Did a Bargain Hunter Find Original Print of Declaration of Independence?
Urban legendry includes numerous "windfall" tales involving fortuitous discoveries of seemingly ordinary objects that proved to be extraordinarily valuable. (See our King of the Rode article for one example.) Every now and then one of these windfall things turns out to be for real, however. In 1989, a Philadelphia financial analyst bought an old painting (a depiction of a country scene) for $4 at a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, mostly because he liked the frame. He liked it even more once he found that the painting housed a rare and valuable document. The buyer was investigating a tear in the canvas, and the frame fell apart in his hands when he attempted to detach it from the painting, leading him to discover a folded document that appeared to be an old copy of the Declaration of Independence stored between the canvas and its wood backing. After a friend who collected Civil War memorabilia advised him to have it appraised, he learned that the document was in fact a rare original Dunlap broadside, one of 500 official copies from the first printing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Only 23 similar copies were known to exist before this find, of which a mere two were privately owned:  This rare document was offered for sale by Sotheby's on 4 June 1991, and the lucky find fetched even more than had been anticipated: the $800,000 to $1.2 million estimate turned into a $2.42 million sale by the sound of the gavel: "This was a record for any printed Americana," said David Redden, the auctioneer, who is a senior vice president at Sotheby's in Manhattan. "It was far and away the highest price for historical Americana ever." The copy sold [by Sotheby's] is a crisp, clean broadside, creased along lines where it had been folded. It was printed by John Dunlap on July 4, 1776, to carry news of America's independence to the citizens of the 13 colonies. It is one of 24 known copies of the Declaration, and one of only three remaining in private hands. The previous owner, who was not identified, had told Sotheby's he bought a torn painting for $4 in a flea market in Adamstown, Pa., because he was interested in its frame. When he got home, he said, he removed the painting  a dismal country scene  and concluded the frame could not be salvaged, but found the Declaration, folded and hidden in the backing. He showed it to Sotheby's experts earlier this year. Mr. Redden said he thought the man would be "rather stunned" to learn the price it had brought. This charming story was later turned to a commercial purpose: In the autumn of 1997, SunAmerica ran television commercials based on the original finder's tale, utilizing the theme that you could either hope to get lucky like he did, or you could work out an investment plan with SunAmerica. This document was put up for sale again in June 2000, fetching an $8.14 million bid from television producer Norman Lear in an online auction. It then became the centerpiece of the Norman Lear Center's Declaration of Independence Road Trip, which took it on a three-and-a-half year cross-country tour: Declaration of Independence Road Trip The goal of the project was to bring the "People's Document" directly to all Americans  especially young people  to inspire them to see citizenship as an opportunity; to participate in civic life; to exercise their rights; and above all, to vote. As the Road Trip traveled to cities and towns across the United States, it creatively combined elements of education, entertainment, and community outreach. When TV producer and philanthropist Norman Lear learned that the Dunlap broadside would be auctioned, he saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring it to the American people. Lear purchased it and development of the project now known as the Declaration of Independence Road Trip began. March 2006 saw a smaller-scale repetition of this experience when Michael Sparks was browsing a thrift shop in Nashville, Tennessee, and happened upon a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document. Learning from a clerk that the item could be had for a mere $2.48, Sparks purchased it, took it home, and after doing some online research eventually learned that he had bought one of 200 "official copies" of the Declaration of Independence commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820. He spent nearly a year authenticating and conserving the document before selling it at auction in March 2007, where it fetched $477,650. After Michael Sparks' lucky find made the news in February 2007, Stan Caffy contacted reporter Mary Hance of the Tennessean and claimed that he was the one who had (unwittingly) donated the valuable document to the Music City Thrift store in March 2006: "I bought it at a yard sale in Donelson about 10 years, ago, in Donelson Hills, I think," said Stan Caffy, a pipe fitter. For years, the document hung in Stan Caffy's garage, where he works on bicycles as a hobby. He married his wife, Linda, a little more than a year ago. As part of the ritual of combining households, she pushed him to clean out the garage, which had filled up with all sorts of extraneous things. "I used to be a packrat but now I am trying to get rid of things. The best I can recall, we had a little debate about whether to keep it (the Declaration) or donate it and she won." And so it was that Linda took the Declaration along with a pile of other stuff  an antique table, a shower massage head, and a faucet  to donate to the Music City Thrift store last March. "I'm happy for the Sparks guy," Stan said. "If I still had it, it would still be hanging here in the garage and I still wouldn't know it was worth all that. It is just life. So I'm not really upset. But you can't help but feel not very smart for doing it." Blau, Eleanor.  "Declaration of Independence Sells for $2.4 Million."   The New York Times.  14 June 1991. Hance, Mary.  "Turns Out, Expensive Document Was Tossed by Guy Cleaning Out His Garage."   The Tennessean.  23 February 2007. Trillin, Calvin.  "Lucky Find."   The Atlanta Journal and Constitution.  10 April 1991  (p. A11). Winship, Frederick.  "First Printing of Declaration Sold for $2.42 Million."   United Press International.  14 June 1991. Associated Press  "Declaration of Independence for $2.48."   23 February 2007. Associated Press  "Declaration Nets Lucky Owner Huge Profit."   23 March 2007. The Courier-Journal.  "$4 Painting Yields $2.42 Million Bid."   14 June 1991  (p. A2). Los Angeles Times.  "Declaration Copy Sold for $2.4 Million."   14 June 1991  (p. A19). Los Angeles Times.  "Found, Under $4 Flea-Market Art: A $1-Million Memento from 1776."   3 April 1991  (p. A14). Reuters.  "Declaration of Independence Copy Sold Online."   30 June 2000.
