's corporate tax rate from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced industrialized nations. Over the past 15 years, the trendline for both has been consistently downward. Since 1998, the central government corporate rate has declined from 29.12 percent to 15 percent today; while the combination of the central and provincial corporate tax rates has fallen from 42.94 percent to 26.1 percent today.So Ryan is right that Canadas national rate was recently lowered to 15 percent -- the culmination of policies put forward by both center-left prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin and current center-right prime minister Stephen Harper, who took office in 2006. Small businesses today have a special, lower rate of 11 percent.Still, its worth noting that when you take into account average provincial tax rates -- the equivalent of state corporate taxes in the U.S. -- the combined corporate tax rate in Canada rises to 26.1 percent.International comparisonsWhat about Ryans claim that the average tax rate on businesses in  the industrialized world is 25 percent?We can use the same OECD data to check this claim. Averaging the 2012 tax rates for OECD members, we found that the average for the 34 countries studied is just slightly under 25 percent. Thats just as Ryan said.And in case youre wondering, the top U.S. corporate tax rate, including both federal and state taxes, is 39.1 percent. Thats quite a bit higher than Canadas, and since April, it has been the highest corporate tax rate on the books of any OECD nation.Still, the actual tax rate paid by a company will likely be lower than the official rate, due to deductions and exemptions.Our ratingRyan said Canada dropped its corporate tax rates to 15 percent and that the average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent. Hes correct on both counts, though its worth pointing out that provincial taxes boost Canadas rate to 26.1 percent, and that the actual rate paid by specific companies in certain countries, such as the U.S., can be lower than official rates due to deductions and exemptions. We rate Ryans claim Mostly True. Its commonplace for a governor to tout a states economy. Still, Greg Abbott of Texas made us wonder when hetweetedin mid-November 2017: The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation. Abbott, a Republican seeking re-election in 2018, accompanied his tweet with acampaign videoof Abbott smiling at business groundbreakings. The ad flashes headlines about companies opening facilities and adding jobs in Texas. Tagline: And were just getting started. We got started fact-checking Abbotts tweet by asking his office for his backup; we didnt get a response. In July 2017, Abbott made aMostly True claimabout more Texans having jobs than ever. Yet we noticed that when Abbott tweeted about the states jobless rate last month,  October 2017 unemployment rates had yet to be revealed. To get our fix on the latest available data, we fetched Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing that the states impressive 4 percent jobless rate for September 2017 tied the previous record low since 1976. According to the bureau, the state similarly had a 4 percent unemployment rate in November and December 2000, 17 years ago.The state jobless rate in fall 1977, 40 years ago, hovered at 5.2 percent. To our inquiry, a Dallas-based bureau economist, Cheryl Abbot, confirmed our read of monthly seasonally adjusted Texas jobless rates since 1976. Mark J. Perry, who teaches at the University of Michigan-Flint, agreed though Perry, by email, called Abbotts overstatement on this point minor. Texas Unemployment Rate (Seasonally Adjusted), 1976-September 2017       SOURCE: Website,Local Area Unemployment Statistics,Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nov. 16, 2017 (downloaded Nov. 16, 2017) Job gains? By email, the bureau's Abbot showed that Texas didnt lead the country in job gains for September (again, the latest month of available data). In fact, an October 2017 bureaupress releaseindicates Texas wasn't even among the five states that experienced job gains from August to September 2017. From the release: The largest increase in employment occurred in California (+52,200), followed by Washington (+13,800) and Indiana (+11,400). The states also were described as enjoying statistically significant month-to-month gains. In percentage terms, the bureau said, the largest increase occurred in Nebraska (+0.5 percent), followed by Arizona, Indiana, and Washington (+0.4 percent each). California had a 0.4 percent gain, the release said. According to a more detailed bureau chart we checked in mid-November 2017, Texas saw a 0.1 percent decrease in jobs from August to September 2017 by going from 12,328,400 jobs to 12,321,100 jobs. The chart indicates 30 states fared better month to month though that folds in five states showing no percentage gains (or losses). Theres a more encouraging longer view. The bureaus release lists Texas among 28 states with over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment from September 2016 to September 2017. The release said: The