Says state lawmakers have voted to spend virtually all of the Rainy Day Fund four times since the funds creation.
Appealing unsuccessfully to spend more money from the states so-called Rainy Day Fund, state Sen. Rodney Ellis hearkened to legislative history, saying in floor debate May 16: Members, this legislature has voted to use virtually all of the Rainy Day Fund four times since its creation in the late 1980s. The sad truth is that Texans and the (fund) are being held hostage to politics.Back story: GOP Gov. Rick Perry has said hes agreeable with taking about $3.1 billion from the fund, formally called the Economic Stabilization Fund, to help cover the state budget that runs through August. But Perry and many Republicans oppose tapping the fund, which is fed by state oil and gas oil production taxes, for the 2012-13 budget. Perry contends it needs to be protected in case of natural disasters.Democrats, noting the projected multi-billion-dollar shortfall in state revenue needed to maintain current programs, say the current dire circumstances justify taking more from the fund.And is Ellis correct about past legislatures voting four times to virtually empty the fund?Jeremy Warren, Elliss spokesman, said the senator relied on a report by the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank that advocates for programs serving the poor. To help balance the 2012-13 budget, the center has urged lawmakers to use the fund, which is projected by State Comptroller Susan Combs to have a balance of $9.7 billion by the end of August 2013, or about $6.6 billion if lawmakers stick with applying $3.1 billion from the fund to this years deficit .The centers Feb. 21reportsays: In 1991, the Legislature spent the funds entire balance ($28.8million) on public schools, and in 1993, spent the entire balance ($197 million) for criminal justice.In 2003, to deal with the last economic downturn, the Legislature appropriated $1.3 billion from the Rainy Day Fundalmost every penny of the balance the (state) comptroller forecast through 2005, the report says. Again in 2005, the Legislature appropriated $1.9 billion in Rainy Day funds, using roughly half for 2005 shortfalls, and the other half for 2006-07, spending almost all the $2 billion that was forecast to be available.Next, we confirmed the amounts of rainy-day money that lawmakers could have spent in each of these instances by reviewing biennial revenue forecasts made by respective state comptrollers. Finally, the Legislative Reference Library guided us to a Feb. 3reportby the House Research Organization, a non-partisan arm of the Texas House, specifying how much money the 1991, 1993, 2003 and 2005 Legislatures appropriated from the fund.Punch line: The centers recap is accurate.We rate Elliss statement True.
In July 2022, scammers used actor Rebel Wilson's image and likeness without her authorization, adding her to their fraudulent roster of celebrities who supposedly endorsed CBD gummies, apple cider vinegar (ACV) keto gummies, and weight loss diet pills. One specific product that Wilson supposedly gave her blessing to was Simpli Health ACV+Keto Gummies, according to a number of fake "reviews" that showed up in Google News search results. In reality, these "reviews" were paid sponsored content articles. Wilson never endorsed any of these products, nor did a number of other celebrities whose names we found alongside hers. Google News search results sponsored content Sometime during the month of July, Wilson showed up in a fake article on feronia4.top/chensang3365, a website that scammers had designed to look just like People.com. In reality, the scammers simply copied the design of People.com in an effort to fool potential victims into believing it was a legitimate news website. Wilson  The fake People.com article showed the headline, "Oprah Winfrey Considers Break from Fame to Focus on New Business Venture that's Helped Her and Millions of Women Melt Body Fat and Get Ripped in Weeks." It falsely claimed that Winfrey and Wilson had endorsed either CBD gummies or apple cider vinegar keto gummies. We previously reported about Winfrey's named being used in these kinds of scams without her authorization. Winfrey previously reported Farther down in the fake article, it showed an Instagram picture comparison that Wilson supposedly posted on Dec. 24, 2020. However, the caption had been doctored. In the post, she supposedly said, "ACV is the REAL DEAL!" Wilson never made this post, nor did she ever say that apple cider vinegar contributed to her weight loss.  The same fake People.com article that was created by scammers falsely claimed that Kelly Osbourne, Rachael Ray, Melissa McCarthy, Christina Aguilera, Blake Shelton, and Wendy Williams also endorsed apple cider vinegar keto gummies. Blake Shelton apple cider vinegar Women's Health previously reported about Wilson's real weight loss journey. One reason she decided to lose 80 pounds was to help her chances with fertility. According to the story, she contributed her weight loss to exercise and a high protein diet, not apple cider vinegar or CBD or keto gummies. She also once posted to her Instagram Stories that she "NEVER endorsed any diet pills or magic weight loss pills," saying that she didn't "want anyone to get scammed." reported CBD keto In sum, no, Wilson never endorsed Simpli Health ACV Keto Gummies or any other similar CBD, keto, or apple cider vinegar products. Liles, Jordan. Blake Shelton Allegations and CBD Gummies Page Are Misleading. Snopes.com, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blake-shelton-allegations-cbd-gummies/. ---. Did Oprah Winfrey Endorse Whoopi Goldbergs CBD Line? Snopes.com, 15 Dec. 