Did Trump Say He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Beautiful and Sexually Attractive?
Donald Trump's public career has encompassed multiple controversial pronouncements by him about women, perhaps most notoriously his comment about his own daughter, Ivanka, that "if [she] werent my daughter, perhaps Id be dating her. comment A similar remark has been attributed to Trump about one of his daughter's childhood friends, Paris Hilton, the celebrity great-grandaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton. According to a popular meme, Donald Trump once admitted that when Paris Hilton was a mere 12-year-old, he found her to be beautiful and sexually attractive:  This claim stemmed from one of several pre-presidential appearances Donald Trump made on Howard Stern's radio talk show. During that 2003 segment (which was also captured on video), Trump engaged in discussion about women he found attractive, and he brought up Paris Hilton, whom he said he'd known since she was 12 years old: video While Trump was discussing women he did or did not find attractive, he brought up Paris Hilton, a friend of his daughter Ivankas. Now, somebody who a lot of people dont give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton, he said. Ive known Paris Hilton from the time shes 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, Who the hell is that? Did you wanna bang her? Stern asked. Well, at 12, I wasnt interested, Trump said, Ive never been into that ... I've always stuck around that 25 category ... but she was beautiful. He then went on to call Hilton dumb like a fox and admitted that he had watched her sex tape.   However, contrary to the wording of the meme, Trump only said he found 12-year-old Paris Hilton to be "beautiful"; he didn't say that "he felt 'boom' when she walked in the room," proclaim that she was "sexually attractive," state that he "lusted" after her, or otherwise suggest he found the thought of a physical relationship with a child that age appealing. In fact, he specifically stated that he "wasn't interested" in a 12-year-old, instead preferring women around the age of 25 or so. However discomfiting it may be to hear mature men bring up a 12-year-old in a conversation about female attractiveness, this instance doesn't live up to its memetic billing. Satlin, Alana Horowitz.  "Trump Admits He Found 12-Year-Old Paris Hilton Attractive."
  HuffPost.  1 October 2016.
One of the many elements of the contentious U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the autumn of 2018 was the disclosure that the woman who had accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her back in 1982, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, had taken and passed a polygraph examination.  This facet of the confirmation brouhaha prompted debates about whether Judge Kavanaugh should similarly subject himself to polygraph examination, and about the reliability of such tests in general. (Kavanaugh responded to a question about whether he would take such a test by saying that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to do, while pointing out that polygraph examinations are inadmissible in federal court because they are "unreliable.") polygraph One of the pieces of evidence enlisted in support of one side of those debates was a claim that Judge Kavanaugh had once supposedly ruled in a case that "polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions":  The case referred to here was Sack v. Department of Defense Sack v. Department of Defense The underlying lawsuit was filed by Kathryn Sack, a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, who was appealing the Department of Defense's (DOD) denial of her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for various DOD reports about the government's use of polygraph examinations and related documents, which she wanted to use for her dissertation on polygraph bias. In order to justify their denial of Sack's requests, the DOD had to show that the records and information sought by her were "compiled for law enforcement purposes" and that their production would "disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations" and reasonably "risk circumvention of the law" -- thereby meeting the standards of FOIA Exemption 7E.   Exemption 7E The court sided with the DOD in denying Sack's FOIA requests, holding that FOIA Exemption 7E should apply.  In Kavanaugh's opinion for the court, he noted that "the reports about polygraph use were compiled for law enforcement purposes," because law enforcement agencies use them for functions such as "test[ing] the credibility of witnesses and criminal defendants" and "screen[ing] applicants for security clearances," and therefore "the reports help ensure that law enforcement officers optimally use an important law enforcement tool."  Kavanaugh also noted that the reports requested by Sack identify deficiencies in law enforcement agencies polygraph programs, and therefore releasing those reports could allow criminal suspects and others to subvert polygraph examinations.   Nothing in Judge Kavanaugh's opinion addressed whether "polygraphs can be accepted as gospel by employers in making hiring decisions."  He merely observed, for the purposes of a very specific legal ruling, that the federal government sometimes uses polygraph tests for the purposes of screening applicants; he offered no judgment or opinion about their reliability or how they should or could be regarded by employers.   U.S. Department of Justice.  "Exemption 7(E)."
  Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act.  Accessed 2 October 2018.  Justia.  "Sack v. DOD, No. 14-5039 (D.C. Cir. 2016)."
    20 May 2016. Hayes, Christal.  "Here's the Polygraph Test Christine Blasey Ford Took on Her Allegations Against Kavanaugh."
  USA Today.  26 September 2018.
 Kupfer, Theodore.  "A False Charge on Polygraphs."
