Does Irish Spring Soap Repel Flies?
Bars of Irish Spring soap are marketed as a product to, you know, keep yourself clean. But according to the internet, these bars of soap have several other uses. Some websites claim that the soap keeps away mice, while others say it keeps away deer. One of the most popular assertions, however, is that Irish Spring Soap can be used to repel flies.  bars of soap One viral Facebook post shared by Tabe Paxon in July 2020 read: Has anyone else noticed how bad flies are this year? Well I googled how to keep them away and..... who knew Irish spring original scent would really work???? Im amazed lol. Easily amazed I guess. Dad and me sit on the back porch a lot and dad even had a fly swatted out here with him bc they where so bad. Hung one bar of Irish spring and shocked how quickly and well it works. Thought I would share for anyone else annoyed with the flies   The claim that Irish Spring soap repels flies has been amplified by a variety of home and gardening websites, such as grandmasthing.com, Homemaking.com, and even Buzzfeed. grandmasthing.com Homemaking.com Buzzfeed We're skeptical of this fly repellent solution for a few reasons. For starters, the sources we found pushing this claim don't provide much information as to why this works. Instead, the blogs offer vague and unsupported claims about how flies apparently don't like the smell. But that just doesn't pass the sniff test.  Second, if Colgate-Palmolive, the company that owns the Irish Spring brand, truly had their hands on an effective insect repellent, why wouldn't they market it as such? Why wouldn't they make a product specifically targeting this need? Lastly, we have not found any credible studies or experiments documenting whether hanging a bar of Irish Spring Soap effectively repelled flies. In fact, the only unofficial experiment found appeared to show the exact opposite. In June 2021, the Pine Meadows Hobby Farm, a frugal homestead in the Cascade Mountains that creates video tutorials for their YouTube page, posted a little experiment to see if Irish Spring Soap truly repelled flies. The results? The soap did not seem to have any impact on the pest problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bGa9jvK11sWe reached out to Colgate-Palmolive and the American Horticulture Society, and we will update this article if more information is made available.
In November 2021, a photograph from space supposedly showing Diwali  a "festival of lights" that is celebrated by millions of Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists across India  was circulated on social media.    The image on the right does not show how India looks from space during Diwali.  According to NASA, this image was created by combining a series of images over multiple years in an attempt to show population growth. NASA writes: image was created writes An image that claims to show the region lit for Diwali has been circulating on social media websites and the Internet in recent years. In fact, it does not show what it claims. That image, based on data from the Operational Linescan System flown on U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, is a color-composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to highlight population growth over time. In that image, white areas show city lights that were visible prior to 1992, while blue, green, and red shades indicate city lights that became visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003 respectively. NASA adds that while Diwali is certainly a thing to behold when standing on the surface of earth, the light produced during the festival of lights isn't enough to be visible from space with normal satellite imagery.  In reality, any extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that it is likely imperceptible when observed from space. However, infrared cameras can detect the light produced during Diwali. In 2012, NASA's Suomi NPP satellite took an infrared image of South Asia during Diwali. The NASA History Office re-shared this image in 2021 in celebration of the holiday:  Fake Image of Diwali Still Circulating | Earth | EarthSky. 6 Nov. 2018, https://earthsky.org/earth/fake-image-of-india-during-diwali-versus-the-real-thing/. NGDC/STP - Defense Meteorological Satellite Progam, Boulder. 28 Feb. 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20060228074509/https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/interest/india.html. Seen the Viral NASA Diwali Photo Again This Year? Heres All You Need to Know about It. DNA India, 5 Nov. 2021, https://www.dnaindia.com/viral/report-seen-the-viral-nasa-diwali-photo-again-this-year-here-s-all-you-need-to-know-about-it-2918456. South Asian Night Lights. 