Says the Texas unemployment rate has even grown more than the nation's as a whole.
In its latest print advertisement, placed Oct. 5 in 41 newspapers statewide, the Back to Basics PAC angles to turn Gov. Rick Perry's favorite selling point against him: the Texas economy. Perry often touts job gains on his watch; in a recent TV spot, titled Texas: Open for Business, he says Texas has gained more jobs than all other states combined from January 2001 to June 2010, a statement we recently ratedTrue. Yet the latest Back to Basics ad finds fault, pointing out that Perry fails to acknowledge that lawmakers balanced the latest state budget partly by accepting billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. The ad then lists some economic changes that have occurred since the governor wrote President Barack Obama in February 2009 assuring him that the state would accept the federal dollars. Punch line: Perry won't tell you that the Texas unemployment rate has even grown more than the nations as a whole. Really?On its website, Back to Basics points to statistics from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the Texas unemployment rate between February 2009 and August 2010 rose from 6.8 percent to 8.3 percent, up 1.5 percentage points. During the same period, the U.S. unemployment rate grew from 8.2 percent to 9.6 percent, up 1.4 percentage points. The number of jobless people in Texas grew by 204,400 during that time  an increase of 26 percent. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole experienced a 17 percent increase. We checked with Cheryl Abbot, a bureau economist in Dallas, who told us that the figures used by Back to Basics were correct. She also told us that there were no statistical or logical problems with comparing the increase in the state's unemployment rate with that of the United States. I would probably phrase (the statement) more correctly as 'the unemployment rate has increased at a faster rate in Texas,' but saying that it's grown more, there's probably nothing wrong with putting it that way, Abbot said. We asked Abbot how best to interpret the 0.1 percentage point gap between the changes in the national and state unemployment rates. She said there is very little difference between 1.5 and 1.4 in this context, noting that one interpretation of the numbers could be that during those 18 months, Texas' job performance was about the same as the nation's. That's part of Back to Basics' point, said Cliff Walker, the group's director. Those numbers show Perry isn't as good as he says he is, he said. Next, we looked into whether changing the time period for comparing unemployment rates also changes the result. We tried five different starting points -- January 2009, December 2008, November 2008, January 2007 and December 2000 -- and in all those cases, the Texas unemployment rate increased by the same number of percentage points as the national rate, or less. (December 2000 was when Perry entered the governor's office, and January 2007 was the beginning of his current term.) When we asked Walker why Back to Basics started its time period of comparison with the month of Perry's letter to Obama, he told us that the group is trying to draw attention to the fact that Perry took federal stimulus dollars  a fact that many Texans, more than a year and a half later, still do not know. Our take: Back to Basics' statement accurately recaps a specific time period  the 18 months following Perry's acceptance of federal stimulus aid for Texas in February 2009  that shows unemployment rising faster in Texas than the nation as a whole. As our analysis shows, though, lengthening the time period often yields a different result, with unemployment in Texas rising more slowly than the nation. We rate the statement Mostly True.
Claim:  African-Americans are entitled to a $5,000 slavery reparation tax credit.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] This goes out to all my friends, family, and everyone in the African American community. Once you receive this message please write down the number and then pass it along to every AfricanAmerican you know. As you my know, all African Americans living here in the United States are descendants of slavery,therefore our government has finally passed a bill to pay all descendants back. The way they are paying us back is through a refund called the, "Black Inheritance Tax Refund/40 Acres and a Mule". When you call this number you'll give them your name, address, and phone number and they'll send you out a packet, which includes further details and information on how to receive the refund. I was informed that it will take only two weeks to receive the packet and then two weeks to receive themoney. Now, if you know our government I bet they are not expecting a lot of people to call for this refund, and they may be right, because many of us will not be informed of this. Therefore, this is why I am taking it upon myself to pass on this information, so our community will soon be informed through word-of-mouth about what has been owed to our ancestors all these years. Black Inheritance Tax Refund 1-800-441-5629 press #3 to direct you to the appropriate line open betweenEast Coast: 8am and 12amWest Coast: 5am and 9pm Expect to wait anywhere from 5mins-25mins (There will not be any music to entertain you while you wait!) Ps: You must be 18 years or older and I'm assuming a legal residence of the United States. So, request an application for yourself, husband, wife, sister, brother, father, mother, etc, or just pass the number along. God Bless You All and please check this out!!!!!!!! Origins:  In 2000, bogus letters claiming certain senior citizens were eligible for slavery reparations or higher Social Security payments were circulating in black churches in the South and elsewhere. The letters claimed blacks born before 1928 were eligible for a $5,000 "Negro Inheritance Tax Refund" due to a "Slave Reparation Act," and folks born between 1911 and 1926 might be entitled to higher monthly Social Security payments.  This was but one of the many forms the "slavery reparation tax credit" misinformation has taken over the years.  An April 1993 Lena Sherrod commentary entitled "Forty Acres and a Mule" which appeared in Essence magazine dealt with the concept that reparations were owed to the descendants of African-Americans who were forced to work unpaid for 246 years, and that African-Americans were owed a tax rebate for years of legalized racial discrimination.  Sherrod wrote: The government also owes African-Americans a tax rebate for the 60 years of segregation and Jim Crow that followed slavery. Although we were consigned by law to second-class citizenship, we were still forced to pay first-class taxes . . . the delinquent tax rebate [is] now estimated . . . to be at $43,209 per household."  Since de facto racial discrimination continues to function as a hidden Black tax, it ought to be deductible. So when income-tax time rolls around, on line 59 of form 1040  which asks you to list 'other payments'  simply enter $43,209 in 'Black taxes' and compute accordingly. This commentary undoubtedly helped to foster the belief that a real income tax deduction was available as a form of reparation to the descendants of slaves. In 2002, people were being urged in e-mail to call an 800 number. Yet it's all the same  hoax. No matter whether you got the letter from your church or read about the give-back in a magazine, the "reparations credit" does not and never has existed. Those who claim the deduction because they are black can be subject to fines and penalties, so really, really think twice before trying to wring it out of Uncle Sam. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can fine a taxpayer $500 for filing a frivolous claim. Moreover, if the tax department fails to catch the erroneous deduction at the time of filing, it has an additional six years to right its error. Upon catching the error, the taxmen would not only strike off the deduction, but would calculate interest owed on the new balance of tax due, dating it to the year of the original return. (For example, if you claimed the credit in 1994, and the IRS caught it in 1998, your 1994 return would be re-computed to remove the effect of the bogus deduction. You'd now get a bill from the IRS for the re-computed difference between tax paid and tax due, plus all the interest that had piled up on it across those four years, and maybe even a $500 penalty for trying to pull the wool over the tax department's eyes.  