  National Review.  28 September 2018. In June 2021, as airlines experienced a surge in demand, multiple news outlets reported that American Airlines (AA) was cutting about 1% of its flights in the coming weeks amid bad weather and labor shortages. Reuters reported: "American Airlines said the incredibly quick ramp up of customer demand also came at a time when bad weather caused multi-hour delays over the last few weeks, disrupting flight and crew work hours. The company said some of its vendors were also struggling with labor shortages, impacting the airline's operations." news outlets reported Responding to that latter reason for the cuts, one Twitter user authored the below-displayed tweet that makes several claims about the company's budgeting during the COVID-19 pandemic and allegedly explains why AA was struggling to fill job positions. one Twitter user COVID-19 pandemic   We contacted the tweet's author to learn their process for composing the post, as well as their potential connection to the airline. We have not received a response, but we will update this report when, or if, that changes. Nonetheless, the tweet includes the following claims: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Doug Parker But, before we proceed, let us note here: The airline's communication team's statements to news media regarding the upcoming flight cancellations through mid-July (see CNN's story here, CNBC's coverage here, and NBC's article here), including to Snopes, said "labor shortages [among] some of our vendors" (emphasis added) were affecting operations. See the statement we received, for example: here here here   That umbrella term, "vendors," could include companies that operate independently but have a contract with American to provide goods or services for its flights, such as aircraft equipment manufacturers or business that sell blankets or pillows for passengers. Snopes asked a company spokesperson what vendors, specifically, faced employment gaps and impacted flights, and he did not answer the question. While the spokesperson shared other comments (which we included in the sections below), he also did not share a response to critics who believed the company should shift around funds, including those provided by the federal government, so that the CEO received less compensation and rank-and-file staff earned higher paychecks. For that reason and others, this fact check does not address that underlying argument of the tweet. Not quite  but the airline company did take advantage of other federal grants and loans. Let us explain that conclusion. Only companies that qualified as a "small businesses" (criteria here), or had 500 or fewer employees, were eligible for PPP loans. American, on the other hand, documented about 133,700 full-time employees, ranging from pilots to flight attendants to mechanics, federal regulatory documents showed. here regulatory documents showed Rather, AA utilized the government's Payroll Support Program (PSP), a different financial boost established by the CARES Act that provided $25 billion for various airlines' payroll expenses. Payroll Support Program The U.S. Department of the Treasury distributed the money, in part, based on air carriers' payroll expenses from April 2019 through September 2019, and said it "must exclusively be used for the continuation of payment of employee wages, salaries, and benefits." U.S. Department of the Treasury According to that federal agency's database of recipients and AA spokesperson Matt Miller, American was budgeting with $12.7 billion from the program, as of this writing. The majority of that amount (almost double what was described in the viral tweet) was one-time grant money, while about one-third represented loans that the airline carrier needed to pay back. agency's database 12.7 "These funds ensured we could keep our team members on payroll throughout the pandemic despite the significant drop-off in demand for air travel," wrote Miller in an email to Snopes. Yes, Parker, who is paid almost entirely in stock awards, took home $10.66 million in total compensation in 2020, according to Miller and The Dallas Morning News. (The carrier's headquarters is located in Dallas-Fort Worth, making the Dallas newspaper a primary source of news about it.) The Dallas Morning News That compensation was based on the company's profits in 2019 (so it did not factor in the financial struggle of the pandemic), and was his smallest paycheck since taking the helm. The newspaper reported: "Parker's compensation has mostly hovered between $11.1 million and $12.3 million a year during his time as CEO, with the exception of 2013 when he made $17.6 million based largely on bonuses he had for merging his former airline, US Airways, with American Airlines." CEO Parker gave up his cash salary in 2015 to move to the all-stock compensation plan, along with benefits including flights and life insurance premiums. Miller told us: "Being paid in stock ensures his compensation is at-risk, based on the results the company achieves, and aligned with our shareholders interests," he said. "Dougs realizable compensation for 2020 was considerably less  approximately $2.9 million, or 23% of the target." This is false. While the company did cut some supervisor and support staff jobs, and it was true that its workforce overall declined by about 31,000 positions in 2020, it was erroneous to attribute that decrease exclusively to involuntary layoffs. According to annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission obtained by Snopes, AA's payroll indeed shrunk from about 133,700 full-time employees at the end of 2019 to roughly 102,700 such workers. That was a 23% workforce reduction, totaling about 31,000 positions. However, neither those regulatory documents, nor a news story by the Dallas Business Journal about them, said that decrease was because executives enacted widespread layoffs. news story by the Dallas Business Journal It was true American briefly furloughed 19,000 employees in fall 2020 and then brought them back weeks later, after the company secured more PSP funding from the federal government. furloughed 19,000 employees Then, months later, news reports said the company warned 13,000 employees of possible lay offs, pending the country's rate of vaccinations and interest in traveling. As of this writing, however, those worker remained in their jobs, Miller told Snopes. news reports But, as we noted, there were some permanent job losses during the pandemic. The airline cut about 30% of its management and administrative positions, totaling roughly 5,000 jobs, according to news reports and Miller. Those were the only involuntarily layoffs, based on our research. We found no evidence of widespread layoffs for employees who maintain the company's operations or deal with customers, like the tweet implied. Rather, Miller said, the company documented tens of thousands fewer workers in 2020 compared to 2019 because it had expanded its "early out program." A slew of front-line workers agreed to voluntarily terminate their employment to take advantage of severance benefits, or to leave the company for months on end for partial compensation. "Ultimately our headcount is smaller than it was before the pandemic, but the vast majority of that reduction is from voluntary departures," Miller said. "Any front-line employees who departed the company did so voluntarily via an early out program. The only involuntary departures were on the management side." In sum, we rate this multi-pronged claim a "Mixture" of true and false information. On the Cats Roundtable, a radio show and podcast with businessman and political donor John Catsimatidis, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made a claim about the richest New Yorkers contributions to city coffers. Fifty-one percent of our taxes are paid by 2% of New Yorkers, Adams said. We must understand the role that high-income New Yorkers play in this city. And when I hear people totally attempting to say they dont