Did Major General Paul D. Eaton Say Trump's Decertifying Iran Deal 'Dishonors America'?
On 8 May 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his administration's plans to withdraw the U.S. from an Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran. Shortly afterwards, the Facebook page "Far Left Veteran" shared a meme with a related quote attributed to Major General Paul D. Eaton: withdraw meme Paul D. Eaton   Maj. General Eaton is a retired U.S. Army officer who commanded operations to train Iraqi troops during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003-04 before returning to the U.S. to become Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Training, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia. That Eaton made the comment attributed to him above is documented by his verified Twitter account, where he posted that comment on the same day President Trump announced his intentions to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran deal: I have served with foreign Soldiers and armies all my professional life - including Iranian. The American Military word was trusted. I deeply regret @realDonaldTrump decision to walk away from the Iran Deal. He dishonors America and puts us and our allies at risk. #IranDeal @realDonaldTrump #IranDeal  Major General (ret) Paul Eaton (@PaulDEaton52) May 8, 2018 May 8, 2018  In a statement published on VoteVets.org, the major general provided additional opinion on the issue: statement Today, Donald Trump has moved us closer to a war with Iran, while he has also moved us closer to a nuclear war with North Korea. All this while we wage a war in Afghanistan. By decertifying the Iran deal, and putting the question of new sanctions before Congress, Iran will now consider restarting its nuclear program. Should Congress reinstitute sanctions, Iran will undoubtedly speed towards nuclear weapons, putting us on the path to war. If Congress inserts new triggers for sanctions, Iran will likely consider whether staying in the deal is worth it, at all. At the same time, North Korea now knows that any deal signed by the United States is not worth the ink it is written in, when it comes to Donald Trump. That chops diplomats off at the knees, as they struggle to find a non-military solution to the crisis in Korea. It moves us closer to nuclear war with North Korea. In short, today Donald Trump has put us on the path to two new wars, with nuclear weapons. We are very much less safe today, than we were yesterday. The path we are now on  massive loss of human life, on the scale of millions  is not a positive development for America, or humanity. We implore Congress to step in, and rein in this president. VoteVets.org.  "Statement of Major General (Ret.) Paul D. Eaton, Former Iraq War Commander, Senior Adviser to VoteVets, on Trump Decertifying Iran Deal."
  Accessed 9 May 2018.
In November 2018, a scam tempting Facebook users with a free Kohl's department store $150 "Black Friday" coupon began spreading on social media:  This fake offer was just another variation of a long-running form of scam with a familiar pattern. First, scammers set up look-alike websites and social media pages that mimic those of legitimate companies in order to promote scams advertising free gift cards or coupons. Users who respond to those fake offers are required to share a website link or social media post in order to spread the scam more widely and lure in additional victims. Then those users are presented with a survey that extracts personal information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and even sometimes credit card numbers. Finally, those who wish to claim their free gift cards or coupons eventually learn they must first sign up to purchase a number of costly goods, services, or subscriptions (negating the free aspect of the offer). Kohl's current coupon promotions, which are linked from their official Facebook page, are promo codes good for 20% or $10 off purchases of $50 or more. promotions Facebook page The Better Business Bureau offers three tips to identify similar gift card/coupon scams: Dont believe what you see. Its easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure theres a link to their privacy policy. Watch out for a reward thats too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. On 10 December 2014, the web site Earth We Are One published an article claiming a UFO shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars had been discovered at the bottom of the Baltic Sea: article  The divers exploring a 'UFO-shaped' object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea say their equipment stops working when they approach within 200 meters of the object. Professional diver Stefan Hogerborn, part of the Ocean X team which is exploring the anomaly, said some of the teams' cameras and satellite phones would refuse to work when directly above the object, and would only work