Will the name of Trump be printed on COVID-19 stimulus checks?
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 April 2020, millions of Americans who lost income due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic were waiting on promised relief payments from the United States government. So when news broke that U.S. President Donald Trump was making the "unprecedented" move of having his name added to these stimulus checks, a decision that could potentially delay the arrival of these checks by several days, many citizens took to social media to voice their displeasure, as in the example below: millions of Americans social media   Trump's name is truly being added to the COVID-19 stimulus checks, otherwise known as Economic Impact Payments. As of this writing, however, officials at the U.S. Treasury Department insist this will not result in any delays.  The Washington Post first reported on Trump's decision on April 14, 2020. According to the news outlet, Trump's name is expected to appear in the memo line of the check, not as the payment's official signatory, and that this will be the "first time that a president's name appears on an IRS disbursement": reported The Treasury Department has ordered President Trumps name printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said. The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, President Donald J. Trump will appear on the left side of the payment. It will be the first time a presidents name appears on an IRS disbursement, whether a routine refund or one of the handful of checks the government has issued to taxpayers in recent decades either to stimulate a down economy or share the dividends of a strong one. Treasury officials disputed that the checks would be delayed. While Trump's name will appear on these stimulus checks, we can't predict whether these payments will be delayed or go out on time. A Treasury Department official said in a statement that "absolutely no delay whatsoever" would occur:  statement "Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned  there is absolutely no delay whatsoever ... In fact, we expect the first checks to be in the mail early next week which is well in advance of when the first checks went out in 2008 and well in advance of initial estimates." It should also be noted that many Americans will be receiving their stimulus payments via a direct deposit. It's unclear how many people will receive hard paper checks bearing Trump's name and how many will receive a digital payment.  An IRS official told Fox News that the number of people who will receive paper checks was subject to a "number of variables, including how much info the IRS obtains through the Non-Filers Enter Payment Info web portal and the Get My Payment portal launching [April 15] at IRS.gov. Fox News These Economic Impact Payments were included in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package that Trump signed in late March 2020. According to the IRS, direct-deposit payments had already started going out as of the second week in April. Those waiting on a paper check, however, may not see their payments for several weeks. (If you're waiting on a payment, you can check the status of your check on a recently launched web app from the IRS.) several weeks web app To sum up: It is true that in April 2020, the U.S. government made the unprecedented move of adding the president's name to stimulus checks issued by the IRS in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although an IRS official said this could slow the process and delay the delivery of checks, Treasury officials insisted that the checks would still go out on schedule.  Paine, Neil.  "More Than 16 Million Americans Have Lost Their Jobs In The Past Three Weeks."
  Five Thirty Eight.  9 April 2020. Raju, Manu; Fox, Lauren; Klein, Betsy.  "Some Americans Could Wait 20 Weeks to Receive Stimulus Checks, IRS Tells House Democrats."
  CNN.  2 April 2020. Olson, Tyler and John Roberts.  "Trump's Name Will be Added to Stimulus Checks."
  Fox News.  15 April 2020. Acosta, Jim and Caroline Kelly.  "Trump's Name Will be Added to Stimulus Checks."
  CNN.  15 April 2020. Acosta, Jim and Caroline Kelly.  "Trump's Name Will be Added to Stimulus Checks."
  CNN.  15 April 2020. Lederman, Josh Phil Helsel.  "Trump's Name Will Appear on Coronavirus Relief Checks."
  NBC News.  14 April 2020.
Chesterfield County Administrator James J.L. Stegmaier wants folks to know he oversees a lean government.Chesterfield has eliminated more positions from its general government operations than the Commonwealth has from the entire state government since (fiscal) 2009, Stegmaier said in an outline of a Dec. 14, 2011 speech he made to the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce.We were struck by this statement. The state government has 33 full-time equivalent workers for every one in Chesterfields central government. Is it true that the county, in raw numbers, eliminated more jobs than the much larger state?We ran a check.Chesterfields general government operations include workers in all services except education. Stegmaier said that if education was included, the numbers would only grow in Chesterfields favor since the county has trimmed employment in that department as well.Stegmaier, to support his claim that Chesterfields central government has shed more jobs than the state, pointed us to two sets of statistics.He cited county budgets that detail Chesterfields authorized full-time employment levels in general government. In fiscal 2009, there were 3,697 authorized jobs. In fiscal 2012, which ends June 30, there were 3,516 such positions. Thats a decrease of 181 approved jobs.For state figures, Stegmaier relied on data from Virginias Department of Planning and Budget that detail authorized employment levels for all agencies. The state lists the number of employees as full time equivalents -- a figure that lumps together full-time and part-time employees. Thats why the overall number ends in a decimal.In fiscal 2009, the state had a maximum employment level 114,724.44 jobs. This fiscal year, the maximum is set at 114,566.73.So the states drop of about 157 authorized employees falls 24 short of Chesterfields reduction.But we had some issues with Stegmaiers proof. He had not made an apples-to-apples comparison because Chesterfield only tallied full-time employees while the state counted full-timers and part-timers.Also, the state and county numbers Stegmaier compared are maximum employment levels in budgets. Not all of those jobs were filled.We think the acid