Hooters Bans Motorcycle Clubs from All Restaurants
Claim:  Hooters has banned motorcyclists from wearing club patches and colors in all of their locations.  Example:  [Collected via e-internet, May 2015] I was wondering if there is any truth that Hooters as a National chain was completely banning Motorcycle club colors from every Hooters around or only certain ones like in Atlanta.   Origins:   Shortly after a deadly motorcycle gang shootout took place in in Waco, Texas, in May 2015, a photograph purportedly showing a "no motorcycle colors or patches" sign outside of a Hooters restaurant began circulating online:  Several motorcyclist took to the company's Facebook page to voice their complaints about the new rule, with most posters taking issue with the fact that the preponderance of motorcycle clubs have no gang affiliations.  Although many viewers assumed the sign was an expression of a new corporate policy, that was not the case: Hooters has not made any official announcements regarding a newly-imposed ban on motorcycle clubs. The above-displayed photograph is the only image documenting the purported policy; there is no information about where it was taken, nor do any other photographs document that this type of sign has been put on display at other Hooters restaurants across the country.  In fact, at least one Hooters location has taken to Facebook to say specifically that they have not been instructed to ban people wearing motorcycle club patches. After hearing about the sign, Hooters McKinney changed their Facebook profile to a Hooters girl washing a motorcycle and posted a message to their customers: Facebook The sign being referred to, that has been passed around the Internet, is not and has not ever been at our location. As far as management knows there is not any in the area of us either. We do not know where the sign was seen but can guarantee it was not with our location. We welcome everyone and will continue to welcome everyone.   On 28 May 2015, Hooters confirmed that while the sign is real, it  was displayed only at a single location (in Waco, Texas), and the company does not have a chain-wide ban on the display of motorcycle patches and colors: confirmed In light of the tragic events of May 17, the Hooters restaurant in Waco, Texas, has posted a sign requesting that patrons refrain from displaying their motorcycle club affiliation while dining with us. Even though none of our restaurants were involved in the incident, the safety and wellbeing of our guests and employees are always our top priorities and we believe special precautions are warranted in this situation, at least for now. This is not a system-wide policy. Although a similar request was made of guests last year in one East Coast location, we have no plans of implementing it elsewhere at this time. We fully understand that the majority of motorcycle enthusiast organizations are comprised of upstanding folks that share a passion for riding and a common interest in our community. It has been and will continue to be our privilege to welcome and serve them, along with all of our other guests, in our restaurants. Hooters will continue to work with local authorities to preserve a safe environment for our guests and employees.    Last updated:  28 May 2015
On 22 June 2017, the Occupy Democrats Facebook page posted a meme claiming that the United States government paid for Mitch McConnell's care and rehabilitation when the Republican senior senator contracted polio as an infant in the 1940s. meme This claim is contrasted, in the meme, with McConnell's support for the Senate Republican health care plan published that day: plan As a kid, Mitch McConnell had polio, and the government paid for ALL of his care and rehabilitation. Now, as the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, McConnell is taking government-funded care away from tens of millions of Americans. Let that sink in.   An article accompanying this meme reports that government-sponsored, publicly funded healthcare saved the young McConnell's life: article Mitch McConnell has been relentlessly working to roll back Medicaid and deprive millions of Americans of government-sponsored healthcare coverage for eight years now. But if it werent for the government, McConnell wouldnt be able to walk at all.  Young Mitch came down with a terrible case of polio as a child in Alabama. My mother was, of course, like many mothers of young polio victims, perplexed about what to do, anxious about whether I would be disabled for the rest of my life he admitted in a 2005 interview. But luckily for him, his mother took him 50 miles to the Warm Springs, where President Roosevelt won his own battle with polio and established a polio treatment center that was paid for by the public. President Roosevelt asked the people of America to send in dimes to the White House as part of his March of the Dimes foundation. Over two and a half million dimes were mailed in, and they paid for Mitchs physical therapy and treatment. A Death and Taxes article posted on the same date reports a similar story:  article How did Warm springs fund McConnells therapy, you ask? This was two decades before Lyndon Johnson launched federal health coverage by signing into law the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. In the mid-30s, Roosevelt and his law partner Basil OConnor founded the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and started organizing fundraising balls around the country. By 1938, however, the balls grew less effective and the president needed a new strategy. Using a phrase coined by vaudeville entertainer Eddie Cantor, March of Dimes  a spin on the popular newsreel series March of Time  Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes foundation and launched a campaign asking the public to mail ten-cent donations to the White House. Within a month, Roosevelt received around 2,680,000 dimes. The campaign continued through WWII. McConnell started visiting Warm Springs in 1944. In other words, he overcame polio with the help of public money allocated by the White House. Mitch McConnell has often told the story of his childhood affliction with polio, and the role of FDR's Warm Springs rehabilitation center in his recovery. In his 2016 memoir The Long Game, McConnell recounted how he was struck with polio at the age of two while staying with his mother in his aunt's home in Five Points, Alabama.  