largest job gains occurred in California (+280,300), Texas (+256,100), and New York (+93,100)--with the largest percentage gains playing out in Nevada and Utah (+2.5 percent each) followed by Maryland (+2.4 percent). According to an accompanying chart, Texas and Idaho each saw a 2.1 percent increase in jobs over the year, tying for fourth nationally behind Washington state, which saw a 2.2 percent percentage increase in jobs. Abbot wrote: As you can see, the largest monthly increase in jobs in September 2017 occurred in California (+52,200). In percentage terms, Nebraska led among the states with a 0.5-percent gain. California also recorded the largest  over-the-year increase during this period (280,300), followed by Texas (256,100). Our ruling Abbott tweeted: The Texas unemployment rate is now the lowest its been in 40 years & Texas led the nation last month in new job creation. The latest unemployment data posted when Abbott spoke showed Texas with a 4 percent unemployment rate in September 2017 though that didn't set a 40-year record. Rather, it tied the previous 40-year low set in two months of 2000. Abbott didnt provide nor did we find data showing jobs created in each state in October 2017. Federal data otherwise indicate that Texas experienced a slight decrease in jobs from August to September 2017 though the state also was home to more jobs than a year earlier. We rate this claim False. FALSE The statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. UPDATE, Nov. 17, 2017:Two days after Abbott tweeted his claim about the Texas jobless rate, thefederal government reportedthat the state had a 41-year record low 3.9 percent jobless rate in October 2017. On 10 October 2016, an meme appeared featuring a photograph of Hillary Clinton accompanied by text of a purported quote from her during from the second presidential debate the night before:   The quote was not uttered by Clinton during the any presidential debate. It does not appear in the transcript of the event, nor can Clinton be heard speaking this phrase during the broadcast.  transcript broadcast It seems to have originated with a social media user named Rocky Raczkowski, who (according to his post) was not directly quoting Clinton, but was giving his interpretation of what he thought Clinton had said in response to a question about Supreme Court justices: Rocky Raczkowski   Raczkowski's interpretation was later shared by Mike Hewitt, a politician and radio show host, who posted the message as if it were a direct quote from Clinton, while darkly hinting at a media so corrupt that they refused to cover the what she had really said: message   Of course, the reason that most media sources did not report on this quote is that it is not a quote, but a highly subjective (and inaccurate) interpretation of her words. Here's Clinton's actual response to a question about how she would select a Supreme Court justice, which is nothing like the questionable paraphrase offered by Raczkowski and shared by Hewitt: QUESTION: Good evening. Perhaps the most important aspect of this election is the Supreme Court justice. What would you prioritize as the most important aspect of selecting a Supreme Court justice? RADDATZ: We begin with your two minutes, Secretary Clinton. Thank you. Well, youre right. This is one of the most important issues in this election. I want to appoint Supreme Court justices who understand the way the world really works, who have real-life experience, who have not just been in a big law firm and maybe clerked for a judge and then gotten on the bench, but, you know, maybe they tried some more cases, they actually understand what people are up against. Because I think the current court has gone in the wrong direction. And so I would want to see the Supreme Court reverse Citizens United and get dark, unaccountable money out of our politics. Donald doesnt agree with that. I would like the Supreme Court to understand that voting rights are still a big problem in many parts of our country, that we dont always do everything we can to make it possible for people of color and older people and young people to be able to exercise their franchise. I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and a womans right to choose, and I want a Supreme Court that will stick with marriage equality. Now, Donald has put forth the names of some people that he would consider. And among the ones that he has suggested are people who would reverse Roe v. Wade and reverse marriage equality. I think that would be a terrible mistake and would take us backwards. I want a Supreme Court that doesnt always side with corporate interests. I want a Supreme Court that understands because youre wealthy and you can give more money to something doesnt mean you have any more rights or should have any more rights than anybody else. So I have very clear views about what I want to see to kind of change the balance on the Supreme Court. And I regret deeply that the Senate has not done its job and they have not permitted a vote on the person that President Obama, a highly qualified person, theyve not given him a vote to be able to be have the full complement of nine Supreme Court justices. I think that was a dereliction of duty. I hope that they will see their way to doing it, but if I am so fortunate enough as to be president, I will immediately move to make sure that we fill that, we have nine justices that get to work on behalf of our people. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In October and November 2021, Snopes readers asked us to verify the authenticity and provenance of a message widely shared on social media throughout 2020 and 2021, and heavily promoted by those opposed to COVID-19 lockdowns. According to almost all the posts in question, the message originally came from a "Hopi Indian Chief" named "White Eagle." The message was permeated with the language of New Age spirituality, and typically began by likening "the moment humanity is going through now" to a "portal" or a "hole," and encouraging readers to engage in "resistance through joy":   Despite extensive research, we have not yet been able to find evidence to corroborate the claim that the message originated with a prominent Hopi named "White Eagle," or indeed of any other name. Furthermore, good reasons exist to doubt that widespread attribution, and the earliest versions of the message that we found were published by a Brazilian "medium" who engages in pseudoscientific practices like "reincarnation psychotherapy" and proponents of a Brazilian religious movement  entirely different cultural contexts to the Hopi tribe in Arizona. For now, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven." If definitive evidence becomes available, we will update this fact check accordingly. The message was posted and re-posted multiple times in 2020 and 2021, with occasional minor tweaks, but was almost always attributed to "White Eagle," who was typically described as a "Hopi Indian Chief." 2020 2021 In some cases, social media posts featured photographs of what appeared to be an elderly man, while others contained a picture of an elderly woman  two mutually exclusive claims as to the gender of "White Eagle," and a sign that that attribution might be dubious. In another prominent early version of the message, posted in French on March 28, 2020, the photograph used was actually taken in 1904, meaning it could not possibly show anyone alive in the age of online memes or COVID-19. an elderly man an elderly woman the photograph used actually taken in 1904 In June 2020, "Bird Clan Messenger"  a Canadian blog that espouses "indigenous wisdom" and alternative medicine, as well as opposing COVID-19 mitigation measures like lockdowns and vaccine passports  attributed the "portal and hole" message to Joseph White Eagle, whom the site described as "a Cree spiritual leader and teacher of traditional Native wisdom." attributed the "portal and hole" message However, that blog post was later deleted, and Joseph White Eagle posted on Facebook in September 2021, explicitly denying he had authored the message, and adding: "Somebody first gave credit to a fictitious Hopi Chief White Eagle and when they found he does not exist they started giving me credit for this message." later deleted explicitly denying he had authored the message On March 28, 2020, artist and new-age spiritualist Alex Grey included the message in an Instagram Live broadcast, describing it as "Channeled from White eagle in daime church / Message from Caboclo guia Branca," and dating it to March 16, 2020. In this context, "Daime" likely refers to "Santo Daime," a religious movement which emerged from Brazil in the early 20th century and encompasses elements of various other religions, as well as using the psychedelic drink ayahuasca in rituals. included message Instagram Live broadcast Santo Daime Grey's reference to "Caboclo guia Branca" directed our research to an even earlier social media post containing the message  a March 19, 2020 Instagram post by Jefferson Orlando, a Brazilian "reincarnation pyschotherapist," which bore the headline "Mensagem do Caboclo guia Branca" ("message from White Eagle.") When translated from Portuguese, the message was clearly the same one later attributed to a "Hopi Chief" named White Eagle, and shared widely in English on social media. March 19, 2020 Instagram post   It's not clear whether "White Eagle" is purported to be an actual, living person, a persona adopted by Orlando, or a long-deceased figure whose voice and message Orlando putatively "channeled." Snopes asked Orlando for clarification about the origins of the message, but we did not receive a response. Also on March 19, 2020, a popular Facebook page which celebrates the Umbanda faith  like Santo Daime, Umbanda is a Brazilian religious movement that borrows from other religious practices  also posted the same message as Orlando, in Portuguese: posted the same message   It's not clear whether "Sabedoria de Umbanda" ("Umbanda Wisdom") or Orlando published their post first, and what the ultimate source of the message was. We were unable to find any reference to the "portal and hole" message dated before March 19, and the "Hopi" attribution appears to have only emerged several days later. The earliest available instances of the message emerged from Brazilian religious movements, by way of new-age spirituality and pseudo-scientific paranormal psychology  vastly different cultural milieus from the traditions of the Hopi people. This strongly suggests the claim that a "Hopi Chief White Eagle" authored the message was unfounded. However, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that the March 19 Brazilian posts were, themselves, borrowed from Hopi culture in some way, with the chain of cross-germination no longer available due to social media posts having been deleted. "Edward S. Curtis." WESTON GALLERY, https://www.westongallery.com/original-works-by/edward-curtis. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021. In May 2018, survivors of the Parkland school shooting massacre, and many others both on and off social media, responded with horror at reports of a video game in which players could assume the role of a school shooter. Jaclyn Corin, a survivor of the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, called the game (which is titled Active Shooter) "disgusting" in a tweet and urged others to sign a petition calling for the game not to be released. (The online petition garnered almost 100,000 signatures within four days.) tweet petition Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina was killed in the shooting rampage, accused Valve Corporation (the Bellevue, Washington, company that runs the Steam platform on which the game would be distributed and run) of "trying to profit from the glamorization of tragedies affecting our schools across the country" and also called the game "disgusting." accused Steam The game was indeed real: it was published by a Russian company called Acid and developed by Revived Games (featuring games such as Furry, Tyde Pod Challenge, and White Power: Pure Voltage. which carries the following description: "The Underworld is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human species world. It contains the same parts of the Universe as humanity does, but much more in a darker, colder and hostile manner.") Acid Revived Games Furry  Tyde Pod Challenge  White Power: Pure Voltage Active Shooter' s descriptive entry on Steam's web site read as follows: entry Pick your role, gear up and fight or destroy! Be the good guy or the bad guy. The choice is yours! Only in "Active Shooter", you will be able to pick the role of an Elite S.W.A.T member or the actual shooter. A video preview of the game showed a shooter armed with a rifle, handgun, and knife stalking the classrooms and corridors of a school, shooting at both police and civilians while a "kill counter" shows the number of "cops" and "civ" (civilians) the player had murdered. Every civilian shown in the preview video appeared to be female:   In a difficult-to-follow post on May 23, 2018, the game's publisher claimed that Active Shooter "does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting." The publisher went on to note that the game will probably not allow players to assume the role of the shooter by the time the game is released: post After receiving such high amount of critics and hate, I will more likely remove the shooters role in this game by the release, unless if it can be kept as it is right now. We asked Valve Corporation whether Active Shooter would still be released on June 6, 2018, and if so, whether it would still feature the shooter mode. We did not receive a response to our query, but shortly afterwards we noticed that Acid's games were no longer listed among Steam's offerings. listed Subsequently, the gaming news web site PC Gamer reported that both the publisher and developer of the game -- Acid and Revived Games -- had been removed from the Steam platform. PC Gamer quoted what it called a "Valve rep" as saying that the publisher and developer were the same person: reported This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as '[bc]Interactive' and 'Elusive Team'. Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation. His subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve. In mid-June, Acid announced plans to offer Active Shooter for purchase via its own platform. On June 26, they posted a notice to that effect on the Steam community board, noting that Active Shooter had been renamed Standoff. As of September 2019, Active Shooter was still listed among Acid's offerings and a sequel, Standoff: Lockdown, was also available for sale. announced notice listed sequel Collins, Dan. ""Active Shooter" Developer Plans to Continue Selling Video Game Despite Victim Complaints."
 Associated Press. 14 June 2018. Stuart, Keith. "Active Shooter Video Game Condemned by Parents of Parkland Victims."