test for Stegmaiers statement is measuring the change in the number of people who actually worked for Chesterfield County and the state.We turned to the Virginia Department of Human Resource Managements website, which lists the number of state employees for any given month over the past 21 years.On June 30, 2009 -- the end of fiscal 2009 -- , the state had 119,850.81 full-time equivalent employees. By Oct. 31, 2011, the latest date for which statistics were available, the number  rose to 120,465.97. The state had gained 615.16 full-time equivalent workers.Then we turned to Chesterfield. Matt Harris, the countys senior budget analyst, told us Chesterfield had 3,816 full-time equivalent employees on July 1, 2009. The number dropped to 3,664 on Nov. 1, 2011. The county lost 152 full-time equivalent workers.Our ruling:No matter which set of numbers you use, Chesterfield has eliminated more jobs from its general government operations than Virginia has from its entire state government since fiscal 2009.We rate Stegmaiers claim True. In early 2021, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of a widely-shared social media post that purported to describe U.S. President Joe Biden's intention to eliminate a piece of tax law that allows taxpayers to benefit from selling on a home that is left to them by their parents. The post  which was critical of Biden and the supposed plan  first emerged during the 2020 presidential election campaign, but regained prominence after Biden was inaugurated in January 2021. It typically read as follows: first emerged regained Did you know Biden wants to get rid of something called "stepped up basis"? How does this affect you! When your parents pass and leave you the family house, normally you would inherit that property at what it is worth today. If you were to sell that house you would only pay taxes on the gain from what it is worth today and what it sells for. If Biden does away with "stepped up basis," you will inherit the property for what your parents paid for the property. If you decide to sell you will pay taxes on the difference between the original purchase price and what it sells for today. Here is what this looks like! Current PolicyInherited House at Current Value - $200,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $5000Taxes Due - 20% of $5000 = $1000Profit to you = $204,000Biden PolicyInherited House at original purchase price - $40,000Sells for $205,000Taxable income = $165,000Taxes Due - 20% of $165,000 = $33,000Profit to you = $172,000If your parents were to have sold this property prior to passing, they would have paid no taxes because it was their primary residence.So much for helping the middle class get ahead.My educated guess would be that at least 95% of Americans dont even know Biden has proposed this. We are talking tens of thousands of more tax dollars for the average sold after inheritance! Wow, google Biden stepped up basis and educate yourself because this is a biggie! Please share!   The viral post accurately stated that Biden proposed getting rid of the "stepped-up" basis for capital gains tax, and correctly explained the potential practical consequences for an individual taxpayer who inherits a home. In fact, the tax hit for wealthier individuals would be even greater than the post stated, because Biden has also proposed doubling the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with income over $1 million. We are issuing a rating of  Here's how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office describes the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, which is the tax due on profits from the sale of an asset, such as shares, a piece of property, and so on: describes When people sell an asset for more than the price for which they obtained it, they realize a net capital gain. The net gain is typically calculated as the sale price minus the assets adjusted basisgenerally the original purchase price adjusted for improvements or depreciation. To calculate the gains on inherited assets, taxpayers generally use the assets fair-market value at the time of the owners death, often referred to as stepped-up basis, instead of the adjusted basis derived from the assets value when the decedent initially acquired it. When the heir sells the asset, capital gains taxes are assessed only on the change in the assets value relative to the stepped-up basis. As a result, any appreciation in value that occurred while the decedent owned the asset is not included in taxable income and therefore is not subject to the capital gains tax. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama also proposed eliminating the stepped-up basis. Here's his administration's explanation of how it works: explanation ...Suppose an individual leaves stock worth $50 million to an heir, who immediately sells it. When purchased, the stock was worth $10 million, so the capital gain is $40 million. However, the heirs basis in the stock is stepped up to the $50 million gain when he inherited it  so no income tax is due on the sale, or ever due on the $40 million of gain. Each year, hundreds of billions in capital gains avoid tax as a result of stepped-up basis.  During the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his campaign repeatedly expressed his intention to get rid of the stepped-up basis. As first highlighted by Politifact, the Biden campaign presented the proposal as a partial way to pay for its proposed student loan reforms. In October 2019, ABC News reported that: Politifact ABC News The plan makes official several policies the former vice president often discusses on the trail about student debt as well. Bidens policy includes his plan for reducing student loan debt obligations for students who go into the public service sector, allowing $10,000 of undergrad or graduate debt relief per year for up to five years of service. Biden would also double the maximum amount of Pell grants available to students, including Dreamers, and would allow students making less than $25,000 a year to defer payments on their federal loans without accruing interest. Any student making more than $25,000 would pay 5% of their discretionary income toward their loans rather than the current 10% owed. The plan would be paid for through the elimination of the stepped-up basis loophole, a type of break on inheritance taxes, and capping itemized deductions for wealthy Americans at 28%, according to the campaign. In June 2020, according to CNBC, Biden told would-be donors: "Im going to get rid of the bulk of Trumps $2 trillion tax cut, and a