Eeesh.) IRS offices across the nation have received thousands of requests daily for Form 2439, which some people have been mistakenly led to believe reimburses the descendants of slaves. Form 2439 is actually for shareholders trying to claim undistributed capital gains.  Form 2439 Though word of the phony benefits is most often spread by well-meaning individuals whose only motivation is ensuring those who are supposedly in line for the break hear about it, at times unscrupulous tax preparers have stepped in to turn what is already a heart-wrenching disappointment into an out-and-out fraud perpetrated on the unwary by charging fees of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to "help" people apply for these nonexistent benefits.  In a common version of this take-down, a con man promises his unwary clients that he can obtain up to $40,000 in "slave reparation" credits for them from the government and offers to file the necessary tax forms on their behalf in exchange for a percentage of their refunds.  He then loads up his clients' tax returns with all manner of deductions and credits they're not entitled to take and thereby scams the government into sending them refund checks.  When the IRS later goes over the returns more thoroughly and starts clamoring for their money back, the victims are left holding the bag. The $43,209 "Black tax refund" figure one sometimes hears bandied about is said to be based on the estimated value of "40 acres and a mule," a reparation supposedly laid out in an 1866 bill which lore claims was passed by Congress but was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. The truth is a bit more complicated than that. The origins of the belief that the U.S. government promised 40 acres of land and a mule to freed slaves after the Civil War are indefinite.  One possible source of this claim is Special Field Order No. 15, Special Field Order No. 15 Sherman was neither a humanitarian reformer nor a man with any particular concern for blacks. Instead of seeing Field Order 15 as a blueprint for the transformation of Southern society, he viewed it mainly as a way of relieving the immediate pressure caused by a large number of impoverished blacks following his army. The land grants, he later claimed, were intended only to make "temporary provisions for the freedmen and their families during the rest of the war," not to convey permanent possession. Understandably, however, the freedmen assumed that the land was to be theirs, especially after Gen. Rufus Saxton, assigned by Sherman to oversee the implementation of his order, informed a large gathering of blacks "that they were to be put in possession of lands, upon which they might locate their families and work out for themselves a living and respectability." Debate continues over whether Sherman acted solely on his own authority in issuing Special Field Order No. 15 or whether he had the approval of the War Department (or even President Lincoln himself), but the end result was that a new policy (known as Howard's Circular 15) issued by the White House in September 1865 ordered the restoration of land to pardoned owners and thereby took away from freedmen the land appropriated for them by Sherman under Special Field Order No. 15  (The order made no provisions for giving mules to freedmen, but Foner notes that after issuing it, "Sherman later provided that the army could assist [freedmen] with the loan of mules.") Another possible source of the "40 acres and a mule" belief is the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau (originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), a federal agency established as a subsidiary of the War Department  in March 1865 (a month before the end of the Civil War) to deal with issues concerning refugees and freedmen within states under reconstruction, including the management of abandoned and confiscated property.  One of the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Act directed that the bureau's commissioner should "have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land."  However, this act did not propose giving property to freed slaves (the land was to be leased to freedmen for three years, then made available for purchase by them), nor did it make any mention of mules.   Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau Act President Johnson did not veto the Freedmen's Bureau Act, which was passed by Congress in March 1865 and signed by President Lincoln.  (Johnson did not assume the presidency until Lincoln's assassination the following month.)   Two events occurred in February 1866, both of which have been misstated as overturning the "forty acres" provision of the Freedmen's Bureau Act:  An amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (also known as the "Second Freedmen's Bureau Act") proposed by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, to add "forfeited estates of the enemy" to the land available to blacks, was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives.  (At that time, the only group of slaveholders who were compelled to provide their former slaves with land were Indians who sided with the Confederacy.)  President Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill, which sought to extend the life of the bureau indefinitely (it had originally been chartered only for one year after the end of the Civil War) and to greatly increase its powers.  Congress passed the bill again (in modified form) over Johnson's veto in July 1866. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 did in fact make land in five southern states available to freed blacks, but only public land, not plantations or other property confiscated from former slaveholders.  Unfortunately, most of the land still available in the South for homesteading was too swampy and too far away from transportation links to be of much good to freedmen, and even then the largest portion of this inferior land was claimed by whites (often for quick resale to lumber companies).   Although the notion of a "Black Inheritance Tax Refund" has long since been debunked and disclaimed, it nonetheless lives on and continues to cause headaches to the IRS and taxpayers alike.  In April 2002, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had received more than 100,000 tax returns seeking nonexistent slavery-tax credits and had mistakenly paid out more than $30 million in erroneous refunds in 2000 and 2001.  And in April 2005, the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office obtained a temporary restraining order enjoining a New York man from preparing income tax returns for others because he had "been including bogus tax credits such as reparations for African-American slavery and segregation." Barbara "taxing the imagination" Mikkelson Last updated:  27 May 2011    Brown, Timothy.  "Black Churches in the South Targeted in Mail Hoax."   The Associated Press.  31 August 2000.     Deibel, Mary.  "IRS Warns Black Taxpayers About Reparation-Claim Scam."   The Washington Times.  7 October 2000  (p. A2).     Fennell, Edward.  "Slavery Reparations Program Labeled Lie."   The [Charleston] Post and Courier.  24 September 2000  (p. B1).    Foner, Eric.  Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.  New York: Harper & Row, 1988.  ISBN 0-060-91453-X  (pp. 70-71, 245-246).     Foner, Eric and John Garraty.  The Reader's Companion to American History.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.  ISBN 0-395-51372-3  (pp. 987-988).      Josar, David.  "IRS Warns Against Trying to Get Refund for Reparations."   The Detroit News.  28 August 1996  (p. D1).     Kessler, Glenn.  "IRS Paid $30 Million in Credits for Slavery."   The Washington Post.  13 April 2002  (p. A1).     La Hay, Patricia.  "Slavery Reparations Tax Break Is Illegal."   The Arizona Republic.  9 August 1997  (p. A1).     McLeod, Ramon.  "Even Street Gangs Are Among Those Involved in Fraud."   The San Francisco Chronicle.  13 April 1996  (p. A17).     Moore, Linda.  "League Explains Nonrole in Slavery Reparations Hoax."   The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.  15 September 2000  (p. C2).     Oubre, Claude F.  Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.  ISBN 0-807-10298-9.     Sherrod, L.G.  "Forty Acres and a Mule."   Essence.  April 1993  (p. 124).     Stiehm, Jamie.  "IRS Official Warns of Tax Hoax Using Slave Reparations."   The Baltimore Sun.  12 February 2002.     The Associated Press.   "Blacks Targeted in Slavery Reparation Scam."   6 October 2000.     Chicago Sun-Times.  "Reparations Scam Preys on Ignorance."   17 July 1996  (p. 47).     Chicago Tribune.  "Tax Myths Don't Add Up at IRS."    23 February 1997  (p. C7).     Reuters.  "Man Barred from Making Slavery Tax Claims."    