Warning about pedophiles on Facebook
Claim:  Predators, pedophiles, and child trafficking rings are using Facebook to source new victims by friending trusting parents and mining images posted of their children. Example:  [Collected on Facebook, September 2014] A guy sends you a friend request. You don't know him, but he's got a cute profile pic, so you accept. It's baby girl's first day of school! She looks SO cute in her new outfit you just have to take a picture and put it on Facebook so all your friends and family can see. You're so excited dropping her off that you "check in" to her school on Fb saying "I can't believe how big she's gotten. Time sure flies. One proud momma/daddy right here!"... Meanwhile, the mystery guy whose friend request you hurriedly accepted earlier this morning is saving that picture you posted of your daughter in her cute new outfit to his phone and texting it to 60 other grown men across the world with the caption "Caucasian female. Age 5. Brown hair, green eyes. $2,500." Not only did you provide a picture of your little girl to a child trafficker, you've handed him the name and exact location of her school on a silver cyber platter. You go to pick her up at 3:00 this afternoon, but she's nowhere to be found. Little do you know, your precious baby girl was sold to a 43-year-old pedophile before you even stepped foot off campus this morning, and now she's on her way to South Africa with a bag over her head, confused, terrified and crying because a man she's never seen before picked her up from school, and now she doesn't know where her parents are, where she's going, or what's gonna happen to her. STOP ADDING STRANGERS ON FACEBOOK. Origins:  In September 2014, the post above (without original attribution) went viral on Facebook. While this iteration is a new one, panic over internet strangers is as old as the internet itself, and warnings such as this have largely morphed from email forwards to Facebook shares. panic over internet strangers In May and June of 2015, the story received a second wave of interest after it was published to the website StylishLisa on 27 May 2015. On 30 May 2015 the message appeared on the Facebook page Lil' Red Warriors, but was later deleted after Facebook commenters correctly identified the photograph's origin on a page about children's hairstyles. The photo and its claim were later published verbatim to the Facebook page of Cyn Malvita, from where it was shared hundreds of thousands of times. A cached version of the iteration involving the hairstyling picture is embedded below: published Lil' Red Warriors deleted children's hairstyles Cyn Malvita  The Facebook post currently in circulation bears some resemblance to a well-traveled warning from years back describing a similar danger. While the premise is similar, the stated risk has evolved, incorporating Facebook's open and share-friendly nature as the door through which rampant child predators will enter your life and summarily terrorize you. well-traveled warning This particular warning has some unpleasant undertones in its telling, suggesting that female users are too readily tempted by a "cute" potential predator to consider the safety of their children. It also tacitly condemns parents (mothers, presumably in particular) for even mentioning their children in hawking its highly improbable, sanctimonious premise. Facebook and similar social media sites have ushered in a new level of panic when it comes to internet safety, given that the social network requires users to supply accurate information about their true identities and real names to use the service. While many users flout this aspect of the site's terms and services, many others have been banned temporarily or permanently for using aliases in place of real names. Reading the circulating post above might lead one to believe that the danger is very real and omnipresent, but the scenario presented is one that is exceedingly unlikely. Among other implausibilities, this warning makes it sound as though the bad guys are stymied in their search for victims and don't know where to look for kids to abduct until they see pictures of them on Facebook. But potential abductors' seeing a Facebook photo of a particular child who attends a given school does nothing to facilitate the snatching of random children for sale to pedophiles  would-be kidnappers don't need Facebook photos, as they could simply lie in wait outside just about any school and try to grab children as such opportunities presented themselves. Aside from that, first and foremost, most schools nowadays do not release children to parties who have not been explicitly granted permission and had their names recorded on an authorized list, a fact to which any parent who has ever needed a friend to make a last-minute school pickup can attest. Secondly, while the risk of child abduction and trafficking may exist, children are far, far more likely to be endangered by a relative or other "trusted" adult than a random Facebook contact. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the most recent statistics reflect a far different danger than the one described above. Of 800,000 children reported missing, 200,000 were abducted by relatives, 58,000 were kids taken by nonfamily members, and only 115 missing child reports were considered "stereotypical" abductions involving a complete stranger with intent to harm or keep the child. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children A lengthy report on Child Exploitation Prevention presented to Congress by the Justice Department in 2010 [PDF] further delves into the profiles of predators involved in child abuse and trafficking. According to the data presented, the vast majority of children harmed in this manner are either introduced or otherwise victimized by family members or other trusted adults such as babysitters, coaches, or family friends. Only four percent of victims identified were exploited or abused by an adult not previously known to the child or their family. PDF In the cases examined, abuse typically occurred over the course of years and involved "grooming" and other behaviors designed to created compliance. Child victims were not at risk of being immediately whisked to Africa by a strange Facebook user, but rather more likely placed in harm's way by the people meant to ensure their safety and care. On rare occasions child predators may mine publicly posted photos of children for personal use or trade, and posted Facebook pictures and locations might facilitate a kidnapping if the abductors were seeking to grab a specific child (rather than trolling for random victims), but no evidence suggests the posting of kids' photos on Facebook has resulted in a general increase of kidnapping or abuse of children. Last updated:  4 June 2015
On June 13, 2023, one day after the Denver Nuggets had won their first NBA title, we looked into a claim that was made in an online article that said former NBA star Charles Barkley was leaving the TNT TV show, "Inside the NBA." won According to the story, Barkley had either resigned or his contract with TNT was "abruptly terminated." The headline of the article read, "TNT Has Pointed The Finger At Charles's Wife, Maureen Blumhardt, For The Analyst's Unexpected Resignation." However, this rumor was false. The made-up story was published on an unknown date prior to June 13 in order to push a scam involving the promotion of purported keto weight loss gummies. The article showed a logo for an apparently made-up news organization named, "Breaking News Alerts (BNA)." It wasposted to the dubious website top-magazine-trending.com and began as follows: She's famously known as Charles Barkley's wife, but Maureen Blumhardt has proven she's a savvy businesswoman in her own right - and Charles Barkley is in DEEP trouble for it. Maureen Blumhardt, most famously known as the 59-year-old wife of Charles Barkley, has shocked the entire world after being revealed as the sole reason for her husband's departure from his hit TV show 'Inside The NBA'. Why? Because she failed to disclose her massive weight loss company to TNT (while making regular appearances on the show), which is actually a HUGE competitor to the show's sponsor 'Weight Watchers'. Maureen's product is one tenth of the price and twice as effective as their competing product, which has Weight Watchers threatening to pull advertising from the network completely. Charles Barkley's contract was abruptly terminated. Lucky for them, Maureen's product has been incredibly successful and is taking over the weight loss world by storm - and her net worth is even more than his! The product is called Quickshot Keto Gummies and it has taken the world by storm. Quickshot Keto Gummies is repeatedly selling out within minutes and Maureen says her number one struggle as CEO is sourcing enough products to be able to adequately service the demand. We were unable to obtain a working link to the article to include in our fact check. The reason for this was that scammers employ tactics to make their articles hidden unless they've been accessed via specific ads. When users click on those