 The Guardian. 29 May 2018. Updated [30 September 2019]: Added information about the game's developer offering it for purchase on its own platform under a new name ("Standoff"), and a sequel being produced in 2019. Status revised from "Outdated" to Claim:  Former New York mayor Ed Koch delivered a radio address on anti-semitism.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] We are now going through the most virulent anti-Semitic period since Hitler and Stalin. Nearly 60 years after the end of World War II almost every country on the European continent, including England, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, has seen major outbreaks of physical violence against their Jewish citizens, and against Jewish institutions, including synagogues and cemeteries. At the same time, open hostility toward the State of Israel is at an all-time high.  Only in the United States have we seen a full acceptance of Jews as citizens and the Jewish state treated as a friend and ally by an overwhelming number of fellow citizens. In the U.S., Jews have been permitted to rise and fall based on their individual talents, virtues and faults. In one elite bastion after another, Jews have been selected to head institutions heretofore seen as beyond their reach. Today the presidents of Harvard and Yale Universities are Jews, as are recent former presidents of Columbia and Princeton. Having been elected three times as mayor of the City of New York, I have been the beneficiary of this country's generosity and freedom from bigotry, and I will be eternally grateful.  Americans traditionally make New Years resolutions. Before I list my own resolutions, I want to thank President George W. Bush and his advisers, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for their support of the State of Israel. They could easily have jettisoned Israel as a liability in their efforts to forge an international coalition against worldwide terrorism. I will be forever grateful to them, and I hope that many other supporters of the State of Israel will recognize and appreciate what they have done.  Fortunately for Jews and the State of Israel, American support of the Jewish nation has been bipartisan. Particularly helpful has been the Democratic leadership in both houses including Senator Tom Daschle, outgoing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, as well as former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton. There are many others on both sides of the political aisle who deserve similar praise.  In the religious sector, I am grateful to the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both of whom have stood up time and again in support and defense of the Jewish nation. Regrettably, there have been many clergy who have unfairly attacked Israel for attempting to defend itself against near-daily terrorist acts against its citizens. We were made privy to the true thoughts of Rev. Billy Graham caught on tape telling President Nixon his real feelings about Jews and Israel. He has since apologized, but what is an apology without contrition and efforts to right the wrong done? Worthless.  Now to my personal New Years resolutions. I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council who are the enemies of the State of Israel. So too is Mexico, joining as a consistent supporter of resolutions unfairly denouncing Israel at the U.N. Security Council.  I will not support National Public Radio in any way. NPRs reporters and management delight in unfairly attacking Israel.  I will no longer lend financial support to New Yorks Channel Thirteen public television station. That station recently showed a documentary that was blatantly biased against Israel and has refused to acknowledge the bias or to try to correct it.  I will not watch ABCs World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians.  BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel and I will shun it completely.  Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works.  Regrettably, there are many others whom I could include on this list, but I will leave that for another day. I must confess I got enormous pleasure from the defeat of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and her father in the recent primary elections in Georgia. In my view, both are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. No longer able to feed at the public trough, I doubt that either will make a comparable living in the private sector.  I must close now to get ready for my Chanukah and Christmas shopping. I enjoy celebrating those holidays with Jewish and Christian friends whose goodwill and affection I will always cherish. Origins:  Ed Koch, mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989,   mayor  was a regular commentator on Bloomberg Radio until his death in 2013.  On 7 December 2002, he delivered a commentary dealing with his perception that western society is experiencing its most"virulent anti-Semitic period since Hitler and Stalin" and offered a list of new year's resolutions regarding people and institutions he would shun for being anti-Israel.  Transcripts of that commentary (reproduced above) have since been posted to a variety of web sites. Bloomberg Radio Just to be sure this information was accurate, we contacted Bloomberg Radio for verification and received an affirmative response: Hello and thank you for your inquiry. Former Mayor Ed Koch is a regular commentator on Bloomberg Radio.  On 7 December 2002, Mr. Koch delivered a commentary on our "Bloomberg On the Weekend" broadcast in which he postulated a growing anti-semitism in America and elsewhere in the western world.  He asserted that public broadcasting  had an anti-Israeli attitude and declared he would no longer contribute.  I hope this answers your question, and I invite you to listen to us each weekend for Ed Koch and much more.   If you are in the greater New York area you will find us on Bloomberg Radio, WBBR, 1130 on your AM radio dial. Elsewhere we can be heard on the internet at http:/www.bloomberg.net/radio. http:/www.bloomberg.net/radio Sincerely,Wes Richards, Host. Last updated:  6 January 2014 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew cheers from supporters in San Antonio as he vowed to keep the Texas economy rocking and laid a claim to history. The Republican governor, kicking off hisre-election campaign, said in July 2017: And since I took office, in just the last two and a half years, in Texas, weve added more than 450,000 new jobs. More Texans have jobs today than ever before in the history of our state. That jobs-gained number sounded a little low. According toBureau of Labor Statistics figureswe drew from a bureau economist, Cheryl Abbot, when Abbott took office in January 2015, the state was home to nearly 11.8 million non-farm jobs. As of June 2017, that count was up by about 507,500, exceeding 12.3 million. We decided to check whether more Texas residents have jobs than ever before. Abbotts campaign didnt answer requests for the basis of the claim. Meantime, economists concurred that according tobureau figures drawing on U.S. Census Bureau surveys, more than 12.8 million Texas residents had jobs from April 2017 through June 2017--with the April 2017 count of 12,872,506 employed people setting a record, though the tally subsequently slid marginally, reaching 12,848,980 in June 2017. A bureau-provided chart shows the dip in employment after that count had mostly steadily increased since January 2015: SOURCE:Chartshowing Texas Local Area Unemployment Statistics, BLS (received by email from Cheryl Abbot, regional economist, BLS, July 21, 2017) The economists we queried noted that because Texas continues to grow in population, it makes sense, barring economic disaster, that youd see more people having jobs year after year. Status quo in Texas,Mark J. Perry,an economist at the University of Michigan-Flint, told us by email, its always had steady job growth. Perry passed along a chart showing the nearly uniform annual upticks in employed Texas since 1939: SOURCE:Chart based ondata posted by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis(provided by email from Mark J. Perry, Ph.D., scholar atThe American Enterprise Institute, professor of Finance and Business Economics, School of Management, University of Michigan-Flint, July 28, 2017) So, Abbott was mostly right about the record count of Texans with jobs at the time he spoke. Jobless rate, employment-population ratio Other indicators provide context, however. For instance, the month before Abbott kicked off his re-election effort, the states unemployment rate of 4.6 percent--as in the share of able workers unsuccessfully seeking employment--was not a record low. We counted 59 months since 1976 when the Texas jobless rate was lower, per an Abbot-providedchart. Also, a ratio that compares the number of people with jobs to the population as a whole was higher for Texas and other states in the 1990s, a facetexploredby PolitiFact in Washington in July 2016. That story also noted that nationally since the end of the Great Recession, the U.S. employment-to-population ratio had climbed, slowly but fairly steadily. When we asked, Abbot shared bureau figures rooted inCensus Bureau survey findingsto represent changes in the Texas employment-population ratio. Similarly, economistTara Sinclair, an associate professor at George Washington University, drew onbureau figuresshowing that the states employment-population ratio exceeded 65 percent from 1995 through 2000 but fell to 61.5 percent in 2014 and to to 60.9 percent and 60.7 percent, respectively, in 2015 and 2016. In the latter year, the bureau says, that ratio reflected 12,671,801 Texans with jobs out of 20,861,611 residents. By email, Sinclair wrote that similar to thenational pattern for the employment-population ratio,Texasis still low relative to its historical peak (although doing a bit better than the national ratio). SOURCE: Chart drawing on BLS annual data for Texas (received by email fromTara Sinclair, associate professor of Economics and International Affairs, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, July 21, 2017) Our ruling Abbott said: More Texans have jobs today than ever before in the history of our state. By raw numbers, the more than 12.87 million employed Texans in April 2017 set a record though that count had dipped to 12.85 million by the time Abbott spoke. Also, the states June 2017 jobless rate, 4.6 percent, exceeded the rate in more than 50 months since 1976 while Texas in 2016 (like the nation) had an employment-population ratio trailing what it used to be. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.