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/winfrey-goldberg-cbd/. ---. Did Oprah Winfrey Suffer a Tragedy and Endorse Keto Weight Loss Gummies? Snopes.com, 12 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-tragedy-keto-gummies/. Nied, Jennifer, et al. Rebel Wilson, 42, Says That Her Weight Doesnt Define Her In Vacay IG Post. Womens Health, https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a30811784/rebel-wilson-weight-loss/. On Nov. 15, 2019, former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Shortly after, some of Trump's defenders took to social media apparently to discredit her testimony, claiming that the ambassador's net worth far exceeded her salary, insinuating because of some illicit means: testified   We have found no evidence to corroborate this claim. Those making the claim have offered a wide range of figures. We also found that this claim did not originate with a credible financial news outlet, such as Forbes, and that the websites publishing this information have offered no evidence. Furthermore, while this claim implies some sort of wrongdoing on her part, no one has offered any information about how she supposedly built her alleged fortune.  In other words, this claim appears to have been conjured out of thin air.  While the tweet shown above claimed that Yovanovitch has a net worth of $17 million, other social media users have offered differing estimates of her net worth: social media users One possible explanation for the discrepancies in this claim is that there is no credible evidence for the estimates.   Some social media users pointed to articles published on Walikali and Gossipgist to support their claim that Yovanovitch's net worth far exceeded her salary. However, just like the above-displayed tweets, these sites offered no evidence to support their estimates.  Walikali Gossipgist The articles published on these websites provide some basic biographical information about the former ambassador to Ukraine. They do not, however, provide any insight into any business dealings or investments that Yovanovitch may have made that could have resulted in a $17 million net worth. Instead, they simply tacked on their estimate ($6 million in both cases) without making any attempt to justify that figure.  We reached out to Walikali and Gossipgist for more information on how they arrived at their estimates and will update this article if more information becomes available. In sum, the claim that Yovanovitch has a net worth of $17 million (or $12 million or $6 million or $3 million) is wholly unsubstantiated. This rumor appears to have been made up out of whole cloth in an apparent attempt to discredit her U.S. House testimony.  Flaherty, Anne.  "5 Key Takeaways From Testimony by Former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch."
  ABC News.  15 November 2019. McCarthy, Tom; Smith, David.  "Ukraine Ambassador Describes Trump's 'Shocking' Smear Campaign Against Her."
  The Guardian.  15 November 2019. Claim:  Several million fewer dependents were claimed on federal income tax returns the year the IRS started requiring taxpayers to list the Social Security numbers of their children.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] I had read at some point that millions of dependents dropped off the 1040 forms the year that the IRS required social security numbers. This seems incredibly high, but I know that it was a fact that there had been a lot of divorced parents both claiming the same children as dependents and people claiming their pets.   Origins:  The U.S. federal income tax code requires residents to be responsible for their own taxes  that is, it's up to each taxpayer to reckon his income, determine his allowable deductions, and file a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service (or to hire someone to do it for  him).  Such a system allows (some say it even encourages) taxpayers to cheat, engaging in everything from fudging the line between business and personal expenses to hiding large amounts of unreported income.  Although tax fraud may never be completely eliminated, the increasing use of automated record-keeping and tracking technology has made many of the more common cheating schemes quite difficult, if not impossible, to pull off successfully these days. Given how often we're asked to provide our Social Security numbers  (they seem to used for just about everything these days), those of us who began paying federal income tax only in the last twenty years might be surprised to discover that not until 1987 did the IRS begin requiring taxpayers to include the Social Security numbers of all dependent children claimed on their returns.  After all, listing phony dependents in order to claim illegitimate extra deductions has historically been one of the more common forms of tax fraud, so it makes sense the IRS would always have wanted to track such information as closely as possible. This is the notion behind the legend  made familiar to many readers by the 2005 best-seller Freakonomics  that the  year the IRS did begin asking taxpayers to provide Social Security numbers for all dependent children, the number of claimed dependents suddenly dropped significantly: Some cheating leaves barely a shadow of evidence. In other cases, the evidence is massive. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing each dependent child, tax filers were now required to provide a Social Security number for each child. Suddenly, seven million children  children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year's 1040 forms  vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States. The "seven million" figure appears to be accurate, as noted in a December 2000 National Tax Journal article by Jeffrey B. Liebman that drew its data from a 1990 Internal Revenue Service conference report: article Another way in which taxpayers without children might claim a dependent child is to invent a fictional one. The strongest evidence for this possibility is that in 1987, the first year in which taxpayers were required to list social security numbers of dependents on their tax returns, 7 million fewer dependent children were claimed than in the previous year. The suggestion by the Freakonomics authors that most or all of that drop in the number of dependents claimed in 1987 was directly attributable to fraud was an obvious one but not necessarily the only one, as alternative explanations could have accounted for a substantial portion of the reduction in number of claimed dependents.  For example, it was not until 1987 that the IRS first demonstrated a program to allow parents to automatically obtain Social Security numbers for their newborn children when those births were registered, and the program did not become nationwide until 1989.  Since the average citizen doesn't generally keep abreast of all the changes made to the tax code from year to year until they directly affect him, perhaps many taxpayers sat down to fill out their returns in 1987 and didn't realize until it was too late that they had never applied for Social Security numbers for their children. 1987 However, the assumption that many taxpayers had previously claimed non-existent children until the newly-implemented Social Security number requirement made it much more difficult for them to safely do so is certainly an obvious one, and seems to be supported by additional information provided by Liebman: Further evidence that nonexistent children may have been claimed comes from the 1988 TCMP [Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program]. In 1988, taxpayers were required to list on their tax returns the social security numbers of all dependents who were at least five years old. On tax returns where the TCMP auditor disallowed an EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit] claim, 39 percent of the disallowed dependent child claims were dependents for whom the taxpayer checked the box stating the child was under five and did not provide a social security number  possibly because the children did not exist. Likewise, although followup reports in subsequent years noted that some portion of the previously claimed dependents who went "missing" in the 1987 tax year were indeed real people who were not claimed as dependents in 1987 for reasons other than their being fictitious (e.g., they were children who had in earlier years been unlawfully claimed as dependents by each of two divorced parents), the pattern of disappearing dependents in 1987 was indicative of widespread fraud: Starting in 1987, the I.R.S. required that taxpayers report the Social Security number of all dependents over the age of 5. That year 7 million American children disappeared from the nation's tax returns, representing a 9 percent drop in the 77 million dependents claimed the previous year and $2.9 billion more in yearly tax revenue. The tax agency said about 20 percent of the vanished dependents were children who had been claimed as dependents by both parents after a divorce. Under the law, only one parent may claim the child as a deduction. Most of the others probably never existed, John Szilagyi, an I.R.S. researcher, said. And some families apparently became quite greedy in creating dependents, each worth a $1,080 deduction in 1986, and $1,900 in 1987. About 66,000 taxpayers who claimed four or more dependents in 1986 claimed none in 1987, after the Social Security identification rule went into effect. And more than 11,000 families claimed seven or more dependents in 1986, but none in 1987. Those returns are now under investigation, with more than 1,000 audits in which the 1986 dependents were disallowed, and back taxes and fines collected. Mr. Szilagyi said some cases of apparent fraud have also been referred to the authorities for criminal investigation.  "In any individual family, you can imagine that one or two children might legitimately have stopped being dependents in 1987, but it's hard to imagine a legitimate situation in which a taxpayer had seven dependents one year and none the next," said Mr. Szilagyi, who drafted the proposal to require Social Security numbers from dependents and baby sitters. Mr. Szilagyi said his research indicates that there are probably four million to five million more dependents being claimed illegally, either because they are fictitious or do not legally qualify as dependents. Last updated:  15 April 2014 Freakonomics    Lewin, Tamar.  "I.R.S. Sees Evidence of Wide Tax Cheating on Child Care"   The New York Times.  6 January 1991.    Liebman, Jeffrey B.  "Who Are the Ineligible EITC Recipients?"   National Tax Journal.  