memoir It's one of my life's great fortunes that Sister's home was only about sixty miles from Warm Springs, Georgia, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established a polio treatment center and where he'd often travel to find relief from the polio that paralyzed him at the age of thirty-nine. My mother took me there every chance she had. The nurses would teach her how to perform exercises meant to rehabilitate my leg while also emphasizing her need to make me believe I could walk, even though I wasn't allowed to. So it's clear that Mitch McConnell did indeed receive significant help  primarily in the form of physical therapy and physical therapy training for his mother  from the polio rehabilitation center established by Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Georgia.  However, neither this particular center nor the care given to McConnell were government-funded. Roosevelt purchased the property at Warm Springs, Georgia and established a center there in 1927, having visited frequently for therapy for his own polio, which he contracted in 1921. He (and others) set up the Warm Springs Foundation, a nonprofit organization that depended on wealthy philanthropists and donations from members of the public.  1927 In 1934, Basil O'Connor (once a partner at Roosevelt's law firm and a close associate of the recently-elected President) began organizing fundraising for the Warm Springs Foundation, set around the President's birthday celebrations each year. Within four years, these birthday balls had raised $1,350,030 for the Warm Springs rehabilitation center (the equivalent of $23.3 million in 2017). equivalent In September 1937, Roosevelt reconstituted the Warm Springs Foundation as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as polio was then widely known); in January 1938, the directors of the foundation launched the first "March of Dimes", a phrase coined by vaudeville star Eddie Cantor who helped promote a nationwide fundraising drive which attracted the support of Hollywood stars as well as charitable middle-class families giving 10 cents each.  In six months, the March of Dimes raised $81,073 (which would be about $1.4 million in 2017). In July 1938, the New York Times published a detailed auditor's report, which offered a breakdown of donations and expenditure. report Some aspects of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis perhaps reflect a more innocent time. For example, the hundreds of thousands of dimes sent by members of the public were processed at the White House and a cheque was given to Roosevelt, who then turned it over to O'Connor for distribution via the Foundation. However, in many ways the operation was a precursor of the professional, almost corporate style of non-profit fundraising and campaigning that has followed since. For example, a large portion of funds raised in 1938 came from attendees at 8,000 Presidential birthday balls throughout the country, labor organizations contributed the equivalent of $760,000, and the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies wrote off the cost of thousands of birthday greetings sent to the President at 25 cents per message. The following year, charity sporting events were held throughout the country, and badges were distributed to donors as part of an awareness-raising "Give a Dime and Wear a Button" campaign.  year Funds raised for the Warm Springs Foundation and National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis were also distributed in the form of research grants to scientists hoping for a breakthrough in the treatment of polio. grants This came to fruition in the 1950s when Dr. Jonas Salk  who had received a grant from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis  developed a successful polio vaccine.  Jonas Salk The Warm Springs center that helped in Mitch McConnell's recovery was indeed founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was President at the time McConnell was struck by the disease, in 1944. Roosevelt was the driving force behind both the Warm Springs Foundation and its successor, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and used his political office to energetically promote fundraising for polio care and research. The funding came from the kindness and charity of the public, as well as wealthy celebrities and large corporations. However, it was operated as an innovative, nationwide nonprofit organization, not a federal or state agency, and it was not taxpayer or government-funded. The Warm Springs center visited by McConnell remained owned and operated by a nonprofit organization until 1974, when the state of Georgia took it over, making it truly government-run. Since 2014, it has been owned and operated by Augusta University.  Augusta University McConnell, Mitch. "The Long Game." (pg 9,10).