15 Nov. 2012, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/79682/south-asian-night-lights. Images reflecting an old rumor about the Rothschild Family's unimaginable accumulated global wealth hold that the Rothschilds are worth $500 trillion and hold more than 80% of the world's total wealth:   While the Rothschilds are indeed very wealthy, claims about their net worth such as the ones displayed above are grossly exaggerated. Conspiracy theories concerning the Rothschild family date back to the 18th century, and the family's wealth was largely responsible for the anti-semitic belief that "Jews control the world's money supply." The Rothschilds are frequently associated with theories about the Illuminati, the New World Order, and other dark money groups that supposedly pull the strings of world governments, and the Rothschilds have been blamed for everything from starting wars for personal gain to funding the Holocaust to assassinating U.S. presidents. Skeptoid delved into the Rothschild family history in 2012, noting that: history The greatest of these financial adepts was Mayer Amschel Rothschild, born in 1744 in a Jewish slum of Frankfurt. Not much is known about his early life, as his was one of tens of thousands of marginalized, outcast families. But once he came of age he became an apprentice at a small bank in Hamburg, where he learned the trade. Returning to Frankfurt at the age of 19, he offered his own banking services in a modest way, beginning with trading of rare coins and related investments. He was energetic, clever, and most of all he was charismatic. And he was smart, seeking out wealthy clientele, and associating with nobility whenever he could. By the age of 40, he had consolidated his most important business contact: the Landgrave William, the Elector of Hesse, one of only a tiny number of nobles empowered to elect the Holy Roman Emperor. When William was younger, he had engaged in the trading of rare coins with Mayer's father, and so the two had always known one another. When William inherited his own father's massive fortune, his friendship with Mayer Rothschild gave Mayer the ability to begin conducting larger international transactions. This was the point at which the Rothschild name became first involved with the manipulation of money behind the scenes of wars. Mayer was a firm believer in family business, and insisted on using his own sons  by then he had five  as his business partners. What he did next became the model for many powerful Jewish financiers who followed: He installed each of his five sons as his agents in the five major financial centers of Europe: the eldest Amschel Mayer Rothschild in Frankfurt, Salomon Mayer Rothschild in Vienna, Nathan Mayer Rothschild in London, Calmann Mayer Rothschild in Naples, and the youngest Jakob Mayer Rothschild in Paris. Although the Rothschild family has amassed great wealth since the 1700s, claims that they have a net worth of $500 trillion or that they own 80% of the world's wealth are problematic. For one, the world's total wealth was estimated as of 2015 to be only $250 trillion, half of what the Rothchilds alone are claimed to possess: wealth Global wealth reached 250 trillion US dollars in 2015, slightly less than a year earlier, due to adverse exchange rate movements. The underlying wealth trends do, however, generally remain positive, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute's annual "Global Wealth Report." Also, the Rothschilds began acquiring their wealth in the 1700s, and since then the family has spawned hundreds of descendants, so there is no longer any centralized Rothschild family wealth.  The closest thing to a "Rothschild Family" business in 2016 is the Rothschild Group, a multinational investment banking company, but that firm does not in itself generate nearly enough income to back up claims about the family's wealth. In 2015, the Rothschild Group's annual revenue was approximately $500 million. In comparison, the world's largest company, Walmart, has an annual revenue of nearly $500 billion. annual Walmart It should also be noted that only one member of the Rothschild family is included among Forbes' 2015 list of the world's billionaires: Benjamin de Rothschild, who was ranked at number #1121 with a net worth of $1.61 billion.  list While the Rothschild family certainly was one of the world's most significant financial powers in centuries past, they no longer wield the same sort of influence over global affairs. Dunning, B.  "The Rothschild Conspiracy." 
  Skeptoid Media.  22 May 2012.  Kersley, Richard.  "Global Wealth in 2015: Underlying Trends Remain Positive."