December 2000  (pp. 1165-1186). Ever since Georgia voters roundly rejected regional sales taxes to fund road and transit projects in 2012, state leaders have pledged to take the lead on transportation. The Legislature made good on that promise this year with House Bill 170. Awaiting the governors signature, the measure is projected to raise nearly $670 million in transportation funding next year, by moving the state from a series of sales and excise taxes on gasoline to a single excise tax. That plus a mix of new fees for drivers of electric car and heavy trucks, the end of a popular tax credit for electric cars and a $5 per-night fee on hotel/motel stays, is expected to generate close to $1 billion a year to tackle the states backlog of transportation projects. That is really what all of this has been about --- finding sensible and fair ways to make our transportation network better and keep Georgia moving forward, House Transportation Committee chair Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, wrote in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not that everyone was on board. Sen. Mike Crane, R-Newnan called the bill a midnight run on taxpayers. Debbie Dooley, who led part of the opposition to the 2012 sales tax referendum as chairman of the Atlanta Tea Party, echoed that language on her Twitter page. GA Republicans just pulled a midnight run on taxpayers and passed a billion-dollar tax increase with a rushed vote giving only 2 hours, Dooley posted on March 31. Is that right? Does the long-awaited transportation plan translate into a massive tax hike? And with that, PolitiFact Georgia waded into the squishy semantics of what counts as a tax and what is a fee. In public policy terms, a broad swath of people pay taxes, for broad services, even if they dont use them. Homeowners pay property taxes to local governments, for instance, to fund police and fire departments they may never need. Fees, meanwhile, are charged for the use of a facility, service or good that government provides. Your federal taxes help fund national parks but you still pay a fee to camp under the stars. That much is clear. Where the lines blur is when politicos and journalists begin using the terms interchangeably. House Bill 170, for instance, refers to the states gas tax. The money paid by Leaf drivers, or hotel visitors? Those are called fees. But to public policy folks, the gas tax is more like a fee, said Barbara Neuby, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University who specializes in budget and finance issues. Thats because you can opt out of owning a car, never buy a gallon of gas and still benefit from others picking up the tab, making what they pay a fee. And to complicate things further? You can pay a tax and a fee at the same time. Dont own a car but need some gas for your lawn mower? You arent using the road to drive but you still pay for the product. A lot of it is semantics, Neuby said. Its a tax increase, or additional fees if you use certain things. To some people, thats splitting hairs. Any time government extracts money from your pocket, folks tend to see it as a tax, even if it isnt. There is not, in economic circles, a clear or bright line between the two terms. After all, the gas tax could be a user fee if only motorists paid it. But to an economist, if a 10-year-old walks to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone, the price will include the cost of getting the treats ingredients to the store, said William J. Smith, the economics department chairman at the University of West Georgia. Any good or service you purchase that involves transportation will involve the gas tax, Smith said. So thats why its so hard to say with any conviction that any one thing is either a tax or a fee. All told, both expert realms lend some credibility to Dooley, and the public, seeing the transportation bill as a giant tax hike. But that refers to the language distinction. Math math, however, does not fully back up claims about a tax increase. Jared Walczak, an analyst with the right-leaning Tax Foundation, examined Georgias gas tax at PolitiFact Georgias request. The current mixed system includes a 7.5 cent per gallon excise tax, a 4 percent sales tax and, generally a 3-4 percent local tax. The effective rate: 26.5 cents per gallon, based on the current AAA fuel price of $2.37 a gallon. And with the elimination of the local and state sales taxes and jump in excise tax? At todays prices, motorists would pay 26 cents a gallon in taxes. The break-even point would be gas prices at $2.65 a gallon, Walczak said. And those calculations do not include the local option, which could add an additional 1 percent sales tax after a public vote. But because the bill also will index the excise tax to inflation, the amount paid is projected to go up over time, as the cost of living gradually rises. The states amended fiscal note acknowledges that index inits projections.The impact of the gas tax in 2016 will be up to $668 million. By 2020, the tax could generate as much as $867 million. Some people will pay more under this proposal. Those who drive a heavy truck, those who drive an alternative vehicle, will certainly pay more immediately, Walczak said. Certain others may pay less or identical amounts at this juncture, but in succeeding years that burden will be indexed to inflation and is apt to increase. Dooley said that conclusion remains the same, regardless of the semantic dispute. The Tea Party understood the need for transportation funding, she said. Members supported the bill repealing a jet fuel tax exemption for Delta, estimated to bring in $21 million this year and up to about $32 million in 2020. By not looking at other tax incentives to cut  such as credits given to the movie industry or breaks that helped lure Mercedes Benz USAs headquarters  lawmakers ensured most Georgians will pay more for the necessary work, she said. They are increasing the burden on everyday motorists in Georgia while giving out all of these subsidies to businesses, Dooley said. They can call it a fee all they like, but if it raises revenue like this does, its a tax, Experts quibble