15 April 2005. If a hundred of the most talented members of the advertising industry were tasked with creating an image to illustrate the concepts of poverty and famine, quite possibly none of them would come up with anything nearly as grippingly and devastatingly effective as a 1993 picture snapped by South African freelance photographer Kevin Carter: The PHOTO in the mail is the "Pulitzer prize" winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. The picture depicts a famine stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken. Three months later he committed suicide due to depression. This was found in his diary, "Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be I pray that He will protect this little boy, guide and deliver him away from his misery. I pray that we will be more sensitive towards the world around us and not be blinded be our own selfish nature and interests." I hope this picture will always serve as a reminder to us that how fortunate we are and that we must never ever take things for granted.  His poignant photograph of an emaciated toddler who collapsed from hunger on her way to a feeding center in famine-ravaged Sudan while a vulture ominously loomed in the background was originally published in the New York Times (which later described it as "a metaphor for Africa's despair") and earned Carter the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in the Feature Photography category, and the image has since become widely known as a metaphor for Africa's despair. Pulitzer Prize As described in Time magazine, the scene Carter captured in his now-famous photograph was one he stumbled across during a trip he made on his own in order to cover the civil strife in war-torn Sudan: In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with [friend and fellow journalist] Joo Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the [South Africa] Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter." After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed. But Kevin Carter was also a troubled soul, struggling with issues such as financial insecurity, drug problems, failed relationships, and the horrors of having witnessed multiple scenes of death  enough of a burden for anyone to struggle with, but in Carter's case a burden made extra-heavy by the critical condemnation heaped upon him for taking the photograph that had made him world-famous: Though the photo helped draw enormous attention to the humanitarian crisis that was engulfing Sudan, it was criticized by others who felt that Carter should have helped the girl and was instead exploiting her suffering for his gain. The real vulture, they said in vitriolic hate mail, was Carter himself. Some photojournalists might have easily dismissed such criticism, but it hit Carter hard and fed his self-doubts. On 27 July 1994, barely two months after having received his Pulitzer Prize, 33-year-old Kevin Carter could shoulder that burden no more and took his own life: The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg's northern suburbs  and through Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquire T-shirt, he got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow. The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was "depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... " Although the purported diary entry (beginning "Dear God, I promise I will never waste my food") that has been tacked onto this photograph may sound like something Kevin Carter might have written, those words were not recorded in his diary, nor are they known to have been written or spoken by him.  They were added to the photograph by an unknown hand after the picture had been circulating on the Internet for several years. Kevin Carter's life (and death) was the subject of the 2004 documentary, The Life of Kevin Carter. The Life of Kevin Carter Keller, Bill.  "Kevin Carter, a Pulitzer Winner for Sudan Photo, Is Dead at 33."
  The New York Times.  29 July 1994  (p. B8).

 MacLeod, Scott.  "The Life and Death of Kevin Carter."
  Time.  12 September 1994.

 McMurtrie, John.  "A Photographer's Burden of Seeing the World's Despair."
  San Francisco Chronicle.  2 May 2005. Numerous allegations of sexual harassment have been made against former film executive Harvey Weinstein recently, which may be why "satirical" web site Freedom Junkshun was inspired to publish a story on 17 October 2017 that painted documentarian Michael Moore in a similar light. According to the site: Fox News reported Monday: While filming anti-gun movie Bowling for Columbine Sarah Slater, who was 16 at the time and on set as an extra, says Moore walked up to her and made multiple passes. "I rejected him every time but he wouldnt take no for an answer, Slater tells Fox. He had me change into this really short skirt and he would just stare. At the end of the day, I was at a vending machine and felt a hand sliding up my thigh." In reality, Fox News reported no such thing. Freedom Junkshun is a long-standing publisher of false information. The site includes this disclaimer: publisher We believe that there is nothing more precious than the mind of an aging conservative. Here we gather a boatload of bullhonkey, works of pure satirical fiction, to give the fist-shakers of the world a reason to hate. Reality is often in the eye of the beholder. You wont find any of it here. Join the fun in the comments on our Facebook page where you too can watch David Hasselhoff running over someones poodle magically transformed into a crime against humanity by Barack Obama or yet another murder the Clintons got away with. However, that did not stop conservative social media users from trying to pass the story off as legitimate:     As is commonplace, other websitesConservative Columns, The Star Chronicle, USA First Information, and Defense Patriotregurgitated the fake story without including a "satirical" disclaimer of their own. In reality, Moore criticized Weinstein in a Facebook post on 13 October 2017, saying: saying: I have intervened on more than one occasion and I have fired men who sexually harass women. Harvey Weinstein knew better than to behave inappropriately toward women in my presence. I'm guessing successful sociopaths like him who get away with it for years are very, very careful not to let the kind of men who would stop them dead cold ever get a glimpse of who they really are. I don't live in Weinstein's Hollywood world and I make documentaries, so I can't speak to the culture he created and seemed to thrive in. I AM the only director that I know of who's actually taken Weinstein to court (for being a thief, which requires a different set of sociopathic skills, but, like sexual harassment, you can probably find them at a few Hollywood studios). All of us (men) must share the responsibility for allowing a society to exist where women do not feel safe. A society where, when they are abused, they are not able to tell their stories without fear of retribution and shame. A society that badgers, blames or scoffs at women when they tell their stories. Or how they tell their stories. Or "how long" it took them. They carry a burden that most of us (men) never have to experience. If you can't empathize with that or understand what they are dealing with, then maybe you're part of the problem. We contacted Moore seeking comment on Freedom Junkshun's "story." Weinstein, the former co-founder of Miramax and the Weinstein Company, has been accused by more than 60 women of sexually harassment or assault in the wake of reports by both the New York Times and the New Yorker this month, detailing a pattern of alleged abuse. both and He was subsequently fired from the Weinstein Company as well as expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Police in London and Los Angeles have opened investigations regarding Weinstein, while New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman is reviewing whether Weinstein committed civil rights violations. London Angeles reviewing Kantor, Jodi and Megan Twohey.  "Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades."
  The New York Times.  5 October 2017. Farrow, Ronan.  "From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein's Accusers Tell Their Stories."
  The New Yorker.  10 October 2017. Lartey, Jamiles and Kevin Rawlinson.  "Harvey Weinstein: Police in New York and London Investigating Allegations."
  The Guardian.  12 October 2017. Winton, Richard and Victoria Kim.  "Investigation Launched After Actress Tells LAPD She Was Raped by Harvey Weinstein."
  Los Angeles Times.  19 October 2017. Twohey, Megan.  "Weinstein Company Faces Civil Rights Inquiry by New York Attorney General."