play a significant role, that is just wrong, they do. Is Adams right? We reached out to his press secretary, Fabien Levy, who said Adams was talking specifically about personal income taxes. During the interview,Adams was not so precise.The mayor, however, has made that qualification when making this claim before, such as when he was running for officein 2021. This is what he said at afundraising appearance in October 2021: Yeah, were over 8 million people. But do you know 65,000 pay 51 percent of our income taxes? Levy provided previously unreleased data from the Mayors Office of Management and Budget, which showed that in 2020, the top 2.5% of city taxpayers, when ranked by income, paid 51.6% of the citys personal income tax collections. According to areportreleased in December 2022 from the citys Independent Budget Office, a publicly funded organization that provides nonpartisan information about city finances, in 2020, filers with annual gross income of $500,000 or more, representing 1.6% of all filers, paid 49.2% of the citys personal income taxes. Independent Budget Office Communications Director Elizabeth Brown confirmed the office estimated Adams claim to be true, but only as it pertains to personal income tax collections -- not all tax collections. We dont break out the groups the same exact way the mayor spoke about them, but we believe his numbers are more or less accurate, Brown said. Personal income taxes are a fraction of what the city collects in taxes. According to thecitys January 2023 financial plan, personal income and the pass-through entity tax (an optional tax for partnerships and S corporations, such as limited liability corporations) represent 22% of the citys collections. Property taxes constitute 46% of the collections, while sales and use taxes represent 13%. Lucy Dadayan, an expert in state and local finances at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said that its not surprising that a small fraction of earners pay nearly half of the citys income taxes. Thats because about 2.1% of New York citys earners take home around 43% of New York Citys income, she said. This data point is nearly exact to data provided by the city from the Office of Management and Budget. The available data doesnt show how much the top 2% of city earners pay on property, sales, or other taxes, Dadayan said. But their contributions to other tax categories are significant, said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who frequently writes about city finances. According to the city, office buildings are 21% of the property tax levy, the citys single biggest tax, for example, and the reason the office valuations are high is because of their wealthy occupants, Gelinas said. Wealthier people also consume more in goods and services than middle-class and poorer people, and thus pay higher sales taxes, she said. Adams claimed that 51% of city taxes are paid by 2% of New Yorkers. If he had specified income taxes in his statement, we would have given a True ruling. The budget analysts who study the numbers confirm as much. The mayor was talking about personal income taxes, his spokesperson said. But someone listening to Adams interview would not necessarily have known that because Adams did not offer that qualification. Given his past similar statements in which he specified it was income taxes he was talking about, we do not see this as a case in which he was trying to mislead the audience. But because his statement on the radio show was accurate but needed clarification, we rate his statement as Mostly True. Claim:  Rabbi Steven Pruzansky penned an opinion piece about the 2012 U.S. presidential elections entitled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire." CORRECTLY  ATTRIBUTED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2013] Just wondering if you can verify whether the following waswritten by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Teaneck, NJ: Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a Rabbi fromTeaneck, N.J. It is far and away the most succinct and thoughtfulexplanation of how our nation is changing. The article appeared in TheIsrael National News, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of AmericanJews vote as Democrats. The Rabbi has some interesting comments in thatregard.  The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 isthat Americans voted for the status quo  for the incumbent Presidentand for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship,incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility.And fewer people voted.2008 total.  But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle. Romney lost because he didnt get enough votes to win. That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues  the traditional American virtues  of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness  no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the Reagan Democrat is one clich that should be permanently retired. [Rest of article here.] here  Origins:  Rabbi Steven Pruzansky describes himself on his web site biography as: biography [T]he spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, a synagogue consisting of nearly 600 families located in Teaneck, New Jersey, and one of the most vibrant centers of Orthodox Jewish life today. He has served since August 1994. Previously, Rabbi Pruzansky was for nine years the spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chaim in Kew Gardens Hills, New York. While in New York, he served a two-year term as President of the Vaad Harabonim (Rabbinical Board) of Queens. On 7 November 2012, the day after the 2012 U.S. presidential election, Rabbi Pruzansky (a Romney supporter) published the opinion piece referenced above on his blog under the title "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire," offering his viewpoint on why the election turned out the way it did and what the results augur for the future. published Last updated:  15 March 2013 In mid-March 2020, the coffee brand Starbucks announced it would open a bean roasting facility in China, which prompted a spate of memes aimed at a U.S. audience about "creating jobs for China." announced   It's true that Starbucks is investing $130 million to open a coffee bean roasting plant in China, per a company announcement dated March 12, 2020. This will be an expansion of Starbucks' already-existing presence in China, where the chain has been doing business since 1999. Starbucks already has 4,200 stores in 177 cities in mainland China, with a total of 57,000 employees. announcement already has So, while the expansion will indeed create more jobs in China, it's not as if the company is shipping American jobs overseas. Instead, the new roasting facility is geared toward making beans for coffee drinkers purchasing the beverage locally in Asia. The announcement from Starbucks reads: Starbucks Coffee Company, the global roaster and retailer of specialty coffee, announced today it will invest approximately $130 million (USD) in China to open a state-of-the-art roasting facility in 2022 as part of its new Coffee Innovation Park (CIP). As Starbucks largest manufacturing investment outside of the U.S. and its first in Asia, the CIP will incorporate a roasting plant, warehouse and distribution center, creating highly-skilled jobs and new career opportunities that will further drive smart and sustainable coffee manufacturing in China. The plant will serve as a key component of the Companys global roasting network, and the bold infrastructure investment further deepens Starbucks multi-decade commitment to strengthen the specialty coffee industry in China, where it aims to have 6,000 stores by 2022. China Daily, an English-language, government-run newspaper, reported that the Coffee Innovation Park is slated to be built in Kunshan, a city in China's eastern Jiangsu province. reported Starbucks."Starbucks Coffee Innovation Park in China Elevates Manufacturing and Extends Global Roasting Network."