over the semantic distinction. And at least in the short term, people will pay slightly less, or about the same, on the tax that is the biggest piece of the funding overhaul. But over time, the experts agree that the burden on taxpayers will increase. The distinction between a tax and a fee brings it down a notch, but we rate Dooleys statement about a billion dollar tax increase to be Mostly True. In January 2016, a quote attributed to first U.S. president George Washington, about the importance of an armed citizenry, started recirculating on the internet:  This statement had been making the online rounds for several years, but it regained popularity in January 2016 after President Obama announced new measures on gun control. announced George Washington never uttered the phrase in question. The first ten words ("a free people ought not only be armed and disciplined") are taken from the former president's annual address to theSenate and House of Representatives on 8 January 1790, in which he argued in favor of an armed citizenry and self-sufficiency in production military supplies as a deterrent to war: annual address Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies. The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy. A page dedicated to fake quotes attributed to George Washington on theMount Vernon web site addressed this passage as follows: addressed This quote is partially accurate as the beginning section is taken from Washington's First Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union. However, the quote is then manipulated into a differing context and the remaining text is inaccurate. Although this meme does include a portion of Washington's first annual addressto members of theSenate and House of Representatives in1790, the majority of the quotewas never utteredby the Founding Father, and does not accurately represent his views on gun control. Nonetheless, its apocryphal nature doesn't hinder its continued reproduction as a genuine expression from George Washington: In the contest for the hearts and minds of voters, Democrats have been claiming that the economy is really improving and the Republicans have been saying they can make the anemic recovery even more robust.During theonline-onlyportion of the Aug. 28 Providence Journal-WPRI debate among Democrats David Cicilline and Anthony Gemma, both running in the 1st Congressional District, incumbent Cicilline was asked how he would tackle the massive national debt.Cicilline said that in addition to cutting spending and closing loopholes in the tax system, the pace of job creation needs to increase.When President Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Now we've had job growth, I think, for 24 consecutive months, he said.We've heard a lot of chatter about the job numbers and whether they really indicate a recovery, so we decided to look further.First, a look at what the employment situation was like when Obama took office.Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in January 2009, when the president was sworn in, the country lost 818,000 jobs. (The numbers do not include farm workers and are adjusted for seasonal shifts in employment, but that's the standard way of calculating employment and unemployment rates. )That's 17 percent more than the 700,000 jobs Cicilline cited. (To put the numbers in perspective, the losses for the first three full months that Obama was in office averaged 738,000 per month. The average job loss for the last three full months of the Bush administration was 651,000. )When it comes to thenumber of monthsin which the United States has had job growth, Cicilline's timeframe was also somewhat off.BLS datashow that the last time the United States lost jobs was in September 2010, when 27,000 jobs were lost.That's 22 months ago, not 24.How significant have the increases been?Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institutiontold PolitiFact Nationalin May that the economy needs to create 90,000 to 100,000 jobs each month just to keep pace with the number of people coming into the work force.During 7 of those 22 months, including as recently as April, May and June of this year, job growth was below 100,000. In 8 of the 22 months, it was over 200,000.When we asked his campaign for the source of Cicilline's statement, spokeswoman Nicole Kayner sent usa White House blog itemfrom Aug. 3 reporting: The economy has now added private sector jobs for 29 straight months. We confirmed that with the BLS database, but this is for non-government jobs, and Cicilline didn't make that distinction in his debate comment.Our rulingIn the debate, U.S. Rep. David Cicilline said: When President Obama took office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. Now we've had job growth, I think, for 24 consecutive months.We want to note, as we repeatedly have, that even though there's been improvement in the job numbers during the Obama administration, a president's ability to influence the economy is severely limited.As for Cicillines comment, he understated the job losses occurring when President Obama took office and, by the most commonly used measure, he overstated by two months the timespan of continued job growth. But his main point -- that there has been growth for nearly two years -- is sound.Because the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rule itMostly True. (Get updates from PolitiFact Rhode Island on Twitter:@politifactri. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on ourPolitiFact Rhode Island Facebookpage.) Claim:  A Canadian housewife penned the 'I'll care if . . ." polemic.     