specific ads, the ads act like a key to open a door, unlocking the article to display on their screens. The top of the article falsely claimed that the news had been shared by CBS News, ABC, NBC, and Fox. The scam also misleadingly said that celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Ellen DeGeneres, Kim Kardashian, Charlize Theron, and Sandra Bullock all joined with Barkley and his wife, Maureen Blumhardt, to endorse keto weight loss gummies, even though they had nothing to do with the products. The image and likeness of each of these famous people were used without permission. Barkley The article played on the oldmeme of unnamed doctors being mad about something. Remember old ads with the line, "Doctors Hate Him"? The story said that Blumhardt had made doctors "angry" and "furious" by revealing something about keto weight loss gummies. Again, this was completely made up. meme CBD and keto gummies scams often claim that people will be able to magically lose weight with the products, and that no diet or exercise would be required. In the past, many of the websites where the supposed weight loss gummies could be purchased enrolled customers in subscription charges of hundreds of dollars per month. They also sometimes didn't display phone numbers for customer service, something that may have been done on purpose in order to make it more difficult for customers to find a way to cancel a monthly subscription. If any readers were victimized by these scams, we recommend contacting your credit card company to tell them what happened. You also can report fraudulent activity to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). report fraudulent activity For more details on how these sorts of keto weight loss gummies scams work, we encourage readers to look through some of our past articles on the subject. some of our past articles on the subject "One Weird Trick / Doctors Hate Him."Know Your Meme, 10 Mar. 2020, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-weird-trick-doctors-hate-him. Pells, Eddie. "Nuggets Take Home 1st NBA Title in Rugged 94-89 Win over Heat." The Associated Press, 13 June 2023, https://apnews.com/article/nuggets-heat-nba-finals-jokic-99c0f25e6e468a97f8c86330f988933d. Virus:  FDIC notice of bank failure. REAL VIRUS Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2009] FDIC has officially named your bank a failed bank You have received this message because you are a holder of a FDIC-insuredbank account. Recently FDIC has officially named the bank you have opened your accountwith as a failed bank, thus, taking control of its assets. You need to visit the official FDIC website and perform the followingsteps to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage:  Visit FDIC website: https://www.fdic.gov/  https://www.fdic.gov/  Download and open your personal FDIC Insurance File to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage Origins:  In October 2009, Internet users began receiving e-mails purporting to have come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the agency that insures deposits in U.S. bank accounts.  These messages claimed that the recipients were holders of FDIC-insured bank accounts in failed banks and instructed them to click on a link to the FDIC web site in order download a file which would allow them to check their "Deposit Insurance Coverage."   However, the link embedded in the e-mail led not to the real FDIC web site, but to a spoof web site.  Attempting to download the proffered file from that site could initiate the installation of malware on the user's computer (presumably to collect sensitive personal information):  The real FDIC  put up an alert to warn consumers about this fraudulent mailing: alert The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports of a fraudulent e-mail that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC. The subject line of the e-mail states: "check your Bank Deposit Insurance Coverage." The e-mail tells recipients that, "You have received this message because you are a holder of a FDIC-insured bank account. Recently FDIC has officially named the bank you have opened your account with as a failed bank, thus, taking  control of its assets." The e-mail then asks recipients to "visit the official FDIC website and perform the following steps to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage" (a fraudulent link is provided). It then instructs recipients to "download and open your personal FDIC Insurance File to check your Deposit Insurance Coverage." This e-mail and associated Web site are fraudulent. Recipients should consider the intent of this e-mail as an attempt to collect personal or confidential information, some of which may be used to gain unauthorized access to on-line banking services or to conduct identity theft. The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT follow the link in the fraudulent e-mail. Last updated:  28 October 2009 Claim:   The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seizing bank accounts from innocent American citizens under civil forfeiture laws. : Civil forfeiture laws enable law enforcement agents and the government to seize the assets of Americans who are neither guilty nor even suspected of any wrongdoing.      Civil forfeiture laws are new or exclusive to the IRS.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Just read a Facebook post.  It was an article regarding the IRS seizing bank accounts of innocent American citizens who have done nothing criminally wrong.  Inspite of the problems this has caused individuals the IRS seems relatively unconcerned except they want to collect money for whatever reasons.  Is this true?  Does the IRS have the right to just take the money of American citizens from their accounts? Are they an acting collections agency for the government now? I found this article a tad disturbing to say the least. Thank you for amy information you might have regarding this article and subject matter. Origins:  On 5 October 2014, the issue of civil forfeiture  and its effects on American citizens entered the spotlight after HBO host John Oliver addressed the matter at length on his show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. During the segment, Oliver and guest Jeff Goldblum focused on seemingly arbitrary, unfair, and corrupt civil forfeiture practices allegedly perpetrated by law enforcement agents in a number of jurisdictions.  Oliver's civil forfeiture segment sparked a number of conversations about the laws surrounding confiscation of assets under related laws. Then, on 25 October 2014, the New York Times For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away  until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes  in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up. It seems Hinders' run-in with the IRS was triggered by her practice of keeping deposits under the mandated reporting threshold of $10,000. Deposits that exceed $10,000 must be reported to the government under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, but Hinders told the Times that she believed large deposits created unnecessary paperwork for bank employees: Bank Secrecy Act My mom had told me if you keep your deposits under $10,000, the bank avoids paperwork. I didn't actually think it had anything to do with the I.R.S.   Former federal prosecutor David Smith, an expert on such seizures, told the paper that the practice of civil forfeiture has shifted to focus on individuals not historically targeted by such laws: They're going after people who are really not criminals. They're middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.   Richard Weber, Chief of Criminal Investigation at the IRS, described the seizures as "structuring" related, referring to suspicion triggered by a large number of deposits near the $10,000 threshold for reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. In response to sudden interest in the IRS's policies regarding "structuring cases," Weber issued a statement indicating the IRS will curtail its seizure activities in cases where no crime is suspected: statement After a thorough review of our structuring cases over the last year and in order to provide consistency throughout the country (between our field offices and the U.S. attorney offices) regarding our policies, I.R.S.-C.I. will no longer pursue the seizure and forfeiture of funds associated solely with "legal source" structuring cases unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying the seizure and forfeiture and the case has been approved at the director of field operations (D.F.O.) level. While the act of structuring  whether the funds are from a legal or illegal source  is against the law, I.R.S.-C.I. special agents will use this act as an indicator that further illegal activity may be occurring. This policy update will ensure that C.I. continues to focus our limited investigative resources on identifying and investigating violations within our jurisdiction that closely align with C.I.'s mission and key priorities. The policy involving seizure and forfeiture in "illegal source" structuring cases will remain the same.   