lot of you may not like that but Im going to close loopholes like capital gains and stepped-up basis. CNBC On the Biden-Harris campaign's website, a Spanish-language document outlining the campaign's plans for education reforms stated (translated): document The Biden plan for post-secondary education is a $750 billion investment over 10 years, aimed at developing a stronger and more inclusive middle class. It will be paid for by ensuring the super-rich pay their fair share. Specifically, this plan will be paid for by eliminating the gap in our tax law known as the "Stepped-up Basis Loophole" as well as reducing the itemized deductions that the richest Americans can make to 28 %. [Emphasis is added]. Elsewhere, the Biden campaign proposed not only getting rid of the stepped-up basis, but also doubling the tax rate for long-term capital gains  that is, profits from the sale of an asset that you owned for more than one year  for relatively wealthy taxpayers. Here's what the Biden-Harris campaign website stated, as part of the campaign's healthcare plan: long-term stated As President, Biden will make health care a right by getting rid of capital gains tax loopholes for the super wealthy. Today, the very wealthy pay a tax rate of just 20% on long-term capital gains... As President, Biden will roll back the Trump rate cut for the very wealthy and restore the 39.6% top rate he helped restore when he negotiated an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012. Bidens capital gains reform will close the loopholes that allow the super wealthy to avoid taxes on capital gains altogether. Biden will assure those making over $1 million will pay the top rate on capital gains, doubling the capital gains tax rate on the super wealthy. The Facebook post shared widely in late 2020 and early 2021 accurately described Biden's stated intention to get rid of the stepped-up basis for capital gains tax, a move that would indeed increase the tax burden on a notional individual who inherits a piece of property from their parents, before selling it on. The tax hit for wealthier taxpayers would be even greater than the Facebook post outlined, since Biden has also proposed increasing the rate of long-term capital gains tax for those with an income above $1 million. The Facebook post did not mention that Biden had stipulated he would use the money raised from eliminating the stepped-up basis to help pay for his healthcare and education plans. We are issuing a rating of  Snopes contacted the White House to ask whether the Biden administration still intended to push for the elimination of the stepped-up basis, but we did not receive a response in time for publication. Its a statement often heard in the Ocean State: Rhode Islands state legislature is the strongest in the nation. And it was recently repeated by Governor Lincoln Chafee as he doled out advice to his successor, Governor-elect Gina Raimondo. Chafee was one of several people who were asked by The Journal what advice they would give to Raimondo as she prepares to take office Jan. 6. Their comments were published Nov. 17 in The Journals Political Scene column. The only [advice] I would add is we all know ... that Rhode Island constitutionally has a very strong legislature, Chafee said. Thats a fact, the strongest in the country  And its critical, to move your agenda forward, to have relationships ... build those relationships. Since this claim has been made so often, we decided to check whether Rhode Islands General Assembly really ranks as the strongest in the nation. We asked Chafees office what facts he had to support his statement. It took awhile for his office to get back to us. Meanwhile, we reached out to nearly a dozen political science professors nationwide, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and others to get their views. All who responded generally shared the view that Rhode Islands governor has relatively limited power compared with governors in many other states We were referred to Governors and the Executive Branch, a chapter in the book Politics In The American States: A Comparative Analysis. Its author, Margaret R. Ferguson, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, measured the institutional power of governors in each of the 50 states, based on various factors. Those included  term limits; power to appoint without the involvement of the legislature; control over the budget; veto power; and whether the governor is the same political affiliation that controls the state legislature. Rhode Island placed dead last overall in Fergusons list for executive power, while Massachusetts placed at the top. The book also noted that Chafee was the only governor in the country in 2011 to face a legislature controlled by an opposing party. At the time, Chafee was registered as an independent; he changed his affiliation to Democrat in May 2013. We also looked to Rhode Islands Constitution. It limits governors to two terms and specifies that the governors appointments of state officers be subject to Senate advice and consent. Pardons, too, need Senate approval. A veto by the governor can be overridden  by a vote of three-fifths of members present in the House and Senate. One of the key provisions limiting a Rhode Island governors power concerns the state budget. Governors are required to submit budgets, but the documents are then subject to legislative cuts and additions, before the General Assembly passes its own version. In 44 other states, governors have so-called line-item veto authority, the power to reject individual items, while keeping the rest of the budget intact. In Rhode Island, the governor can only approve or veto the final budget, which usually prompts the Assembly to override a veto. When Chafees office got back to us, it shared emails sent to the governors staff by Peverill Squire, a University of Missouri political science professor who is widely known for his study of state legislatures. The email exchanges were part of the preparations for last years 350th anniversary of the Rhode Island Colonial Charter of 1663. We can always quibble about rankings, but every accounting puts the power of Rhode Islands governor at or near the bottom in terms of institutional powers, Squire said in an email to Jonathan Stevens, Chafees director of special projects. Rhode Islands governor enjoys only moderate appointment powers. The governor also has a weak veto and relatively little ability to influence the budget. A line-item veto and greater control over appointments would greatly strengthen the governor. On a constitutional power metric, Rhode Island is among the most powerful state legislatures,  Squires wrote. Squire confirmed the statements to PolitiFact Rhode Island via email and cited his book The Evolution of American Legislatures, Colonies, Territories and States, 1619-2009,  as well as an earlier book, 101 Chambers. We also heard from Jay S. Goodman, a political science professor at Wheaton College, who noted that the Rhode Island legislature had given up a certain degree of power over the past 20 years, including the appointment of Supreme Court justices, the revolving door limitations on jobs, ethics rules, and the separation of powers amendment. Voters approved the separation  of  powers constitutional amendment in 2004 to curb legislative powers and remove lawmakers from state boards and commissions. Those changes certainly strengthened the governorship, Goodman said via email. But the overwhelming one-party rule coupled with iron discipline still makes the Speaker [of the House] the most powerful single person [in Rhode Island]. While the strength of the governorship might appear to be inversely proportional to the General Assemblys power, Maureen Moakley, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, observed that a governors force of personality also factors in. She used the late Governor Bruce Sundlun, a Democrat, as an example. He was a very forceful personality. The day he took office he faced a crisis. [The collapse of Rhode Islands credit unions.] That gave him a lot of leverage through his administration, especially his first administration, Moakley said. If a governor has the political savvy to be able to take the bully pulpit and turn [it] into a political force, it can go a long way to mitigating the limitations of the office, Moakley said. Their initial presentation of their agenda is critical, she said. Our ruling Governor Chafee said the Rhode Island state legislature is the strongest in the country  Our research found that Rhode Islands governor has the least institutional power in the nation under the state Constitution. That would make the Rhode Island General Assembly the most powerful, supporting the governors point. We rule his claimTrue. (If you have a claim youd likePolitiFact Rhode Islandto check, email us at[email protected]. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) On July 25, 2010, David Gregory, the host of NBC'sMeet the Press, asked his roundtable panelists to consider Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege, aWall Street Journalop-ed column from July 22, in which Sen. James Webb, D-Va., argues against federal affirmative action laws.I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America's economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship, Webb wrote. Unfortunately, present-day diversity programs work against that notion, having expanded so far beyond their original purpose that they now favor anyone who does not happen to be white. In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations. These programs have damaged racial harmony. And the more they have grown, the less they have actually helped African-Americans, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action as it was originally conceived.Marc Morial -- president of the National Urban League, a century-old civil rights organization -- was one panelist who took the challenge, arguing that non-whites continue to experience disadvantages compared to whites.I don't agree that Latinos and Asians have not suffered discrimination in this country or that Native Americans have not suffered discrimination in this country, Morial said. I think the question is, how do you target and tailor policies that are going to help all economically and socially disadvantaged people. And it's a fair debate to have, but it also needs to be positive with facts. Look at the Latino unemployment rate. It's higher than the white rate. The black rate is higher than the Latino rate. So to suggest that there are not disparities that affect the Latino community, that affect the Native American community, most in depth, the African-American community, we've got to have the discussion that Jim Webb wants to have. We have facts, real facts, that give a picture of how life is in this nation.We won't take sides on Webb's proposal to end policies that provide race-based advantages, a topic that inspires passions on both sides, but which isn't a checkable fact. Instead, we'll focus on the narrower question of whether Morial is accurate on the question of comparative unemployment rates for whites, blacks and Latinos.The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates seasonally adjusted unemployment rates by race and ethnicity. We found that in June 2010, the white unemployment rate was 8.6 percent. The black unemployment rate was 15.4 percent, and the Hispanic/Latino rate was 12.4.So Morial is correct that the Latino unemployment rate is higher than the white rate and that the black rate is higher than the Latino rate.Though it falls beyond the boundaries of our fact-check, we'll note one other point from the statistics. Morial argued that Latinos and Asian Americans have suffered discrimination in the United States, and we think most people would agree with that at least as a historical matter. But if you look at the unemployment rate for Asians, it's 7.7 percent. That's actually lower than the rate for whites. (Technically, the BLS only calculates a non-seasonally-adjusted rate for Asians, but the comparable rate for whites is still higher at 8.7 percent. )Still, as we indicated, Morial made no specific claim about unemployment among Asian-Americans, and for the groups that he did mention -- whites, blacks and Latinos -- his numbers were accurate. So we rate his comment True. On April 3, 2023, former U.S. President Donald Trump traveled from his Mar-a-Lago estate to New York City to face historic criminal charges related to alleged hush-money payments to a woman with whom he allegedly had a sexual encounter. face historic criminal charges alleged hush-money payments With his booking andarraignment set for the following afternoon at the Manhattan criminal courthouse, a Twitter user posted the below-displayed photo of the former president supposedly making his New York arrival.The photo showed Trump flanked by people in suits, presumably Secret Service agents, leading a massive crowd of people down a city street lined with American flags. following afternoon "President Trump returns to New York," tweeted @Brick_Suit, with the photo. tweeted  The photo was fake; it was not a genuinedocumentationof Trump arriving to New York for his booking and arraignment. The Twitter user acknowledged that fact,writing in a reply tweet, "I didn't find this [photo]. I generated it via prompts." writing in a reply tweet The photo was generated by artificial intelligence (AI), with several telltale signs of computer-generated manipulation. For examples, an area near Trump's lower lip showed another trace of lip; the faces of the presumed Secret Service agents and many crowd members were disfigured; some heads looked more like skulls, and the flags' coloring wasn't consistent. Additionally, the man immediately behind Trump not only had signs of digital doctoring in his face but also his right hand. This was not the first digitally created photo supposedly documenting the aftermath of theManhattan District Attorney Office's move toindict Trump on March 30, 2023. Fakephotos of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrating the indictment, Trump clashing with law enforcement officers who were supposedly makinghis arrest, and the former president posing forhisjail mugshotalsospread on social media. indict Trump photos clashing his arrest jail mugshot Given that the photo of Trump leading a crowd was AI-generated  it did not authentically show him arriving in New York on April 3, 2023  we rate this claim  Getty Image's database of photojournalism included several authentic images of Trump's arrival to New York on April 3, including the one displayed below. database Trump arrived in New York City on April 3, 2023 for his arraignment. (Gotham/GettyImages) "Trump Is Heading to Court. Here's What to Expect." AP NEWS, 4 Apr. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-new-york-arrest-indictment-hush-money-97caa163d876d8c9ac2aad7ca6fd1f3d. "Trump Returns to New York to Face Historic Criminal Charges." AP NEWS, 3 Apr. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-new-york-florida-hush-money-election-764309dce49f81a50bf9f610ffd5ceb6. On May 28, 2023, thedunning-kruger-times.com website reported, "Canceled: ABC Removes 'The View' From Its 2024 Roster: 'Nobody Watches Anymore.'" However, this was not a true story. Dunning-kruger-times.com is associated with America's Last Line of Defense, a network of websites that publishes satirical articles. Historically, the apparent goal of this network was to attempt to get conservative-minded Americans to believe and share the made-up stories. The beginning of the satirical article claimed that ABC had canceled "The View." The featured picture included with the story showed left-leaning hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar making facial expressions as if they had just found out their show was ending. article On June 6, the story appeared to be taking off on Twitter with more shares than on any day since it had been published.  Near the end of the story, it mentioned the word "taters." This term is what fans of America's Last Line of Defense use to refer to the website's conservative readers. The "About Us" pagefor dunning-kruger-times.com describes "taters" as follows: page "Taters" are the conservative fans of America's Last Line of Defense. They are fragile, frightened, mostly older caucasian Americans. They believe nearly anything. While we go out of our way to educate them that not everything they agree with is true, they are still old, typically ignorant, and again  very afraid of everything. Our mission is to do our best to show them the light, through shame if necessary, and to have a good time doing it, becauseold and afraid or not, these people are responsible for the patriarchy we're railing so hard against. They don't understand logic and they couldn't care less about reason. Facts are irrelevant. BUTthey do understand shame. In the past, the Washington Post, The Boston Globe,BBC, Politico, and others have all published articles about America's Last Line of Defense. Washington Post The Boston Globe BBC Politico We previously reported on a number of other rumors also about "The View," all of which can be read here. all of which can be read here Baker, Billy. "One of the Country's Biggest Publishers of Fake News Says He Did It for Our Own Good - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.Com, 7 Apr. 2018, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/04/07/one-country-biggest-publishers-fake-news-says-did-for-our-own-good/fzIDkkKZf7IbYA9oyGuzhI/story.html. Saslow, Eli. "'Nothing on This Page Is Real': How Lies Become Truth in Online America." Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nothing-on-this-page-is-real-how-lies-become-truth-in-online-america/2018/11/17/edd44cc8-e85a-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html. Schwartz, Jason, and Shawn Musgrave. "The Supreme Court and Sharia Law: How a Fake-News Story Spreads." POLITICO, 14 May 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/14/fake-news-story-spreads-576752. Subedar, Anisa. "The Godfather of Fake News." BBC, 27 Nov. 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_godfather_of_fake_news. Claim:  Photograph shows hunters posing with a large cache of killed wolves. REAL PHOTOGRAPH; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2012] Look at these 2 xxxxing bastards. Killing the great wolves. Spread this pic all the world people. This slaughter has got to stop.     Origins:   Although the specific origins of this photograph are still unknown to us (the location is often identified as being Newfoundland), the animals pictured here appears to be coyotes rather than wolves.  In many parts of the United States and Canada, coyote hunting is completely legal: Newfoundland coyotes coyote hunting legal The status of coyotes varies depending on state and local laws. In some states, including most western states, coyotes are classified as predators and can be taken throughout the year whether or not they are causing damage to livestock. In other states, coyotes may be taken only during specific seasons and often only by specific methods, such as trapping. Night shooting with a spotlight is usually illegal. Some state laws allow only state or federal agents to use certain methods (such as snares) to take coyotes. Some states have a provision for allowing the taking of protected coyotes (usually by special permit) when it has been documented that they are preying on livestock. In some instances producers can apply control methods, and in others, control must be managed by a federal or state agent. Some eastern states consider the coyote a game animal, a furbearer, or a protected species. In some areas coyote hunting is actively encouraged as a means of culling the animals to control overpopulation and keep them from preying on livestock (and other native animals, such as deer), with some locations offering bounties to coyote hunters.  Chippewa County, Minnesota, for example, enacted such a bounty in 2011: The Chippewa County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to enact a $10 bounty on coyotes from Dec. 1 through April 1 of each year. The commissioners explained that cattle and sheep producers had been complaining about coyotes attacking their younger livestock. They also said hunters had expressed concern that a coyote overpopulation was causing a decrease in deer population, because the coyotes were preying on fawns. To claim the bounty on a coyote, it must be killed through legal means through trapping or shooting in Chippewa County and brought to the Sheriffs Office in Montevideo. A hole will be punched in the animal's ear to indicate that a bounty has been paid, and then the hunter may sell the pelt, which the commissioners estimated to be worth around $15. Hunters must also report where in the county the coyote was killed. No limit was set on  the amount of coyotes a person can collect a bounty on. David Trauba,  Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Area supervisor at the Lac Qui Parle  Wildlife Management  Area expressed concerns over the bounty. "They're unprotected  you can hunt them all year," Trauba said. "There are plenty of coyote hunters, this isn't going to bring in more, but now we're going to be paying for them." Utah also has such a bounty system in place and in 2012 has been considering increasing its payment to coyote hunters: Coyotes could wind up with a price on their head, with one lawmaker looking to pay $50 for each pair of ears from animals that have been shot or trapped, a plan that could encourage hunters to kill more than 20,000 of the animals. Sen. Ralph Okerlund says coyotes are jeopardizing Utah deer herds and doing extensive damage to sheep and cattle herds and is proposing raising the bounty. "We've got a lot more coyotes than we've got livestock and wildlife now and we need to do something about that," the Monroe Republican said. "What we're hoping is this will encourage a lot more people to go out and hunt these animals." There already is a smaller bounty program in place. Currently, hunters or trappers in certain counties that turn in a pair of coyote ears can be paid $20: $10 from the county, matched by $10 from the state. But Okerlund said when gas and supplies are taken into account $20 isn't enough incentive to exterminate this member of the dog family. His SB245 seeks to raise the bounty, using the revenue from a $5 increase in fees for hunting licenses and additional funds from the state. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources also does coyote control and has spent $3.4 million over the past six years hiring trappers and aerial hunters to kill the predators, focusing efforts during the breeding season. Okerlund said he decided to sponsor the bill after a constituent reported losing $30,000 worth of lambs to coyotes after he moved to a new lambing range. "This program is really targeted more toward the livestock-men than the sportsmen," he said. Sterling Brown of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation said the group supports the bill because coyote populations have increased and are claiming up to 15 percent of newborn lambs. Some hunting-related businesses also offer commercial coyote hunting services. coyote hunting Last updated:  2 March 2012    Jones, Jeremy.  "Chippewa County Coyote Bounty Raises Concerns."   Montevideo American-News.  24 November 2011. On 1 October 2017, pseudoscientific alternative health website NaturalNews.com, which is geared primarily toward supplement enthusiasts with a discerning taste for deep state conspiracy theories, posted an article ("Dont Look Now, But Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012") that attempts to cast doubt on the scientific veracity of global warming by first presenting the following grotesque caricature of a straw man argument: article straw man One of the most popular pieces of "evidence" that climate alarmists just love to bring up to prove the global warming narrative is the "all the ice is melting in the Arctic and the polar bears are dying" line. Weve all seen the documentaries where a polar bear is desperately clinging to a tiny piece of ice and you just know hes going to die soon. They article then presents two observations that make the generally factual point that there has been relatively more sea ice in the Arctic and glacial ice on Greenland in 2017 than there have been at specific times in the recent past: The latest figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, located at the University of Colorado, show that sea ice extent has increased by 40 percent since 2012. [...] [The Danish Polar Portal reports that]: If we rank the annual surface mass balance since 1981 from low to high, the lowest on record was 2011-2012 (38 Gt) and this year is the 5th highest out of the 37 year record. Danish Polar Portal To be clear, the primary data scientists use to document global warming are records of Earth's temperature over time, not doomed polar bear imagery. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist for the independent, nongovernmental Berkeley Earth research group told us in an e-mail that, in this area, pretty much "all groups who provide estimates" of global temperature unequivocally point to nearly uninterrupted temperature rises since the 1970s, as shown in this comparison of various estimates produced by the climate and energy policy website Carbon Brief: Zeke Hausfather produced   "People interested in global warming are best-served looking at actual global temperatures," Hausfather said. While this temperature trend is uncontroversial and clear, the climate system as a whole is a complex beast with numerous entangled parts. The basic approach to writing a blog post that "debunks" the concept of global warming is to highlight without explanation various parts of that system at a single point in time. NaturalNews.com is no exception to that basic strategy here. Arctic Sea Ice Natural News cites a climate change denial blog called ClimateDepot.com as evidence of the claim that sea ice has grown 40 percent since 2012. In reality, the claim made by this website was more specific and less useful. In a post dated 18 September 2017, Climate Depot stated: stated Arctic sea ice extent is up 40% from this date five years ago. "Sea ice extent" is one of many different metrics used to characterize the presence of sea ice, and is generally defined as "the area of ocean [based on pixels in satellite imagery] where at least 15 percent of the surface is frozen". On the day of 17 September 2017, sea ice extent was indeed higher than it was on 17 September 2012: defined   This does not mean, however, that sea ice has grown almost 40 percent since 2012, nor does it mean that the overall trend in arctic sea ice is toward growth  it hasn't and it isn't. The issue here is that sea ice extent is quite variable from year to year, and thus looking at two discrete points is a fairly useless exercise without the full context. "We don't expect it to monotonically decrease every year," Hausfather told us.  