  Credit Suisse.  13 October 2013. In February 2013, the American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) announced they would be staging an event called the "Million Muslim March," which they hoped would gather one million people in Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2013, the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to press the U.S. government into revealing "the truth" about those attacks: AMPAC The American Muslim Political Action Committee is hosting what it hopes will be a gathering of one million people in Washington, D.C., on the 12th anniversary of 9/11 to urge the government to reveal "the truth" about the attacks."We want to hold President Obama accountable for his empty promises of creating a transparent government," march organizer Isa Hodge said. "What exactly have we spent all our money, lost lives and taken lives for? The entire record of the 9/11 Commission has never been released." Protesters will also denounce "FBI traps," "illegal tapping and surveilling of Muslim Americans" and "media propaganda making the word terrorist synonymous with Muslim," he said. After negative public reaction, AMPAC changed the name of their event to the "Million American March Against Fear" (MAMAF), which they describe as offering the following events: We invite you to stand with and join us to Rally Against Fear at 12 noon on The National Mall, then the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House, to hold truth to power at the three major branches of American government.We ask all individuals and organizations working for peace to attend this collective action to tell our Government leaders we want transparency and policies of peace. In the past 12 years since 9/11 the United States government as failed to protect and promote Constitutional liberties and human life, here and abroad. We feel that accountability in government has been ignored and the time has arrived to collectively speak truth to power. Speaking will be experts and individuals on the lack of transparency and questions plaguing 9/11, steady erosion of domestic civil liberties, drone policy and the very dire effect of these on of plight of American Muslims here at home, and Muslim communities globally in the scope of U.S. imperialism, and the modern face of resistance to unmanned aerial surveillance and warfare. In August 2013, motorcyclists began organizing a "2 Million Bikers to DC counter-event, which they hoped would bring even larger numbers of bikers on a Washington ride-through to "pay tribute and offer respect to those that lost their lives on that day 12 years ago, and to salute our troops engaged in the War on Terror": 2 Million Bikers to DC Example:  [Collected via Facebook, September 2013] I keep seeing posts on Face Book saying that President Obama denied bikers a permit to ride in Washington, D.C. on 9/11 but did allowMuslims the same privilege. True or false? However, the National Park Service (NPS) has jurisdiction over the issue, and the NPS has declined to issue the group a "no stop" permit that would facilitate their ride through Washington by granting them a police escort and a waiver for red lights, stop signs and other traffic signals. The NPS cited traffic issues and manpower requirements in denying the request: The National Park Services confirms that it has denied the permit for the ride-only, non-stop event after looking at it in terms of disruption and resource management.NPS spokeswoman Carol Johnson said the group's permit application was examined like all others, using the Code of Federal Regulations. Johnson said the group had asked to ride through what's called Memorial Core, near the Memorial Bridge, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with 2,000 motorcyclists. NPS decided that the large ride would require closures of important roadways, block access to Rock Creek and George Washington Parkways and would cause a severe disruption to traffic. A police escort would also be needed. "It's just a case of what they asked for in the permit applications," Johnson said. The Metropolitan Police Department [said] the group was asked to move its ride to a weekend, when it would be less disruptive to traffic. "Solely to facilitate the speed and timeliness of the participants in itself does not fall within the definition of a First Amendment assembly, said police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump. The permits in question were under the purview of the NPS and the Metropolitan Police Department, not President Obama himself. The lack of a permit did not prevent bikers from riding through Washington on the 9/11 anniversary; the riders just weren't exempt from traffic laws and therefore couldn't navigate through the city nearly as quickly as they could have if they had been issued a "no-stop" permit. The two cases were dissimilar in that AMPAC requested a permit for a smaller gathering in a fixed location and submitted their request several months in advance; the 2 Million Bikers group requested a no-stop permit for a much larger group involving miles of roadways, street closures, and police escorts, and they didn't submit their request for a no-stop permit until a few weeks before the event, as documented by this 30 August 2013 Facebook post: Neither group came anywhere close to the "millions" of participants referenced in their event names: the Million American March Against Fear was said to have drawn between a few dozen and a few hundred people, while news accounts cited estimates for the 2 Million Bikers to DC event at somewhere between 10,000 and 75,000 participants. 10,000 75,000 Many Internet postings later claimed that Washington police had estimated the 2 Million Bikers event turnout at between 800,000 and 1.2 million participants, but we have found no documentation (other than repetition of rumor) confirming that local police made any such estimate, and when we queried the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) about the issue, the Director of the MPD's Office of Communications confirmed that "the Metropolitan Police Department does not provide crowd estimates."   Brenzing, Bob.  "10,000 Bikers Circle Washington for 9/11."
  WUSA-TV [Washington].  12 September 2013.   Davidson, Jacob.  "2 Million Bikers to DC: Motorcycle Riders Roll into Washington."
  Time.  11 September 2013.   Lee, Caroline.  "'Million Muslim March' 2013 Has Low Turnout, Lost in Sea of Motorcyclists."
  UPI.  11 September 2013.   Somers, Meredith.  "Bikers, Muslims Pledge Return to D.C. Next 9/11."