The IRS is just one of several agencies engaging in civil forfeiture, and Oliver's segment also addressed its application by local and regional law enforcement:  Prior to Oliver's segment and the Times' profile, civil forfeiture practices had been extensively profiled in the media: In general, you needn't be found guilty to have your assets claimed by law enforcement; in some states, suspicion on a par with "probable cause" is sufficient. Nor must you be charged with a crime, or even be accused of one. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which requires that a person be convicted of an offense before his or her property is confiscated, civil forfeiture amounts to a lawsuit filed directly against a possession, regardless of its owner's guilt or innocence. One result is the rise of improbable case names such as United States v. One Pearl Necklace and United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. "The protections our Constitution usually affords are out the window," Louis Rulli, a clinical law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading forfeiture expert, observes. A piece of property does not share the rights of a person. There's no right to an attorney and, in most states, no presumption of innocence. Owners who wish to contest often find that the cost of hiring a lawyer far exceeds the value of their seized goods. Washington, D.C., charges up to twenty-five hundred dollars simply for the right to challenge a police seizure in court, which can take months or even years to resolve. Although the IRS has pledged to restrict its civil forfeiture activity to mainly "illegal source" cases, the practice is not limited to the tax agency and remains legal. Last updated:  28 October 2014    Stillman, Sarah.  "Taken."   The New Yorker.  12 August 2013. Claim:  Starting in 2011, all employees will have to pay taxes on the value of health insurance provided by their employers.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, May 2010] I contacted my Congressman about House bill HR 3590, the health care bill. I asked for a summary of changes. The Aid directed me to go to www.thomas.gov, enter HR 3590 in the search box and look for summaries. Starting in 2011 (next year folks) your W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or Governmental body of some sort. If you're retired? So what; your gross WILL go up by the amount of insurance you get. You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year. For many it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse. This is how the government is going to buy insurance for 15% that don't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases. Not believing this I researched the summaries and here's what I'm reading: On page 25 of 29:TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS - (sec. 9001, as modified by sec. 10901)    Sec.9002."requires employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from the employee's gross income." Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters. Go to Kiplinger's and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what I just told you about. Why am I sending you this? The same reason I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. People have the right to know the truth because an election is coming in November and we need to vote in Conservatives that will repel this horrid law!    Origins:  This is another case of a legislative issue which has a kernel of truth to it, but which has been misinterpreted, affects only a small percentage of the population, and has misleadingly been blown out of proportion through someone's mistaken assumption that it applies to everyone. Section 9002 of PPACA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), requires that all employers, beginning in 2011, report the aggregate cost of employer-sponsored health benefits they provide to employees on those employees' W-2 forms.  However, the monetary values so reported will neither be counted as gross income nor will they be taxed; they will be included for informational purposes only.  (Section 106A of the Internal Revenue Code states that, in general, employer-provided health coverage is not taxable to the employee.) Section 106A The portion (Title IX, Sec. 9001) of the PPACA referenced above is entitled "Excise Tax on High Cost Employer-Sponsored Coverage."  This is the section of the recently passed health care reform legislation that addresses taxing so-called high-level "Cadillac" health care plans that some employees receive through their employers.   Title IX, Sec. 9001 In general, beginning in 2018 (not 2011), the PPACA imposes a 40% excise tax on the value of employer-sponsored medical insurance that exceeds a given threshold (initially $27,500 annually).  This excise tax would be paid by the insurance company, not the employee, and is initially expected to affect fewer than 10% of families covered by health insurance: Many employers pay most of the premium for health coverage. Workers pick up the rest but pay no taxes on the employer's often-substantial contribution. That's why many unions have bargained hard for generous health coverage over the years, even if that meant forgoing a bigger pay raise. The new agreement would take away the tax advantage for a small portion of the health benefit by imposing a 40 percent tax on the amount by which the premiums for employer-sponsored health coverage exceed specified thresholds. That would be $27,500 a year for a family, starting in 2018. The tax on a $29,500 plan would be $800, or 40 percent of $2,000. The insurance company would pay the tax but would almost certainly pass it along to the employer and its employees. That $27,500 threshold is well above the current average of $13,400 for a family plan. By 2016, more than 80 percent of all family plans are projected to still fall below the threshold. In the following years, the tax threshold would rise more slowly than the likely rate of inflation in medical costs, which could mean the plans of millions of workers  a small minority of the work force  would be subject to the tax in theory. Most likely, insurers will drop their premiums just below the threshold. They could do that by setting higher deductibles and co-payments, managing access to care more tightly, or reducing benefits. Last updated:  25 May 2010    The New York Times.  "Cadillac Plans."   15 January 2010.    The Washington Post.  "Will President Obama Defend the 'Cadillac Tax' to Cut Health-Care Costs?"   12 January 2010. On 21 August 2017, the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) posted a meme juxtaposing a 42-year-old quote by then-former California Governor Ronald Reagan with a 2016 photograph of anti-fascist protesters in Dover, England, intended to create the impression that "antifa" demonstrators represented fascism coming to the the United States in just the way that Reagan had predicted decades earlier:   That quote was taken from a December 1975 interview of Reagan conducted by Mike Wallace for the 60 Minutes news magazine television program:  We've found no record of anyone, other than Reagan himself, having made the "profound" statement that "If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism." Most likely the future President was recalling a variant of a maxim (commonly misattributed to author Sinclair Lewis) holding that "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis TPUSA shared the Reagan meme on their official Facebook feed at a time when anti-fascist activists, or "antifa," had garnered both notoriety and heightened media scrutiny following violent incidents at white supremacist rallies in Berkeley, California, and Charlottesvile, Virginia (in April and August 2017, respectively). After white supremacists (who have adopted the moniker "alt-right") were widely condemned for an outbreak of deadly violence at a protest in Charlottesville, some conservatives responded by claiming "antifa" protesters deserved equal condemnation. antifa The bottom image in the TPUSA meme (which has been shared thousands of times) wasn't taken in the United States, despite the implication created by its inclusion here. The photograph was taken in Dover, England, on 30 January 2016 by Press Association photographer Gareth Fuller and depicts anti-fascists who clashed with nationalists during an anti-immigration rally in the Kent County town. rally The connection between "liberals" and the "antifas" suggested by this meme isn't quite so apt, as most "antifa" activists are anarchists and/or subscribe to political philosophies that are much further left on the political spectrum than those of mainstream "liberals." Likewise, although the Reagan quote sought to draw a connection between liberalism and fascism, the latter is generally considered to be a form of extreme right-wing ideology. anarchists extreme !function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/ucxbq"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble"); Rumble("play", {"video": "v3t27p","div": "rumble_v3t27p","autoplay":2}); ITV.  "Far-Right and Anti-Fascist Groups Clash at Protests in Dover."