Examples: Could not have said this any better myself! especially today  The lady that wrote this letter is Pam Foster of Pamela Foster and Associates in Atlanta. She's been in business since 1980 doing interior design and home planning. She recently wrote a letter to a family member serving in Iraq. Read it! ===================== WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS? "Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001? Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all! I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia. I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling, slashed throat. I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs. I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights. I'll care when Clinton-appointed judges stop ordering my government to release photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which are sure to set off the Islamic extremists just as Newsweek's lies did a few weeks ago. In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care. When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care. When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care. When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care. And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and  you guessed it  I don't care!" I don't give a sheet either about those sheet heads!!!!! [Collected via e-mail, December 2010] British Housewife Speaks Out Thought you might like to read this letter to the editor of a British national newspaper. Ever notice how some people just seem to know how to write a letter?. Here is a woman who should run for Prime Minister! Written by a housewife, to her daily newspaper. This is one ticked off lady. 'Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores in July 2002, and in New York on 11 Sept 2001, and have continually threatened to do so since? Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day in London , and in downtown Manhattan , and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency. I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11 and 7/7. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crimepunishable by beheading in Afghanistan I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat. I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of Nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs. I'll care when the British media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when something happens. In the meantime, when I hear a story about a British soldier roughing up an Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care. When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take this to the bank: I don't care. When I hear that a prisoner - who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and 'fed special food' that is paid for by my taxes - is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care. And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, believe me!! you guessed it ...... I don't care!! If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behaviour! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country! And may I add: 'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. Our soldiers don't have that problem.' I have another quote that I would like to add, AND.......I hope you forward all this. Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you: 1. Jesus Christ 2. The British Soldier. 3. The Canadian Soldier. 4. The US Soldier, and 5. The Australian Soldier One died for your soul, the other 4 for your freedom. YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON, AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET ABOUT ALL OF THEM. AMEN Origins:  Although the first example quoted above has come to be attributed to a Pam Foster who resides in Atlanta and the second to an unnamed British housewife, the article is actually the work of Doug Patton, a freelance columnist and political speechwriter who lives near Omaha, Nebraska. The first e-mail-circulated version left off his two opening paragraphs and added a closing "I don't give a sheet either about those sheet heads!" statement that wasn't in his original, but it is otherwise a faithful copy of his article, which was first published on the gopusa.com web site on 6 June 2005 under the title "Ask Me if I Care About 'Mishandling' of Koran" and which has since been reproduced on a number of other web sites. Doug Patton published Pamela Foster said this of how her name came to be associated with Doug Patton's article:     The item has subsequently come to be attributed to a variety of unnamed housewives, each of whom supposedly wrote the bit as a letter to the editor of her local paper. A version appeared in March 2007 that attributed the piece to one of them in New Jersey was prefaced "Here is a woman who should run for President!" The text of the original "I'll care if" polemic was shortened a little, and tacked onto the end was the bit about defining forces "which have ever offered to die for you" that also appears in two other Internet-circulated items: A variant of a 2005 piece about complaints made about the noise of a military fly-over in New Mexico and reaction to same, and a version of a pithy quote attributed to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. fly-over Tony Blair In March 2008, the (shortened) item once again circulated, that time attributed to an unnamed ("pissed off") housewife in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, with the forward prefaced with a "Here is a woman who should run for Prime Minister!"and the remainder of the original piece suitably