12 March 2020. China Daily."Starbucks to Build Up Roasting Capacity in China."
13 March 2020. Bajpai, Prableen."How Starbucks (SBUX) Is Getting Itself Back On Track In China In Wake of COVID-19."
Nasdaq.com.25 March 2020. With the fire of a Baptist preacher, Georgias newest presidential prospect warned a crowd of thousands that the country has gone astray under President Barack Obama.We have become a nation of crises, Republican Herman Cain shouted during his Saturday announcement at Centennial Olympic Park that hes running for president.Look at the facts. Dont listen to the rhetoric, he said. High gas prices. A rising national debt. High unemployment.Forty-seven million people on food stamps, Cain said. Thats 14 million more than when the current occupant of the White House took over.Food stamps? your PolitiFact Georgia scribes wondered. Whats with Georgia Republicans and food stamps lately?Last week, the states other presidential contender, Newt Gingrich, said Obama deserves to be called the most successful food stamp president in American history because 47 million Americans are on food stamps.We ruled Gingrichs statement Half True. For the most part, Gingrich got his facts straight but oversimplified who was to blame.Cain, a former radio talk show host and Godfathers Pizza CEO, urged the crowd at his rally to look at the facts. PolitiFact Georgia is all to happy to oblige him.Food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, give certain low-income Americans vouchers to buy groceries.The most recent data show roughly 44.2 million people received SNAP benefits in February, the most recent data available.Cains numbers arent quite accurate, but hes close. The number of recipients has topped 44 million since December, which means his estimate is about 7 percent too high.The number of beneficiaries has climbed every single month since Obama took office, despite signs of an improving economy. According to historical data, Februarys count appears to be the highest in any month since the program was established in 1969.Obama took office in January 2009. That month, nearly 32 million people received SNAP benefits. That means the number of food stamp recipients has increased by about 12.2 million since the start of his administration.Cain placed the increase at 14 million, which is about 15 percent too high. Again, hes close, but not quite right.Whether Obama deserves the blame for the increase is far less clear.The rise in food stamps is a direct consequence of the Great Recession, which started more than a year before Obama took office. Conservatives and liberals agree that Obama inherited a troubled economy. Whether SNAP usage would have been lower if Republicans won the presidency is impossible to tell.The number of food stamp beneficiaries ticked upward under President George W. Bush because of policies that broadened eligibility for the program and more aggressive efforts to get eligible Americans to apply for benefits. These policies remained in place under Obama.Another reason assigning blame is tough is that there is typically a lag between when the broader economy begins to recover and when SNAP usage declines. The monthly growth has slowed for the past three months, and it could start declining in a month or two.Cains accusation against Obama was not as barbed as Gingrichs, but he did lay the blame for food stamp usage at the presidents feet. We therefore give the presidential candidate a Mostly True. On 24 October 2016, health insurance broker Tyler McClosky created a phenomenon on Facebook when he posted a screen shot of what it would cost for a family of four with a total household income of $98,000 in Lee County, Florida, to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act's marketplace: We were able to recreate McClosky's viral post using the shopping tool at healthcare.gov and the same data he entered (two non-smoking parents with a combined income of $98,000 and two 8-year-old children in Lee County, Florida): tool   But data sent by a Department of Health and Human Services official pointed out that 81 percent of families of that size on an Obamacare plan have household incomes of less than $48,000. So the average family currently subscribing to Obamacare would not be paying nearly as much as the image above depicts in their out-of-pocket premium costs. We entered the same data but changed the income to $48,000 here:   McClosky created the post on 24 October 2016, the same day a report by the Department of Health and Human Services was released detailing an average 25 percent increase in costs to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) customers: customers Across states using the HealthCare.gov platform, the median increase in the second-lowest cost silver plan premium is 16 percent, while the average increase is 25 percent. This figure varies based on locale. For instance, a table compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that people in Phoenix, Arizona will have a 145 percent premium increase, but a tax subsidy will mean a 40-year-old, non-smoking Phoenix resident with a $30,000 annual income will not have to pay any more than last year (which is roughly $207 a month, depending on the plan selected). table According to data sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a majority of consumers covered by the ACA (85 percent) qualify for tax credits that keep pace with premium increases, so many won't see much of an impact on their out-of-pocket costs. data But McClosky was addressing people whose income disqualifies them from that assistance. He told us he used the $98,000 annual income as an example because that is the threshold at which households of four with two children do not qualify for tax credit assistance (you qualify if you make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line). He said he created the post because he wanted to raise awareness about what it costs to insure a family in which each adult is making an annual salary of $44,000, and neither has access to employer-based health care  a fairly common situation in the United States. His concern, he said, is that only consumers who qualify for a tax subsidy can afford insurance under ACA. If their incomes are too high to qualify for assistance, they may simply go without. While the number of uninsured Americans dropped under ACA, as of 2015, 28.5 million people still lack coverage. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation: Even under the ACA, many uninsured people cite the high cost of insurance as the main reason they lack coverage. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage but did not because it was too expensive. Many people do not have access to coverage through a job, and some people, particularly poor adults in states that did not expand Medicaid, remain ineligible for financial assistance for coverage. Some people who are eligible for financial assistance under the ACA may not know they can get help, and others may still find the cost of coverage prohibitive. In addition, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid or Marketplace coverage. Eric Seiber, associate professor of health services management and policy at Ohio State, said that the health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, and costs have steadily increased over the years. Despite its name, the Affordable Care Act doesn't actually address the cost of health care itself: The ACA is not health care reform. Its health insurance reform. It really doesnt do that much about affordable care or patient protection beyond the subsidies and Medicaid. People's perception that their wages have been flat is an effect of compensation increases going to cover rising healthcare costs instead of into their paychecks, Seiber said. McClosky, who sells health and life insurance plans in Florida, said that the Affordable Care Act has had the effect of diminishing competition among carriers. For instance, Lee County residents can only purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield. Prices in Miami-Dade are lower than in Lee County, because there are more carriers competing with each other. McClosky says insurance carriers have been squeezed by part of the mandate which requires them to spend 80 to 85 percent on claim payouts and health care quality improvement. He pointed to Assurant, a 123-yea-old insurer that specialized in individual and small business plans. They could not survive under the ACA and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Health care is a source of roiling political debate for years. While the cost of health plans under Obamacare will go up an average 25 percent as of 1 November 2016, the majority of consumers won't experience much change in their out-of-pocket costs when open enrollment starts for 2017, because the tax credits will buffer that increase. Further, as the New York Times pointed out, many Americans are shielded from the immediate costs of health care by employer-based insurance or the public programs: pointed out These increases really matter only for those who buy their own insurance. Most people are unaffected by the rate increases because they get their insurance through an employer or are covered through government programs like Medicare, Medicaid or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Only a small fraction of Americans who have insurance buy individual policies. There are about 10 million people in the Obamacare markets and around an additional seven million who buy health plans outside the marketplace, according to Obama administration estimates. The published rate increases apply only to people who shop in the markets, but premiums are expected to go up sharply for the other plans as well. However, as McClosky's post makes clear, whether people notice it or not, American health care costs are high  and not everyone can qualify for available assistance. Kaiser Family Foundation. "2017 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Acts Health Insurance Marketplaces."
25 October 2016. ASPE Research Brief. "Health plan choice and premiums in the 2017 health insurance marketplace."
24 October 2016. Abelson, Reed, and Sanger-Katz, Margaret. "A Quick Guide to Rising Obamacare Rates."
The New York Times. 25 October 2016. Boulton, Guy. "Milwaukee-based Assurant Health to be sold off or shut down."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 28 April 2015. On Nov. 28, 2022, the@Xx17965797N Twitter accounttweeteda video with a misleading caption that claimed the clip showed a sea of lined-up electric scooter bikes that were abandoned because of the high cost of electric vehicle (EV) battery replacement. The tweet read, "Electric green scooters that have reached end of battery life. Due to the batteries being so expensive to replace, electric scooters are abandoned because disposing of them any other way is dangerous and expensive." tweeted This was not true, despite the tens of thousands of combined retweets and likes that the tweet received.  The same video upload from @Xx17965797N was also misleadingly reshared by accounts including@PeterDClack, @JamesMelville, and @MillerForTexas. The former two tweets received thousands of engagements, despite the fact that the information pushed in the original tweet was not true. @PeterDClack @JamesMelville @MillerForTexas In cases like these where a caption is incorrect but the picture or video is real, we issue a fact-check rating of "Miscaptioned." Days before the @Xx17965797N tweet was posted, the@ElevaBrasilES account also misleadingly tweeted that the same video was shot in France. The tweet went up on Nov. 21 with an incorrect caption that read, "Green energy Cemetery of electric motorcycles in France. Now designated as a 'biohazard zone.'" (Note: This mention of France reminded us of other rumors we've debunked in the past, in particular about two photosof other car graveyards. The two pictures showed false captions that claimed the cars had been abandoned due to the high cost of battery replacement, just like the video we're looking at in this fact check.) tweeted two photos The oldest upload of the video that we could find came from TikTok user @smartsetting. The video was uploaded on Nov. 7 and by the end of the month had received nearly 5 million views.   Based on watching the video, the scooters appeared to be parked in a parking lot near a basketball court, perhaps in a university complex or public park. Several blurry Chinese characters were visible on the side of the bikes. At the end of the clip, a tall building could be seen on the right-hand side of the frame. Other than those pieces of information, we didn't have much to go on. In order to find the truth behind this video, we first used Adobe Media Encoder to export a JPEG file for each and every frame from the video. The results of this export were 440 individual images from the 14-second video. We then performed numerous reverse image searches with these picture files using Google Images and TinEye.com. These reverse image searches provided several clues as to where other users had reposted the video. However, we did not find any further details from these searches. Next, we tried several searches on Google, Twitter, and YouTube with phrases such as "electric scooter China" and "electric bike graveyard China," among other terms. This helped to find several repostsof the video. The searches alsoshowedresults for many of the sites in China that are the final resting placesfor massive stacks of bicycles dumped by bike-sharing companies with failed business models. Perhaps the most striking video we found was titled, "No Place To PlaceThe Wonders of Shared Bicycle Graveyards in China." several reposts showed results sites final resting places failed business models video At one point in our research, we stumbled upon an AFP videofrom 2021 that appeared to show the same yellow color and model of electric scooter bike. The caption for the clip said that it was captured "outside the city of Shenyang." The end of the video showed a stadium with special colors for seating zones. video model After an exhaustive search, we were able to find this same stadium by using the map tools on the Chinese website Baidu.com. Unlike Google Maps, Baidu.com has street-level views of nearby roads. However, this part of our effort wasn't very helpful. It remained unclear if this was the same location where the viral clip was shot. Baidu.com In the end, it was going back to TikTok that helped us find the origins of the video. A search on TikTok for "electric share bike China" brought us to this video from @evstevepan. The video showed the same kind of yellow electric scooter bike with a similar logo. A scan of the logo using a mobile phone camera and Google Translate revealed the company name Meituan, which is known as an "all-encompassing platform for local services." this video We then searched the internet for Meituan and electric scooters, which produced plenty of pictures on Shutterstock.com. For a moment, the two large characters on the side of the scooter didn't seem to match those from the viral video. We then horizontally flipped a still-frame from the viral video, which led us to discover that it had been mirrored, meaning that all words and numbers were backward. plenty of pictures All of these developments in our research led us to news articles that helped to show our findings were lining up. In April 2018, news broke that Meituan had purchased the company Mobike for $2.7 billion. According to the story, Mobike is "a Chinese startup that helped pioneer bike-sharing services worldwide." broke But by November of that same year, TechCrunch reported that Meituan would be "[walking] away from bike-sharing and ride-hailing," as there wasn't enough demand from customers for the supply of its bike-sharing venture: reported In April, Meituan entered the bike-sharing fray after it scooped up top player Mobike for $2.7 billion to face off Alibaba-backed Ofo. Over the past few years, Mobike and Ofo were burning through large sums of investor money in a bid to win users from subsidized rides, but both have shown signs of softening their stance recently. Mobike is downsizing its fleets to "avoid an oversupply" as the bike-sharing market falters, Meituan's chief financial officer Chen Shaohui said during the earnings call. Ofo has also scaled back by closing down many of its international operations. ... During its third quarter that ended September 30, Meituan posted a 97.2 percent jump on revenues to 19.1 billion yuan, or $2.75 billion, on the back of strong growth in food delivery transactions. The firm's investments in new initiatives  including ride-hailing and bike-sharing  took a toll as operating losses nearly tripled to 3.45 billion yuan compared to a year ago. Meituan shares plunged as much as 14 percent on Friday, the most since its spectacular listing. Just as so many electric bicycles from bike-sharing companies had piled up across China, so had electric scooters like the ones seen in the viral video. In sum, social media users falsely claimed that a video showed tons of lined-up electric scooter bikes that were abandoned in a "graveyard" due to the high cost of EV battery replacement. All evidence pointed to a simple answer: supply and demand. The number of electric scooter bikes and bicycles far outnumbered the number of people who requested to use them (or else they went missing or were stolen), which resulted in downsizing by some companies, and the closure of others.The clip appears to have been shot in China, although its precise location is unclear. far outnumbered went missing or were stolen We reached out to Meituan for comment on Nov. 29 but did not receive a response in time for publication. 25  2022 . ELDORADO, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gbI2Bo2xKCc. A Veces Hay Cosas Que Duelen y Desesperan. Lamenta, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmV5lBEYEMU. @Atomicfact. Twitter, 14 Aug. 2018, https://twitter.com/atomicfact/status/1029352130086424576. Baidu. https://map.baidu.com/. @BBC. "The Problem of China's Huge Bike Graveyards." Twitter, 20 May 2018, https://twitter.com/bbc/status/998231947359997952. @ElevaBrasilES. Twitter, 21 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/elevabrasiles/status/1594826198831570947. @evstevepan. "Share Electric Scooter in China #electricscooter #china #vlog." TikTok, 25 Sept. 2022, https://www.tiktok.com/@evstevepan/video/7147290373868506411. Freer. "Meituan Electric Shared Bikes on the Street." Shutterstock, 19 May 2020, https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/zhongshan-guangdong-chinamay-19-2020meituan-electric-1736816009. Google Images. https://images.google.com/. Google Translate. https://translate.google.com/. "Graveyard of the Bikes: Aerial Photos of China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme Show Mountains of Damaged Bikes." The Straits Times via AFP, 21 Apr. 2021, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/graveyard-of-the-bikes-chinas-failed-share-cycle-scheme-from-above. "Graveyard of the Bikes: China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme from Above." Techxplore.com via AFP, 21 Apr. 2021, https://techxplore.com/news/2021-04-graveyard-bikes-china-share-cycle-scheme.html. @JamesMelville. Twitter, 29 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/jamesmelville/status/1597532727338639360. Liao, Rita. "Meituan, China's 'everything App,' Walks Away from Bike Sharing and Ride Hailing." TechCrunch, 23 Nov. 