Kim Simac, a Wisconsintea partyleader, took aim at state Sen.JimHolperinafter the Conover Democrat fled to Illinois in February 2011.Like 13 other Democratic senators, Holperin, who represents a North Woods district where Simac lives, spent three weeks in Illinois. The move delayed a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walkers budget-repair bill, which curtails the collective bargaining power of most state and local government employees, although the bill eventually became law.Court challenges have kept the collective bargaining changes from taking effect. But the law, and the Democrats reaction to it, spurred a recall movement ofhistoric proportions. Campaigns were launched against all 16 state senators -- eight Democrats and eight Republicans  -- who were eligible to be recalled.Simac, vice-chairwoman of theVilas County RepublicanPartyand founder of Christian values group calledNorthwoods Patriots,headedthe signature-collectingcampaignto recall Holperin,a first-termsenatorwho previously served 10 years in the state Assembly.On April 21, 2011, Simac submitted some 23,000 signatures to the Government Accountability Board, which has not completed its review. She has announcedplans to run againstHolperinif a recall election is set.Eight days after the petitions were filed, Simac issued anewsreleasethat claimed petition signers, are being subjected to harassing phone calls from out-of-state telemarketers claiming to represent the Democratic Party and insinuating foul play by petition circulators.Lets see if thats what happened.When we asked Simac for evidence to back her claim, she asked people who received the calls to contact PolitiFact Wisconsin directly.We received calls from 17 people and e-mails from more than 30 others. We interviewed 10 of the people who called. Heres what we found: Those statements back the claim made by Simac.What did Holperin and the Democrats have to say about it?Holperin said he authorized the Wisconsin Democratic Party to call about 5,000 of the people who signed recall petitions against him.Graeme Zielinski, spokesman for the party, said the Minnesota telemarketing firm was hired to call people who signed petitions against Holperin and against two other Democrats who are facing possible recall elections.Holperin said he authorized the calls because, although petition circulators who worked under Simac were earnest, honest and friendly, more than a third of the 23,000 signatures were collected byKennedy Enterprises, a Colorado marketing and consulting firm hired by the Wisconsin Republican Party. Those petition circulators were often aggressive and misleading when they asked residents to sign petitions, Holperin said.According to Holperin, 534 petition signers -- about 10 percent of those who were called by the Minnesota telemarketing firm -- said they were given misleading information and that they asked to have their names removed from the petitions. He said that was the basis for acomplainthe filed with the Government Accountability Board challenging the petitions.Holperin provided ascriptthat he said the firm used in asking questions of people who signed recall petitions against him. The script shows that, among other things, callers were to: identify themselves as representing the Wisconsin Democratic Party; ask people whether they were aware their signatures appeared on a Holperin recall petition; and state that reports had been received that out-of-state paid circulators were misleading people about what they were being asked to sign.So, did we insinuate that foul play had occurred?, Holperin said. You bet we did, and we think we offered ample evidence that backs up our claim.Lets wrap up.Simac said people who signed Holperin recall petitions received harassing phone calls from out-of-state telemarketers claiming to represent the Democratic Party and insinuating foul play by petition circulators.Some people who received calls said they felt harassed even if they received just one call because they didnt expect to be questioned about signing a petition. The callers were employed by an out-of-state firm, they did identify themselves as representing the Wisconsin Democratic Party and did claim that petition circulators misled signers of the petitions.We rate Simacs claim as True. On Dec. 4, 2022, the Right Wing Patriots of America Telegram account and Facebook page posted a doctored picture of U.S. first lady Jill Biden that showed a pattern of red lobsters on her outfit. The caption in the post read, "Has Red Lobster gotten into the fashion business?" posted  In reality, the original photograph of Jill Biden did not show any lobsters on her outfit as she walked along with U.S. President Joe Biden.  The original picture was captured by Jim Lo Scalzo of UPI and was captioned as follows, "U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden return to the White House from a weekend at Camp David in Washington, D.C., on a Sunday in May 2021." original picture Reuters first reported on the fake photo with the lobsters on Dec. 5, adding that they had located the picture being shared on Twitter and in a since-deleted Instagram post. reported Twitter "Fact Check - Image of First Lady Jill Biden with Lobster-Patterned Clothing Is Digitally Altered." Reuters, 5 Dec. 2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-jill-biden-lobsteroutfit-idUSL1N32V1S0. Scalzo, Jim Lo. "Photo: Biden Returns to White House from Camp David - WAX20210523202." UPI, May 2021, https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/73bec9a417606f401652001501b10f9c/Biden-returns-to-White-House-from-Camp-David/. Urban Legends Reference Pages: Inboxer Rebellion (DarkProfits)  Claim:  Your credit card has been used to place an order with DarkProfits.com.  .Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003]Origins:  This spammed message  warning recipients that DarkProfits.com has received an "order made by using your personal credit card information"  is not really a scam but merely another in a series of pranks directed at the DarkProfits web site.  