  The Washington Times.  11 September 2013. On 13 January 2016, the official web site for the Powerball lottery announced that three winning tickets had been sold (one in California, one in Tennessee, and one in Florida) for the $1.6 billion jackpot. Shortly thereafter, rumors started circulating about the identity of the winners. Powerball Several people took advantage of the hype surrounding the record breaking Powerball lottery and posted fake tickets to their social media accounts. Most of these posts followed the familiar "Like Farming" formula, in which people are promised monetary rewards in exchange for liking, sharing, or commenting on a Facebook message. Like Farming The above-displayed Facebook post, for instance, instructed people to share the photo for a chance to win $10,000. Rickstarr Ferragamo, however, did not win the lottery. The biggest giveaway in Ferragamo's post is that his "winning ticket" was purchased in New York, and not in one of the states which sold an actual winning ticket:   Ferragamo wasn't the only hoaxster to post a ticket from a non-winning state. Twitter user @BerenabasG, who promised to give $2000 to anyone who retweeted his image, and @Nerdout, who just wanted people to "hit him up" about his recent windfall of cash, posted fake "winning" fake from Texas and Ohio:     Some internet hoaxsters, however, did manage to produce fake tickets from one of the states that did sell a winning ticket. The most convincing example of thiscame from skateboarder and filmmaker Erik Bragg:OMG I WON $1.5 BILLION!!!!! I'm posting this in case anyone tries to jack me this is proof! Look it up, I bought in chino hills where I grew up! #powerball #powerball   While Bragg's photo has garnered 100,000 likes on Instagram, the above-displayed image also features a fake lottery ticket. The biggest giveaway here is the "ABCDE" displayed onthe left side of the ticket, which indicates that the ticket should feature four additional groups of lotto numbers. These numbers were removed, however, when the image was altered to display the winning lotto numbers of 4, 8, 19, 27, 34, and 10. As of 15 January 2015, $1.6 billion Powerball lottery winners who have been officially identified are John and Lisa Robinson of Mumford, Tennessee. Robinson During the tour to promote his presidential memoir,Decision Points, George W. Bush defended his fiscal record in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC'sToday Show. In the interview, Bush said that the ratio of the deficit to gross domestic product during his time in office was lower than Ronald Reagan's by half. Lower than my dad's. And only [worse than] Bill Clinton among modern presidents. ... My debt to GDP was the lowest or one of the lowest of modern presidents. My taxes to GDP was the lowest and my spending to GDP was too. We thought it would be worthwhile to see if Bush was correct. So we turned to a historical table from the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP -- essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole.The challenge is figuring exactly how to compare recent presidents.Let's start with the deficit. The most obvious way to do it is to add up all of the annual percentages for a president and divide by the number of years served, to produce an average.Calculating it this way -- and beginning our list of modern presidents with President Dwight Eisenhower -- we came up with the following order: Eisenhower (deficits averaged 0.53 percent of GDP), Clinton (0.76 percent of GDP), Richard Nixon (0.93 percent), Lyndon Johnson (1.1 percent),George W. Bush (2.0 percent), Jimmy Carter (2.4 percent), George H.W. Bush (3.98 percent), Reagan (4.23 percent). (We excluded John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford because of their short tenures. )You can do the same with spending and tax receipts.For spending as a percent of GDP, the ranking from low to high is Eisenhower (18.1 percent of GDP), Johnson (18.7 percent), Nixon (19.2 percent),George W. Bush (19.6 percent), Clinton (19.8), Carter (20.8), George H.W. Bush (21.9), and Reagan (22.4).For tax receipts as a percentage of GDP, the ranking from low to high is Eisenhower (17.5 percent of GDP), Johnson andGeorge W. Bush (tied at 17.6 percent), George H.W. Bush (17.9 percent), Reagan (18.2 percent), Nixon (18.3 percent), Carter (18.4 percent) and Clinton (19 percent).Whether Bush is correct depends heavily on which presidents you consider modern. If you only go back to Reagan -- the earliest president that Bush himself cited by name in the interview -- then Bush is basically correct. Only Clinton did better when measured by deficit as a percentage of GDP, while no president dating back to Reagan scored better on spending or tax receipts as a percentage of GDP.By contrast, if you go back to Eisenhower -- the first fully post-World War II president -- Bush is in the middle of the pack on the deficit and on spending, and he's near the top on tax receipts.But there's another way to look at the deficit -- to compare a president's first deficit as a percentage of GDP to their last. This shows what direction the deficit went during their tenures.And on this one, George W. Bush does the worst of any president dating back to Eisenhower.The younger Bush went from a 1.3 percent surplus to a 3.2 percent deficit, a decline of 4.5 percentage points. The best was Clinton, who moved the deficit from a 3.9 percent deficit to a 2.4 percent surplus -- a positive change of 6.3 percentage points. The other presidents all had changes up or down that were roughly two percentage points or smaller.This suggests that Bush's fiscal record wasn't so sterling if you use a different measure than the one he did. But to analyze the accuracy of his statement, we'll stick closely to the words he used. George W. Bush is correct that he outperformed his father, Reagan and (mostly) Clinton. So if you consider those the modern presidents, he's essentially right. If you broaden the modern presidents to include those serving in the entire post-World War II period, Bush is about average. While we wouldn't have chosen to define the modern presidents to include just the four that Bush mentioned by name, we'll give him some deference in framing the question. So we rate his statement Mostly True. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump, raised eyebrows when he said in aFox Business Network interviewthat the nations deficit is falling on Trumps watch. The economy under President Donald Trump, Kudlow said on June 29, is throwing out enormous amounts of new tax revenues. As the economy gears up, more people working, better jobs and careers -- those revenues come rolling in, and the deficit, which is one of the other criticisms (of Trumps economic policy), is coming down, and its coming down rapidly. Growth solves a lot of problems. . @larry_kudlow: The deficit... is coming down, and it's coming down rapidly. Growth solves a lot of problems.pic.twitter.com/H375h7rV0a As it happens, the deficit hasnt come down to date -- which sparked a quick backlash on social media and prompted Kudlow to amend his remarks later that day. KudlowtoldtheWashington Postthat the economy is so strong right now its going to produce lower deficits. I probably should have said future deficits. However, that assertion is questionable as well. The most trusted source for future budget projections, the Congressional Budget Office, shows rising deficits for years into the future. Infiscal year 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the federal deficit was $438 billion. (A refresher: The deficit refers to federal revenues minus federal outlays. Each years deficit adds to the overall public debt.) In fiscal year 2016, which was also under Obama, the deficit rose to $585 billion. In fiscal year 2017, which was about two-thirds on Trumps watch, the deficit rose to $665 billion. The deficit also rose as apercentage of the nations gross domestic product-- a way of comparing economic statistics across time. In fiscal year 2015, the deficit was 2.4 percent of GDP, rising to 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2016 and 3.5 percent in fiscal 2017. So on a full-year basis, Kudlow is wrong. Hes also wrong if you look at the first seven months of fiscal year 2018. According to theTreasury Department, the first seven months of the current fiscal year saw a deficit of $385 billion -- which is 12 percent higher than the first seven months of fiscal year 2017, when the deficit totaled $344 billion. As for the future,CBO findsno reason to expect the deficit to go down any time soon. For fiscal year 2018, CBO projects a deficit of $804 billion, rising each successive year to $981 billion in 2019, $1 trillion in 2020, $1.1 trillion in 2021, and $1.3 trillion in 2022. The deficit is also poised to increase as a percentage of GDP --  from 3.5 percent in 2017 to 4.0 in 2018 and eventually to 5.4 percent in 2022. Heres the full chart from CBOs most recent projections, released in April. Not only that, but CBO specifically cited the tax cut Trump backed and signed into law as a reason for spiraling deficits. The deficit that CBO now estimates for 2018 is $242 billion larger than the one that it projected for that year in June 2017, CBO wrote in its April report. Accounting for most of that difference is a $194 billion reduction in projected revenues, mainly because the 2017 tax act is expected to reduce collections of individual and corporate income taxes. And the projections would be even worse if Congress doesnt allow the recent round of tax cuts to expire. In that scenario, far larger deficits and much greater debt would result than in CBOs baseline projections for the 20192028 period, CBO wrote. Kudlow said, The deficit ... is coming down, and its coming down rapidly. After being criticized, he later clarified that he probably should have said future deficits. Kudlows first formulation is wrong, and his revised version isnt supported by the most widely trusted barometer -- projections by the CBO. Trump tax bill, which dramatically cut revenues, is a big reason why. The statement is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate the statement Pants on Fire! In November and December 2019, a meme circulated on Facebook warning that human traffickers were leaving zip ties on women's windshield wipers as they shopped to mark them as potential victims/targets for abduction:This was a variation of a familiar meme that we identified as false in July 2019. At that time we reported:  July 2019 Human trafficking affects millions of people worldwide, but its also the frequent subject of viral scarelore  fictional tales intended to frighten audiences, often prompting them to share without questioning the story. millions One such story went viral in October 2018 and again in late July 2019 when social media users shared a meme stating that human traffickers were leaving zip ties (in some posts, black in color) on homes, mailboxes, and cars, of potential female victims to either mark them as targets or distract and abduct them for sex-trafficking purposes when the women try to remove the ties. some The hoax initially centered on San Angelo, Texas, in October 2018 but police there quickly debunked it. We rate the