once they had sailed away. He is quoted as saying: "Anything electric out there, and the satellite phone as well, stopped working when we were above the object. And then when we got away about 200 meters, it turned on again, and when we got back over the object it didn't work." Hefty trajectory: The Swedish diving team noted a 985-foot flattened out 'runway' leading up to the object, implying that it skidded along the path before stopping but no true answers to this are clear. "I was kind of prepared just to find a stone or cliff or outcrop or pile of mud but it was nothing like that, so for me it has been a missing experience I must say." Member Dennis Asberg said: "I am one hundred percent convinced and confident that we have found something that is very, very, very unique." "Is it a meteorite or an asteroid? Or a volcano? Or a base from say, a U-boat from the Cold War which has manufactured and placed there? Or if it is a UFO? Well, honestly, it has to be something." The article published by Earth We Are One in December of 2014 was a repurposed version of a story published by the UK newspaper Daily Mail in June 2012. Although both articles dealt with a real discovery by the shipwreck hunting team Ocean X, experts have since weighed in and determined the object found on the bottom of the Baltic Sea was not an alien spaceship.  published Rumors about the Baltic Sea UFO began circulating after Ocean X returned from an expedition in the summer of 2011 with an interesting sonar image. The group paid a follow-up visit to the site the following year to get a better look at the object, but due to mysterious (and convenient) electrical interference, Ocean X was not able to get a good look at the submerged anomaly. Expedition leader Peter Lindberg did, however, claim he had found a second object: "I confirm that we have found two anomalies. We did find the other anomaly approximately 200 meters (about 219 yards) from the circular find at the same sonar run." Lindberg explained why his team had not released the sonar image of the second object: "We decided not to expose that anomaly so much because there is a lot of disturbance on the sonar image when we passed it, so it's very blurry. We can see it's something but to an untrained eye it might just look like 'pea soup.'" Neither of these sonar images, however, provided a reliable look at the Baltic Sea anomaly. First, the Ocean X team used an inexpensive sonar technique called side-scan sonar which, although well-suited for finding shipwrecks, it is not designed to give a detailed look at the sea floor. Second, according to Hanumant Singh, a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the sonar they used wasn't properly calibrated: side-scan sonar sonar If you look carefully, you can see a reflection of the circular formation on the right side of the image. Since side-scan sonar is taken with two instruments that bounce acoustic waves in opposite directions from the boat, a feature on one side shouldn't affect the image on the other side. "This means you've got 'cross-talk,' in which one channel is electrically contaminating the other," Singh says. In other words, the sonar instruments aren't wired properly. Strike one, he says.  Strike two: The black horizontal lines going through the image show that sonar signals are dropping out (that is, the instruments aren't detecting them), further calling the measurements into question, Singh says. Finally, he says, the edges of the image, just beyond the circular formation, are gray, meaning the sonar couldn't tell what was there. That shows the sonar isn't calibrated well enough to trust, Singh says. "That's strike three." With only a single blurry image and little information, many people speculated the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea could be a UFO, a portal into another world, or an underwater Stonehenge. These theories received more attention when artist Hauke Vagt created a 3D interpretation of the mysterious object: artist  Scientists, however, have less fantastical theories about what lies at the bottom of the Baltic. Charles Paull, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, said the anomaly is probably just a rock outcropping or the result of gas venting from the seafloor.  Other experts argue it is merely a glacial depost.  Even Peter Lindberg, the man behind the discovery, expressed skepticism about the object's supposed otherworldly origins: "It's not obviously an alien spacecraft. It's not made of metal." experts skepticism Team Ocean X's discovery created a stir due to the fact that they could not identify the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, not because any evidence supported the idea it was a UFO.  Popular Mechanics. Wolchover, Natalie.  "Mysterious Baltic Sea Object Is a Glacial Deposit."
  Live Science.  30 August 2012.
 Piui, Tibi.  "So Called Baltic Sea 'UFO' Mystery Solved, Other Questions Arise." 