No charges have been placed on anyone's cards. This item is just one more "joe job" prank (an attempt to pin blame on an uninvolved third party by forging messages in their name) intended to get people riled up at DarkProfits.com.DarkProfits has been targeted by other "joe jobs"  a September 2003 mailing that offered all manner of illegal goods for sale, and one that appeared in January 2004 that announced the recipient's credit card had been charged $149.95 by DarkProfits.com for "1 Month Child Porn Unlimited Online Access."  Both of these were just more of the same leg pull.Last updated:  30 January 2004   .Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003]Origins:  This spammed message  warning recipients that DarkProfits.com has received an "order made by using your personal credit card information"  is not really a scam but merely another in a series of pranks directed at the DarkProfits web site.  No charges have been placed on anyone's cards. This item is just one more "joe job" prank (an attempt to pin blame on an uninvolved third party by forging messages in their name) intended to get people riled up at DarkProfits.com.DarkProfits has been targeted by other "joe jobs"  a September 2003 mailing that offered all manner of illegal goods for sale, and one that appeared in January 2004 that announced the recipient's credit card had been charged $149.95 by DarkProfits.com for "1 Month Child Porn Unlimited Online Access."  Both of these were just more of the same leg pull.Last updated:  30 January 2004 Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003]  Origins:  This spammed message  warning recipients that DarkProfits.com has received an "order made by using your personal credit card information"  is not really a scam but merely another in a series of pranks directed at the DarkProfits web site.   No charges have been placed on anyone's cards. This item is just one more "joe job" prank (an attempt to pin blame on an uninvolved third party by forging messages in their name) intended to get people riled up at DarkProfits.com. joe job DarkProfits has been targeted by other "joe jobs"  a September 2003 mailing that offered all manner of illegal goods for sale, and one that appeared in January 2004 that announced the recipient's credit card had been charged $149.95 by DarkProfits.com for "1 Month Child Porn Unlimited Online Access."  Both of these were just more of the same leg pull. illegal goods Child Porn Last updated:  30 January 2004 On 14 June 2015, a number of Florida news outlets published a seemingly remarkable photograph, sent to them by a man named Richard Jones, showing a raccoon riding the back of an alligator like a surfboard: published  The peculiar sight may have been endearing, but it also left many viewers questioning the image's authenticity. Photographer Richard Jones's explanation of how he snapped the image was that he was walking with his son along the Oaklawaha River in the Ocala National Forest when they came across a raccoon. Their appearance startled the creature, he said, which sought the safety of the water, where it hopped onto the back of an alligator. The raccoon was only "riding" the alligator for a short while, Jones said, as the gator quickly slipped underwater and the raccoon scurried back onto land:  Had a wonderful morning with the family in Ocala National forest and took an equally wonderful photo! We were walking along the Oaklawaha river watching some gators warm up in the morning. My son went through some palm fronds to catch a different angle and frightened a raccoon. It must have been asleep because it stumbled toward the water and hoped on top of the gator we were watching. I snapped a lucky picture right when the gator slipped into the water and before the raccoon jumped off and scurried away. Without the context you'd think the raccoon was hitching a ride across the river. Pretty amazing. Definitely the photo of a lifetime. Included a second one my wife took or the area. You have my permission to share the photo and use the photo in any way. I don't want anything in return. Just thought other people might enjoy it. However, not everyone took the photograph at face value. The Florida Times-Union published it but included a disclaimer stating that they hadn't confirmed its authenticity:   published The photo of the gator with raccoon in tow seems to have gone viral on social media, and the story has been picked up by several other media outlets. And although we haven't been able to confirm the authenticity of these images, this was too good of a story to leave our viewers out of the loop. DISCLAIMER: Mr. Jones did not leave a phone number in his email so that we could confirm the authenticity of the image. We did try to contact him via his email address and we also requested he phone us. At the time this story was posted, we still have not received a call or email from Mr. Jones.   The Ocala Star Banner was more skeptical, opting not to publish the photograph due to questions about its authenticity and a lack of response from the submitter:Until now, the Star-Banner has declined to publish the photo because we still have questions about its authenticity. We have reached out to the photographer, a man named Rich Jones, but [have] not heard back from him. Heres a summary of our concerns: +Scope: The raccoon seems out of proportion -- too big -- compared with the alligator. +Feet: Even zooming in, you cant tell whether the raccoon has feet. +Tail: Dont raccoons usually have longer, fluffier tails? +Posture: That is an unusual pose for a raccoon. It almost looks like a taxidermy piece. +Gator: The alligators eye has an odd color, shape and placement. Its body seems rubber-like. +Mask: The raccoons mask seems like an add-on. When a photographer in London captured a somewhat comparable image of an animal "riding" another animal in February 2015  a rather amazing picture of a weasel hitchhiking on the back of a woodpecker in flight  a small army of photoshop experts also declared that picture to be fake for similar reasons. But in that case the photographer made himself available for interviews, and the consensus remains that that photograph was real. captured consensus While