  30 January 2016. Penny, Daniel.  "An Intimate History of Antifa."
  The New Yorker.  22 August 2017. Beinart, Peter.  "The Rise of the Violent Left."
  The Atlantic.  September 2017 issue. KentOnline.com.  "Dover Riots of January 30, 2016  Police Hunt for Far Right and Anti-Fascist Thugs Goes On."
  30 January 2017. Sepulvado, John, and Bert Johnson.  "Californian Who Helped Lead Charlottesville Protests Used Berkeley as a Test Run."
  KQED-TV.  14 August 2017. McCreesh, Shawn.  "Antifa and the 'Alt-Left': Everything You Need to Know."
  Rolling Stone.  18 August 2017. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In the final months of 2020, scientists around the world raced to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, which at that point had reached more than 50 million cases and resulted in the deaths of at least 1.2 million people. reached On Nov. 9, the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer announced in a news release  not a peer-reviewed journal that interim results testing the efficacy of vaccine candidate BNT162b2 showed a 90% success rate in protecting against COVID-19 infection, making it one of the first and most promising immunization potentials to date. news release And politicians were quick to weigh in. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in a tweet that the public-private partnership between U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Pfizer led to the success of the vaccine:  While former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, whose policies closely align with Trump, furthered the notion that the vaccine was a part of the presidents Operation Warp Speed (OWS), an effort led by the Trump Administration to accelerate the testing of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics:  These claims are half-truths and misrepresent the role that OWS played in developing this particular vaccine candidate. Although the very preliminary findings of the vaccine look promising, a detailed look at the reported findings revealed that there is cause to be cautious about its availability and timeliness. A deal between OWS and Pfizer was announced in a July news release that outlined a bid by the U.S. government to receive 100 million doses (with the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses) of a vaccine  pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  for $1.95 billion. news release Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccines ability to prevent COVID-19, said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO. We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With todays news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis." OWS is a joint effort by the Trump administration and the U.S. departments of Defense (DOD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, launched on May 15 to accelerate the testing, supply, development, and distribution of safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics by January 2021. Part of its mission is to also accelerate the vaccine approval process from the typical 73 months to just 13 months. Generally, receiving approval for a new drug or therapy is a long and tenuous process that can sometimes last years.  Department of Defense  Department of Defense   OWS offered $456 million to vaccine research and development projects by Johnson & Johnson for its Phase 1 clinical trials, as well as a total of $955 million to Moderna for late-stage clinical testing. However, the $1.95 billion allocated to Pfizer was for large-scale manufacturing and nationwide distribution. In short, the government intended to buy doses of a vaccine from Pfizer once an effective vaccine was made available, but it did not fund the research and development of Pfizer's vaccine. offered Johnson & Johnson Moderna Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk. Technically, the work conducted by Pfizer and its partner, German drugmaker BioNTech, is an expansion of OWS and was operating under an agreement to meet the goal of OWS to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine in 2021. As part of the agreement, the U.S. government would receive 100 million doses after the successful manufacturing of the vaccine and its approval by the FDA. However, that is not to say that the government had any hand in the research or development of the vaccine. Rather, it just agreed to buy the vaccines from the companies once they had gone through final approval. We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus, said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, at the time. Pfizer and BioNTech have similar agreements with the European Union. European Union The specific details about the Pfizer vaccine are not readily available. What we do know is that BNT162b2 is an mRNA-based vaccine that contained SARS-CoV-2 spike protein  the same protein that nearly all vaccination studies are targeting  that allows the virus to enter human cells and elicits an immune response from its host. The first doses administered to U.S. study participants, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo, were done so in May via intramuscular injection, which is similar to the flu shot. As part of a randomized placebo trial, two doses were each given three weeks apart with the vaccine not taking full effect until at least a week after the final dose. That means that a person couldnt expect protection until about a month after they were immunized. SARS-CoV-2 spike protein administered  A three-dimensional simulation of the coronavirus spike protein just before binding to the human cell receptor. University of Arkansas  University of Arkansas   An analysis of the interim results suggested that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease in study volunteers who did not have evidence of a prior COVID-19 infection  a rate that is similar to the measles vaccine administered in early childhood. No safety concerns were observed, but as the trial continues those findings could change. measles vaccine Thats because the results are based on limited data from an early clinical trial, and its unclear whether the vaccine prevents infection or just reduces symptoms. This is a very timely and encouraging development in the race to get an effective vaccine. It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against COVID-19 disease, said Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School. The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission. This additional data will be generated as further confirmed cases are identified and analyzed. said The promising results were met with both encouragement and skepticism by the broader scientific community, which by and large said that it remains cautiously optimistic. First and foremost, the results are interim and still await full trial results, meaning that these are non-peer-reviewed findings that were published midway through the clinical trial. Releasing the findings in the middle of a trial may further influence the integrity of the study, potentially biasing how future study participants respond or how their observations are reported. That could in turn make long-term follow-up with adequate randomization more challenging. There are other important limitations to the research that must be considered. Snopes read through the a 123-page study protocol document and found that while researchers describe the more than 43,000 participants as ethnically diverse," they do not specify other characteristics that may make an individuals infection more extreme, such as age or co-morbidities. And while it is written that study participants were between the ages of 18 and 85, their exact demographics were not known. Furthermore, individuals with a high risk of severe infection were excluded from the first phase of testing and the preliminary findings did not determine how long the vaccination lasts. protocol document  NurPhoto / Contributor  NurPhoto / Contributor Even after addressing the limitations, the results of an effective vaccine will not be felt immediately. With the best will in the world, this vaccine  or any other vaccine currently in trials  isnt going to change things for the majority of us this winter, said Elenor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. said So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer. But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021. If the vaccine is proven to be robustly effective at the wider community level, experts warn that there must still be public trust and buy-in  a challenge given some political leaders have been quick to dismiss the severity of the outbreak. Then there is the logistical challenge of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally. First doses must be prioritized for health care workers and vulnerable populations. And a logistical challenge lies in manufacturing and rolling out a vaccine that needs to be stored and maintained at very low temperatures (-94 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit). As the world waits, experts warn that the promise of a vaccine cannot allow the findings to seed complacency and cause people to shy away from public health guidance. On the cusp of the vaccine candidate announcement, most nations in the world saw massive upticks in new coronavirus cases reported each day in October and November, according to data published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. On Nov. 4, 5, and 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day data reported Pfizer applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) of the two-dose vaccine with the FDA on Nov. 20. At this point, researchers had collected two months of safety data required to use the drug in some cases. However, that does not constitute full approval of the drug. At the time of this writing, just 94 of the nearly 44,000 trial participants had contracted COVID-19 and the study is expected to continue until at least 164 people test positive. applied EUA Though the long-term safety and efficacy data remains to be seen, it is estimated that the manufacturers could produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021 to be distributed on an as-needed basis if a EUA is granted. The Pfizer study is estimated to be completed by Dec. 11, 2022. estimated Update [Nov. 20, 2020]: This article was updated to reflect Pfizers official filing of a EUA on Nov. 20. The conservative group Turning Point USA created a meme that pushes a sophomoric and factually lacking political argument. The meme in question, watermarked with the logo of Turning Point USA's political action committee (Turning Point Action), makes two claims. First, it states that the year 2019 was the first year the United States achieved energy independence since 1957. Second, it argues that "in only ten days" Joe Biden "sent us back 50 years," implying policies enacted in the first 10 days of his administration reversed American energy independence: political action committee   Turning Point Action's graphic, it bears highlighting, makes no reference to the year 2020, despite the fact that President Donald Trump was in office that year. The claim about 2019 being the first year in which the U.S. achieved energy independence since 1957 is true  so long as we understand what the term "energy independence" really means. It means that the U.S. produced more energy than it consumed. Most importantly, from an energy security perspective, energy independence does not mean that the U.S. doesn't import foreign oil or isn't fundamentally reliant on foreign sources of energy. is true In 2019, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. imported 9.1 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of oil from about 90 countries, though at the same time it also exported 8.5 MMb/d of oil to about 190 countries. By email, Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and energy systems analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, explained that "our local production does not meaningfully insulate us from potential future global oil price shocks."  according Zeke Hausfather The energy independence experienced by the U.S. in 2019 was driven by record levels of total fossil fuel exports from the U.S. That record was set as part of a long-term trend dating back to 2006 and 2008, according to the EIA: according Domestic crude oil production has increased since 2008 and natural gas production has increased since 2006. The increases in crude oil production and the easing of restrictions on crude oil exports in December 2015 have contributed to increases in crude oil exports. Increases in natural gas production along with increases in liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity have contributed to increases in natural gas exports in recent years. In 2011, the United States became a net exporter of petroleum products for the first time since at least 1949. In 2017, the United States became a net exporter of natural gas for the first time since the late 1950s. In 2019, U.S. total annual energy exports exceeded total annual energy imports for the first time in 67 years, and the United States became a net total energy exporter.   The Turning Point meme disregards entirely the existence of the year 2020. The omission of 2020 masks not only a decline in U.S. fossil fuel production that occurred, it also conceals a larger truth about U.S. presidents and the global energy market: Neither they nor their policies have a significant effect on the market compared to other global factors. a decline A significant factor in allowing the U.S. to increase its energy exports has been the rising cost of crude oil globally. Technological innovations like fracking and horizontal drilling have, in recent years, allowed the U.S. to exploit fossil fuel reserves that were previously inaccessible, but these technologies add cost. A high-cost, high-demand energy economy  like the one present during the record-setting year of 2019  benefits the U.S. energy sector because it makes American fossil fuel exports financially viable. The flip side is that the viability of U.S. exports depends in large measure on the going rate for a barrel of oil. If the cost is too low, U.S. drilling operations become financially uncompetitive and exports drop off. The year 2020 saw a historic drop in the price of oil. add cost historic drop "In 2020, U.S. oil production fell by around 8% relative to 2019," Hausfather told Snopes. "This was primarily due to falling global oil prices making relatively high-cost US shale oil production uncompetitive." The drop in demand, and then price, was not the result of any policy decision; it was the result of a massive global pandemic. In a Feb. 3, 2021, news release, Acting EIA Director Stephen Nalley explained that 'the pandemic triggered an historic energy demand shock that led to ... decreases in energy production, and sometimes volatile commodity prices in 2020.'" news release Indeed, this volatility resulted in times during 2020  a year in which Joe Biden was not president  when the U.S. dipped into consuming more energy that it produced. In July and August 2020, the U.S. was not energy independent, at least on monthly terms. By Turning Point USA's logic, this would mean that two months of Trump "sent us back 50 years" in terms of energy policy. In reality, the actions of any U.S. president cannot affect rapid change in the global energy market, and the effect of any domestic policy changes are dwarfed by global factors outside any one president's control. July and August As previously discussed, the U.S. had already experienced at least a brief period of energy "dependence" before Biden took office. While the most recent month for which we have data  October 2020  indicates the U.S. was producing slightly more energy than it consumed toward the end of Trump's presidency, U.S. oil production has been dropping off and global demand remains depressed. These trends, which predate the Biden administration, are unlikely to change anytime soon. October 2020 It will take a while for the energy sector to get to its new normal, said the EIA's Nalley in February 2021. In its 2021 "Global Outlooks" annual report, the EIA argued that "total U.S. energy consumption will return to 2019 levels by 2029, though that is highly dependent on the pace of U.S. economic recovery." In terms of energy production, "EIA projects that the United States will continue to export more petroleum and other liquids than it imports, but the balance of imports to exports will be highly sensitive to supply, demand, and price factors." said argued The bottom line, according to the Breakthrough Institutes' Hausfather, is that "oil production changes in 2020 and 2021 are driven by larger changes in global demand and oil prices, rather than anything that either the Trump or Biden administration has done." Because the meme correctly states that 2019 was the first year the U.S. achieved energy independence in decades, but because it falsely implies a connection between the Biden administration and post-2019 trends in the global energy market that predate his time in office and are independent of the actions of either Trump or Biden, we rank its claims "false." FACT CHECK:  Area social media meme's "5 Things You Should Know About Jeb Bush" factually accurate? Claim:  A social media meme accurately detailsfive aspectsof Jeb Bush's record on women's issues.  trueExample:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2015]Facebook post citing "evils" committed by Jeb Bush - only 15.5 months togo with this....  Claim:  A social media meme accurately detailsfive aspectsof Jeb Bush's record on women's issues.   true Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2015]Facebook post citing "evils" committed by Jeb Bush - only 15.5 months togo with this....   