newer variation as "False" as well, because although police in College Station, Texas, addressed the meme and reminded citizens to always be aware of their surroundings, officers were unaware of zip ties being used by human traffickers to mark potential victims. addressed   Have you seen other variations of this claim? Let us know. Let us know. For months, President Donald Trump has been touting the benefits of the tax law he signed in December. But in early June, he began expanding his argument beyond lower tax bills to lower energy bills. On June 7, Trumptweeted, $3 billion payoff: 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cuts. The tweet linked to aWashington Examiner articlethat in turn citedresearch by Americans for Tax Reform, a group supportive of the tax cut. $3 billion payoff: 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cutshttps://t.co/x1a1OJuRgd This isnt the first time the White House has relied on Americans for Tax Reform for evidence of real-world impacts from passage of the tax bill. Previously, we looked at Trumps statement that since we passed tax cuts, over 3 million workers have gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands and thousands of dollars. That talking point,gleaned from the groups research, ratedMostly True. The energy rate-cut list  which is a sub-list of the broader one we checked previously  attracted the White Houses attention not long after it hit its 100th item. For the utilities on the group's list that provided an estimate of savings per customer, most said rate-payers would save about $1 to $4 on their bill per month. Americans for Tax Reform cited a large number of company news releases and news articles, so we dont quarrel with the number (which had already grown to 102 a day later). That said, we will provide some additional information that helps put the list in fuller context. It shouldnt be surprising to see a lot of investor-owned utilities lowering rates after the corporate tax reduction. And it also shouldnt be surprising that the companies specifically cited the tax changes as the reason for the rate cut. In most cases, experts said, utilities would have been required to do so by their regulators. The tax law has an impact on privately owned utilities  often called investor-owned utilities, or IOUs for short  but not on public utilities. Investor-owned utilities pay corporate taxes, so the tax laws lowering of the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent should save this type of utility a substantial amount of money. By contrast, publicly held utilities do not pay corporate taxes, so they are unaffected by this provision of the tax bill. Public utilitiesincluderural electric cooperatives, municipally owned utilities, and federal or state power authorities. Among electricity utilities, about two-thirds of Americans are served by investor-owned utilities, while about a third receive their power from public utilities. For water utilities, a few of which appear on the group's list, public utilities are dominant. So while 101 utilities cutting their rates may seem like a large number, your ability to benefit from a rate cut depends on which utilities happen to serve your area. Its also worth pointing out that many of these rate cuts were preordained by existing energy regulations. Utilities are natural monopolies, and because of that, theyve been regulated for well over 100 years, said Manny Teodoro, a political scientist at Texas A&M University who has studied energy issues. Its a recognition that a pure monopoly will result in a lack of competition and abusive pricing. For that reason, under longstanding regulations, utilities need to go back to energy regulatory bodies whenever they seek to modify their rates, in order to provide reasons for the change. And if a utility happens to benefit from a tax change, theres a good chance it will be required under existing regulations to lower their rates to account for that. Rates are set by public utility commissions through rate-making processes that would clearly identify the reasons for the rate change, up or down, said Billy Pizer, a Duke University public policy professor who studies energy. This doesnt undercut the larger point of the tally, but it does suggest that the rate cuts required two elements to materialize  the tax cut, which Trump touted, and the longstanding regulations that require companies to share the tax gains with ratepayers rather than just with shareholders. And the latter is an aspect Trump didnt get into. Trump tweeted, 101 utilities cut rates, credit GOP tax cuts. The list comes from a organization that strongly supported the tax bill. The tally of rate cuts is well-documented, and the group acknowledges that it is not comprehensive. That said, its worth noting that public utility customers will not see the same types of rate cuts cited in the list, which is about one-third of Americans. Trumps tweet seeks full credit for the tax law, while glossing over the role of energy regulations that mandate that utility savings be passed along to customers. We rate the statement Mostly True. A graphic circulated online about 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams' owing a lack sum in back taxes was technically accurate, but it omitted several key details for the sake of trying to frame her as being irresponsible or dishonest. The meme showed a photograph of Abrams along with a caption reading "This is Stacy [sic] Abrams the Democrat on the ticket for Georgia governor. She owes the IRS $50,000 in back taxes":  Abrams publicly revealed that she owed a $54,000 debt to the Internal Revenue