Jones didn't come forward with more information about the image, a performance artist who goes by the name "Zardulu" did. In December 2016, Zardulu told the Washington Post that she was responsible for a number of social media hoaxes, including this photograph of the raccoon riding an alligator: Washington Post In 2015, there was an incredible viral photograph, a lucky shot, that showed a raccoon perched on the back of a swimming alligator. A man named Richard Jones told the local news that hed snapped the picture himself, and a lot of Florida news outlets ran with it. The story spread to larger publications. It went viral. There were plenty of doubters, of course. But also many believers, people who would prefer to live in a world where a raccoon could use a predator as a ferry. And that preference is exactly what Zardulu understands so well. I staged the raccoon and the alligator, Zardulu said. The animals are taxidermied; she sprayed each with a commercial product used to waterproof leather to protect them from the water. Zardulu showed us photographs of the setup, and some of herself, in costume, clutching the animals:   Weber, Greta.  "Raccoon Rides Alligator in Florida  Is It for Real?"
  National Geographic.  16 June 2015.


 Ohlheiser, Abby.  "She Staged a Viral Story. You Fell for Her Hoax. She Thinks Thats Beautiful."
  The Washington Post.  14 December 2016. WFTV.  "Man Snaps Picture of Raccoon on Top of Gator in Ocala National Forest."
  14 June 2015. A Democratic legislator declared that state aid fully fuels Texas charter schools while schools serving the vast bulk of students field less money. State Rep.Donna Howardof Austin said in her July 18, 2018tweet: Here's the thing. In Tx, charters get 100% state $/pupil funding while district schools (95% students) get about 1/3 funding from state w/ rest coming from local prop taxes (which is why those taxes are so high). Districts getting less b/c scarce $ going to charters. Howard was reacting to a national Associated Pressnews storyon billionaires championing charter schools. Since 2006, the story says, philanthropists and their private foundations and charities--topped by the Walton Family Foundation, run by heirs to the Walmart fortune--gave almost half a billion dollars to 52 state-level charter support organizations to sustain, defend and expand the charter schools movement. Texas charter schools--public schools with charters run most often by private nonprofit entities--have boomed since the 1995 Legislature authorized them by law. Such schools must meet state-set academic accountability standards, but theyre exempted from other laws affecting districts such as teacher certification and elementary school class-size limits. To our inquiry, Bruce Marchand of theTexas Charter Schools Associationcalled Howards jam-packed claim factually squishy solid. The squishy part, Marchand said by email, is the implication that 100% funded charters have something to do with high property taxes and that districts get less money because that money is going to charters. Districts get less, Marchand said, because state dollars follow students based on where theyre enrolled. Lets break down Howards tweet by its factual elements. Howard said charter schools get all their funding from the state: Charter schools get nearly all their funding from state aid, Marchand agreed by phone, drawing 3 percent from grants and federal sources. That heavy state reliance is logical, Marchand and others said, because unlike districts, charter schools lack the authority to levy property taxes. According to a December 2017 Texas Education Agencydocument summarizing charter school funding, state aid to charter schools escalated from nearly $417 million for 2005-06 to about $2 billion in 2015-16. Howard said school districts serve 95 percent of students: Charter schools serve a growing handful of pupils--5.5 percent of Texas public school students in 2017, according to figures we fielded by email from the TEAs DeEtta Culbertson. That year, she said, 705 charter campuses enrolled 296,323 students--a doubling since 2011, according to an August 2018agency presentationnoted by Marchand. (The state caps the number of state-issued charters, but a charter-holder may open more than one school.) An implication: Districts in 2017 served 94.5 percent of public school students. Howard said districts get one-third of their aid from the state:Earlier this year, we reviewed Legislative Budget Board figures to conclude that in the 1980s, lawmakers voted for the state to cover 70 percent of theFoundation School Program, which is the states primary way of funding schools. State aid, we found, ended up covering a little more than half of related state-local costs. State aid covered 44 percent of such costs in 2016; its expected to cover 38 percent of such costs in 2019. Thats more than a third. When we sought Howards factual backup, Jacob Cottingham in her office responded with materials including aJanuary 2018 LBB chartdelivering percentages like what we previously reported. Cottingham also emailed us a spreadsheet isolating state aid going to districts alone.According to the sheet, which Cottingham said he built based on LBB data, in 2016, more than $17.8 billion in state aid sent to districts accounted for 39 percent of state spending on public education. The sheet says that in 2019, more than $15.7 billion in state funds projected to go to districts will account for 32 percent of state school aid. Howard said the states one-third share of what schools spend is why school property taxes are so high:  To the contrary, we asked Howard, isnt it changes in the value of local property tax bases that drive how much state aid a district is entitled to receive? Howard replied with a statement noting that a districts per-pupil tax wealth is key to how much state aid flows. When students leave a district for a charter (or private school or drop out), the (districts) property wealth per student increases as there are fewer students, and the state's required minimum share to the district is decreased, Howard said. The TEAs Culbertson separately responded by