 Penguin Random House. 31 May 2016. New York Times. "$1,350,030 Raised for Warm Springs."
 New York Times Archive. 16 January 1938. New York Times. "Net of $1,021,034 to Paralysis Fund."
 New York Times Archive. 7 July 1938. New York Times. "Sport World Aids in Paralysis Drive."
 New York Times Archive. 27 December 1938. Jeffrey J. Rothschild, an American businessman now in his mid-sixties, is a successful engineer, entrepreneur, and former Facebook vice president whose net worth, according to Forbes, exceeds $3 billion. Jeffrey J. Rothschild He is also, if online conspiracy theorists are to be believed, a thought leader in a CIA-backed New World Order plot to exterminate most of the world's population and enslave the survivors. In Internet memes making the rounds since 2013, Rothschild is quoted as saying a third world war will be required to accomplish these goals: theorists quoted   New World Order Illuminati globalized feudalist system Rothschild supposed heart Much as it may disappoint anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, however, Forbes says that despite his great personal wealth Jeff Rothschild isn't related to the august banking family whose patriarch was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) of Frankfurt, Germany. Jeff Rothschild's father, William B. Rothschild, inherited a rubber import business from his father, Marcus Rothschild, whose name appears nowhere in the Mayer Rothschild family tree. says Mayer Amschel Rothschild tree And although Jeff Rothschild did speak at a conference of Chinese and American entrepreneurs and investors in January 2013 (at which the above photo was taken), the event took place in Santa Clara, California (not China), and there is no record of him saying anything about a New World Order, a third world war, or a globalized feudal system. Nor have we been able to find such references in any other public statements uttered by Jeff Rothschild over the past two decades. conference This utter lack of evidence hasn't stopped anyone from promulgating these falsehoods, however. We ran across a similar quote shared by someone using the Twitter handle "truther monkey" in 2014: shared Jeff Rothschild gave this speech recently in China to some of the world's richest people ... please share .. pic.twitter.com/dPCqyyo8KT pic.twitter.com/dPCqyyo8KT  truther monkey (@Thedyer1971) April 4, 2014 April 4, 2014 Though their precise points of origin are uncertain, we traced both quotes to a 3 August 2013 post on a now-defunct "underground anarchist" blog called Anarchadia. Crucially, the anonymous author of the post cited no sources authenticating the statements. post "Where is the evidence he actually said these things?" asked someone in the comments section of the page. "Where is the evidence he didn't?" was the response  a low evidentiary bar indeed. As is the case in so much conspiracist discourse, the very existence of the quotes, if real, would be self-contradictory anyway. By definition, the Illuminati conduct their business in absolute secrecy, yet we find them, time and time again (going all the way back to the fictitious 1903 Protocols of the Elders of Zion), allegedly revealing their entire subversive agenda in public. Protocols of the Elders of Zion If that's as secretive they can be, we have nothing to fear from our supposed Illuminati overlords. Eaton, Kit. "The Facebook IPO Players Club: Jeff Rothschild."
Fast Company. 3 February 2012. Hahn, Jason Duaine. "So, What Exactly Is the Illuminati Conspiracy?"
Complex. 20 February 2015. Mac, Ryan. "Meet New Billionaire Jeff Rothschild, the Engineer Who Saved Facebook from Crashing."
Forbes. 28 February 2014. Rosenwald, Michael S. "The Rothschilds, a Pamphlet by 'Satan' and Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories Tied to a Battle 200 Years Ago."
The Washington Post. 20 April 2018. Sales, Ben. "Nearly 200 Years of Anti-Semitic Conspiracies Continue to Cloud Rothschilds."
The Times of Israel. 22 March 2018. Shasha, Han. "Facebook VP Talks at Summit on Startup Strategy."
People's Daily Online. 14 January 2013. Anarchadia. "Jeff Rothschild Helps the U.S. Military Censor Civilians."
3 August 2013. Forbes.com. "Profile: Jeff Rothschild."
18 May 2018. The New York Times. "Obituary: Marcus Rothschild, a Rubber Broker, 75."
11 June 1962. The Rothschild Archive. "A to Z Listing of Rothschild Family Members."
Accessed 18 May 2018. Shift Frequency. "The Dark Agenda Behind Globalism and Open Borders."
28 October 2016. United States Holocaust Museum. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
Accessed 18 May 2018. Its not cheap to build anything in California. Land and labor is expensive and the state has some of the strictest environmental permitting rules anywhere. Those factors all drive up the cost of building homes, stores and even roads. Republican candidate for governor John Cox has pledged that, if elected, hell hack through Californias thicket of regulations, in an effort to reduce expenses. Specifically, Cox wants to reform the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, an agency he has described as overstaffed and wasteful. Recently, he claimed Caltrans spends an exorbitant amount to build and maintain each mile of roadway compared with other states. It costs nearly five times as much in California to build and maintain a mile of road as it does in the rest of the nation, Cox said in an interview published on thePolitical Vanguard websiteon Oct. 19, 2017. Cox made a similar claim in aSan Francisco Chronicleop-edon Oct. 18, 2017: California spends 4.7 times the national average for every mile of roadway we build and maintain, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute. CEI is a libertarian think tank which sourced the statistic to the Reason Foundation, another free market think tank. Following both statements, Cox went on to advocate for greater reliance on private construction to reduce expenses. Theres a debate about why its so expensive to build roads in California. But were not fact-checking that debate. Instead, were zeroing in on Coxs specific claims that California's road spending is nearly five times per mile compared with other states. Background on John Cox On his campaignwebsite, Cox describes himself as a Jack Kemp-style Republican who grew up on Chicagos south-side. Today, hes a San Diego businessman who founded an organization that repairs the homes of low-income seniors and individuals with disabilities. His priorities, as listed on his website, include lowering Californias taxes and fighting the influence of special interests. Cox is the chairman of Give Voters a Voice, an effort to repeal Californias recent gas tax increase, which was signed into law this year to raise money for road repairs. The increase includes a 12-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase, which went into effect this week. Our research We asked Coxs campaign for evidence supporting his claims. It pointed to recent reports by the Reason Foundation, which studies transportation spending. In 2013, the foundation published its20th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems. That report shows California spent nearly $680,000 per mile in 2009 on roadways. That was 4.7 times as much as the national average of approximately $144,000 per mile spent in other states. That matches Coxs claim of nearly five times as much. But our research shows, and Coxs campaign has acknowledged, the information from 2009 is outdated. Anupdated 2016 Reason Foundation studyshows California spent about $420,000 per mile in 2013 compared with the national average spending of about $160,000 per mile in the same year. That data places Californias spending at about 2.5 times the national average, far less than Coxs claims. We asked Coxs staff about the discrepancy. David Kersten, a policy analyst with the campaign, said the candidate didnt have the most up-to-date figures. When he wrote that (San Francisco Chronicle) op-ed, he didnt have that new number, Kersten told us in an interview. Everybody was using the older report. Matt Shupe, Coxs campaign spokesman, said he and Kersten would update Cox on the new figure and use it in future statements. High admin costs Coxs staff noted that one category of Californias road spending, administrative costs, totals nearly five times as much the national average, even in the 2016 report. We checked and the report does show that, though Coxs staffers acknowledged thats not the same statement the candidate made in the op-ed or in his Political Vanguard interview and at the center of this fact check. Caltrans, the agency targeted by Cox, disagrees with the methodology of the Reason Foundation studies. A Caltrans spokesman said much of the studies roadway data is from local streets and roads not built or maintained by the state. The spokesman also noted that Californias state roadways are larger and more congested than in other states, making them more expensive to build and maintain. Representatives for the Reason Foundation did not respond to our interview requests. Our ruling Republican candidate for governor John Cox recently claimed it costs nearly five times as much in California to build and maintain a mile of road as it does in the rest of the nation. A study using 2009 data shows California spent 4.7 times as much per mile as the national average on roads. Updated data from 2013 shows the states spending still far above the national average at about 2.5 times the cost per mile, but far lower than Coxs figure. Coxs campaign staff told us the candidate relied on outdated information and would be updating this figure in future statements. While the candidates larger point about higher road spending in California appears to be correct, his specific claim about it being nearly five times as much per mile is outdated and wrong. We rate it False. FALSEThe statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Governors race John Cox is among several candidates competing to succeed Jerry Brown in the 2018 California governor's race. Others include Republican state AssemblymanTravis Allen, Former Los Angeles MayorAntonio Villaraigosa; California TreasurerJohn Chiang;Delaine Eastin, the states former superintendent for public