Origins:  On 15 June 2015 the women's rights-focused group Ultraviolet published the above-displayed image, addressing the record of Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, to their Facebook page. After many viewers questioned the veracity of the claims made about Bush and his record on women's issues, the post was edited to include supporting citations for its entries; but earlierversions of the post continued to circulate without it. published The numbered claims and their attendant backgrounds are as follows: Appointed a guardian for the fetus of a rape victim.  This statement stemmed from a 2003 case involving a 22-year-old, severely developmentally disabled Florida woman who had been living in state-supervised facilities for most of her life. She had become pregnant after being raped while living in a group home and had no family to make decisions on her behalf;and (even though neither the woman herself nor anyone caring for her had sought to abort the fetus) Governor Bush stepped in and asked the court to intervene in this "uniquely troubling situation" and appoint a representative to protect the fetus's rights:Religious groups praised the governor's actions."If a guardian is appointed, there would be a clear recognition that there is a human being occupying that womb," said Brian Fahling, senior trial lawyer for the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy. "The governor has the constitutional duty to uphold the right to life."The Christian Coalition of Florida issued a statement in support of Mr. Bush. "The appropriate thing to do is allow the child an opportunity at life and prosecute the criminal who raped the helpless woman."Critics say the governor's actions are intended to keep the issue in the courts until the woman is in the third trimester of her pregnancy and can no longer obtain an abortion."Our take on this is that this woman's needs, her desires and her interests need to take precedence," said Bebe Anderson, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group. "If she is incompetent, someone else should represent her and her interests alone and make that decision for her."The critics also accuse Mr. Bush, a Republican, of trying to set a precedent in establishing legal protection for fetuses and of using the case to win political points with conservative groups.The governor said in his statement, "While others may interpret this case in light of their own positions, we see it as the singular tragedy it is, and remain focused on serving the best interests of this particular victim and her unborn child."   This statement stemmed from a 2003 case involving a 22-year-old, severely developmentally disabled Florida woman who had been living in state-supervised facilities for most of her life. She had become pregnant after being raped while living in a group home and had no family to make decisions on her behalf;and (even though neither the woman herself nor anyone caring for her had sought to abort the fetus) Governor Bush stepped in and asked the court to intervene in this "uniquely troubling situation" and appoint a representative to protect the fetus's rights:Religious groups praised the governor's actions. "If a guardian is appointed, there would be a clear recognition that there is a human being occupying that womb," said Brian Fahling, senior trial lawyer for the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy. "The governor has the constitutional duty to uphold the right to life." The Christian Coalition of Florida issued a statement in support of Mr. Bush. "The appropriate thing to do is allow the child an opportunity at life and prosecute the criminal who raped the helpless woman." Critics say the governor's actions are intended to keep the issue in the courts until the woman is in the third trimester of her pregnancy and can no longer obtain an abortion. "Our take on this is that this woman's needs, her desires and her interests need to take precedence," said Bebe Anderson, a lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group. "If she is incompetent, someone else should represent her and her interests alone and make that decision for her." The critics also accuse Mr. Bush, a Republican, of trying to set a precedent in establishing legal protection for fetuses and of using the case to win political points with conservative groups. The governor said in his statement, "While others may interpret this case in light of their own positions, we see it as the singular tragedy it is, and remain focused on serving the best interests of this particular victim and her unborn child."   The statement originated with the Florida Adoption Act of 2001 (more commonly known as "Bill 141" or the "Scarlet Letter" law), which overhauled the state's adoption regulations with the stated goal of trying to "provide greater finality once the adoption is approved, and to avoid circumstances where future challenges to the adoption disrupt the life of the child." The bill was inspired, in part, by the three-year fight over Baby Emily, whose father, a convicted rapist, had contested her adoption. (The Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Emily's adoptive parents in 1995.) The law required that any woman who was planning to put her infant up for adoption but did not know the identity of the child's father first had to run newspaper advertisements once a week for a month in the community where the child might have been conceived disclosing their names, ages, height, hair and eye color, race and weight, the child's name and birthplace, a description of the possible father, and details of the dates and places of sexual encounters that might have produced the child. Advocates of the bill maintained that it protected the rights of men who may not have known they had fathered children and that it would "minimize last-minute challenges from a biological father, as well as challenges a father might bring after an adoption has been made legal," while critics contended that it was "draconian and humiliating," and that Governor Bush's failure to veto the bill indicated he supporting the "shaming" of women for their sexual activity. Although Jeb Bush had previously lamented the lack of social stigma for having children outside of marriage (writing in his 1995 book Profiles in Character that "one of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame"), he did not fully approve of Bill 141 and said that the state should not be "stigmatizing women":Gov. Jeb Bush [has] noted numerous problems with it. Officials in the governor's office say he supports an alternative way of protecting fathers' rights  one already in use in many other states. Called fathers' registries, this system permits men who believe they may have fathered a child to place their names on a confidential list, which must be checked during adoption proceedings. "We should be making adoption easier, not more difficult, and not stigmatizing women who are trying to do the right thing," Bush spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst told reporters in Tallahassee.   Gov. Bush also stated in a letter to Secretary of State Katherine Harris that he felt the bill put too much responsibility on the birth mother to locate the father, and while he did not veto the "Scarlet Letter" bill, neither did he sign it: He passively allowed it to become law in the expectation that legislators would revise the section requiring the publication of women's sexual histories"House Bill 141 does have its deficiencies," he wrote. "Foremost, in its effort to strike the appropriate balance between rights and responsibilities, there is a shortage of responsibility on behalf of the birth father that could be corrected by requiring some proactive conduct on his part." letter In fact, immediately after he let the Florida Adoption Act become law, Bush was advocating for fixes to it. The Florida House almost immediately passed a law that Bush considered a "better alternative." It cut back on women's reporting requirements and established a paternity registry, for example. These were state-maintained databases that allowed a man to register if he believed he may have fathered a child. Then, if that child were ever put up for adoption, the father would have been notified and he could have a say in the proceedings.   Governor Bush repealed the "Scarlet Letter" law in May 2003, signing a replacement measure that instituted the paternity registry mentioned above. The repeal had become something of a moot issue by then, however, as an appeals court had ruled the previous month that it was unconstitutional for the state to require women and underage girls to disclose their sexual histories, even in cases of consensual sex. Hired a staffer who called women "sluts."  