email: One of the primary drivers of the Texas school finance system is student attendance. If a student leaves a school district for any reason, including moving out of state, enrolling in another school district, public charter school, or private school (including home school), the original school district would no longer incur the costs of educating that student, and the original school districts total funding entitlement would be reduced. Howard said districts get less money because dollars go to charter schools: Cottingham told us Howard reached that conclusion by reviewing changes in per-student state spending on charter schools and districts. Cottingham emailed us anLBB chartshowing Foundation School Program state aid per student enrolled in districts compared with charter schools from fiscal 2010 through fiscal 2016 plus estimated and projected aid for fiscal 2017 through fiscal 2019. The chart shows charter schools consistently getting thousands of dollars more per student in average daily attendance:  SOURCE: Chart,Foundation School Program State Aid and Average Daily Attendance for School Districts and Charter Schools, Fiscal Years 2010-19,Legislative Budget Board, 2018 (confirmed by email, R.J. DeSilva, communications officer, Legislative Budget Board, July 31, 2018) According to the chart, charter schools in 2016 fielded $8,956 in state aid per ADA and school districts on average drew $3,800--meaning charter schools got 136 percent of what districts drew.By our calculations, the chart shows charter schools getting 149 percent of what districts would have gotten in 2017 and 167 percent of what districts would get in 2018 and 190 percent of what districts would get in 2019. Cottingham told us the fact that state aid to districts goes up or down based on the value of local tax bases helps explain why districts are projected to get increasingly less in state aid than charter schools. Charter schools, he said, can count by law on getting each years full average adjusted state-aid allotment in contrast to districts whose allocations are affected by how much theyre expected to reap in property taxes. By phone, Amanda Brownson of  the Texas Association of School Business Officials offered a similar analysis. Another facet noted by Cottingham: The state ponies up the full per-student entitlement cost of each student--costing the state more than each per-student payment sent to districts. Of late, the August 2018 TEA presentation says, charter schools draw an adjusted state allotment of $6,540--equivalent, the agency says, to what a small district receives. Meantime, the presentation says, more than 95 percent of students enrolled in districts are in districts getting less than $6,540 in state allotments. We also heard back from Greg Worthington, a University of Texas doctoral student. By email, Worthington saidlegislation revising the school finance system that passed into law in a summer 2017 special sessionwould result in numerous districts losing chunks of per-student aid as charter schools draw more. Asked how funding of charter schools results in less money for districts, Worthington offered adetailed replycentered on reductions in aid to districts caused by students transferring to charter schools. This shouldnt surprise, Worthington indicated, in that the concept of school choicepromulgatedby the late economist Milton Friedman relies on schools competing for funding tied to enrollment. Friedman said government might be responsible for funding schools, Worthington wrote, but he maintained it isnt supposed to administer education. School choice policies embraced by many ruling Republicans ultimately work to replace the public school system with a market-based education system, Worthington said. Our ruling Howard said Texas charter schools get all their per-student aid from the state while school districts, which serve 95 percent of students, get a third of their funding that way with the rest drawn from property taxes. Also, Howard said, districts get less because scarce dollars go to charter schools. Howards points about student enrollment and state funding going to charter schools and school districts hold up. Its also true that a student who leaves a district school to attend a charter school costs the district state aid while that student brings the charter school thousands of dollars more in per-pupil state aid than what the district would get. This dense tweet lacks the clarification that upticks or slides in local property values greatly affect whether a district faces ups or downs in state aid. 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. In April 2021, American readers may have been intrigued to see a curious article about Denzel Washington and Netflix. The headline from the We Got This Covered website read, "An Underrated Denzel Washington Movie Has Been Dominating Netflix All Week."  Mysterious and sometimes misleading content might be what a lot of Google Discover users are shown these days.  Some readers may have noticed the article in their Google Discover feed. For those unfamiliar with Google Discover, it's a free and personalized news feed that displays content that Google thinks each user might find interesting and relevant. The headline likely led American readers to believe that the "underrated" film was available to stream in the U.S. After all, Netflix's headquarters are located in Los Gatos, California. This was all somewhat misleading. The source referenced by the We Got This Covered article did not show that the movie in question, "The Equalizer 2," was "dominating" Netflix. Instead, FlixPatrol.com indicated that the film barely made the top 10 worldwide movies on Netflix during week 16 of 2021. week 16 of 2021 Further, not included in the Google Discover card for the story was one important tidbit: "The Equalizer 2" was not available to be streamed by Netflix users in the U.S. According to an unofficial website that tracks Netflix availability by country, "The Equalizer 2" was only available on the streaming service in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. unofficial website This was not the first time that the We Got This Covered website published a misleading article about a famous actor and Netflix. In February 2021, the same website also claimed: "Tom Hanks New Movie Has Been Dominating Netflix All Week." The film in question was the 2020 flick "News of the World." claimed As with "The Equalizer 2," "News of the World" wasn't exactly "dominating Netflix," nor was it available for streaming in the U.S. "The Equalizer 2" was originally released in 2018. It received a 51% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 50 out of 100 on Metacritic. 