  ZME Science.  18 June 2012. Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey.  Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion.  The name of Southwest Airlines, a major U.S. airline which is also the world's largest low-cost carrier, has frequently been invoked in various online "free ticket" giveaway scams in recent years.  In February 2016, social media users encountered posts that appeared to be from Southwest Airlines, offering to give away four tickets to Las Vegas and $5,000 spending money to Facebook users who shared and liked a page.  The primary type of free ticket fraud is the "sweepstakes scam," which intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel  "Reward Offers" hidden in the fine print.  The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by Southwest Airlines) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook "share" buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two "Reward Offers" (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, you are required to complete 2 of the Reward Offers from the above. You will need to meet all of the terms and conditions to qualify for the shipment of the reward. For credit card offers, you must activate your card by making a purchase, transferring a balance, or making a cash advance. For loan offers you must close and fund the loan. For home security and satellite tv offers you must have the product installed. You may not cancel your participation in more than a total of 2 Reward Offers within 30 days of any Reward Offer Sign-Up Date as outlined in the Terms & Conditions (the Cancellation Limit). Not only that, but the fine print on the "free" tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies:  Similar phony free ticket lures are used to spread malware.    In those versions of the scam, those who attempt to reach the URL provided for the purpose of claiming the free tickets are instead victimized by a Facebook "lifejacking" attack, a malicious script that takes over a user's Facebook profile without their knowledge and propagates itself to their friends' accounts as well. lifejacking Southwest Airlines has responded to such scams by issuing messages on Twitter that read: "Hey folks! There is a scam being passed around on Facebook about a free ticket offer from SWA. Please don't click or share the links!" As well, Southwest spokesperson Christi McNeill has said of these attempts to defraud that "We are aware of the scam for free tickets being spread across Facebook. This offer is in no way affiliated with Southwest Airlines and we are working with Facebook to get it removed." Chris Christie has spent months hammering home how high New Jerseys spending was when his gubernatorial challenger Barbara Buono chaired a Senate budget panel a few years ago. Now Buono, a Democratic state senator from Metuchen, is taking her shot at spending under Christie. Buono made her move at a June 26 Senate budget hearing when she spoke against Christies $32.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2014. The Legislature approved the plan that afternoon and Christie signed it two days later. Buono noted in her speech that the fiscal year 2009 budget crafted on her watch, when she chaired the Senates Budget and Appropriations Committee, spent less than whats been approved for fiscal year 2014. We wondered if that was true, especially since Christie has frequently criticized spending levels when Buono helmed the budget panel, particularly for fiscal year 2008. But in this case, Buonos claim about higher spending in Christies just-approved budget is accurate. Lets review the numbers. Patrick Giordano, Buonos chief of staff, said in an e-mail that Buonos figures were confirmed by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services. We reviewed an e-mail sent by David J. Rosen, the OLS budget and finance officer, to Giordano, and then confirmed the data separately with Rosen. The result? Spending in the fiscal year 2009 appropriations act was $32.86 billion, compared with $32.97 billion for the fiscal year 2014 spending plan, Rosen wrote to Giordano. Thats a difference of $108,491,000  or one-third of 1 percent. So, Buonos claim is correct: spending for the fiscal year 2014 budget is higher than fiscal year 2009. For context, lets also look at spending under the fiscal year 2008 budget  the other spending plan that Buono helped craft during her chairmanship of the Senate budget panel. Buono referenced both budgets during her speech on the Senate floor. Former Gov. Jon Corzine had final approval of the fiscal years 2008 and 2009 budgets. Now lets look at spending for every fiscal year since 2008: FISCAL YEAR TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS FY2008 $33.47 billion FY2009 $32.86 billion FY2010 $28.99 billion FY2011 $28.36 billion FY2012 $29.69 billion FY2013 $31.65 billion FY2014 $32.97 billion Sources: New Jersey Office of Legislative Services Summary Of Appropriations Acts for fiscal years 2008-2014  So state spending dropped from fiscal year 2008 to 2009, but state spending has increased in each of Christies budgets. Its worth noting that the recession had a major impact on decreased spending from 2008 to 20009. The National Bureau of Economic Research has defined the recession as beginning in December 2007 and ending in June 2009. New Jersey Senate Republicans spokesman Ben Sparks did not respond to our request for comment. Our ruling  Buono said during a speech on the Senate floor about the fiscal year 2014 budget that its spending level is higher than spending under the fiscal year 2009 budget. Buono chaired the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee when the 2009 plan was drafted and ultimately approved by Corzine. The OLS confirmed Buonos claim, noting that spending for fiscal year 2009 was $32.86 billion, compared with $32.97 