altered to replace American references with Canadian ones. The "defining forces which have ever offered to die for you" enumeration was expanded from the previous twosome of "Jesus Christ and the American G.I." into a list of five: Jesus Christ, the Canadian soldier, the British soldier, the Dutch soldier, and the American soldier. In July 2010 the unnamed housewife was relocated yet again, that time to Britain, and again proclaimed as "Here is a woman who should run for Prime Minister!" Textual changes were once again made in the piece to replace American (or Canadian) references with British ones, and the "who will die for you" list was updated thusly: Jesus Christ, the British soldier, the Canadian soldier, the US soldier, and the Australian soldier. We're betting the unnamed housewife will next show up in Australia. Last updated:  7 August 2013 <!-- Sources:    Voight, Jon.   "An Open Letter to President Obama from Jon Voight."   The Washington Times.  22 June 2010.--> A few days before the release of "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," a movie starring Tom Hanks about children's television host Fred Rogers, a representative for Ancestry.com told CBS News that the two men were related: CBS News Tom Hanks bears a shocking resemblance to children's television star Fred Rogers, who he plays in the upcoming film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood." But the similarities are more than just good casting  the performers are actually related, according to a discovery made by Ancestry.com. Hanks is sixth cousins with Rogers, and they share the same great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Johannes Mefford, a company representative told CBS News. The company utilized its database of over 20 billion online historical records to form Hanks' family tree, the representative said. We have no reason to doubt Ancestry.com's claim. However, some readers may not quite understand just how distant a distant cousin really is.  The genealogy website reported that Rogers and Hanks are sixth cousins who share a 5x great-grandfather (or a great-great-great-great-great-grandfather). Here's how Ancestry.com described Hanks relationship to Rogers:    Fred Rogers and Tom Hanks are sixth cousins sharing the same 5x great-grandfather, Johannes Mefford, who immigrated from Germany to America in the 18th century. Johannes raised a family of patriots; three of his sons (including Tom Hanks and Fred Rogerss ancestors) served in the Revolutionary War. Fred Rogerss 4x great-grandfather, William Mefford, served in the navy and was captured by the British in 1782. He endured life on a prison ship in Barbados and Antigua until he was released ten months later. Tom Hankss 4x great-grandfather, Jacob Mefford, joined the War as a private and participated in a skirmish at Chesapeake Bay. So, Rogers and Hanks not only share the same ancestor, they also descend from two brothers who fought for Americas independence. While it may be "true" to say that Hanks and Rogers are related, phrasing their relationship this way is a bit misleading.  We found varying estimates about just how closely related sixth cousins really are, but the general conclusion was that these "relatives" were very distant. For instance, a study by Ancestry DNA in 2014, based on British birth rates and census data, found that the average person in Britain had about 175,000 sixth cousins.  found While it's true that Hanks and Rogers are related, they are distant cousins who probably don't share much in terms of DNA. But don't let that take away from Hanks' performance as Rogers in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood":  We reached out to the Association of Professional Genealogists and the International Society of Genetic Genealogy. We will update this article when more information becomes available. Garrand, Danielle.  "Tom Hanks Discovers He's Related to Mister Rogers Days Before 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Released."
  CBS News.  20 November 2019. Mirror.  "Average British Person Has 193,000 Living Cousins Says New Research."
  17 June 2015. Correction [21 November 2019] A table about the probability of sixth cousins sharing DNA was mischaracterized and removed from the article. In December 2020, TikTok user @philupmecup posted a short clip, viewed more than 1 million times, that included the text "An 18 year old can legally adopt a 17 year old," along with the caption "Let that sink in": posted   Among the tens of thousands of comments posted in response to the video were some that appeared to come from teenagers excited or amused by the prospect of high school friends adopting one another once one of them turns 18.  teenagers In reality, the restrictions and protocols implemented by adoption agencies make it unlikely that one teenager could adopt another one, except in rare and tragic circumstances. However, on a purely legal, hypothetical basis, most U.S. states do not prohibit such an arrangement. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture." Adoption regulations vary from country to country, but the TikTok user who posted the claim lives in the United States, so our assessment will focus on the legal status quo there, which also varies between states. According to a January 2020 report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Colorado, Delaware, Oklahoma, and American Samoa explicitly prohibit adoption by anyone under 21 years old; and Georgia and Idaho set the minimum age at 25. report In seven states (California, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Utah) as well as the Northern Mariana Islands, the adopting parent must be at least 10 years older than the adoptive child, while in Puerto Rico that minimum age gap is 14 years, and in Idaho, it is 15 years.  