51% critic rating a score of 50  The film reunited director Antoine Fuqua with Washington after they had previously worked together on 2001's "Training Day," a film that is available on Netflix in the U.S. The synopsis for "The Equalizer 2" read: "Denzel Washington returns to one of his signature roles in the first sequel of his career. Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed  but how far will he go when that is someone he loves?" As of April 2021, no plans had been announced by Netflix to bring "The Equalizer 2" to American audiences. However, it's available to rent for $3.99 on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and a number of other streaming services. YouTube Amazon Prime Video In sum, a movie starring the actor was not "dominating Netflix," nor was it even available in the U.S. Criticizing a poke at his not releasing millions of dollars to support public schools, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said that doing so might cut into double-digit returns on investments managed by the General Land Office.In aletterhe made public Aug. 22, 2012, Patterson, a Republican, said that those who want him to transfer $300 million in investment earnings to the State Board of Education for school needs do not understand the value of keeping such money invested so the states education endowment, the Permanent School Fund, continues to gain value.A pro-Democratic group, Progress Texas, accuses Patterson of inappropriately hoarding the millions. Patterson counters that the School Land Board, which he chairs, has discretion over whether to transfer the money and, he told us by telephone, it has until September 2013 to decide. His spokesman, Jim Suydam, also told us by email that the board approved a resolution in early 2011 to release $250 million of earnings in both 2012 and 2013 to the State Board of Education.In his letter, Patterson said that draining off additional earnings as Progress Texas says he must is a bad choice... because last year the GLO-managed PSF earned 22 percent and, due to statutory liquidity requirements, the rainy day fund earned just 1 percent. He was comparing the portion of the Permanent School Fund managed by the land office to earnings on the states savings account, otherwise known as the Economic Stabilization Fund. If your family needed a quick infusion of cash, Patterson wrote, would you withdraw cash from the investment account earning 22 percent or the account earning 1 percent?Were not venturing that question, but wondered if Patterson made an accurate earnings comparison.Starting in 2005, the land office was given the authority to invest in real estate using proceeds received from selling lands or drawing on revenue from Permanent School Fund mineral leases and royalties, the agency notes on aweb page. Professional fund management firms oversee the investments, the agency says, while theland board, consisting of the commissioner and two citizen appointees, manages the sale of Permanent School Fund land and mineral leases.To our inquiry, Suydam provided an agency report to the Legislature stating that through March 2012, the market value of the agencys investments made from the Permanent School Fund was $3.077 billion, about half of that reflecting externally managed direct real estate investments and nearly $1.2 billion attributable to short-term investments in the states treasury, which Suydam later said means money set aside so its on call for the agencys real estate investments.The report, dated Sept. 1, 2012, says that gross time-weighted returns on the portfolio in the 12 months through March amounted to nearly 22.9 percent, though that is without considering the short-term investments. Counting the cash-on-call portion, the report says, the time-weighted returns on the portfolio were 13.03 percent.Time-weighted returns?By email, Suydam told us the term describes a complex calculation that uses values for every day in the period being measured which, he said, explains why the 23 percent return shown for the real estate investments does not align with the 30 percent return that we calculated by comparing the market value of those investments at the end of March 2012 to the comparable figure at the end of March 2011.Asked how the earnings on real estate through March 2012 compare to recent 12-month periods, Suydam said such investments generated nearly 14 percent in market value in the 12 months through March 2011, but lost about 15 percent in the 12 months through March 2010.We checked on the rainy day funds earnings with Lauren Willis, spokeswoman for State Comptroller Susan Combs, who oversees state finances.Willis said by email that money in the reserve fund, created in 1988, is invested like other funds in the states treasury in stable, high-quality investments. In 2011, Willis said, the average yield on all those funds was 0.74 percent -- generating nearly $194 million in interest income including $51.9 million added to the rainy day fund. R.J. DeSilva, another Combs spokesman, said by email the rate of return might or might not have been about the same through the 12 months running through March 2012.In a telephone interview, we asked Patterson about why his letter mentions the higher returns on the real estate investments alone rather than also taking into account the lower returns influenced by the agencys cash-on-call funds.I dont count the cash, Patterson replied, because its not part of our investment portfolio.The land office, Patterson noted, is limited by law to managing just part of the overall education