  The New York Times.  23 October 2017. The term small business covers a range of seven different size categories, ranging from a two-person mom-and-pop grocery store to a factory with nearly 500 employees.Which is why researchers at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics chuckled when we asked them about a statement Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder made about small businesses creating new jobs.Appearing on WCPN 90.3 FMs Sound of Ideas program, Batchelder noted the importance of small businesses in Ohios economy.Seventy-five percent of the jobs created in the state of Ohio are created in small business. They are not created by huge corporations and those who are very wealthy, Batchelder said.PolitiFact Ohio thought that sounded interesting and we put the Truth-O-Meter to work.We started by contacting the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Researchers there cited statistics that showed 99 percent of all private sector companies in the United States are considered small businesses, according to the definition used by the Small Business Administration. It categorizes any firm that employs 499 or fewer people as a small business.Traditionally, the number of people employed by small businesses has been about the same as the number who work for businesses of 500 people or more, said Brian Headd of the SBAs Office of Advocacy. That category would include large factories, like auto plants and steel manufacturers.As of last year, the majority of workers had tipped toward small businesses, which employed just under 55 percent of the nations workforce, the BLSs most recent statistics showed.We also checked with Batchelders office about the source of the speakers statement. Spokesman Mike Dittoe gave us two: The National Federation of Independent Businesss Ohio office in Columbus, and a March 2010 report prepared by Headd titled, An Analysis of Small Business and Jobs.Roger Geiger, NFIB/Ohios executive director, both confirmed Batchelders statement and also referred us to the Headd report.Headd also echoed Batchelders sentiment that small businesses are important to the nations economic health. He points out how one in five employees at small firms work part-time, and how a greater percentage of Hispanics, high school students, disabled, elderly, and rural employees work at small businesses.Headd also noted that more than half of all companies start out small, stay small and close after a few years, accounting for 85 percent of job turnover in the country -- which is not necessarily a bad thing. Headd considers the hefty job changes experienced in small businesses to be beneficial and a natural outgrowth of a healthy economy.Although job turnover can be an emotional roller coaster for individuals, small firm job flows are a boon to the economy, Headd wrote in his report. This churning represents the economys constant evolution from outmoded processes and industries to more productive ones, a process he calls creative destruction.Headd sees small businesses as key to the nations recovery from the recession of 2009.With the labor market struggling in recent years, small businesses are a logical group to look to for job recovery as they have such a large role in net job creation, he wrote.BLS researchers confirmed that their most recent statistics indicated that 75 percent of all new hires nationwide were made by small businesses in the second quarter of 2010. Over the past eight years, small businesses made 65 percent of all new hires in the United States, they said. And of small business job creation, nearly three out of four new workers were hired at companies with less than 20 employees.But what about Ohio? Do the states small businesses mirror the national trend?Benjamin Johnson of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services had data from the federal government on the most recent statewide breakdown, by county, of the total number of workers employed in Ohio, but could not provide specific information to verify Batchelders claim that 75 percent of the jobs created in the state of Ohio are created in small business.Geiger, in the Ohio office of the National Federation of Independent Business, didnt have Ohio-specific data either.And the BLS told us they didnt track that data, either. But researchers there made a point of saying they were sure Batchelders statement was essentially correct. As one pointed out: 99 out of 100 employers are classified as small businesses, so saying 75 percent of all new jobs in Ohio are created by small businesses is hardly different than saying ALL businesses create ALL jobs.So the experts who deal with labor statistics back up Batchelders claim, but we also note that the absence of specific data on Ohio jobs is a point that provides clarification. On the Truth-O-Meter we rate Batchelders statement as Mostly True. In November 2019, several readers began inquiring about the existence of a keto pill that had allegedly been funded through the popular NBC TV show "Shark Tank"  a program in which affluent judges decide for or against investing their personal funds in various entrepreneurial ventures pitched to them in front of the camera. Keto, in this context, is a form of dieting that proponents claim forces your body to metabolize body fat in the absence of other carbs like glucose. This post is not about the science behind such claims, but instead about the business of selling supplements with fake celebrity endorsements. For the record, no keto-based product has ever been pitched or funded on "Shark Tank." form of dieting In at least one notable instance, a product named PureFit KETO was marketed as if it had been successfully pitched on "Shark Tank." However, on June 22, 2019, the Better Business Bureau investigated the company, finding that the images appearing on PureFit KETO's website were taken from a separate 'Shark Tank' episode that does not mention PureFit KETO. Despite this, Amazon, among others, includes the "Shark Tank" claim in its product listing at the time of this reporting in late 2019. marketed finding Shark Tank" claim Claims of a "Shark Tank" approved keto pill are just one of a series of iterations of a broader scam. Among the many ways some people seek passive income from online marketing is to sell supplements via dropshipping  a practice in which the person advertising and selling a given product never actually has physical possession of the product in question. The role of the dropshipper is to move the product by directing potential customers to order directly from a supplier and thereby earning a fraction of the profits from a sale in the process. Myriad individuals in this space evidently use a variety of dubious practices to juice those sales.  dropshipping One such method is to lie about who has endorsed the product, as evidenced in claims that PureFit Keto had been funded on "Shark Tank." Similar products have also been advertised as if famous celebrities use them. For example, marketers of a product named Keto Fit claimed the supplement was endorsed by model Chrissy Teigen, providing made-up quotes from her to sell the product. Teigen publicly repudiated the practice when it was brought to her attention in January 2019:  Claims of Keto Fits celebrity endorsements dont end with Teigen. False claims about Keto Fits endorsements include alleged support from celebrities such as Demi Lovato and Jameela Jamil. In some cases, claims of support come from websites designed to look like existing media properties  the Teigen claims were made on a website pretending to be the popular site Bored Panda. In other cases, a common marketing method is the creation of fake diet pill reviews on blogs that exist solely to review that one keto product while highlighting impossible-to-miss links to order the product. Demi Lovato reviews on blogs Though these various keto products often change names  the products are frequently rebranded into similar-sounding names over time  the product generally remains the same. These products, with names like KetoFit, KetoBurn, KetoPlus, or KetoMelt, are all  if you trust these companies to accurately report their contents  made up of the same chemical: Beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). rebranded   BHB is a ketone that the body is able under certain circumstances to burn for energy instead of glucose. Suggesting this widely available nutritional supplement is uniquely worthy to be an invention worthy of "Shark Tank," or a secret product used by the Hollywood elite is, on its face, absurd. More to the point, however, no keto diet pill has ever been discussed on the show "Shark Tank." a ketone Masood, Wajeed and Kalyan R. Uppaluri.  Ketogenic Diet.
  StatPearls.  As updated on 21 March 2019. BBB.com.  PureFit KETO.