The claim that Jeb Bush hired a staffer who called women "sluts" is true in a literal sense, although the staffer's employment by Bush was very short-lived, as he immediately left his position after the controversy about some of his several-year-old Tweets hit the news.This brouhaha originated with Jeb Bush's temporary hiring in February 2015 of Hipster.com co-founder Ethan Czahor as his Chief Technology Officer, in charge of handling the preparations for Bush's presidential run. Almost immediately after the hiring was announced, Czahor's Twitter history was dissected and shared by various media outlets. Among their findings were a handful of tweets published by Czahor in 2009 and 2010 in which he made insensitive remarks about women and used the word "sluts" in reference to them. A Bush spokesman quickly characterized the comments as "inappropriate" and indicated that Czahor had been directed to promptly delete them.One day later, Czahor resigned from his newly-assigned position and apologized for his previous remarks. Said low-income women should "get their lifetogether and find a husband."  As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information.The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three."   The claim that Jeb Bush hired a staffer who called women "sluts" is true in a literal sense, although the staffer's employment by Bush was very short-lived, as he immediately left his position after the controversy about some of his several-year-old Tweets hit the news. This brouhaha originated with Jeb Bush's temporary hiring in February 2015 of Hipster.com co-founder Ethan Czahor as his Chief Technology Officer, in charge of handling the preparations for Bush's presidential run. Almost immediately after the hiring was announced, Czahor's Twitter history was dissected and shared by various media outlets. Among their findings were a handful of tweets published by Czahor in 2009 and 2010 in which he made insensitive remarks about women and used the word "sluts" in reference to them. A Bush spokesman quickly characterized the comments as "inappropriate" and indicated that Czahor had been directed to promptly delete them. One day later, Czahor resigned from his newly-assigned position and apologized for his previous remarks. Said low-income women should "get their lifetogether and find a husband."  As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information.The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three."   As is often the case with political memes, sometimes the basic assertions check out but are misleading or inaccurate due to a lack of context. So while it's true that Jeb Bush made a statement that resembled the one quoted above, it has been reproduced without any relevant contextual information. The controversial quote was one Bush uttered during the 1994 Florida gubernatorial campaign; and the thrust of his statement was that hefavored setting a two-year limit on welfare benefits, requiring recipients after that period to find work or other assistance on their own:"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together, find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three."   Although a generous interpretation of this statement might be to say that Jeb Bush was simply enumerating the several possibilities that (female) welfare recipients could avail themselves of after the expiration of their benefits, he made it clear later that he felt unmarried women were a significant contribution to the welfare problem:Bush did not deny making the statement. In fact, he repeated that marriage is one way  along with finding a job and help from private charities  for women to get off welfare. Marriage, Bush said, "is one of many options, and if people are honest about the welfare system we have today, how you get on welfare is not having a husband in the house."   In support of this claim, Ultraviolet cited an April 2015Salon article, which in turn referenced an interview Bush gave to Focus on the Family on 13 April 2015. During the course of that interview, Bush lauded Florida's role as an outlier in funding "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs) during his tenure as governor:We were the only state, I believe, to have funded with state monies crisis pregnancy centers to provide counselors so that these not-for-profits that in many cases aren't as well funded as many others, could act on their mission, which is to provide broader support, but the actual counseling was done, you know, paid for by the state. It was a godsend for these crisis pregnancy centers and a lot of babies' lives were saved and a lot of families got the joy of being able to bring a child up in their home. article interview CPCs   While Jeb Bush was governor of Florida, the state funded crisis pregnancy centers through the sales of 'Choose Life' specialty license plates (under legislation signed into law by Bush in 1999) and through the creation of the Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program (which was introduced by Bush in 2005):The Florida Pregnancy Support Services Program was introduced by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2005 to increase visibility for the state's non-abortion counseling options and stem its rising abortion rate. The $4 million launch established a toll-free hotline  1-866-673-HOPE  to point pregnant women in the direction of their nearest non-abortion, nonprofit option, and also provide grants to those organizations for counseling, prenatal support and adoption. The money is only available to organizations that make no mention at all of abortion. It can go to religious organizations, and it supplements the $800,000 the centers receive yearly from the state's "Choose Life" license plates and whatever federal funds come in.   Florida was not alone in that regard, however: several other states, including Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Texas, approved state funding of crisis pregnancy centers during the same timeframe. Moreover, between 2001 and 2006 over $60 million in federal funds were given to crisis pregnancy centers, in large part through abstinence-only programs initiated during the administration of Jeb's brother, President George W. Bush. Last updated: 21 June 2015 Originally published:  21 June 2015 Sources:   Canedy, Dana.   "Gov. Jeb Bush to Seek Guardian for Fetus of Rape Victim."    The New York Times.  15 May 2003.   Canedy, Dana.   "Florida 'Scarlet Letter' Law Is Repealed by Gov. Bush."   The New York Times.  31 May 2003.  Dahlburg, John-Thor. "Florida Wants All the Details from Mothers in Adoption Notices."   Los Angeles Times.  21 August 2002.   Dahlburg, John-Thor.  "Florida Ends 'Scarlet Letter' Adoption Law."   Los Angeles Times.  31 May 2003.  Manes, Billy.  "Immaculate Deception."   Orlando Weekly. 26 February 2009.   Griffin, Michael. "Smith Rips Bush's 'Find a Husband' Tip for Women on Welfare."   Orlando Sentinel.  7 September 1994.   Hongo, Hudson.  "New Jeb Bush Hire Deletes Comments About Sluts, Gays from Twitter."    Gawker.  9 February 2015.   Kaczynski, Andrew. "Jeb Bush Chief Technology Officer Resigns After Deleting Old Tweets About 'Sluts.'"   BuzzFeed.  10 February 2015.   Kurtzleben, Danielle.   "Jeb Bush and Florida's 'Scarlet Letter Law,' Explained."     NPR.     10June 2015.   McDonough, Katie.  "Jeb's Abortion Nightmare."    Salon.  14 April 2015.   Miller, Zeke J.   "Jeb Bush Hires Co-Founder of Hipster.com."    Time.   9 February 2015.    Simon, Stephanie.    "States Fund Antiabortion Advice."    Los Angeles Times.   11 February 2007. Claim:  An employer issued a missive to his employees stating that any additional taxes on his business would result in his shutting the company down. LEGEND Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2008] To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest. First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life. However, what you don't see is the back story. I started this company 12 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living space was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business  hard work, discipline, and sacrifice. Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the Goodwill store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had. So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, ****, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden  the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made. Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for. Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and without wounds. Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why: I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough.  I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch. The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country. The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy. Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now. When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the mud of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep. So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child'sfuture. Frankly, it isn't my problem anymore. Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship. While tax cuts to 95% of America sounds great on paper, don't forget the back story: If there is no job, there is no income to tax. A tax cut on zero dollars is zero. So, when you make decision to vote, ask yourself, who understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn't? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of saving your job. While the media wants to tell you "It's the economy stupid" I'm telling you it isn't. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me in South Caribbean sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about. Signed,Your boss  Origins:  In the ramp-up towards the 2008 Presidential election and in its wake, a number of anonymous "Here's how you, the ones who voted for him, will directly suffer from a Barack Obama presidency" missives landed in inboxes everywhere. One such was putatively from a hard-working and generous grandfather telling his beloved liberal granddaughter that her support for Obama meant Grandpa was no longer going to be in a position to help her financially. Another was supposedly penned by CEO to his 140 employees informing them that thanks to the new taxes now surely headed his way, he'd have to lay off a few of them, so he was starting with those whose cars sported Obama bumper stickers." lay off The "To All My Valued Employees" letter quoted above is another of such ilk. In it, a boss threatens to shut down his company (thus wiping out the livelihoods of the 14 people who work there) if any more taxes are levied upon him, an outcome he views a virtual  certainty under an Obama presidency.  The piece is perhaps best viewed as an attempt to put into real-world terms the possible consequences to average folks if business is interfered with to the point of no longer being able to operate rather than as an actual letter sent by a real boss to his employees.  Although our earliest sighting of this item dates to 3 November 2008, textual clues within the missive (such as"Please vote who you think will serve your interests the best" and "So, when you make decision to vote") indicate it was likely penned sooner than just the day before the 2008 presidential election. The original author of this piece is unknown to us. While some versions are merely signed "Your Boss," others are attributed to Michael A. Crowley of Wake Forest, North Carolina, via inclusion of his signature block at the end of the piece. Crowley himself denies authorship, saying: In reference to the "To all my valued employees" letter currently circulating the internet:  This letter was forwarded to me by a colleague. While the letter may indeed be authentic, I was not the author and I do not know the identity of the original author. I forwarded it to the "John McCain Joe the Plumbers" email group prior to the election. Someone moved my contact information into the body of the message making it appear that I was the author of the letter. I would appreciate your removing my contact information prior to forwarding this message.  Michael A. Crowley, PE While sometimes people looking to distance themselves from soapbox pieces they've penned subsequently claim they found such contentious items elsewhere on the Internet and merely forwarded them to others, that is not the case here. More than just Crowley's own words of denial support his claim of non-authorship, with the key to that proof lying in the very signature block that has worked to convince so many of his being the real "boss" behind the letter. That signature block identifies his firm as Crowley, Crisp & Associates, Inc., a now defunct business entity that (according to North Carolina's Secretary of State) was formed in May 2007.  The missive so widely laid at Crowley's feet states "I started this company 12 years ago." Twelve years prior to 2008 was 1996. (His current firm, Crowley & Associates, Inc., was formed in October 2000.) Were Crowley the actual author, that line about when he began his company would have read "last year" or "8 years ago."  The response to the missive falsely attributed to him prompted Michael Crowley to pen his own letter on the plight of the small business owner, which can be read here. here In October 2012, David Siegel, the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, sent a modified version of this letter to all of his employees. He based his missive on that much-circulated 2008 piece, saying of his offering: "I did use the letter that had circulated before as a guideline, but I changed it [to fit my circumstances]. It speaks the truth and it gives [employees] something to think about when they go to the polls."  sent Last updated:  9 October 2012 An image supposedly showing a large moon sitting perfectly in the middle of a stone arch formation is frequently circulated on social media under the title "The Eye of the Moon in Utah."  The Eye of the Moon in Utah     This isn't a genuine photograph, in the sense that this scene was not visible with the naked eye. However, this isn't a digitally altered image, either. The original picture was taken by photographer Zach Cooley by using an in-camera double exposure technique. In short, Cooley snapped a photograph, then snapped a second photograph, and layered the images on top of one another. (By labeling it "Misleading," we don't mean to accuse Cooley of misrepresentation. Rather, it's to point out that in many cases the image has been shared on social media with no explanation of how it was constructed.) Zach Cooley Masterclass explains: explains Double exposure photography is a technique that layers two different exposures on a single image, combining two photographs into one. Double exposure creates a surreal feeling for your photos and the two photographs can work together to convey deep meaning or symbolism. A similar technique, called a multiple exposure, is when you combine more than two exposures in a single image Cooley provided some of the technical details behind this image in their Instagram post. They wrote that they traveled to Utah in October as the moon was aligning with this arch, that they used an in-camera double exposure to create this image, and that the two images used were taken about a minute apart. Compared to what was seen with the naked eye, the moon is enlarged and centered. Instagram post Here's the original Instagram post:   Cooley writes: Happy Halloween weekend! I planned an entire vacation mostly around the fact that the moonrise would align with this arch and I could get something resembling a spooky eye on the week of Halloween. Over two nights I got some single shots and double exposures, I thought this one was best for the eye look, what do you think? Can't wait to share more with you all!In-camera double exposureMoon: ?550mm?F/9?1/160sec.?ISO 160Arch: ?250mm?F/9?1/5 sec.?ISO 160 Notes: Photos taken about a minute apart and moon was enlarged and repositioned in the process.  While the "Eye of the Moon in Utah" photograph gives a slightly distorted view of what you would see if you were standing next to the photographer, it isn't that far off from reality. Here's a single-exposure photograph from Cooley that shows a very similar scene:    Cooley elaborated on this in-camera double exposure technique in another Instagram post that showed a large moon over Phoenix, Arizona, writing: Double exposure effects are often achieved in Photoshop or a similar program by importing and manipulating 2 different photos. However, many digital cameras today allow you to merge multiple photos at the time you take them, but of course with none of the flexibility you get with editing software. For this image for example, I captured the city in one shot, then zoomed in and positioned the moon where I wanted it to overlay, and when I snapped that second photo the camera merged it with the first since it was in double exposure mode. Zooming in for the moon photo makes it appear larger in comparison to the city than it did in real life (4X larger in this case). This all may sound easy, but a lot of things have to be just right for this to work out.Ive mentioned this before, but to be clear, I have zero issues with Photoshop - its a pretty cool tool that opens doors to infinite creativity, among other things. I'm personally just in a place where I have yet to learn how to do things like this in Photoshop, and I'm enjoying trying different things with my camera. Ive been hesitant to post this, probably most of all because I take pride in a lot of single exposure moon photos Ive taken, and I fear mixing in images like this could lead people to believe those single exposures are more of the same. Like Ive said though, I will always specify in the caption. At the end of the day, Im proud of this image too and happy to share creative work without walls, even if its not purist photography. Im definitely wanting feedback on all this, from photographers and not photographers alike, so please let me know what you think! And thanks for reading my book. ?? Here's the moon over Phoenix image: