Does the rate of abortions decrease under Democratic leadership and increase under Republican leadership?
In 1969, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began collecting nationwide data on the numbers of abortions, the abortion ratio (abortions versus live births), and the abortion rate (abortions versus the US population of women aged 15-44 years old). collecting While these data are not perfect due to inconsistent (and sometimes non-existent) reporting from different states, they can be used to analyze relative changes in abortion rates during the presidencies of different presidential parties, as we will do here using numbers from the CDCs annual abortion surveillance study. Red portions of the lines show the ratio and rates of abortions occurring under Republican administrations, and blue under Democratic administrations: not perfect numbers  Before delving into the specific relationship between abortions and the political party affiliation of the President, the complete data set should be analyzed as a whole to provide context. This is how the CDC describes the overall trend in their data: describes Following nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the total number, rate (number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 1544 years), and ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) of reported abortions increased rapidly, reaching the highest levels in the 1980s before decreasing at a slow yet steady pace. However, the incidence of abortion has varied considerably across demographic subpopulations. Moreover, during 20062008, a break occurred in the previously sustained pattern of decrease, but in all subsequent years has been followed by even greater decreases. The large uptick in legal abortions though the 70s is related to the the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a womans right to an abortion is protected under the right to privacy of the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment. Roe v. Wade It is plain to see that abortion rates have risen (prior to their peaking in the mid-1980s) and fallen under both Democratic and Republican administration, suggesting little to no correlation with whichever political party controls the White House. The overall trend since the 1980s has been a fairly consistent decline across through administrations of both parties. It would be easy to demonstrate that abortion rates have not risen under Democratic administrations in the last several decades, but it would be false to argue that declines in abortion rates are an exclusive feature of Democratic presidencies. The claim that abortion rates fall under Democrats, while true, ignores the fact that rates have also continued to decline through Republican administrations as well. The claim, then, that abortion rates (at least since their mid-1980s peak) have risen when Republicans have held the White House is therefore equally false. At most, one can argue that the rate of decline appeared to slow during the presidency of George W. Bush before increasing under President Barack Obama's administration, but such an observation would be based on a comparison between only two administrations and would do nothing to demonstrate causation. In fact, causation between the presidency and abortion rates would be difficult to demonstrate in any case because it is hard to draw a straight line between federal government policy (let alone presidential policy) and abortion procurement. Nearly all challenges to open access to abortion have come at the state, and not the federal, level. According to a 2013 report by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute: report Twenty-two states enacted 70 abortion restrictions during 2013. This makes 2013 second only to 2011 in the number of new abortion restrictions enacted in a single year. To put recent trends in even sharper relief, 205 abortion restrictions were enacted over the past three years (20112013), but just 189 were enacted during the entire previous decade (20012010). At the federal level, legislators have had more trouble passing abortion restrictions into law, making it difficult to argue that any presidential policy, specifically, has had an effect on abortion rates. The only relevant federal legislation that has been signed into law are the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal money from funding (most) abortions, and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which criminalized abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy and was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2007. 1976 Hyde Amendment Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 What one can say, though, is that federal or myriad state-level regulations put in place do not appear to produce much of a change in abortion rates, according to a 2014 study by the Guttmacher Institute: study Forty-four laws intended to restrict access to abortion were implemented in 18 states between 2008 and 2010; an additional 62 were implemented in 2011 in 21 states. Some of these laws, such as those that added information to existing counseling requirements, would not necessarily be expected to have a measurable impact. In turn, we found no indication that they affected state-specific trends in abortion incidence. [...] Finally, a number of states that did not enact any new abortion restrictions and that are generally supportive of abortion rightsfor example, by allowing state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for eligible womenexperienced declines in their abortion rates comparable to, and sometimes greater than, the national decline (e.g., California, New Jersey and New York). That these states also experienced a slight drop in the number of clinics offering abortion services may reflect a decline in demand as opposed to the imposition of legal barriers. According to the CDC, multiple factors can affect abortion rates, including those such as contraception and demographic changes that have an effect on the demand for (as opposed to availability of) abortions: CDC Multiple factors influence the incidence of abortion including the availability of abortion providers; state regulations, such as mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and legal restrictions on abortion providers; increasing acceptance of nonmarital childbearing; shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population; and changes in the economy and the resulting impact on fertility preferences and access to health care services, including contraception.
One of the more bizarre celebrity legends is the claim that notorious bank robber John Dillinger was not only the proud possessor of an unusually large penis, but that this portion of his anatomy was removed post-mortem and put on display at one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. (Some versions state that the receiving institution was not the Smithsonian but the Armed Forces Medical Museum, which is on the grounds of the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.) That the Smithsonian denies having (or ever having had) this piece of classic Americana in their collection is part of the game, of course. (An auxiliary portion of the legend is that Smithsonian docents, upon being asked where Mr. Dillinger's organ can be found, will not deny its presence in the collection but will fabricate an excuse as to why it is not currently on display.) How and when this rumor got started is unknown. No documentary evidence indicates that Dillinger was renowned for either his sexual prowess or his possession of a prodigious member during his lifetime. It is often claimed that the photograph below, taken in the circus-like atmosphere of the Cook County morgue after the elusive bank robber was finally gunned down by FBI agents outside the Biograph theater in Chicago on 22 July 1934, begat the legend of the pickled penis:  The bulge in the center of the photo (Dillinger's arm) was supposedly mistaken by contemporary viewers of fuzzy newspaper photos for his penis, thus starting the tale of an incredibly well-endowed John Dillinger. (How he managed to die in a fully erect state was a question the public either didn't ponder or else attributed to some rather strange misunderstandings about the process of rigor mortis.) We doubt this explanation of the rumor's genesis because the legend does not seem to have begun circulating until many years after the photograph was first published in newspapers, and it doesn't account for how the famous phallus supposedly came to be housed in one of America's premier museums (other than that, because it was an extraordinary anatomical specimen, somebody who felt that it belonged in a museum somewhere happily donated it). How the organ was surreptitiously severed also remains unexplained; presumably the undertaker who prepared the body for burial in Indiana would have noticed the mutilation and reported it to one of Dillinger's relatives before the funeral. Our psychological take on the rumor? Consider that Dillinger was the FBI's Public Enemy #1 after committing a string of flamboyant bank robberies, continually eluding capture, and boasting that no jail could hold him (and proving the latter by escaping from the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, on 3 March 1934, reportedly bluffing his way out with a wooden replica of a gun). After Dillinger held up a few more banks and raided a Warsaw, Indiana, police station in the following months, the FBI was finally tipped off to his presence at the Little Bohemia Lodge in northern Wisconsin. The raid on the lodge by J. Edgar Hoover's vaunted FBI was an embarrassing disaster: agents opened fired on a carful of innocent lodge visitors (killing one), an agent was shot to death by Baby Face Nelson (who then escaped in an FBI automobile), and Dillinger himself once again eluded capture. Although the FBI finally caught up with and killed the infamous gangster in Chicago a few months later (with the assistance of Anna Sage, the "lady in red" who tipped off local police to Dillinger's presence and agreed to lead him into a trap), he had given Hoover and the FBI a black eye, leading them on a extended merry chase across the Midwest and humiliating them by escaping yet again when they had him cornered. What better revenge for Hoover than a symbolic emasculation, especially considering that it was a woman whom the FBI finally used to lure Dillinger to his death? Spread the word that Public Enemy #1 had been interred sans penis, and that his manhood had been put on display for all to see right across town from FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. It's an unlikely explanation, but a satisfying one. Sightings:  Look for Kevin and his buddies to refer to this legend in an episode of television's The Wonder Years ("Heartbreak", original air date 23 January 1991). Also, in the 2003 film The Recruit, one character offers his romantic interest a day of tourist activities in Washington, suggesting they "Look at John Dillinger's penis; I swear to God it's in the Smithsonian." The Recruit In the 1988 Jay McInerney's novel Story of My Life, we found this: "I remember I read somewhere that outlaw guy John Dillinger had one that was about a foot and a half long and it's preserved in the Smithsonian or someplace. Now that's what I call the Washington Monument." Leccese, Michael.  "Looking for Mr. Dillinger."
  Washington Tribune.  April 1980. McInerney, Jay.  Story of My Life.
  Canada: McClelland and Stewart, 1988.  ISBN 0-7710-5452-1  (p. 140). Morgan, Hal and Kerry Tucker.  Rumor!
  New York: Penguin Books, 1984.  ISBN 0-14-007036-2  (pp. 28-29). Nash, Jay Robert and John Offen.  Dillinger: Dead or Alive?
  Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1970. In early April 2021, Snopes readers asked about social media posts and memes that claimed that former U.S. President Donald Trump "tricked" them into making recurring campaign donations. For instance, one such meme said contributors to the campaign who though they were making a one-time donation "were unaware the fine print stated they would be billed the same amount every single week until election day." Donald Trump   In many cases, these claims are rather exaggerated, mean-spirited takes on a New York Times story, as we will explain below. As we previously reported, it's true that the Trump campaign was soliciting recurring donations with a pre-checked box, even after the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election. It's also true that many Trump supporters demanded refunds from the Trump campaign, although it seems mathematically impossible that the number of people who requested refunds was in the millions (as was claimed in social media posts). New York Times story previously reported The April 3 Times report details the experience of Trump donor Stacy Blatt, a retiree who was in hospice care, suffering from cancer, when he discovered his bank account depleted from those recurring donations. Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaughs dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trumps campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500. It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution  federal records show it was his first ever  quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge  until Mr. Blatts bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help. What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud. Contrary to the takes offered in partisan memes and posts, Blatt and others like him were not "low IQ," but instead, fell victim to the complicated and evolving wording in a pre-checked box on Trump's online donation portal, according to the Times. As a result, the Times reported, the Trump campaign and WinRed, a for-profit company that processed the online donations, were forced to issue $122 million in campaign contribution refunds to people like Blatt. pre-checked box As Election Day neared in November 2020, the Times report described what amounted to a sense of panic that cropped up inside the Trump campaign, as Democrats out-raised and spent them. During that time, the text on the online donation portal for Trump's donation website changed from simply asking donors to make donations a monthly gift, to including a pre-checked box with more complicated text that made donations weekly. asking donors As the election drew closer, text in that bright yellow box went from containing a pre-checked field that in March 2020 simply said, "Make this a monthly recurring donation," to more complicated and emphatic demands by late 2020 that contained fake ultimatums. As of Sept. 30, 2020, the box looked like this: looked like this   As the pre-checked box evolved, the result was an increase in refunds issued to donors who had missed the finer print in the box that allowed the refunds to be weekly recurring. The refunds issued by the Trump campaign outpaced and dwarfed the $21 million in refunds issued by his political rival, now-U.S. President Joe Biden. The effect can be seen in a graph posted by Shane Goldmacher, the Times report's author:  The evolution of the text in the box on Trump's online donation portal can be viewed by clicking on various dates via the Internet Archive. Internet Archive A search for Blatt's name can be found on OpenSecrets.org, a campaign finance transparency tool run by the nonpartisan organization Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. It confirms the Times reporting that Blatt, who listed himself as retired, was billed $500 multiple times by the Trump campaign between mid-September and October 11, 2020. Sadly, Blatt died of cancer in February 2021, according to the Times. found on OpenSecrets.org We sent emails to WinRed and the Trump campaign seeking comment, but didn't get an answer in time for publication. We will update if we do. But we note that in their public statements responding to the Times story that neither Trump nor WinRed refute the financial figures or facts laid out by the Times. Instead, the stance taken by both WinRed and Trump is that the Times' report was unfairly negative about their approach to fundraising. In a series of tweets, WinRed called the Times report a "hit piece" and said WinRed's practices were comparable to that of ActBlue, the fundraising portal that serves Democratic candidates. "So when Republicans do it to stay competitive, its nefarious, and when Dems - who created the technology - do it, its a 'platform for little experiments that gently squeeze even more money out of donors,'" WinRed tweeted. called tweeted In a statement responding to the report, Trump referenced his pre- and post-election disinformation campaign, namely false claims that the 2020 election was beset by a massive-scale voter fraud conspiracy. Like WinRed, Trump said his own fundraising efforts were based on those of ActBlue, and also like WinRed, he claimed that the percentage of donors who formally disputed the charges with their financial institutions was low: statement We learned from liberal ActBlue  and now were better than they are! In fact, many people were so enthusiastic that they gave over and over, and in certain cases where they would give too much, we would promptly refund their contributions. Our overall dispute rate was less than 1% of total online donations, a very low number. This is done by Dems also The Times story reported that WinRed "typically granted [refunds] to avoid more costly formal disputes." It also pointed out that while WinRed is a for-profit company, ActBlue is a non-profit organization. As such, WinRed "makes its money by taking 30 cents of every donation, plus 3.8 percent of the amount given. WinRed was paid more than $118 million from federal committees the last election cycle; even after paying credit card fees and expenses like payroll and rent, the profits are believed to be significant." We reached out to ActBlue for a response to WinRed and Trump's comments. A spokesperson told us by email that the average contribution amount across the platform in 2019-2020 was $38.08. The spokesperson also referred to this portion of the Times report that included a statement by ActBlue: was $38.08 ActBlue said in a statement that it had begun to phase out prechecked recurring boxes unless groups were explicitly asking for recurring contributions. Some prominent Democratic groups, including both congressional campaign committees, continue to precheck recurring boxes regardless of that guidance. Still, Democratic refund rates were only a small fraction of the Trump campaigns last year. On April 7, 2021, Timothy Miller, a writer for the political news site The Bulwark, tweeted that he received a fundraising text from the National Republican Congressional Committee with a similar, pre-checked fundraising box:  Despite aggressive efforts to pursue claims of widespread voter fraud, no evidence was ever presented by the Trump camp that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 election. Biden won by 7 million votes and 74 electoral college points. widespread voter fraud won "Here's Why Hotel Guests Should Always Put Coins in the Sink" is the text in an online advertisement thats been making the rounds since at least November 2020. an online advertisement  The key word here appeared to be always.  This was not the first such ad about hotels on which we reported. We previously published a story about a similar ad that read: "Why You Should Always Put a Towel Under Hotel Door." published a story Readers who clicked on the ad about putting coins in a hotel's bathroom sink were led to an 80-page slideshow article. Its headline read: "Use These Hacks the Next Time You Stay in a Hotel": We all love to travel, but let's admit it - not every hotel is fit for a king or a queen. Sometimes, we have to compromise if we want to have a vacation that fits our budget. What makes things a bit worse is that the hotel room might not always look exactly as it did in the online photos. The photos might have been misleading - the bed looking bigger than it actually is or the booking website posting photos of a completely different room altogether. The truth is, youll never know until you arrive. That's why sometimes you need to bring some items that will amp up your holiday. With these hacks, you'll always be prepared for a five-star hotel experience! The picture from the ad finally showed up on page 28. The ad about coins in the sink and the one about putting a towel under a hotel door both appeared to imply some sort of ominous safety concerns: Wash and Roll Have you ever paid to have your clothes cleaned by the hotel? There's always the chance that something could get ruined or lost. Even if everything goes off without a hitch, there's still the high price you'll have to pay for this service. Just a few garments can end up costing you a pretty penny. Instead, use a few coins and some plastic to clog the sink and wash your clothes in the sink, then you can hang them around the room to dry them out. The article simply advised hotel guests to grab some plastic and coins to clog the sink for washing clothes. We'll leave it up to readers to decide if they consider it sanitary to wash clothes in a hotel sink with coins and plastic. Also, bathroom sinks typically come with stoppers that can be used to hold water in the basin. The ad in question appeared in a previous submission on Reddit's r/savedyouaclick subreddit. The top-voted comment read: "Why coins??? Why not just a regular plug? This is insane." Another user jokingly replied to the comment with: "ALWAYS put coins in the sink!" submission r/savedyouaclick Perhaps one thing we recommend "always" doing is avoiding ominous clickbait ads that lead to 80-page slideshow articles. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us On 7 December 2016, conspiracy web site SuperStation95 published a post reporting that 86-year-old astronaut Buzz Aldrin (who had just been evacuated from the South Pole due to health concerns) had mysteriously and alarmingly tweeted a photograph of a mountain along with a chilling comment:  post evacuated His words: "We are all in danger. It is evil itself." and showed a photograph of a pyramid located at the South Pole as show here. Mr. Aldrin seems to be referring to this object, as seen in an serial photo from Google Earth ... As has been reported by worldwide media, US Secretary of State John Kerry recently traveled to the South Pole, allegedly to become better informed about "Climate Change." Kerry was the highest ranking US government official ever to visit the South Pole, and his visit struck many as unusual. Few saw any purpose whatsoever to sending America's top Diplomat to the farthest reaches of the earth to see ... ice. Now, with Buzz Aldrin's tweet, and its strange deletion, folks are wondering if sending America's top Diplomat to no-man's land, perhaps had something to do with Diplomacy after all. Is there some entity there with which we need Diplomatic contact? ... If so, why did Buzz Aldrin warn that we are all in danger? Why did he call it "Evil itself?" The blog post, which was a pparently inspired by a 6 December 2016 thread on the conspiracy forum  Before It's News, cited two tweets as a first and second source for the photograph. One included an embedded video which referenced the SuperStation95 post as its source, making it useless as supporting confirmation: forum  What did Buzz Aldrin mean and WHY did he delete this tweet? "We are all in danger. It is evil itself. pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk pic.twitter.com/tYb9IFCfZk  slone (@slone) December 7, 2016 December 7, 2016 Buzz Aldrin Warns "it is evil itself"https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y https://t.co/i0mqoHnh5y  Christopher Horn (@NightHorn) December 9, 2016 December 9, 2016  Images of the purported tweet circulated widely after 7 December 2016, but there were a number of visual cues the graphic was altered:   For contrast, here's a screenshot taken of a then-recent tweet sent via Aldrin's @TheRealBuzz account:   The first tweet did not have a date, share count, number of replies, number of favorites, or number of retweets; all could be used to determine whether Twitter's archive backed the claims made by the sites. Additional irregularities existed in the background display of Aldrin's account: The suspect tweet didn't display in the same manner it did in our screenshot. Aldrin's account data was oddly arranged, and his blue verification checkmark was missing.  SuperStation95 did not provide a date, time, or sturdy source for the screenshot of the tweet. Using Twitter's "advanced search" tool, we were able to determine that no retweets or "modified tweets" (a form of copying and pasting a retweet) existed anywhere on Twitter. The first verbal mention of the purported tweet appeared on 8 December 2016, one day after the blog post linked above. no retweets It wasn't just skeptics questioning the authenticity of the claim. YouTube's SecureTeam (the self-described "number one source for breaking news and exposure of the alien phenomenon") examined the claim, quickly dismissing it as a forgery: questioning After appearing in late 2015, Superstation95 began using what were often legitimate tragedies or unfortunate events (such as Buzz Aldrin's evacuation from Antarctica in December 2016) with falsified and often frightening details. Among the most prominent were claims that a large group of Muslim men had fired randomly upon campers and hikers in California, Fukushima radiation caused severe mutations in ocean-dwelling creatures, cargo ships mysteriously ground to a halt signaling nothing short of an imminent global economic catastrophe, a deadly Las Vegas strip car crash involved a driver shouting "Allahu Akbar," the San Bernardino shooting was provoked by pork served at a holiday party shortly before the massacre, the Earth's "magnetosphere" inexplicably collapsed for two hours, a (nonexistent) suicide note left by a genuinely deceased ICE agent revealed impending FEMA camp implementation and mass enslavement, and that articles about the Orlando shooting appeared on Google News hours before the attack. Although the pieces sometimes contained details of real-life events, the claims were always willfully distorted to peddle a false and upsetting conclusion. Muslim men Fukushima cargo ships Allahu Akbar San Bernardino magnetosphere ICE agent Orlando shooting Superstation95's opportunistic leveraging of tragedy has never borne out as the real thing, despite the innumerable grandiose claims made since the site's inception. However, despite them, no one has yet gone to FEMA camp, the global economy has not melted down, the magnetosphere caused no space-based catastrophes, and no hikers were reported injured or dead as a result of roving Muslim shooters. Despite what online scammers might have you believe, Dr. Mehmet Oz of the former "Dr. Oz" talk show has never endorsed apple cider vinegar (ACV) weight loss gummies or any sort of CBD or keto diet gummies. According to scammy websites where customers can purchase many of these kinds of products, Oz once called keto gummies the "holy grail" of weight loss. However, he never said anything of the sort.  A seemingly countless number of product websites falsely claim that Oz gave his endorsement of weight loss gummies. A few recent examples of the Oz scam appearing on order pages included the product namesRetroFit Keto + ACV Gummies, XtremeFit Keto + ACV Gummies, Optimal Keto + ACV Gummies, Speedy Keto + ACV Gummies, Transform Keto + ACV Gummies, and Ketoviva Keto + ACV Gummies. RetroFit Keto + ACV Gummies XtremeFit Keto + ACV Gummies Optimal Keto + ACV Gummies Speedy Keto + ACV Gummies Transform Keto + ACV Gummies Ketoviva Keto + ACV Gummies While some of the websites for these products have since disappeared, we were able to confirm that they all originally promoted Oz's name. Again, these were just a few recent examples. Going back to 2022, it's possible hundreds of more keto gummy product names falsely mentioned that Oz endorsed them. The websites for these purported weight loss products promised that the candy-like gummies can "melt fat fast without diet or exercise." Always remember with online offers that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  These websites alsofalsely claimed that CBS News, NBC, CNN, Women's Health, Honolulu Magazine, Woman's World, and theDiabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Journal all endorsed, reviewed, or mentioned the products. In truth, none of them ever did. Parent company information for many keto diet weight loss gummies products is often hard to find. Phone numbers for customer support, if they haven't been omitted from the websites, route to call centers that greet customers in a general sense without announcing any company names. Most of them simply begin with, "Thank you for calling customer service." We previously asked one of the call center agents to reveal parent company information or anything about the whereabouts of the people behind the gummy websites. The person provided no details. In our research, we found that many customers who received these products at their doorstep and found a charge on their credit card said that they had no recollection of ever ordering them. Other commenters said that, in addition to not remembering ordering the keto gummies, they also found no charge on their credit card. It's possible that this could have occurred because ofcard-skimming scams, when a criminal places a device on top of a credit card reader at a place of business, all to secretly capture the card's sensitive data. card-skimming scams Customers who shared their experiences also said that the return address for these weight loss gummy products that bore Oz's name was a nameless "fulfillment center" with a P.O. Box in Smyrna, Tennessee, or Las Vegas, Nevada. Many others also said that Tampa, Florida, was the city mentioned on their packages. Oz While a package at the door is the last step of some of these scams, the first step oftentimes involves an alluring paid ad. This kind of an ad might appear next to an article on a website or on Facebook or Instagram.  Clicking on the ad leads to the second step: a fake article that scammers designed to fool readers into believing they're reading from Fox News, CNN, ABC, or other big-name news organizations.  While these kinds of fake articles might look like the website for one of those companies, the address bar at the top of the browser reveals the truth  that the user is not, in fact, on cnn.com, for example, but instead on a strange scam website that's simply pretending to be CNN simply by featuring its logo and article page design. Within the fake articles are links to the third step in the scam: the aforementioned product order pages that misleadingly mention Oz's name. On these pages people fill out their credit card information, a move that, apparently unbeknownst to the customers, enrolls them in recurring charges of hundreds of dollars per month. As we've done in the past, we'll continue to provide more reporting about these dangerous and costly scams in the future. in the past Note: In the past, Ozfaced allegations of promoting a "magic weight-loss cure" for "green coffee extract." However, this had nothing to do with weight loss gummies. allegations Gabriel, Trip. "'Magic' Weight-Loss Pills and Covid Cures: Dr. Oz Under the Microscope." The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/politics/dr-oz-medical-advice.html. Liles, Jordan. "Did Oprah Winfrey Suffer a 'Tragedy' and Endorse Keto Weight Loss Gummies?" Snopes, 12 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oprah-winfrey-tragedy-keto-gummies/. ---. "Oprah Winfrey 'Allegations' Facebook Ads Are False, Nor Did She Ever Endorse 'Weight Loss Gummies.'" Snopes, 13 Jan. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/13/oprah-winfrey-allegations-weight-loss-gummies/. Smith, Daeshen. "Better Business Bureau Warns Customers to Be Mindful of Card Skimming Schemes." Fox10TV.com, 25 Apr. 2023, https://www.fox10tv.com/2023/04/25/better-business-bureau-warns-customers-be-mindful-card-skimming-schemes/. In the crowded Republican primary to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera says he has evidence that he takes care of taxpayers wallets. I've cut the budget of the office by more than half, reduced the staff, he said in aninterviewon the April 30Money, Power, Politicsshow on Fox 13 in Tampa. I'm the only lieutenant governor to not take a security detail. He hasdeclined his security detail, breaking from his predecessors. Lopez-Cantera has also cut the budget and reduced staff positions. But he is leaving out some context. The only official role of the lieutenant governor is to replace the governor if he leaves offices or dies. What he or she does in the meantime varies with the governor and his or her vision. Lopez-Cantera is not as active or in the public eye as much as some of his predecessors, rarely posting official events on his public calendar and not tasked with any special assignments from Gov. Rick Scott. Scotts first lieutenant governor,Jennifer Carroll,resigned in March 2013 after she was questioned by law enforcement about her ties to a charity group that was the subject of probes. (She was not charged with wrongdoing.) She chaired a task force about Floridas Stand Your Ground law afterTrayvon Martins deathand chaired the Space Florida Board. Scott tapped Lopez-Cantera, a former state legislator and Miami-Dade property appraiser, to replace her almost a year later in February 2014. Lets see how the budget changed. Reducing budget and staff The lieutenant governors budget has ranged from about $245,000 to $540,000 in recent years. Lopez-Canteras office does not have its own budget like other state agencies. Scott proposes a budget that includes the lieutenant governor. It is then up to the Legislature to pass a budget, which Scott then signs into law. The amount of money below includes the $125,000 annual salary for the lieutenant governor. Year Allotment Expenditure 2009-10 $439,646 $433,006 2010-11 $540,440 $537,664 2011-12 $504,169 $587,389 2012-13 $509,806 $471,091 2013-14 $245,016 $156,435 2014-15 $485,160 $415,522 2015-16 $240,693 $242,875 2016-17 Not announced yet NA So for a few years the lieutenant governors budget was about $500,000. The it was chopped in half to $245,016 for the 2013-14 budget year that started July 1, 2013, a few months after Carroll resigned. Its no surprise that the allocation dropped since the office was vacant. Since Lopez-Cantera took office in February 2014, it is also not surprising the allotment nearly doubled to $485,160 for the 2014-15 budget year. The next year, the budget allotment dropped to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693  a 50 percent decrease. Most of the budget is staff salaries. Employee Count (excluding LG) As of January 1, 2010* 3 As of January 1, 2011** 5 As of January 1, 2012** 5 As of January 1, 2013** 5 As of February, 2014*** 4 As of January 1, 2015*** 2 As of January 1, 2016*** 1 *     Kottkamp **   Carroll *** Lopez-Cantera Lopez-Cantera cut the staff, but its worth noting that the size of the staff was small for starters. It's also worth keeping in mind that Lopez-Cantera has access to the full weight of the governor's office for his needs, including the press office, legislative aides and budget analysts. Under Carroll, there were five employees in the lieutenant governors office each year, which included a chief of staff and assistants. When Lopez-Cantera started in February 2014, there were four staffers. Then the number dropped to two, and now he just has one employee whose title is a special assistant. The governors office said no one was laid off. We asked if that meant that Lopez-Cantera cut empty positions or shifted jobs to the governors office or elsewhere. The governors office didnt answer that question. Our ruling Lopez-Cantera said, I've cut the budget of the office by more than half. He omits some context about how his office budget works. Scott recommends a budget, which is then approved by the Legislature. Lopez-Cantera's own resources may be limited, but he downplays the access he has to Scott's vast governing operation for assistance. Months after Lopez-Cantera started, the budget rose by roughly double to bring it more in line to where it was when a lieutenant governor in the office. But after that increase, the budget allotment dropped the next year to slightly less than when Lopez-Cantera started to $240,693  a 50 percent decrease. The budget largely pays for Lopez-Canteras salary as well as a special assistant. We rate this claim Mostly True. In April 2016, a meme was published by the Facebook page "The Other 98%" (among others) holding that 643,000 Americans declare bankruptcy over medical bills every year, while in a number of other first-world countries, bankruptcies over medical bills are non-existent (due to the implementation of national social health insurance/medical care systems in those other countries):   At the fine print at the bottom of the meme was a citation: "Source: NerdWallet Health Analysis." No link to the specific analysis referenced was provided, but presumably the item in question was a 19 July 2013 item published by NerdWallet pertaining to medical bankruptcies. However, in that analysis NerdWallet repeatedly stated that their findings were "estimates" or "extrapolations," and some of their data were quite old even back in 2013. The primary portion of that article held that: In 2013 over 20% of American adults are struggling to pay their medical bills, and three in five bankruptcies will be due to medical bills. While we are quick to blame debt on poor savings and bad spending habits, our study emphasizes the burden of health costs causing widespread indebtedness. Medical bills can completely overwhelm a family when illness strikes, says Christina LaMontagne, VP of Health at NerdWallet. Furthermore, 25 million people hesitate to take their medications in order to control their medical costs. Unfortunately this can lead to even worse financial outcomes as preventative treatments are not rendered and patients end up using expensive ambulance and ER care as their health worsens. Finally, many question whether President Obamas universal health insurance mandate will protect Americans from problems with medical bills. Insurance is no silver bullet, says LaMontagne. Even with insurance coverage, we expect 10 million Americans will face bills they are unable to pay. Although the "643,000" figure didn't expressly appear in that article, if we take the number of bankruptcy filings in the U.S. in 2013 (1,032,236) and apply NerdWallet's statement that "three in five (60%) bankruptcies will be due to medical bills," then we arrive at a number of medical bill-related bankruptcies (619,342) reasonably close to the 643,000 figure (although technically a bankruptcy filing can represent more than one person). bankruptcy Likewise, a 2013 CNBC item based on the 2013 NerdWallet Health Analysis included a chart showing the estimated total number of medical-related bankruptcies in the U.S. in 2013 to be 646,812, which is also quite close to the cited 643,000 figure: item  Since the number of bankruptcy filings in the U.S. is a matter of public record, the accuracy of this figure hinges on how reliable is the estimate that 60% of those filings are medical-related. In NerdWallet's "Methodology & Sources" section, the site said their medical bankruptcy estimates were based on a 2009 Harvard study, which in turn used bankruptcy data from 2007 and involved interviewing a random national sample of a bankruptcy filers: BACKGROUND: Our 2001 study in 5 states found that medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies. Since then, health costs and the numbers of un- and underinsured have increased, and bankruptcy laws have tightened. METHODS: We surveyed a random national sample of 2314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1032 of them. We designated bankruptcies as medical based on debtors stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness, and the magnitude of their medical debts. RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical. NerdWallet themselves reported that they employed a more conservative estimate than the Harvard study figure regarding the proportion of bankruptcies that are medical-related: We relied on a widely cited Harvard study published in 2009. NerdWallet Health chose to include only bankruptcy explicitly tied to medical bills, excluding indirect reasons like lost work opportunities. Thus we conservatively estimated medical bankruptcy rates to be 57.1% (versus the authors 62.1%) of US bankruptcies. We also used official bankruptcy statistics, released this month through March 2013, from US Courts. Still, quantifying the occurrence of medical bankruptcies can be problematic, as noted in aJanuary 2016 New York Times article on the subject: article Research on medical bankruptcies has been controversial because it can be hard to untangle how medical bills fit into a familys overall pattern of financial troubles. Twenty-nine percent of the people with medical bill problems said a family member had been forced to stop working or cut back on hours. (On the other side, about 41 percent of people said theyd taken on extra work to help pay bills.) Is that a job problem or a medical bill problem? said David Himmelstein, a professor of public health at the City University of New Yorks Hunter College School of Public Health who has studied medical bankruptcies. Its both of those things. However, that article also factored in a large development that occurred after NerdWallet's 2013 analysis: the activation of major provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as PPACA, ACA, or Obamacare): The [ACA] has led to a decline in the number of Americans suffering financial stress from health problems, thanks to the new options for receiving coverage, especially for the poor. But the problem is still widespread, touching roughly a quarter of Americans under 65, when the insured and uninsured are looked at together. Americans older than 65 are covered by Medicare, which more frequently protects people from major financial trouble. Unlike other polls, which have focused on the ways that insurance affects health care, the new Times-Kaiser survey explored the effects of medical bills on peoples daily lives well beyond the medical system. We found that medical bills dont just keep people from filling prescriptions and scheduling doctors visits. They can also prompt deep financial and personal sacrifices, affecting their housing, employment, credit and daily lives. The potentially ameliorating effect of the ACA on bankruptcies was also cited by a July 2015 Wall Street Journal article which (in part) described research into medical bankruptcy done by Northeastern University law professor Daniel Austin: article So what does Prof. Austin think will happen with mandatory health care in all 50 states? Could the system designed to give people access to affordable health insurance make families more financially stable and keep them out of bankruptcy? It absolutely should show a reduction in bankruptcies [filed] due to medical debt, Prof. Austin said in an interview. Plenty of studies have pinpointed medical debt as the No. 1 reason why people turn to bankruptcy for a fresh start. In rallying for health-care reform in his 2009 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that 62.1% of consumer bankruptcies are medical bankruptcies, citing a study Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) co-wrote as a Harvard law professor. Prof. Austins study found the percentage of medical bankruptcies to be far smaller. Overall, 18% to 25% of personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. were prompted by medical debt.  But even prior to the implementation of the ACA, some sources questioned the true impact of medical debt on bankruptcy rates. A 2012 piece published by The Hill compared rates of bankruptcy between the United States and Canada (the latter a country with single-payer healthcare system): compared It's difficult to conclude that bankrupt folks are awash in healthcare debt when nearly 90 percent of their obligations are unrelated to health care ... Will ObamaCare's increased regulation of the healthcare marketplace help put an end to the phenomenon? Data from countries with government-run healthcare systems suggest not. Consider Canada. Our neighbor to the north features a government-run, single-payer healthcare system where private insurance is outlawed for procedures covered under the law. So you'd think that Canada would have a lower rate of bankruptcy than the United States, what with one big potential cause of bankruptcy  the cost of health care  absorbed by the government. But according to researchers at the Fraser Institute, a nonpartisan Canadian think tank, bankruptcy rates are statistically the same on both sides of the 49th parallel. In both the United States and Canada, less than one-third of 1 percent of families file for bankruptcy each year. Further, even with a socialized healthcare system, some Canadians go bankrupt because of medical expenses. Approximately 15 percent of bankrupt Canadian seniors  those 55 and older  cited medical reasons, including uninsured expenses, as the main culprit for their insolvency. Canada wasn't the only country in which the presence of single-payer healthcare reportedly wasn't a total shield against bankruptcies (medical-related or otherwise). A 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) paper [PDF] found that: PDF Outside of the US, research on links between over-indebtedness and health has been quite limited to date, consisting largely of rankings of factors in consumer debt. For instance, within the United Kingdom, sickness or disability accounted for 5% of households in financial difficulties in 2002. A ranking of causes of over-indebtedness and private bankruptcy in Germany found that psychological problems and own sickness, if added together, would rank in fourth place of reasons for over-indebtedness and private bankruptcy. There have been a number of interesting recent studies in Germany on the subject. These have found a high risk of mental disorders among those facing the threat of over-indebtedness as well as the association of over-indebtedness with an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity apart from traditional socioeconomic factors. Additionally, there is evidence that over-indebted persons refrain from seeking medical treatment or purchasing prescriptions even under Germanys health system. One-third of participants in a study of insolvency counseling services in RhinelandPalatinate indicated that their financial difficulties were a result of accident, illness or addiction. In short, using some very specific analyses, one could make the case that (at least within the last several years) about 643,000 Americans declared bankruptcy annually due to medical bills. But the accuracy of those analyses is open to question, the playing field has changed significantly since they were undertaken (due to the implementation of the ACA), and it's far from an absolute that the other countries listed in the meme experience zero medical-related bankruptcies.  Emami, Sarah.  "Consumer Over-Indebtedness and Health Care Costs:
How to Approach the Question from a Global Perspective."
  World Health Report (2010) Background Paper, 3.  2010. Himmelstein, David U. et. al.  "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study."
  American Journal of Medicine.  12 April 2009. Lamontagne, Christina.  "NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies."
  NerdWallet.  19 June 2013. Lamontagne, Christina.  "NerdWallet Health Finds Medical Bankruptcy Accounts for Majority of Personal Bankruptcies."
  NerdWallet.  26 March 2014. Luthra, Shefali.  "Consumers Still Struggling with Medical Debt."
  USA Today.  1 February 2015. Mangan, Dan.  "Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study."
  CNBC.  25 June 2013. Pipes, Sally C.  "Medical Bankruptcy: Fact or Fiction?"
  The Hill.  23 October 2012. Sanger-Katz, Margot.  "Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt, Study Finds."
  Thne New York Times.  5 January 2016. Stech, Katy.  "The Future of Personal Bankruptcy in a Post-Obamacare World."
  The Wall Street Journal.  1 July 2015. Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.  "Growing Old Gracefully, An Investigation Into the Growing Number of Bankrupt Canadians Over Age 55."
  31 March 2006. Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal. Legend:  A young woman on a date who is too timid to ask where the toilet is meets with disastrous results. LEGEND Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 1999] This girl had been dating a rich guy in New York City. After a few months he took her to dinner at his parents mansion. During dinner she needed to use the toilet. Not wanting to be indiscreet she asked where the "powder room" was. The parents had the butler assist her to the powder room. When she went inside it had only a vanity and sink. She did not want to embarass herself by asking for the toilet, instead she decided to pee in the sink. However when she sat on the sink, it pulled out of the wall,  and she fell off hitting her head on the towel rack and knocking herself unconscious.  On hearing a loud thump from above the family rushed upstairs to find the sink broken and girl passed out with her pants down.  [Collected on the Internet, 1999] There was this teenager. She was the daughter of a rich (if stuffy) couple and went to an exclusive private girls-only school. She was also head over heels in love with a particularly nice boy from one of the local  boys-only private schools. She would do anything to meet him, and was continually making up excuses or 'coincidences' so that she would run into him. Being a boy, he finally got the message after she almost threw herself at him. He invited her out. However, being himself from a stuffy family, their first 'date' was to dinner at his house with his parents. The girl was ecstatic, if nervous, and immediately set out to make sure that the night would be a success. She didn't eat for a week. She spent a huge amount on a new haircut and a makeover. She bought a new dress.  Finally, the night came. She went to the house and was introduced to the parents at the door. They made small talk. Things were going fine. Then, in  the middle of the main course, the girl needed to go to the toilet. Being on  her best behaviour, she asked for the bathroom. She was given directions, but when she got there, she only found a bath and a sink. Not wanting to appear foolish and go back to ask directions to the toilet, she decided to use the sink. Unfortunately, it was a little high and awkward to sit on, and half way though she slipped, broke the sink, and knocked herself unconscious. After half an hour, concerned about what had happened to her, that's where the entire family found her - unconscious, her knickers around her ankles, lying in a mess of water, urine and broken sink. Of course, when she came to, she was humiliated. The boy, however, thought it was the funniest thing in the world.  He visited her in hospital and asked her to come around again. At first she wouldn't but, when convinced that the family had forgiven her and that it would never be mentioned, she agreed. As with the first time, she spent a week preparing for the night. As with the first time, she was greeted by the parents at the door. Feeling slightly more nervous than the first time, the sat down on the nearest sofa - only to hear a hideous cracking sound. She quickly stood up, and discovered that she had just broken the back of the family's beloved chihuahua.   She never saw the boy again. Origins:  The legend of the social-climbing young lady and her fall from both grace and a bathroom sink dates to at least 1991. It's usually set in Britain, where one could possibly still find older homes in which the bathroom (or washroom) contained only a washstand and where one would therefore need to ask for the "water closet" if one expected to be directed to the toilet, or (as in the first example above) in a "rich person's home" where one might find a "vanity room" with only a sink.  (Neither explanation really applies to the second example above, in which the girl is clearly from the same area and social class as the boy she's dating.) This related version was told by novelist and biographer Andrew Sinclair: A friend of mine from Australia was asked to an elegant party in Eaton Square. Caviar was to be served after the champagne. Having drunk too much of that, my friend found his way to the bathroom. He groped around for a light switch, but did not discover it. He then groped around for a lavatory, but did not discover one. Finally, he found the edge of the bath and settled for that. He relieved himself slowly and fully, then turned on the taps to swill away the evidence. Going back to the party, he asked his hostess where the caviar might be. 'Packed on ice,' she said, 'in the bath. I am just going to get it.' He went instead, walking quickly back to Australia. As a legend, the "sink tinkle" shares a number of elements with the more common crushed dog tale in which an over-anxious guest manages to kill the family pooch by sitting on it. It's therefore no surprise to see the two combined into one story as they appear in the second example above. Crushed dog tales often include a lead-in of the guest having committed a prior faux pas, necessitating his return to the scene of the crime to tender an apology: crushed dog A young man, new in town, is invited to a party at an expensive home. He falls asleep after drinking heavily and awakens in a dark room. While fumbling for the light switch, he accidentally sticks his finger into an open ink well and leaves stains and fingerprints all over the room. Embarrassed by the damage he has done, the young man slips away unnoticed. The next day he decides to return and apologize. He was admitted by a servant, who led him to a dim library to await his host or hostess. He entered the library, and sank into the nearest comfortable chair, only to hear and feel a mind-boggling CRUNCH! The young man leapt to his feet to discover that he had crushed a delicate Chihuahua to death. He fled again, and never returned. A 1996 British version of the crushed dog tale also includes a lead-in involving a boorish guest and bathroom functions gone awry. In that telling, a lad staying over at a country home awakens in the middle of the night, overcome by the urgent need to defecate.  