billion for fiscal year 2014. We rate Buonos claim True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com. A photo often shared on social media purportedly shows an electric bus driving into a "charging and power station" in the early 1900s. shared  The picture shows an authentic bus charging station operated by the London Electrobus Company during that company's short existence between 1906 and 1909. A version of this photo appears in the Getty Images archives. version As reported by The Economist in 2007, these charging stations were not plug-in stations as we know them today, but instead were facilities in which old batteries were swapped for fresh ones: reported The electrobus needed 1.5 tonnes of lead-acid batteries to carry its 34 passengers. It could travel 60km (38 miles) on one charge. So at lunchtime the buses went to a garage in Victoria and drove up a ramp. The batteries, slung under the electrobus, were lowered onto a trolley and replaced with fresh ones. It all took three minutes.  An ad for the company indicated that they had two charging and power stations for electric buses located at 1 Earl Street and 45 Horseferry Road in London. Here is another close-up photo of one such "electrobus" from 1907: An ad  By several reports, the buses were a hit, thanks to their reduced noise and smoother ride. In debuting their first bus in 1906, the directors of the company said that they "confidently anticipate that the petrol omnibus, young as it is, will shortly be an obsolete vehicle, so far as urban traffic is concerned." reports said It was not to be. The company was beset by allegations of fraud during its effort to go public on the London Stock Exchange in 1908. As described in The Economist, the company had been duped by a team of con artists: described The firm was buying rights to a patent for 20,000 (7.5m, or $15m, in today's money) from the Baron de Martigny. But the patent was old and had nothing to do with battery buses. It was a scam. Investors asked for their money back, and the firm had to return 80,000. The investors would have been even less impressed had they known the true identity of the "Baron", who was a Canadian music-hall artist. Martigny was only the front man. The mastermind behind this and a clutch of subsequent scams was Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and serial con-artist with a taste for fast cars and expensive champagne. After this initial fiasco, the London Electrobus Company struggled to raise money. But Lehwess had set up a network of front companies to siphon off its funds. Chief among these was the Electric Vehicle Company of West Norwood, which built the buses. The company collapsed entirely in 1909. Because, however, the photo is in several archives and the buses and their charging stations are documented in newspaper accounts from that time, the claim is  "Electrobus Makes Debut on Streets of London." The San Francisco Call, 27 May 1906, p. 19. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/120381891/electrobus-makes-debut-on-streets-of/. "How Crooks Stalled the Rise of Electric Cars for 100 Years." New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531420-600-how-crooks-stalled-the-rise-of-electric-cars-for-100-years/. Accessed 7 Mar. 2023. "The London Electrobus Company Limited." The Guardian, 27 Apr. 1908, p. 9. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/120388804/london-electrobus-1908/. "What Is This That Roareth Thus?" The Economist, https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2007/09/08/what-is-this-that-roareth-thus. Accessed 7 Mar. 2023. On Oct. 11, 2022, we received an email from a reader who said they spotted a questionable quote meme on WhatsApp. The quote was titled "My India in 1835" and was credited to "Lord Macaulay," whose full name was Thomas Babington Macaulay. We found no historical records to confirm that Macaulay ever said the exact words quoted in the meme. At the same time, the quote may have been somewhat of a paraphrase, as Macaulay did express his thoughts on how best to educate the Indian populace in other words.  WhatsApp Macaulay was an English politician, author, and historian who lived from 1800-1859. According to Britannica.com, he was perhaps best known for writing a five-volume work, "The History of England from the Accession of James the Second." Britannica.com The History of England from the Accession of James the Second The fake quote reads as follows (with the words "ancient education system" being bolded in the meme): My India in 1835Read Carefully "I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation." Lord Macaulay's Address to the British Parliament on 2nd Feb. 1835 In order to establish whether or not the quote was real, we first looked to Google Books. The Google Books website allows anyone to search the text of just about every book in the world for free. Google Books We searched for various portions of the exact quote, placing quotation marks around the words. However, the only results we found were in recent books that were written in the 21st century. A prominent quote from 1835 would not magically make its first appearance in literature nearly two centuries later. The quote was likely at least partially born on the internet and took on a life of its own, somehow finding its way from the web into recent books. After the Google Books search, we stumbled upon a helpful fact check by Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the AFP story, they reported on the same quote, except the word "India" had been replaced with "Africa." It's unclear which version of the quote came first, but it was likely the one naming India. Nevertheless, AFP concluded the attribution of the quote to Macaulay is incorrect. Agence France-Presse (AFP) replaced with "Africa." The AFP fact check pointed out that the man pictured