  Accessed 19 November 2019. Amazon.com.  Purefit Keto Weight Loss Pills for Men and Women - Ketogenic Diet Supplement - Burn Fat for Energy - BHB Formula (1 Month).
  Accessed 19 November 2019. Shopify.  The Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping.
  Accessed 19 November 2019. Brar, Faith.  BHB: The Miracle Molecule of the Keto Diet?
  StatPearls.  28 September 2017. The congressional contest between Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton and Republican Rep. Jim Renacci is among the nations most costly and hard-fought races, and has also devolved into one of the nastiest.After Renacci placed ads accusing Sutton of voting to raise taxes on just about everyone, Sutton fired back with an ad that claims Renacci supports tax breaks for millionaires like himself and tried to avoid paying taxes on nearly $14 million that he made.We play by the rules but Renacci thinks hes above them, says a male blue collar worker shown in Suttons ad.On the same day that Sutton unveiled the ad that accuses Renacci of avoiding taxes, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made a similar assertion in adifferent ad, which says: Renacci tried to skip out on paying over a million in taxes..The tax avoidance claims in Suttons new ad echo charges that were raised against Renacci in 2010, when he first ran for Congress and defeated Democratic Rep. John Boccieri. They stem from a dispute Renacci had with the Ohio Department of Taxation, which accused him and his wife, Tina, of misreporting their income in 2000 and assessed them nearly $1.4 million in back taxes, interest and penalties.The Renaccis filed state tax returns that claimed they had a loss of $247,336 that year, but auditors determined they actually made $13,730,440. The couple filed a tax appeal when the state dinged them for $954,650 in back taxes, $146,938 in interest and $293,876 in penalties.The quarrel was over Renacci's trust income from an S corporation, which wasnt taxable for several years before Ohio's tax commissioner changed the states policy. S corporations permit income to be taxed at an individual rate for federal tax purposes, and avoid double taxation on corporate income. Renacci was among a group of taxpayers who fought the state decision. He contended the trust income should have been tax-free and that he had reasonable cause to exclude it on his tax return, tax department and court documents say.Others dropped their appeals, but Renacci continued to fight, even after a 2006 Ohio Supreme Court ruling in a similar case in which the court said the trust income was subject to taxation. In that case, the taxpayers reported their S Corporation income on their 2000 tax return and then unsuccessfully asked for a refund.A 2007 legal brief the state of Ohio filed in Renaccis case observed that nearly all other litigants who created grantor trusts in an attempt to shelter, i.e., exclude their S corporation income from Ohio income taxation gave up their appeals, and that the Renaccis were almost alone in their persistence. Court records show the Renaccis eventually sent the state more than $1.3 million, but they continue to argue that $359,822 that they paid in penalties and interest were improper.He was proud of his fight, and to have fought till the end, along with many other Ohioans for tax fairness, Renacci spokesman James Slepian told the Plain Dealer in 2010.When asked about Suttons new ad,  Slepian this month called her a desperate politician who knows shes losing and has no record to run on, and said shes  engaging in the bogus, gutter politics of recycled personal attacks that have defined her sad career in Congress.Indeed, the charges against Renacci are somewhat recycled. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union placeda television adin 2010 that contained a more extreme version of the charges that Sutton is making.That ad said he cheated on his income taxes, that he hid more than $13 million and was forced to pay $1.4 million in back taxes and penalties. Renacci filed a defamation suit against the union after the ads began to air.Court recordsshow he dropped the case on Feb. 3, 2011, shortly after he took office in Congress.PolitiFact Ohio founda claim in that ad to be Mostly True because Renacci could have disclosed the trust income on his state tax return, as the state warned he should, but he didnt. He also could have paid the taxes and contested the amount, but didnt. And he didnt amend his return, despite an explicit 2002 warning from Ohios tax Department that he could face penalties for fraud and failure to pay if he didnt. But Renacci ultimately worked within the system to resolve the case, paid the full amount that was due, and was not ever charged with tax fraud.The claim in this ad is an easier call. Reams of legal documents show that Renacci battled with the state over trust income from an S corporation, trying to avoid paying taxes on the $13.7 million at issue in the case.On the Truth-O-Meter, Suttons claim rates True. Claim:  After a bank failure, the FDIC has 99 years to pay back insured deposits.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2008] I heard an "expert" on KFI AM 640 in LA say the FDIC has up to 99 years to repay you in the event of a bank failure. Sounds like a misrepresentation but when asked by the host, she said "it's in the fine print."  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] I have been hearing of a story of a man entering a bank week after week and making a deposit of a government check in some sort of insignificant amount (the number I heard was $0.35 per check). The teller asks why is he depositing such a small check. His response is that his bank went bust and that the checks are from the F.D.I.C. The gist of this apocryphal tale is that FDIC insurance is not a good thing and that if it does pay out it will take forever to recover your "insured" loss. This tale was repeated yesterday to my sister-in-law by a bank teller trying to dissuade her from moving an UNINSURED money market account to an F.D.I.C. insured CD with another bank. Origins:   Economic turmoil in the United States in recent years has given many Americans pause to consider just how safe their money is, especially in light of some bank failures that have reminded us that even such seemingly secure investments as ordinary savings accounts are not  completely risk-free.   And although most bank customers are aware their deposits are insured, they aren't necessarily familiar with the details of how that insurance works, a circumstance that has fostered the spread of rumors which create additional insecurity. After a wave of bank failures that came in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the prolonged economic depression that followed, the U.S. federal government created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to restore public confidence in (and help stabilize) the U.S. banking system.  The FDIC provided federal government guarantees of deposits up to $100,000 per account holder per bank (and up to $250,000 per account holder for deposit retirement accounts), subject to certain conditions, at insured financial institutions.*    FDIC Bank failures in the U.S. have been a relatively uncommon phenomenon since the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s, so many consumers have had little or no exposure to the process by which FDIC deposit insurance works, a circumstance that has led to the uncertainty reflected in the examples cited above.  Widely-believed rumors hold that FDIC insurance actually covers just a small fraction of the original deposit amount  (e.g., 1.5%), or that the FDIC only reimburses depositors in full over a very long period of time (e.g., 99 years), the net result being the mistaken belief that FDIC insurance isn't really much of a guarantee at all.  