endowment. Suydam later said by email that as of the end of March, the market value of the agencys portion of the PSF, not including the value of minerals or state-owned land, was nearly $3.1 billion. He said the State Board of Education oversaw the funds remaining $25.6 billion.Our rulingPattersons reference to 22 percent in earnings over the 12 months running through March 2012 does not account for reduced earnings from nearly $1.2 billion in cash-on-call money supporting the agencys real estate investments. That clarification would be helpful, though it still seems reasonable, overall, to focus on the portion of the portfolio that would be expected to reap sizable gains. Separately, the claim seems to reflect the annual earnings on the rainy day fund, though the commissioners March-to-March time period does not match the calendar-year approach used by the state comptroller.We rate the statement as Mostly True. Phishing bait:  Notice from the IRS indicating the recipient is eligible for a tax refund. Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2006]   IRS Notification - Please Read This . After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $163.80. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To access the form for your tax refund, please click here here Regards,Internal Revenue Service  Copyright 2006, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved. Origins:   Notices purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) make good  phishing bait for a number of reasons: phishing  Notices from institutions of the federal government (especially an agency with the ominous reputation of the IRS) grab people's attention.  Unlike other phishing schemes that emulate mailings from various private financial institutions (e.g., Bank of America) and are therefore easily recognized as phony by many recipients (because they do no business with those companies), a forged IRS notice has the potential to take in a much larger pool of victims, as most adult U.S. residents have dealings with that agency.  Many people find the federal income tax filing process complicated and confusing, so the idea that they might have unclaimed tax refunds waiting for them seems plausible. A  March 2006 mass phish e-mailing took advantage of those points, spamming millions of Internet users with phony notices that included the IRS logo, advised recipients they were eligible to receive tax refunds (of $63.80 or $163.80), and invited them to click on a link which took them to an IRS web site form through which they could claim those refunds.  Of course, the links included in the messages didn't actually send users to the genuine IRS web site; they redirected claimants to imposter IRS sites (hosted on servers in a variety of countries) and instructed them to enter all sorts of sensitive personal information (credit card number, expiration date, CVV code and ATM PIN) into an on-line form so that the putative refunds could be posted directly to their debit/credit card or bank accounts. Any information entered into such forms can be harvested by scammers and used for identity theft and other financial crimes.  The IRS never offers refunds through e-mail or sends out unsolicited e-mails to taxpayers.   When the IRS needs to contact a taxpayer, they send notice via U.S. Mail, and every such notice includes a telephone number that the recipient can call for confirmation.  Should you need to visit the IRS web site for any reason, go there directly (by entering the www.irs.gov URL into your web browser) rather than following links in e-mail messages. Last updated:  17 March 2006    Sources:   Miller, Anita.   "Internet Scammers Using IRS Logo for Bait."   San Marcos Daily Record.  17 March 2006.    Speier, Drew.   "E-Mail Scam Uses Fake IRS Web Site."   WFIE-TV.  2 March 2006.     KPHO-TV.   "Consumers Warned of IRS 'Phishing' Scam."   2 March 2006.      KXAN-TV.   "New E-Mail Scam Promises Money From the IRS."   17 March 2006.     WFSB-TV.  "Latest Scam Targets Tax Returns."   2 March 2006.     WHEC-TV.  "IRS Warning Taxpayers About Fake E-Mail Scam."   2 March 2006.     WLNS-TV.  "Beware of Tax Scam."   7 March 2006. A big part of President Barack Obama's first State of the Union speech on Jan. 27, 2010, focused on the economy.To set the stage, he said his predecessor was largely responsible for the country's fiscal shape.At the beginning of the last decade ... America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion, Obama said. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.We've checked several claims to this effect in the last year,most recently one by Obama adviser David Axelrod. Indeed, we found that the government was enjoying a surplus of about $236 billion circa 2001. Later, when Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported the deficit was over $1.2 trillion. A good chunk of the deficits racked up by the Bush administration came from tax cuts, the war in Iraq and actions that Bush and a Democratic Congress took to prop up the economy right before he left office.In the same report, the CBO projected a 10-year deficit of about $3.1 trillion. But Obama said $8 trillion, based on budget numbers published by the White House Office of Management and Budget shortly after Obama took office.Why the discrepancy? When we checked the similar claim by Axelrod, we spoke with Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition. He said it has to do with how the two offices estimate the future. The CBO bases its projections on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010 and that a patch to fix the alternative minimum tax would expire, among other things. The White House does not; instead, it assumes that nothing changes in current law.So, Obama's overall point is correct that the government was enjoying a substantial surplus when Bush took office and had a big deficit when he departed; he's spot on about the surplus Bush began with. He's also correct about the deficit at the end of Bush's presidency, but there are two different ways to measure the 10-year projection when Bush left office. The CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. So