in the quote meme bore a striking resemblance to "a portrait ofBritish army officer Sir Henry John William Benti[n]ck," not Macaulay. It also mentioned that Macaulay had expressed his views on the benefits of English-language education in India in an 1835 document, "Minute on Education": portrait Minute on Education Authorship of the speech has also been attributed to Lord William Benti[n]ck -- not to be confused with Sir Henry John William Benti[n]ck -- who was a contemporary of Macaulay's and served as Governor-General of British India. attributed to Lord William Benti[n]ck Macaulay's Minute on Education in 1835, which promoted the superiority of Western education, was supported by Lord William Benti[n]ck. In the document, Macaulay talks of creating a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. In "Minute on Education," Macaulay argued that teaching in the English language was necessary to improve education in India. In his opinion, the languages spoken at the time by the people of India were a roadblock to effectively funds allotted by Parliament to improve the country's education. "We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue," he said.  The following passage is from Macaulay's "Minute on Education," which included the "blood and color" quote that appeared in the AFP report: In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, -- a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. India gained independence from British rule in 1947. gained independence In sum, there's no record of Macaulay uttering the exact words cited in the quote meme in regard to "dominating" India in the 1835, though he did express thoughts in writing on the subject of Indian education at the time, including his conviction that the education of Indians should be conducted in English, not Indians' native languages. Fenton, Roger. Sir Henry John William Bentinck. National Portrait Gallery, London, 1855, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw157047/Sir-Henry-John-William-Bentinck. Google Books. https://books.google.com/. India Independence Day (1947). United States Census Bureau, 15 Aug. 2022, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/india-independence-day.html. Knowles, Michael David. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay | English Politician and Author. Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Babington-Macaulay-Baron-Macaulay. Macaulay, Thomas. The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Penguin Books Limited, 1848. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Minute on Education. Columbia University in the City of New York, 1835, https://www.columbia.edu/. Malawi Government. Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/malawigovernment/. Mitra, Anirban. The Infamous Macaulay Speech That Never Was. The Wire, 19 Feb. 2017, https://thewire.in/history/macaulays-speech-never-delivered. Saint-Cricq, Thomas, and Charlotte Mason. Lord Macaulay Never Gave This Speech to UK Parliament. Agence France-Presse (AFP), 25 Feb. 2020, https://factcheck.afp.com/lord-macaulay-never-gave-speech-uk-parliament. Claim:  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency," and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. :   : Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency.     UNDETERMINED: Video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it.  Example:  [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Hey Media, is UPenn pulling the Gruber video where he says ObamaCare passed by Democrats lying to the public a newsworthy event? Just askin'  Jonathan Gruber, an Obamacare's architect admitted that lack of transparency/stupidity of electorate helped pass the bill   Origins:  In November 2014, a 52-second long excerpt from a video of a 2013 conferenceinvolving Jonathan Gruber, a consultant who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration and Congress during the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or "Obamacare"), began to circulate on the internet. Gruber made the remarks captured in that excerpt during the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics in October 2013. Gruber's remarks became controversial when video of the conference was posted online thirteen months after the LDI panel on health economics took place. panel Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of economics, was speaking at a panel titled "The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA and How Economics Can Inform Inevitable Mid-Course Corrections." The footage from which the comments originated ran for nearly an hour and covered issues tangential to Obamacare, such as its classification as a tax, subsidies, and how the bill came into law. Gruber's controversial remarks come at around the 18-minute mark in the video shown below:  During the portion of the video in question, Gruber said: This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated  subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in  you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money  it would not have passed. OK? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not. After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he "spoke inappropriately": elaborated Gruber's comments were part of a broader public conversation between him and economist Mark Pauly on the economics of health care reform. Gruber was responding to a remark by Pauly about financing transparency in the law and the politics surrounding the ACA's individual mandate. The political process, he said, striking a critical tone, resulted in inefficiencies in the law which should be corrected. "In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed," he said. "You can't  do it politically, you just literally cannot do it. It's not only transparent financing but also transparent spending." In the video, Gruber appeared to be speaking specifically about the political environment in 2010 and its impact on the law's funding mechanisms. Gruber takes a critical stance on some of those outcomes, calling them "irrational." "I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent but I'd rather have this law than not," Gruber said. "That involves tradeoffs that we don't prefer as economists but are realistic." Gruber apologized for his comments during an on-air interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow. "The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said. "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments." Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures "led to an incomplete law with some typos." "It would have made more sense to do Obamacare the way we did in Massachusetts, which would be to just give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance," Gruber said. "That was politically infeasible and so instead it was done through the tax code." The full video of the 2013 Health Economics Conference was published by PennLDI on YouTube, and when the excerpt video of Gruber's remarks began to circulate online, many viewers assumed the comments to be recent (they were not), and others maintained PennLDI then removed the clip from the Internet due to the political controversy. On the latter point, several Twitter users posted screenshots of a YouTube error page that indicated the source video had been (at least briefly) removed by the University after Gruber's remarks became a focus of attention: recent  However, it isn't yet clear whether the PennLDI video was deliberately pulled from the Internet due to the political controversy it created, or whether it was made unavailable at some point after it was initially posted for unrelated reasons (e.g.,  error, copyright issues, technical problems).   It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics when they were spotted and excerpted from the longer PennLDI video by Philadelphia investment adviser Rich Weinstein, then posted to the YouTube channel of the American Commitment 501(c)(4) (i.e., a politically active nonprofit organization), whose Phil Kerpen tweeted: Rich Weinstein American Commitment My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent...  Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014  The claim that the University of Pennsylvania deliberately tried to scrub the clip from the Internet may also have stemmed from Kerpen or the PAC: Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb  Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014  Last updated:  12 November 2014 In April 2021, a purported letter to the editor from a newspaper was shared on Facebook. The letter, titled "What has America become?," was credited to Ken Huber from Tawas City, Michigan. It appeared in a Facebook meme with the words: "This is from a small Michigan newspaper who had the guts to say what most of the rest of us are thinking!!" shared on Facebook  The letter as it appeared in a meme in April 2021.  This was a real letter to the editor. Readers who might have given it a quick glance on Facebook in 2021 may have left with the impression that it was new. However, it was first published in 2010. on Facebook Part of the letter included references to former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, with the former in the White House at the time of its original publishing. Barack Obama George W. Bush We've received inquiries about the letter for a number of years. The originally printed name was Ken Huber in the Iosco County News-Herald. However, we've also seen variations online in which the name was changed to Ted Huber, Ken Huber, and Kwen Huber. Iosco County News-Herald Tawas City, which was mentioned as Huber's place of residence, is located in Iosco County, Michigan. We also found "What has America become?" was published in newspapers in Louisiana as far back as July 7, 2010. All of the newspaper reprints included the name Ken Huber. The variations appeared to only appear on the internet. The letter read as follows: What has America become? Editor, Has America become the land of special interest and home of the double standard? Lets see: if we lie to the Congress, it's a felony and if the congress lies to us its just politics; if we dislike a black person, we're racist and if a black person dislikes whites, its their 1st Amendment right; the government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims; in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process; you can kill an unborn child, but it is wrong to execute a mass murderer; we don't burn books in America, we now rewrite them; we got rid of the communist and socialist threat by renaming them progressives; we are unable to close our border with Mexico, but have no problem protecting the 38th parallel in Korea; if you protest against President Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned an American flag or George Bush in effigy it was your 1st Amendment right. You can have pornography on TV or the internet, but you better not put a nativity scene in a public park during Christmas; we have eliminated all criminals in America, they are now called sick people; we can use a human fetus for medical research, but it is wrong to use an animal. We take money from those who work hard for it and give it to those who don't want to work; we all support the Constitution, but only when it supports our political ideology; we still have freedom of speech, but only if we are being politically correct; parenting has been replaced with Ritalin and video games; the land of opportunity is now the land of hand outs; the similarity between Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill is that neither president did anything to help. And how do we