In fact, these rumors are so prevalent that they were both included (as numbers #3 and #4) in a list of the top ten misconceptions about the FDIC published in the Spring 2006 edition of the FDIC Consumer News newsletter, where they were addressed thusly: If a bank fails, the FDIC could take up to 99 years to pay depositors for their insured accounts. This is a completely false notion that many bank customers have told us they heard from someone attempting to sell them another kind of financial product. The truth is that federal law requires the FDIC to pay the insured deposits "as soon as possible" after an insured bank fails. Historically, the FDIC pays insured deposits within a few days after a bank closes, usually the next business day. In most cases, the FDIC will provide each depositor with a new account at another insured bank. Or, if arrangements cannot be made with another institution, the FDIC will issue a check to each depositor. The FDIC only pays failed-bank depositors a percentage of their insured funds. All too often we receive questions similar to this one: "Is it true that if my FDIC-insured bank fails, I would only get $1.31 for every $100 in my checking account?" As with misconception number 3, this misinformation appears to be spread by some financial advisors and sales people. Federal law requires the FDIC to pay 100 percent of the insured deposits up to the federal limit  including principal and interest. If your bank fails and you have deposits over the limit, you may be able to recover some or, in rare cases, all of your uninsured funds. However, the overwhelming majority of depositors at failed institutions are within the insurance limit, and insured funds are always paid in full. As noted, this type of misinformation is often passed along by unscrupulous or misinformed financial advisors who are trying to steer customers towards investments or accounts that are not insured, so if you have any doubts about exactly what is or is not covered by FDIC insurance, you may want to undertake some additional verification on your own. *Note: In October 2008 the FDIC insurance limit was temporarily increased to $250,000 per account, with that increase slated to remain in effect through the end of 2009, but subsequently extended through the end of 2013. In July 2010 the FDIC insurance limit was permanently increased to $250,000 per depositor, per insured depository institution for each account ownership category. increased Last updated:  8 April 2014 The February 2018 shooting deaths of seventeen people at a high school in Parkland, Florida and a subsequent, charged town hall meeting about gun safety with some of the mass shooting's survivors and their families has put the National Rifle Association under intense scrutiny for its opposition to gun control. shooting deaths meeting Against this background, many were surprised to discover that the NRA, despite being well known for its political lobbying and ties to the gun industry, is in fact a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. On 22 February 2018, the "Really American" Facebook page posted a meme that showed President Donald Trump holding a replica flintlock rifle, along with this message: meme rifle The NRA has non-profit, tax-exempt status. Even though they transformed from an organization for gun owners to an organization for gun manufacturers, and donate millions of dollars to politicians to make sure they vote the "right way." Corruption in action.    The National Rifle Association is indeed a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. To be specific, it has 501(c)(4) status, meaning it is regarded as a "social welfare organization" by the Internal Revenue Service: 501(c)(4) status social welfare organization To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements.) A 501(c)(4) organization like the NRA is allowed to engage in political lobbying and advocacy, but this cannot be its main activity, and it must be related to the group's primary mission and the issue upon which its tax exemption is based, according to the IRS. Social welfare organizations may also get involved in political campaigns and elections, provided their involvement is related to the group's mission, and again, only if this does not constitute their primary activity.  IRS Critics of the NRA have claimed that the organization's tax exemption should be taken away, because, roughly speaking, the NRA spends less time and money providing a genuine service to the public at large than it does on political lobbying, and because the NRA's activities benefit the private gun industry. In its 2015 tax return, the NRA described its mission as "Firearms safety education and training and advocacy on behalf of safe and responsible gun owners." In April 2016, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence published a report on this very issue, labelling the NRA "a tax-exempt [organization] loaded with private interest." The authors  attorney Alexandra O'Neill and financial analyst Daniel O'Neill  wrote: tax return report ...The majority of the NRAs lobbying, education, training and publication activities operate to benefit a private interest: the firearms and ammunition industry. As a result, under the cases and rulings interpreting section 501(c)(4), the NRA does not primarily serve the community interest and should not qualify as a tax-exempt social welfare organization.  Instead, the NRA should operate as a political lobbying organization to be accountable for its key interests: the firearms and ammunition industry. A spokesperson for the NRA rejected this, telling us in an e-mail that the group's legislative lobbying was "textbook social welfare activity," and that any benefits that accrued to gun manufacturers from the NRA's activities were "incidental": The assertion that the NRA is not operated for tax-exempt purposes is false because legislative lobbying to protect the Second Amendment freedoms of Americans is social welfare activity. The defense of civil rights secured by law is textbook social welfare activity, regardless of the size and extent of such activity.... It was established in case law, the spokesperson argued, that "occasional" private financial benefits resulting incidentally from a nonprofit group's activities are allowed: Just as newspapers and other information sources incidentally benefit from the ACLUs advocacy about the First Amendment, gun manufacturers incidentally benefit from the NRAs advocacy about the Second.  Reilly, John Francis; Braig Allen, Barbara A. "Political Campaign and Lobbying Activities of IRC 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) Organizations."
 Internal Revenue Service. 2003 National Rifle Association of America. "Form 990  Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, 2015."
 ProPublica. 2016. O'Neill, Alexandra F.; O'Neill, Daniel P. "The NRA, a Tax-Exempt Loaded With Private Interest."
 The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. April 2016. FACT CHECK:  Are the claims made in an e-mail titled "New American Way of Life" accurate?  Claim: An e-mail titled "New American Way of Life" accurately describes a generous safety net available to Americans who opt not to work.     Examples: [Collected via Facebook and e-mail, August 2015] Do you have any info on this article? I find a lot of it to be wrong, and no sources are cited. From what I understand less than 5% of the population abuses welfare, Pell grants barely cover college tuition and books. Who gets free cell phones? Does a mother of 2 really get $600 a month in food stamps? I've seen this posted 3 times today in my FB feed and feel it needs to be dispelled  ------------------------  The Key to Success for Those Who Are Inheriting America in 13 Easy Steps! How to get $75,000 in benefits every year from the US Government for you and your girlfriend? Follow these proven and simple steps. First ... get a girlfriend         1. Don't marry her.         2. Use your mom's address to receive your mail.         3. The guy buys a house.         4. Guy rents out house to his girl girlfriend who has 2 of his kids.         5. Section 8 will pay $900 a month for a 3 bedroom home.         6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay for family insurance.         7. Being a single mother, Girlfriend gets to go to college for free!         8. Girlfriend gets $600 a month for food stamps        9. Girlfriend gets free cell phone from US Government       10. Girlfriend get free utilities.       11. Guy moves into home but still uses mom's house to receive mail.       12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes.  Now you both get to claim head of household at $1,800 credit.       13. Girlfriend gets disability for being "crazy" or having a "bad back" at $1,800 a month and never has to work again.         This plan is perfectly legal and is being executed now by millions of people. A married couple with a stay at home mom yields $0 dollars. An unmarried couple with stay at home mom nets $21,600 disability + $10,800 free housing + $6,000 free obamacare + $6,000 free food + $4,800 free utilities + $6,000 Pell Grant money to spend + $12,000 a year in college tuition free from Pell Grant + $8,800 tax benefit for being a single mother = $75,000 a year in benefits. Any idea why the country is 18 + trillion in debt? Welcome to the new multicultural diverse, fundamentally changed America, thanks to the ever popular and exciting, everyone is entitled to everything world. Origins: The item reproduced above has been circulating online since at least April 2015, and after it was published the Miller County Liberal of to Colquitt, Georgia, on 19 August 2015 it received a boost in popularity due to the implied authority of appearing in print. (Although it was attributed to "John Tabb," an earlier version was credited to "Jeffery Rightmire.") published credited As is often the case with e-mail polemics focused on purported welfare abuse and taxpayer outrage, the "New American Way of Life" offers an implausible, far-fetched scenario to condemn those who use public assistance to make ends meet: polemics welfare abuse taxpayer assistance   1. Don't marry (your girlfriend).  2. Use your mom's address to receive your mail.  3. The guy buys a house.  4. Guy rents out house to his girlfriend who has 2 of his kids.  5. Section 8 will pay $900 a month for a 3 bedroom home. Points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the forward pertain to the imagined generosity of the housing program colloquially called "Section 8," the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) assistance program that provides very low-income families with subsidized vouchers they can use towards paying a portion of their monthly rent. Section 8 HUD While Section 8 is frequently derided in the fashion referenced above, it's very difficult to play the system in the manner described due to the low supply versus tremendous demand for housing and vouchers among those in need of it.  Applicants typically have to spend years on waiting lists before Section 8 housing becomes available, and in many cases it takes years to even get one's name on a waiting list in the first place.  Waiting lists for the program close to new applicants for years at a time on a not-infrequent basis, as a 24 August 2015 article in the Albuquerque Journal reported: close years The waiting list for Section 8 subsidized housing will re-open on Sept. 1, after closing 28 months ago, the Bernalillo County Housing Department announced Friday. But getting onto that waiting list is no assurance that a person will move into Section 8 housing anytime soon. According to Housing Department senior administrative assistant, Craig Smith, the waiting list will re-open with 600 people still on the list, and we expect to add thousands by the time the list is closed back down, though there is no tentative date when that will happen. The wait list was shut down on May 1, 2013, because of sequestering of funds and budget cuts from the federal government, in particular the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. So it's extremely unlikely the baby daddy landlord in this hypothetical scenario could simply make a residence available for the Section 8 program and then immediately rent it to the tenant of his choosing.  He'd typically have to wait years for his preferred renter (i.e., his girlfriend) to get on a Section 8 waiting list, then more years for her to work her way to the top of the list, before he could double-dip by getting the government to subsidize his girlfriend's paying him rent to live in a house he owns.  The baby daddy in this scenario (one who can afford to buy his own house) would probably be far better off financially if he simply lived in the house with his girlfriend, or rented it out to someone other than his girlfriend. 6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay for family insurance. There is a persistent misperception that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act PPACA  7. Being a single mother, Girlfriend gets to go to college for free! If there is any guaranteed way for a "single mother" to obtain a college education for free, we've yet to locate it.  Yes, federal Pell Grants can provide qualifying students with up to almost $6,000 per year towards the cost of attending college (depending upon financial need), but they aren't tied to one's status as a single mother.  There are some grants and scholarships available for single parents to both help them afford school while they are in and and help them pay it off once they have graduated, but those types of programs are scant, and very, very few unpartnered mothers could get a free ride to any college on the basis of their status as single parents alone. Pell Grants single parents scant 8. Girlfriend gets $600 a month for food stamps The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as "food stamps") is an often criticized assistance program aimed at combating hunger by financially struggling families. Eligibility for SNAP varies based on household size, but the maximum monthly allotment ranges from $194 for a family of one to $1,169 for a family of eight. Each additional family member after that can qualify a household for up to $146 more each month in benefits, or just under $5 per person per day.  The household size posited here (a single mother with two children) wouldn't qualify for $600 per month in SNAP benefits. food stamps criticized Eligibility The Department of Agriculture (under which the program operates) estimates a total annual program "loss" of about four percent.  Despite widespread belief that the SNAP program is rampantly abused with little oversight, fraud in the program is aggressively investigated and prosecuted where applicable. estimates investigated 9. Girlfriend gets free cell phone from US Government The Lifeline program (commonly known as "Obamaphones," even though the program was actually initiated long before the Barack Obama took office) requires phone service providers to offer monthly discounts on landline or wireless telephone service to eligible low-income consumers.  The program does not require those providers to issue "free cell phones" to anyone (although some cellular providers choose to do so at their own expense). Obamaphones 10. Girlfriend get free utilities. Various programs administered at the state level provide low-income families with financial assistance to offset the costs of essential utilities, but often only in emergency situations. utilities emergency 11. Guy moves into home but still uses mom's house to receive mail. One might theoretically do this, but the person who deliberately falsified his residence address in order to live in self-owned housing that he was being paid to rent to another party under the Section 8 program would be committing a crime, not simply taking legitimate and legal advantage of government assistance programs. 12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes.  Now you both get to claim head of household at $1,800 credit. Whether or not taxpayers are setting out to craftily claim tax deductions to which they are not entitled, the IRS's head of household tax filing status indeed entitles the person filing to a higher deduction ($9,250 in 2015 versus $6,300 for taxpayers filing as Single or Married Filing Separately). It's important to bear in mind that that dollar amount is what taxpayers may deduct from their taxable income, and not necessarily an amount that they will receive back in the form of a tax refund. head of household status entitles And of course, if each parent is claiming one of the two children as a dependent, than the mother can't be legally collecting benefits (such as SNAP) for both children. Girlfriend gets disability for being "crazy" or having a "bad back" at $1,800 a month and never has to work again. For starters, one cannot simply declare herself to be mentally ill or have back problems, then sit back and collect disability payments for the rest of her (working) life.  Such claims have to be documented by medical professionals as genuinely disabling conditions, and even then those living with disabilities find that securing benefits isn't quite so easy. Presuming the woman in this anecdote is fairly young, she would have to have accrued sufficient work credits to qualify for lifelong disability payments (an unlikely scenario), and then she would still have to meet separate criteria for a qualifying condition (which precludes having earned more than $1,090 per month in that year). The condition under which a person qualifies also must be one that limits ability to do any other work: easy accrued work credits criteria If you cannot do the work you did in the past, we see if you are able to adjust to other work. We consider your medical conditions and your age, education, past work experience and any transferable skills you may have. If you cannot adjust to other work, your claim will be approved. If you can adjust to other work, your claim will be denied. According to data from the agency, more than half of disability claims are denied, and the wait for hearings has increased (partly due to an aging pool of applicants). The anecdotal claimant's purported plundering of disability benefits also conflicts with her concurrent sponging of educational grants, as the usefulness of the latter is negated by the former: A full-time student wouldn't  qualify for lifelong disability payments, and college would be unnecessary for the matriarch of a household who intended to remain home for life collecting benefits for her fabricated disability. denied aging This plan is perfectly legal and is being executed now by millions of people. A married couple with a stay at home mom yields $0 dollars. An