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/23/meituan-scale-back-ride-hailing-and-bike-sharing/. @mbrennanchina. Twitter, 4 Dec. 2018, https://twitter.com/mbrennanchina/status/1069940186786775042. @MillerForTexas. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/millerfortexas/status/1597346555111280640. No Place To PlaceThe Wonders of Shared Bicycle Graveyards in China. Guoyong Wu, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDfLWFv3ixk. @PeterDClack. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/peterdclack/status/1597371847397761024. Russell, Jon. "Chinese Bike-Sharing Pioneer Mobike Sold to Ambitious Meituan Dianping for $2.7B." TechCrunch, 3 Apr. 2018, https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/03/chinese-bike-sharing-pioneer-mobike-sold-to-ambitious-meituan-dianping-for-2-7b/. Shared Electric Bikes Roll into Changsha in Central China. CGTN, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkSUN-FSuNI. Siqi, Ji. "Taxpayers Foot the Clean-up Bill for China's Bike-Sharing Bust." South China Morning Post, 2 Oct. 2020, https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3103908/what-happens-discarded-bikes-chinas-sharing-boom-taxpayers. Sprawling Bike Graveyard from China's Failed Share-Cycle Scheme. AFP News Agency, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N1Qxs_KOYo. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. u/silvertomars. "A Graveyard for Electric Scooters the Batteries Have Reached the End of Their Life-Time, but Are Too Expensive to Replace and Safely Disposing or Recycling the Batteries Is Also Too Expensive." r/Wallstreetsilver via Reddit.com, 28 Nov. 2022, https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/z7i7ng/a_graveyard_for_electric_scooters_the_batteries/. @vegastarr. Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/vegastarr/status/1597338236472659968. @Xx17965797N.Twitter, 28 Nov. 2022, https://twitter.com/xx17965797n/status/1597310309139873792. Yan, Alice. "Chinese Bike-Share Firm Closes after 90 per Cent of Cycles Stolen." South China Morning Post, 21 June 2017, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2099293/chinese-bike-share-firm-closes-after-90-cent-cycles-stolen. Michael Richard Pompeo represented Kansas in the U.S. House of Representatives between 2011 and 2017 and then served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until April 26, 2018, when he was tapped by U.S. President Donald Trump to succeed the departed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. As The New York Times observed of Pompeo in March 2019, "no secretary of state in recent decades has been as open and fervent as Mr. Pompeo about discussing Christianity and foreign policy in the same breath. That has increasingly raised questions about the extent to which evangelical beliefs are influencing American diplomacy." observed That questioning of Pompeo's mixture of religiosity and policy was reflected in a meme circulated in January 2020, amidst escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad: airstrike  The quote reproduced in this meme  about continuing to fight battles and struggle until the moment of the Rapture  was taken from a talk Pompeo delivered at a "God and Country Rally" held at Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, on June 28, 2015. The event was just a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision holding that same-sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry. Rapture Obergefell v. Hodges The words reproduced above were excerpted from a portion of Pompeo's speech, as captured here:  However, that short clip doesn't provide the full context of Pompeo's remark, which was not specifically about military or political battles. We reproduce the surrounding context below, as taken from a video of the complete speech (beginning around the 23:19 mark): complete speech On Friday, just hours after the Supreme Court's [Obergefell v. Hodges] decision, my wife entered a retail establishment here in Kansas. She went to the counter to pay for the products that she had purchased, and the man behind the counter saw the credit card that she was using and said "Are you related?" And before he could finish she said, "Yes, yes, yes, I'm his wife," and he teared up and he said, "Thank your husband for what he's doing; thank you for allowing him to go do that. Have strength, Susan, and remember always that no matter what happens in Washington, D.C. or in Topeka, it is the Lord that is in control." This was a stranger to Susan. This was a man who[m] she had not met before, but he took time from his role to pray for her and to thank her and to make clear that his Christian understanding of our nation was not just in her heart but his, and that he would work every day to make sure that the Lord's work govern our actions each and every day. It was a remarkable moment. We are blessed to live in Kansas where there are so many people that understand that. We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle. Until that moment Pastor Fox spoke about, until the Rapture be part of it, be in the fight. Ask for forgiveness seek His wisdom, and heed your pastor's call to actions, and great things will be bestowed upon our nation and our world. Wong, Edward.  "The Rapture and the Real World: Mike Pompeo Blends Beliefs and Policy."