handle a major crisis today? The government appoints a committee to determine who's at fault, then threatens them, passes a law, raises our taxes; tells us the problem is solved so they can get back to their reelection campaign. What has happened to the land of the free and home of the brave? - Ken HuberTawas City We don't know who this Ken Huber is, however, we can see this letter used a number of odd comparisons. It didn't provide any evidence to support its claims in a classic appeal to emotion. Readers may be reminded of the term "logical fallacy," which is best defined as "an error in reasoning" with a conclusion that does not follow the subject preceding it. defined The dated letter has spawned a number of responses and a bit of discussion over the years. It was also reprinted on blogs as far back as July 2010. a number of responses a bit of discussion reprinted on blogs In sum, it's true that a 2010 letter to the editor asking "What has America become?" was credited to Ken Huber. On March 11, 2022, we changed the rating for this story from "Correct Attribution" to "Outdated." The reason for the rating change came after we examined the original rating and came to the conclusion that "Outdated" made more sense. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., offered several arguments against Republican efforts to pass a tax bill during an interview on CNNsState of the Union, including the impact of the deduction for state and local taxes and its effects on the balance of federal revenues and spending. But one criticism was procedural, echoing earlier Democratic complaints that Republican bills to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act had been crafted behind closed doors and without normal steps such as committee hearings. And let me tell you, there is a reason why this plan has been prepared in secret, why it's not being scored by the Congressional Budget Office, as it is traditionally,Durbin told host Jake Tapper. It's because it doesn't add up. Does Durbin have a point that the CBO has been unusually absent in this process? Not by the way ordinary viewers would hear it. The Senate Democratic whip, Dick Durbin of Illinois, appeared on CNN's State of the Union on Nov. 12, 2017. The CBO is Congress nonpartisan number-crunching office, best known for its detailed analyses of pending legislation. However, theres one exception to CBOs role in vetting proposed legislation: tax bills. That duty falls instead to a similar, nonpartisan congressional office known as the Joint Committee on Taxation. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the Joint Committee (on Taxation) to provide revenue estimates for all tax legislation considered by either the House or the Senate, the committees websiteexplains. Such estimates are the official congressional estimates for reported tax legislation. And by the time Durbin had made his comment to Tapper, the joint committee had already published analyses of the House version of the tax bill. On Nov. 9, the committee published an analysis of the billsrevenue impact. Two days later, the committee publishedtwootheranalyses, including one on how the bill would affect various segments of the income spectrum. The joint committee has scored versions of both the House and Senate bills, said Eric Toder, a co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. And they are the official scorekeepers for tax legislation. As it happens, CBO has also publishedone analysisof the bill, addressing estimated deficits and debt. But even this is based heavily on the Joint Committee on Taxations work, said Douglas Elmendorf, a former Democratic-appointed CBO director who now serves as dean of Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government. The joint committee provides the official estimates to Congress of the effects of proposed changes in the Internal Revenue Code, Elmendorf said. When a tax bill is voted out of committee, CBO releases an official cost estimate because CBOs statutory responsibility is to provide estimates for all bills voted out of committee  but that estimate is simply JCTs numbers with a CBO letterhead, and with due credit given to JCT in the text of the estimate. In other words, Elmendorf said, the Republicans are doing their duty. When we contacted Durbins office, spokesman Ben Marter pointed to a narrower interpretation of Durbins words. He said that in the Senate, Republicans have a potential problem with the Byrd rule, which determines whether a bill can be taken up under reconciliation, a process that effectively requires only 51 votes rather than 60 votes for passage. That violation would have to be fixed before their bill can move in the Senate, but the fix to address future revenue projections is being written in secret, and we likely wont see that until the bill is on the floor in the form of a substitute amendment, as they did with their health care bill, Marter said. Such a substitute amendment would become the bill, Marter said, and under the budget resolution, Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., could waive the requirement for a full score analysis before its voted on. An important point to remember about the Durbin teams analysis: Its based on speculation about future events. Durbins literal words gave viewers a different story -- that the Republicans are already blocking CBO from scoring the bill -- and that is incorrect on at least two levels. Durbin said the Republican tax bill is not being scored by the Congressional Budget Office, as it is traditionally. Under the most obvious interpretation of that statement, Durbin is incorrect. The nonpartisan analysis for tax bills is actually a task handled by the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the committee has been actively analyzing the Republican tax bills. We rate the statement False.