unmarried couple with stay at home mom nets. $21.600 disability + $10,800 free housing + $6,000 free   obamacare +$6,000 free food + $4,800 free utilities + $6,000 Pell Grant money to spend + $12,000 a year in college tuition free from Pell Grant + $8,800 tax benefit for being a single mother = $75,000 a year in benefits. Any idea why the country is 18 + trillion in debt? As the excerpt above concludes, the figures bandied about in the e-mail encompass virtually all programs available to low-income Americans and extrapolates the fictional family described routinely accesses all of them. Some of the benefits described (such as free college for single mothers or free utility programs) don't seem to exist, and several of forms of assistance (such as Section 8 or disability) are not administered in the simplistic manner suggested by this item. Furthermore, while this item asserts that the complex welfare hustling plan described here is "perfectly legal," several aspects of it involve defrauding the system in an expressly prohibited (and largely criminal) fashion. Were any family to hide assets or lie about household income on application forms, they would be subject to severe penalties and prosecution should their perfidy be unraveled. The scheme also rests upon the (fallacious) notion that access to assistance programs is easy to both maintain and retain. fallacious Finally, the causes of the national debt are fairly complex. However, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and Defense broadly account for most government spending. account Last updated: 31 August 2015 Originally published:  31 August 2015 On Nov. 11, 2020, Bloomberg reported that strategists at Deutsche Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, recommended levying a tax against people who plan to continue working from home, arguing that "remote workers should pay a tax for the privilege. At least on Twitter, this was a poorly received take. One particularly viral response alleged that the bank "funded Auschwitz, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and ISIS." reported response     As we show below, the tweet is a largely accurate recounting of history, though the assertion that the bank funded ISIS overstates what is publicly known at this time. In 1999, during negotiations to merge with the New York-based Bankers Trust, the Germany-based Deutsche Bank disclosed that it had helped finance the construction of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. As reported by Reuters at the time, Deutsche Bank's historian, Manfred Pohl, described the bank's loans to companies involved in multiple aspects of Auschwitz, including loans for construction of the camp and its incineration units, as well as to a company involved in the production of the deadly Zyklon-B gas, which the Nazis used to murder millions: reported Manfred Pohl, head of Deutsche Banks historical institute, said newly uncovered documents showed the bank had links with firms that built the camp in Poland. It also had credit links to one company that made incineration units and funded another whose subsidiary made the Zyklon-B gas used in the camp. On examination of credit records, we determined that branches . . . had credit links to local companies which were active at the construction site . . . in Auschwitz, Pohl said at a media briefing in Frankfurt. Pohl told reporters that the existence of these loans would have been known to high-ranking managers of the bank. "It is clear that this was known as high up at the main office in Katowice. It is not certain whether it was known in Berlin," Pohl said, though he added these loans would have had to be approved in Berlin to go ahead. Deutsche Bank has had a relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump since 1998. As reported in The New York Times, "Over the course of two decades, the bank lent him more than $2 billion  so much that by the time he was elected, Deutsche Bank was by far his biggest creditor." Speaking to Reuters in November 2020, one bank official said that the Trump Organization currently has around $340 million in outstanding debt from the bank: reported Reuters Deutsche Bank has about $340 million in loans outstanding to the Trump Organization, the presidents umbrella group that is currently overseen by his two sons, according to filings made by Trump to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in July and a senior source within the bank. The three loans, which are against Trump properties and start coming due in two years, are current on payments and personally guaranteed by the president, according to two bank officials. According to that Reuters report, the bank is looking to distance itself from the president moving forward. Their relationship with Trump "cemented Deutsche Banks reputation as a reckless institution willing to do business with clients nobody else would touch," they wrote. "It has made the company a magnet for prosecutors, regulators and lawmakers hoping to penetrate the presidents opaque financial affairs." Regardless, Trump's history with Deutsche Bank is factual and well known. Reuters According to a 2019 report by the New York State Department of Financial Services, "the relationship between Deutsche Bank and Mr. Epstein officially began on August 19, 2013" and eventually involved his opening and funding "more than 40 accounts at the Bank." 2019 report Controversially, they entered into business with Epstein after his 2008 arrest for the solicitation of a minor and after other media revelations about Epstein's alleged trafficking of underage women for sex. Some of these Deutsche Bank accounts were involved in suspicious transactions including, according to The New York Times, "suspiciously large cash withdrawals and 120 wire transfers totaling $2.65 million to women with Eastern European surnames and people who had been publicly identified as Mr. Epsteins co-conspirators." according In July 2020, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $150 million to the New York State Department of Financial Services "to settle allegations that it maintained weak internal controls, including processing hundreds of transactions for Jeffrey Epstein despite the billionaires troubled history." The bank has since apologized for its association with Epstein. apologized In the banking world, Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are notifications made by financial institutions to the United States government about potentially suspicious or illegal activity. A transaction labeled suspicious in these reports does not necessarily indicate illegal activity, however. SARs issued about transactions involving Deutsche Bank have been used to link them to ISIS in multiple investigations. made In December 2017, BuzzFeed News reported on SARs showing that Deutsche Bank had been engaged in business with a corrupt Cyprus bank named FBME that "served as a major conduit to terrorism, organized crime, and chemical weapons." The SARs revealed that "Deutsche processed hundreds of millions of dollars of suspicious transactions for FBME clients  including a Kremlin-linked network of Russian slush funds funneling money to financiers of the Syrian regime and a businessman trading oil with ISIS." The reports do not indicate, however, that Deutsche Bank knowingly participated in illegal activity. reported In September 2020, the existence of an even larger trove of SARs obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) was announced. The collaboration  a project named the FinCEN files  led to hundreds of stories in newsrooms across the world. One story, published by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), identified further transactions that could point to a potential involvement of Deutsche Bank in the movement of funds to, from, and within ISIS held territory. FinCEN files story The files, ARIJ said, "reveal suspicious money transfers of at least $4 billion flagged by Deutsche Banks US branches and Bank of America to a number of Iraqi banks between June 15, 2014 and June 30, 2015." Though the files do not indicate which bank branches were used, they reported, "the transactions were sent and received during the height of the Islamic States reign and its control over several Iraqi bank branches." The report notes that "many of the banks in northern Iraq were in areas of IS [Islamic State] influence, and such transfers could be the proceeds of the illicit oil and gas trade that the organisation largely relied on in its areas of control." said While suggestive of an at least unwitting role for Deutsche Bank in ISIS related finances, these reports are not strong enough evidence to support the statement that Deutsche Bank "funds" ISIS. Because there is some truth to the ISIS claim, and because the other assertions are true, we rank the overall claim made in the viral tweet as "true."