Service when she released her personal financial disclosure documents in March 2018. But although she is in debt, she is not delinquent in her taxes, as documents show her to be on a payment plan after deferring payments for tax years 2015 and 2016. revealed The candidate elaborated on her situation in an op-ed published by Fortune magazine on 24 April 2018, saying that even though she earned $95,000 a year at her first job after graduating college, the cost of her education still left her more than $100,000 in debt before she had to take on even more financial responsibilities: op-ed I'd love to say that was the end of my financial troubles, but life had other plans. In 2006, my youngest brother and his girlfriend had a child they could not care for due to their drug addictions. Instead, my parents took custody when my niece was five days old. Underpaid, raising an infant, and battling their own illnesses, my parents' bills piled up. I took on much of the financial responsibility to support them, and even today remain their main source of financial support. Paying the bills for two households has taken its toll. Nearly twenty years after graduating, I am still paying down student loans, and am on a payment plan to settle my debt to the IRS. I have made money mistakes, but I have never ignored my responsibilities; I will meet my obligations -- however slowly but surely. Abrams' opponent in the 2018 gubernatorial race (which she lost), Republican Brian Kemp, was reportedly also in heavy debt. He was sued by an investment company in June 2018 after allegedly failing to repay a $500,000 loan he guaranteed for an agricultural company in which he invested, Hart AgStrong LLC.  sued Kemp has claimed that he is not responsible for paying the loan, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in September 2018 that according to court documents, Kemp also promised to cover around $10 million in other loans for the company. reported Bluestein, Greg.  "Georgia 2018: Abrams Owes More Than $50K to IRS."
  Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  14 March 2018. Abrams, Stacey.  "Commentary: My $200,000 Debt Should Not Disqualify Me for Governor of Georgia."
  Fortune.  24 April 2018. Elliott, Richard.  "Investment Company Sues Brian Kemp Over $500K Loan."
  WSB-TV.  12 June 2018. Judd, Alan.  "For Brian Kemp, Suit Over Bad Loan Reveals Political, Financial Perils."
  Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  21 September 2018. Claim:  President Bill Clinton issued an executive order disarming soldiers on military bases.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2010]  Is it true that "one of the first things Bill Clinton did in office was to issue an executive order disarming soldiers on military bases"?   Origins:  The wake of the September 2013 fatal shooting of 12 people by a civilian military contractor who went on a rampage at Washington Navy Yard saw the recirculation of a rumor that gained currency after the November 2009 fatal shooting of 13 people by a U.S. Army psychiatrist at  Fort Hood, Texas: that one of the reasons these mass shooters had not been stopped earlier in their killing sprees was because President Bill Clinton had issued an executive order back in 1993 that prohibited personnel on military bases from carrying firearms while on duty. While there was at least a small kernel of real information underlying such claims, the gist of the rumor was wrong on two major counts. It was during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, that the U.S. Department of Defense issued a directive in February 1992 affecting the carrying of firearms on bases by military personnel.  That directive was eventually implemented through a  regulation 190-14 issued by the Department of the Army  (not via executive order) in March 1993, just two months after President Clinton assumed office.   directive regulation Additionally, that change in regulations (which applied only to the Army, not other branches of the U.S. armed forces) did not ban the carrying of weapons by soldiers on Army bases; rather, it restricted the authorization to carry firearms to personnel engaged in law enforcement and security duties, and to personnel stationed at facilities where there was "a reasonable expectation that life or Army assets would be jeopardized if firearms were not carried": a. The authorization to carry firearms will be issued only to qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or Department of the Army (DA) assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the necessity to carry a firearm will be made considering this expectation weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate use of firearms. b. DA personnel regularly engaged in law enforcement or security duties will be armed. c. DA personnel are authorized to carry firearms while engaged in security duties, protecting personnel and vital Government assets, or guarding prisoners. Others noted that the change in policy likely had little actual effect on day-to-day base operations: Steven Bucci, a military expert for The Heritage Foundation who served 28 years in the Army and retired in 2005 with the rank of colonel, also [said] that Clinton is not to blame. "I think you are barking up the wrong tree if you are looking to put blame on someone for disarming the military," said Bucci, when asked if Clinton was responsible. "I think that's kind of a bogus story." "We have never had our soldiers walking around with weapons all the time, other than in combat zones," he added, noting only Military Police have had that authority. Last updated:  16 July 2015