given that discussion, we'll take Obama down a notch to Mostly True. Getting companies to pay more in taxes is one of the pillars of Bernie Sanders plans for America. The extra revenue plays a key role in everything from universal health care, to tuition-free college, to rebuilding the nations aging water mains, bridges and highways. How much does he think is there? The largest U.S. companies would owe $620 billion in U.S. taxes on the cash they store in tax havens, SanderstweetedApril 6, 2016. Thats a fair chunk of change, and we thought wed see if it held up. By the way, theres no single definition of a tax haven. The term covers both profits from overseas subsidiaries and the use of offshore accounts in places like Bermuda. The common thread is money is booked in places with lower taxes than the United States. The Sanders campaign directed us to ajoint studyfrom Citizens for Tax Justice and US PIRG, both left-leaning organizations. Their analysis began with the more than $2.1 trillion that Fortune 500 companies are holding in accumulated profits offshore for tax purposes. When the foreign subsidiary of a U.S. multinational turns a profit, the money is taxed at the rate where the subsidiary is based. Uncle Sam doesnt get a penny until the multinational brings the money home. That gets a little confusing because the money might actually be in the United States, but it isnt on the books of the U.S. parent. In any event, for tax purposes, most of those funds are not formally repatriated or brought back to the United States. The logic is simple: Why pay a higher rate in the United States, formally as high as 35 percent, when you might be paying a fifth that much in a foreign country, such as Ireland? The Citizens for Tax Justice/US PIRG analysts looked atthe 57 corporations that actually told regulators how big their tax bill would be if they brought the money home. These 57 companies would owe $184.4 billion in additional federal taxes, the report said. The analysts made some assumptions and applied the results to the companies that didnt release this information. The total for all Fortune 500 companies combined? They would collectively owe $620 billion in additional federal taxes. We asked independent tax scholars what they thought of that estimate. Some of them said it was in the ballpark. Richard Harvey, a former partner at the accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers and now at Villanova School of Law, said Sanders might actually be underestimating. Harvey pointed to the foreign earnings that multinationals report as indefinitely reinvested. Officially, thetotal is about $2.3 trillion. But Harvey thinks that overlooks a lot of cash. The total unrepatriated foreign earnings would be even higher because companies like Apple and Pfizer do not label all undistributed foreign earnings as indefinitely reinvested,  Harvey said. If one assumes that U.S. multinational corporations have approximately $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion of unrepatriated foreign earnings, and the average tax rate on most undistributed foreign earnings is less than 10 percent (in many cases close to 0 percent), then a $620 billion estimate is very reasonable, and may be low. Edward Kleinbard, professor of law at the University of Southern California and a former chief of staff at the U.S. Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation, took a different approach, and reached approximately the same conclusion. Kleinbard took theJoint Committee on Taxationsestimate of how much revenue would come from a one-time 14 percent tax on those foreign earnings kept overseas. This is in fact what President Barack Obama has proposed in his latest budget. The net haul from that would be about $195 billion. Using that figure, Kleinbard estimated how much would come in if the rate were 35 percent, rather than 14 percent. You get to $488 billion, he said. Thats not perfect, because of how foreign tax credits (offsets to U.S. taxes) would have to be handled, but its the right ballpark. Thats less than the $620 billion Sanders cited, but as Kleinbard put it, it's a honkin' big number. The banking giantCredit Suisseestimated the total new revenues at $533 billion. Edmund Outslay, professor of taxation at Michigan State University, thinks Sanders overshot the mark. Outslay told PolitiFact that he questions a key assumption in the study behind Sanders number. The study estimates an average tax rate of 6 percent that all Fortune 500 companies are paying overseas today. Because any foreign tax bill is deducted from what a firm owes Washington, the lower the foreign tax rate, the higher the potential revenues for the United States. Outslay thinks 6 percent is unrealistic. Some studies I have seen estimate a foreign tax rate of about 16.5 percent, Outslay said. If this number is more accurate, the total tax to be gained (would be) $550 billion. At 25 percent, the net U.S. tax would only be $320 billion. Outslay himself leans more toward a $300 billion figure. In addition to thinking multinationals are paying a higher rate overseas, he also said in most cases, the foreign earnings are actually invested in bricks and mortar. Those dollars are not cash in the way Sanders talked about this. How the IRS would treat that money is unclear. All this leaves us with a range of estimates of the potential tax revenues, ranging from about $300 billion (Outslay), to $490 billion (Kleinbard), to $550 billion (Credit Suisse), to over $620 billion (Harvey). Our ruling Sanders said that if American multinational corporations had to pay taxes on the profits they made overseas, they would owe $620 billion. This is at the high end of the estimates we collected. Sanders also described the overseas holdings as cash. According to one expert we reached, a lot of that money might be invested in factories and other hard infrastructure and might not be available for tax collections. Still, the mid-range estimate from credible sources is in the $500 billion to $550 billion range. All the numbers cited were relatively high. We rate Sanders estimate Mostly True.