This chart (using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center) shows September sea ice extent compared against the same average used in the maps cited by Climate Depot, showing both this aforementioned variability but also an overall trend of reduced ice extent. Note that the year 2012 was no random year to select for comparison; it is actually the record lowest year in terms of Arctic sea ice extent  making anything compared to it necessarily higher: from   The overall trend of declining sea ice is even clearer when you look at a different measure: sea ice volume (presented by the Polar Science Center, below). Not only do such records show a clear negative trend, they also show just how anomalous 2012 was as a data point: Polar Science Center   In reality, 2017 was the eighth lowest year on record for Arctic sea ice extent since satellite measurements began in 1978. But in no world but the pseudo-scientific fringe internet would the concept of global warming rely on every single year breaking the previous year's record for sea ice minimum. eighth Tom Karl, the former director of NOAAs National Centers for Environmental Information, told us that 2017's sea ice extent was still much lower than the 1980-2010 average (by two standard deviations), and that, despite claims to the contrary, "one can't look at a trend over 5 years and say much about the impact of global warming as other factors are also important on these short time scales." director Glacial Ice on Greenland The NaturalNews.com approach for glacial ice on Greenland was similarly lacking scale and context. The main source for these arguments was a completely legitimate end-of-year report put out by the Danish Polar Portal, a website run by the Danish Meteorological Institute. In that report, the organization makes this factual statement: report Heavy snow and rain in winter with a relatively short and intermittent summer melt season have left the Greenland ice sheet with more ice than has been usual over the last twenty years  in fact we have to go back to the 1980s and 90s to see a year similar to this one in terms of snow fall and ice melt. This statement, and the figures presented by NaturalNews.com, are referring to a metric known as Surface Mass Balance (SMB), which Polar Portal describes: describes Each year glaciers gain ice from snow and freezing rain and lose ice by melt that runs off. Adding these together gives the surface mass budget (SMB) in Greenland, the ice sheet typically gains mass from around September to May and loses more mass than it gains in the ablation [melting] season of June, July and August. Importantly, however, this measurement only presents half the picture in terms of how much mass is being lost from year to year from Greenland's glaciers. That's because it does not include the rather significant portion of ice that breaks  or calves  off into the ocean to melt elsewhere. On average this accounts for about 500 Gt [gigatons] of further ice loss. This, as stated in the Polar Portal post, nearly matches the estimated gain in SMB reported by Natural News, effectively canceling it out. In a post on Carbon Brief, analysts with the Danish Meteorological Society put this years measurement in context: post While the Greenland ice sheet has seen a neutral, or small positive, change in ice for this year, it should be noted that Greenland has lost approximately 3,600bn tonnes of ice since 2002. Like the record of Arctic sea ice earlier, when put in the context of the entire trend of Greenland's ice mass over time (presented by Polar Portal below), 2017's measurement does nothing to change larger and completely unambiguous trends of overall melting: Polar Portal    Further, in the case of Greenland's ice sheet, there is not much of a mystery surrounding the lackluster amount of melting this year; a massive storm  the remnants of Hurricane Nicole  parked itself atop the continent, dumping a large amount of snow on the ice-covered continent: Hurricane Nicole dumping Heavy rain and snow in October in especially eastern Greenland gave record totals of precipitation in the main east coast town of Tasiilaq as the remnants of former hurricane Nicole passed by and, much as with Harvey in Houston this year, got lodged over eastern Greenland for some days. However, after Nicoles extreme precipitation, the rest of the winter was actually pretty average in terms of the amount of snow that fell. Because neither the higher-than-2012 arctic sea ice from 17 September 2017 nor the neutral amount of ice loss in Greenland in 2017 do anything to disrupt the overall trends of decreasing ice, and because climatological science does not require (nor does it expect) ice or temperature records to be broken every single year, we rank the claim that these observations are reasons to doubt the tenets of climate change as false. Watson, Tracey.  "Dont Look Now, but Arctic Sea Ice Mass Has Grown Almost 40% Since 2012."
  Natural News.  1 October 2017. Mottram, Ruth, et al.  "Guest Post: How the Greenland Ice Sheet Fared in 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  1 September 2017. Polar Portal.  "End of the SMB Season Summary 2017."
  12 September 2017. Morano, Marc.  "Massive Arctic Ice Gain (Up 40%) Since Low Point of 2012.
  Climate Depot.  19 September 2012. Hausfather, Zeke.  "State of the Climate: Warm Temperatures and Low Sea Ice Mark First Half of 2017."
  Carbon Brief.  21 July 2017. National Snow and Ice Data Center.  "Arctic Sea Ice at Minimum Extent."
  19 September 2017. Polar Science Center.  "PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis."
  Accessed 4 October 2017. NASA.  "End-of-Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Eighth Lowest on Record."
  19 September 2017. NASA.  "NASA Sees Tropical Storm Nicole Going Extra-Tropical."
  18 October 2016. Claim: The McDonald's fast food chain will be closing 17,000 locations due to an increase in the minimum wage.  Example: [Collected via e-mail, October 2015] Is McDonald's closing 17,000 stores because of the $15.00 minimum wage? Origins: On 28 October 2015, the web site Now 8 News published an article reporting that 17,000 McDonald's locations would be closing by 1 April 2016 due to a recent increase in the minimum wage: The largest chain of fast food restaurants in the world has announced that the minimum wage increase from $8.75 an hour to $15 an hour has caused them to schedule the close 17,000 restaurants in the United States.With already decreasing profits, McDonald says this is the "straw that broke the camels back." The above-quoted story is a piece of fiction. The United States minimum wage, as established by federal law, is still $7.25 per hour (although some cities have approved a gradual raising of their minimum wages to $15 an hour), and McDonald's has not announced that they will be closing 17,000 stores due to any wage increases.Now 8 News is one of many fake news sites that attempts to attract traffic through the frequent publication of false rumors under clickbait headlines. frequent false rumors This isn't the first time that a fake news story has used "McDonald's response to a$15 minimum wage" as its basis. The equally disreputableNews Examiner posted a fake news story claiming that the restaurant chain would start using a robotic staff to avoid paying their employees $15 per hour. robotic   Last updated: 4 November 2015 Originally published: 4 November 2015 In March 2021, an online advertisement appeared to claim there was something special about the McDonald's golden arches logo. A page in the resulting story said that, in the 1960s, a psychologist named Louis Cheskin advised that McDonald's customers "associated the arches with a 'pair of nourishing breasts.'" page story  The advertisement in question.  "It's not just an 'M,'" read the picture that showed the McDonald's Golden Arches. "28 Hidden Images in Famous Business Logos (That You Never Noticed)." McDonald's Ahh, the famous Golden Arches! You probably realized that the "M" design stands for "McDonald's." However, you probably didn't know that the successful food chain's marketing team consulted a psychologist, Louis Cheskin, while creating their famed logo. Cheskin suggested that customers would unconsciously associate the arches with a "pair of nourishing breasts." Talk about subliminal symbolism. While it's misleading to say that Cheskin advised McDonald's when the logo was being created, we found that the main part of the claim was true. At a time when the company was considering ditching the golden arches, Cheskin advised McDonald's to keep them because they were, as Cheskin put it, "mother McDonald's breasts." The July 1995 issue of Reader's Digest appeared to be one of the sources of the information. While the issue wasn't available online for further reading, we found a story that cited the magazine in a Tennessee daily newspaper, The Jackson Sun. On July 24, 1995, the newspaper reported: July 1995 issue story The Jackson Sun Louis Cheskin, a specialist in the psychology of marketing who began his research in the 1930s [...] worked with McDonald's when it was about to abandon the arches as the architectural elements of its outlets. His research showed that the arches were great assets because they had "Freudian implications in the subconscious mind." Exactly what was meant by this was uncertain, but Davis Masten, who runs the company that Cheskin started, recalls that Cheskin also referred to the arches as "Mother McDonald's breasts" - a powerful association if you're replacing home cooking. Robert and Margaret Sneed, of Texas, were getting in their car at the McDonald's on Highland after lunch Saturday. They were en route to South Carolina through the Smokies. Asked if that was the association they had with the yellow arches of McDonald's, the retired couple laughed. "I believe that my only thought was a cup of coffee, fries, and a Big Mac," Robert Sneed said. "But I guess this is some kind of subliminal thing where we're presumably thinking this but not supposed to know we're thinking this, is that it?" "I think of an arch as being an entryway," Margaret offered. "I think of it more as being an entry to a restaurant, but then, I never was very imaginative." The newspaper also printed that "market research showed many people subconsciously connected" McDonald's golden arches "to mother and home cooking." In the 1997 book "The Total Package" by Thomas Hine, he published the same information, including the mention of "mother McDonald's breasts": book Cheskin worked with McDonald's at the time it was about to abandon arches as architectural elements of its outlets. He advised that the memory of the arches be kept in the form of the M in "McDonald's." His case was based, he said, on research that showed that "the arches had Freudian applications to the subconscious mind of the consumer and were great assets in marketing McDonald's food." In other words, Cheskin said, the arches are "mother McDonald's breasts, a useful association if you're replacing homemade food." We thank the reader who sent us information on this book. It helped to add to the data that showed the overall claim in this fact check is true. Another bit of credible reporting came from the BBC. In 2003, it printed a special article titled "Fast Food Factory." The story invited readers to "explore the past, present, and future of McDonalds and with it the fast-food industry." The piece mentioned the famed golden arches and its purported association to a pair of breasts: special article mentioned Attracting the Customers The logo for McDonald's is the golden arches of the letter M on a red background. The M stands for McDonald's, but the rounded m represents mummys mammaries, according to the design consultant and psychologist Louis Cheskin. In the 1960s McDonald's was prepared to abandon this logo, but Cheskin successfully urged the company to maintain this branding with its Freudian symbolism of a pair of nourishing breasts. This may seem funny, but it is no laughing matter to the industrial psychologists and marketing consultants who are paid millions to find new ways to seduce us into buying by manipulating our unconscious desires. We reached out to McDonald's and provided questions for our story, and the company responded by asking for our deadline. We heard back a second time when the company let us know that they may need more time. We reached out two additional times but did not receive any further responses. McDonald's In sum, it's true that, in the 1960s, Cheskin advised McDonald's to keep the golden arches at a time when the company was considering getting rid of them. On Oct. 25, 2021, the rating for this story was changed from "Research In Progress" to "Unproven" for the reasons mentioned at the end of the fact check. On Nov. 12, 2021, the rating for this story was changed from "Unproven" to "True" after we received information from a reader about a book that contained data on Cheskin's past.