In California, an exception exists to the age-gap requirement, namely where a court rules the adoption is in everyone's best interests and is done by a "stepparent, or by a sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or first cousin and, if that person is married, by that person and that person's spouse."  exception Similarly, Colorado law allows for an exception to the minimum age of 21, subject to court approval, and in South Dakota, the 10-year age gap can be waived where "the court finds the adoption of the child by the adult person in the best interest of the child." exception waived This means that only 10 out of the 50 states, whose combined population represents 79 million (or around 24% of the country's total population) legally prohibit an 18-year-old from adopting a 17-year-old  and in three of those states, loopholes exist which could, in principle, allow such an arrangement.  That's not to say that any 18-year-old could adopt any 17-year-old. Almost all states have some other legal prerequisites for adoption  in-state residency requirements, consent requirements, and the termination of the biological parents' parental rights. But  all other things being equal  only 10 states have age-specific limitations that would (in almost all cases) prohibit the arrangement in question. In practice, adoption agencies typically impose restrictions, or give preference to certain would-be adoptive parents, based on considerations such as financial stability. This alone would likely rule out the vast majority of 18-year-olds, who are only very rarely independently wealthy or have reliable, sustainable employment which they can balance with a college education and so on.  Another highly relevant consideration here is the time it can take to complete the rigorous procedures required for adopting a child. The California Department of Social Services, for example, advises that adoption agencies often taken between six months and one year to complete their assessment of would-be adoptive parents, and they typically take an additional "one to several months" to actually place the adoptive children with their new parents. Given these time frames, very few scenarios would warrant an 18-year-old's adopting a 17-year-old, when the 17-year-old will become a legal adult anyway, in at most 12 months.  advises Claim:  E-mail warns about a carjacking attempt in Whittier, California. PARTLY Example:  [Collected via e-mail, February 2009] 01/21/09 - I am sending this to all of you, per the advice of the Whittier Police. Last night on my way home from work, I was followed off the freeway without realizing it.  A lot of people take the Telegraph off ramp to go home. Then I turned left on Norwalk going north. This Van pulled up on my right side and told me that my right rear tire was going flat and that I should pull over and let him put my spare on. I was only 2 miles from home and in an industrial area where no gas stations, etc. so told him NO THANKS, and kept going slow the rest of 20 the way home.  When I got home I told Richard what had happened and he checked my tire.  The tire was perfectly OK. That's when I realized what had happened and it scared me to death. According to the Police there are allot of car jacking going on, then they rob you of everything (money, jewelry, etc) due to the economy. The best thing I could do was to let the gals at work know to be more than careful of their surroundings.  It's happening all over So Cal, not just LA or Orange Counties. Please my friends, be very careful out there. Origins:  This January 2009 e-mailed warning about a carjacking attempt in Whittier (a  California city about 12 miles southeast of Los Angeles) is distinct from most Internet-forwarded crime warnings in that it's a first-person account rather than a third- or -fourth-hand retelling produced by someone with no direct connection to the events described.  Its accuracy appears to be better than most such warnings, but like most such warnings it also evidently proclaims an exaggerated level of danger not warranted by the facts. Certainly criminals' attempting to fool motorists into believing their cars are evidencing symptoms of potentially serious malfunctions (e.g., flat tire, excessive smoke, fire) as a means of getting those motorists to pull over and stop so that crimes (e.g., robbery, car theft, assault, rape) can be effected on them is a ruse that has been successfully used many times before.  And the Whittier Police have acknowledged that "The originator of this email did in fact contact the Whittier Police Department to report the above facts and a report was taken." However, the Whittier Police also noted that no link to criminal intent has yet been established for the reported incident, and that they did not (as stated in the e-mail) tell the person who filed the report that carjackings have been taking place "all over Southern California" in the manner described: Whittier Police For clarification purposes, the Whittier Police Department did not advise the caller that "there are a lot of car jackings going on".  The Department has not received any other reports that involve these sets of circumstances, which led to a car jacking.  While there is no definite way at this time to determine the true intent of the van driver, motorists are encouraged to report any suspicious activity to the Whittier Police Department. Last updated:  6 February 2009