  The New York Times.  30 March 2009. Donald Trump Jr.claimedin a widespread tweet that former Vice President Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on 82% of all Americans. The eldest son of President Donald Trump wasrepeatingarefrainfrom the Republican National Convention, where Republican National Committee ChairRonna McDanielandEric Trumpmade similar claims. But the claim is misleading. Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on 82% of all Americans. Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 per year,aswevereported. Independent tax analysts have found that his plan does not call for direct tax increases on anyone below that threshold. Tax analysts say the indirect effects of Bidens proposal to raise the corporate tax rate could mean slightly lower after-tax incomes for some lower earners. By one analysis, about 82% of Americans would feel these effects  though for many, the hit would be small. But thatdoesnt mean82% of Americans will have higher tax rates or owe more to the Internal Revenue Service, as the phrase raise taxes suggests. To the extent that the Trump campaign is using this figure to imply that individual income and payroll taxes will rise for 82% of Americans, the claim is misleading, said John Ricco, a senior analyst at the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which is the basis for the 82% figure. Bidens tax plan aims to raise up to $4 trillion in revenues over a decade, according to theTax Policy Center. It would do so in part byrolling backsome of the tax cuts for corporations and people with taxable incomes over $400,000 that Trump signed into law in 2017. Among Bidens proposed changes, he would: Increase the top corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Raise the top federal marginal income tax rate for individuals to 39.6%. Place a 12.4% Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $400,000. Tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for very high earners. Other independent groups have also examined Bidens tax plan, including theTax Foundation, thePenn Wharton Budget Model, theAmerican Enterprise Instituteand theCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The groups havegenerally agreedthat Bidens plan largely targets corporations and the nations biggest earners. The Tax Policy Center, for example,estimatedthat more than 90% of the tax increases from Bidens plan would be borne by the top 20% of earners. No direct taxes are imposed on any household making less than $400,000 per year, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budgetwrotein its analysis. Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said there aresome specific scenarioswhere Bidens proposals related to itemized deductions, retirement benefits and payroll taxes could result in potential direct tax hikes for some households under $400,000. For example, in a scenario where one spouse makes more than $400,000 but the other incurs a loss that brings the adjusted gross income for their two-income household below $400,000, they could be hit by the Biden payroll tax, Watson said. In interviews, economic advisers to the Biden campaign said any final tax law would have mechanisms written in to prevent anybody making less than $400,000 from being inadvertently affected. Its not hard to have a hold harmless provision to deal with any oddball cases that seem unlikely to even ever arise, said Gene Sperling, a campaign adviser who was director of the National Economic Council under Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The groups that examined Bidens tax plan also estimated that over time, some of the burden of Bidens tax increases would fall to people making less than $400,000 in the form of lower wages or investment returns  indirect effects of the proposed corporate tax rate increase. These effects would berelatively small, and tax analysts say they make up the bulk of the hits dealt to lower earners under Bidens tax plan. But they form the basis for Donald Trump Jr.s claim that 82% of Americans would see their taxes raised. A Trump campaign spokesperson argued that the impact of the corporate tax rate increase is effectively a tax increase on individuals. The Biden campaign, on the other hand, said the two are not equal. Nobody filling out their 1040 is going to see a tax increase, and nobody would consider that type of economic impact as a tax increase, even if it happened, said Sperling. (AP Photo) According to theTax Policy Center, the lowest 20% of earners would see their 2021 incomes drop by an average of $30 under Biden; the next would see an average loss of $110; the middle would see an average drop of $260; and the second-highest would see an average loss of $590. ThePenn Wharton Budget Modelprojects smaller average declines for 2021: $15 for the bottom 20%; $90 for the second quintile; $180 for the third quintile; and $360 for the fourth quintile. Trump Jr.s 82% figure comes from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which estimated what share of each income group would experience a tax change as a result of Bidens proposals. A little math gets to 82% of people affected. But the concept of indirect effects is distinct from how most normal people think about taxes, said Ricco, the Penn Wharton analyst. Only families with adjusted gross incomes of more than $400,000 would be sending a larger check to the IRS, or having more federal taxes withheld from their paychecks, Ricco said. Those taxpayers were between the top 1% and 2% of filers in 2017, said Watson, the Tax Foundation analyst, citing the IRS. The Penn Wharton Budget Model also shows how Bidens tax plan would affect Americans if the indirect effects of the corporate tax are excluded. With the corporate tax plan removed from the analysis, the average tax change drops to zero for the bottom 90% of earners. We expect that between 1% and 2% of American families would see increases in individual income and payroll taxes, Ricco said. There are other aspects of Bidens plans that arent reflected in independent tax analyses. The Trump campaign, for example, said Bidens plan to reinstate the penalty for not complying with the Affordable Care Actsindividual mandateshould be thought of as a tax  which is in line with theSupreme Courts reasoningwhen it upheld the mandate in 2012. The Biden campaign said its a fee, pointing to the Health and Human Services Departmentslanguage. Economic advisers to the Biden campaign, meanwhile, said the tax analysesdont account forBidens proposed tax credits and spending programs aimed at middle-class and lower earners. Those and other Biden proposals will substantially boost middle-class incomes for families across the country, said Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates. Gordon Mermin, a senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center, said Biden has proposed many tax credits, including recent proposals for a refundable child- and dependent-care tax credit, a refundable tax credit for first-time homebuyers, and a low-income renters credit. If the Penn Wharton Budget Model factored in Bidens tax credits  and it did not  then the 82% figure representing the percent of Americans who would experience changes to their after-tax incomes would be substantially lower, Mermin said. Ricco said the Penn Wharton analysis focused only on revenue-raising provisions. Donald Trump Jr. said, Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on 82% of all Americans. Trump inaccurately described an analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model. The 82% is a calculation made using the models estimates that represents the percentage of people whose after-tax incomes would change under Bidens plan. But theres a difference between a tax increase and the share of corporate tax increases borne by individual taxpayers in the form or lower investment returns or incomes. Biden has pledged not to directly raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 per year. Some Biden tax credits not included in Penn Wharton analysis could potentially offset some of the indirect hits posed to lower earners as a result of Bidens proposed corporate tax hike. We rate this statement False.