He locates a chamber pot in his room, does his business in it, and returns to bed, resolving to empty the pot first thing in the morning before anyone else is about. In the morning, after topping up the pot with the contents of a full bladder, he sets out to look for a toilet to dump this steaming stew into. Alas, none is to be found. Still a bit tipsy from the night before, our hero decides to empty the pot out a window and onto the flower beds below. Unfortunately, as he holds the pot out the window, the weight of everything in it causes its handle to snap off. The pot plummets down the side of the house, crashes through the glass conservatory roof below, smashing and splashing its contents over the main table where the other guests are seated for breakfast.  Be it spilled ink, a broken sink, or a crushed dog, at the heart of each of these tales lies an overriding commonality  the unforgivable social error committed by someone clearly out of his element. Stories such as these are our way of venting such fears, getting them out in the open where we can laugh at them, but at the same time confirming to ourselves how very much we dread some day becoming the one to break the sink or squash the dog. Only because the following story fits well enough with the theme of social embarrassment to permit me an excuse to slip it in here, I present the following letter to Miss Manners: Dear Miss Manners: This may sound silly, but I'm serious. When someone suffers a particularly embarrassing accident in front of you and many others, what is the socially appropriate response? My husband and I got into an argument about this. We recently visited Boston, and while we were there, we attended a large party where everyone was elegantly dressed. At the party, a lady in a low-cut gown tripped, stumbled, lurched across a table, falling face first into a bowl of guacamole dip, and in the process "popped out" of her top. After an initial stunned silence, practically everyone in the room burst out laughing, even though it was obvious that the lady was terribly embarrassed. Then the hostess rushed over to help her and ushered her upstairs. After we left the party, I criticized my husband for laughing and told him I thought it was very bad manners. But he said that it was not impolite for people to laugh at something like that as long as they meant no harm and didn't "overdo" it. I said it was inconsiderate of the person's feelings to laugh at all. He said it's the social custom. Could you settle the argument? Gentle Reader: What do you mean "something like that"? Miss Manners doubts that there is anything in the world like an elegantly dressed Bostonian lurching across the room and diving face first into a bowl of guacamole dip while simultaneously disengaging her bodice from her bosom. Therefore, Miss Manners has a wee bit of trouble preparing a general rule for dealing with this eventuality. Nor, if she were your husband, would she attempt to justify a reaction on grounds other than direct cause and effect. One might try to ignore a less spectacular accident. If, say, it were avocado dip, rather than guacamole, and the lady had merely trailed her sleeve in it, one could pretend not to have noticed. To pretend not to notice a performance such as you have described  even if it were humanly possible  would be to suggest that the lady did it all the time and her friends have gotten used to it. It is far better to comfort her later by telling stories of your own about hilariously embarrassing accidents you have survived. Doesn't a broken sink or a squashed dog now almost sound picayune in comparison? Barbara "social quirker" Mikkelson Sightings:  The "crushed dog" part of the legend shows up in Tom Robbin's 1980 novel Still Life with Woodpecker. Those looking for the "broken sink" part of the story will find that in an episode of television's The Single Guy (a short-lived sitcom aired in the U.S. from 1995-97). Last updated:  29 July 2013   Martin, Judith.  Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.  New York: Warner Books, 1983  ISBN 0-446-37763-5   (pp. 468-469).   Morley, Robert.  Robert Morley's Second Book of Bricks.  UK: Coronet Books, 1982  (p. 75).   Samon, Katherine Ann.  Dates from Hell.  New York: Plume, 1992  (pp. ix-xiii).   Scott, Bill.  Pelicans & Chihuahuas and Other Urban Legends.  St. Lucia, Queensland: Univ. of Queensland Press, 1996.  ISBN 0-7022-2774-9  (p. 157). In July 2019, an $80 coupon began making the rounds on Facebook for the ALDI grocery store chain. These shared posts were the latest iteration of the common "free coupon" or "free gift card" scams that frequently plague social media and have also preyed on shoppers of chains such as Kroger and Target: Kroger Target  A different scam coupon offer also circulated with the ALDI logo in December 2015, advertising a "get 40% off all purchases in store" promise. Another displayed what appeared to be a free coupon for "$60 off a minimum $70 purchase", and even one for $75 off:  "Aldi has a coupon for $60 off a minimum $70 purchase. Aldi has verified this is a scam, but people are sharing it all over facebook." These coupons are not legitimate, as ALDI themselves noted on their Facebook page:  These coupon offers are a form of survey scams that direct victims to either a survey on an website not owned by ALDI, or what looks like a Facebook page for ALDI. The survey pages nor the Facebook page have any affiliation with the company, despite being adorned with the ALDI logo. Both instruct people to share the bogus ALDI coupon offer on their Facebook timelines and submit comments about it:  This page instructs shoppers to follow these "two simple steps" in order to get their coupons. Once the steps are completed, however, users are not greeted with information explaining how to claim their coupons. Instead, they're asked to take a brief survey that entails providing personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth, and are required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in number of subscription programs in order to obtain their "free" gift cards:  A version of the scam also surfaced in May 2016, and another later in 2018. ALDI responded to frustrated consumers on Facebook:  In June 2017, a version of the scam touting discounts in honor of ALDI's purported anniversary also appeared on Facebook: "HEY FRIENDS CHECK THIS OUT!!!!!Aldi is giving Free $75 Coupon to Everyone to celebrate 103rd Anniversary!Each Person (1)- Go & get yours!ALDI-COM.COM" However, attempting to visit the linked domain (ALDI-COM.com) led to a "deceptive site ahead" warning and not to ALDI's official web site:  If you frequently use Facebook, there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau lists key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: article "Dont believe what you see. Its easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions." All in all, trying to claim that "free" deep discount ALDI coupon is likely going to end up costing you a lot more than you'll save. Patterson, Emily.  "Customer Survey Scam Lures Victims with Gift Card." 
  Better Business Bureau.  4 July 2014. 10 July 2019: This story has been updated with a scam offer appearing on Facebook that promises $80 off at ALDI.