instruction; andGavin Newsom, the states current lieutenant governor. PolitiFact California is fact-checking claims in this race. See ourTracking The Truthgovernors race fact-checkshere. Tracking the Truth: Hear a claim you want fact-checked? Email us at[email protected], tweet us@CAPolitiFactor contact us onFacebook. On the heels of the longest federal government shutdown in United States history, and on the potential precipice of another shutdown in February 2019, Facebook users started to share a meme about how the country of Australia handled their own government shutdown back in 1975:   The text of the meme stated: "In 1975 Australia had a government shutdown. In the end, all the members of Parliament were fired and then elections were held to restart from scratch. They haven't had another shutdown since." This meme is largely accurate. Australia's government was effectively shutdown due to a budget impasse in October 1975, the prime minister was dismissed, both houses of Parliament were dissolved, and a new election was held. Since then, Australia has not had another government shutdown. However, Australia's constitutional crisis in 1975, often referred to as "The Dismissal," was a bit more complicated than portrayed in this meme. Furthermore, the meme is often offered up on social media as a solution to government shutdowns in the United States, but Australia's government doesn't function in the same manner as the U.S. government. Some of the key differences that enabled "The Dismissal" to occur in Australia is that the country is both a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy, which means that despite Australia's having elected officials, the head of state in Australia is still the Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms, as represented by the governor-general). While the Queen rarely exercises her power and is often viewed as a mere figurehead in Australia, the monarch (and in turn the governor-general) is afforded some powers in the country's constitution. During the constitutional crisis of 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr used his constitutional authority to dismiss Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. constitutional monarchy Australia's constitution also permits a "double dissolution" procedure to resolve deadlocks between the House and Senate: The Australian Constitution gives almost identical powers to the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill (proposed law) must be agreed to by both houses in order to become law. The drafters of the Constitution saw the possibility of a deadlock occurring between the two houses, in which there may be disagreement over a bill. Section 57 of the Constitution provides a mechanism to resolve the disagreement, by dissolving both houses of Parliament and calling an election to let the voters decide what the outcome will be. The double dissolution mechanism only relates to a bill that originates in the House of Representatives. While the viral meme states that members of parliament were "fired" due to the government shutdown, that isn't exactly accurate. Both houses of parliament were dissolved, so all of the seats in the House and Senate went up for election again. The "fired" lawmakers therefore still had a chance to retain their seats by winning them back in a subsequent election. In 1975, Prime Minister Whitlam and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) held a majority in the House of Representatives, but the Opposition controlled the Senate. When the two parties failed to pass appropriations bills to fund the government, Governor-General Kerr dismissed the prime minister and commissioned Malcom Fraser of the Liberal Party as the caretaker prime minister. Fraser then passed an appropriations bill, and Kerr dissolved Parliament, setting up a double dissolution election to be held the following month. Here's a summary of what took place from the Australian Broadcast Corporation: Australian Broadcast Corporation The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government by the Governor-General, on November 11, 1975, still stands as the most dramatic and controversial event in Australias political history. The decision of the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, to dismiss the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and install the Liberal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, as caretaker prime minister, on condition that he called an election, was a sensational development that ended a three-week parliamentary stand-off. The crisis began on October 15, when the Opposition parties announced they would block the governments Supply Bills in the Senate, as a means of forcing the government to an election. Whitlam refused to call an election and three weeks of parliamentary debate and public campaigning convulsed the political system. On November 11, Whitlam sought a half-Senate election from the Governor-General. Kerr rejected the advice and dismissed Whitlam. He commissioned Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister. Fraser immediately secured the passage of Supply through the Senate and recommended a double dissolution of the parliament. The election was held on December 13, 1975. The Fraser-led Coalition won the largest victory in Australias federal history. The Parliament of Australia website provided some additional context to this historic event: context Several weeks later, and after intense negotiations and a third attempt to enact the appropriation bills, the new Governor-General took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of acting at his own initiative to invoke his power under sec. 62 of the Constitution: There shall be a Federal Executive Council [in practice, the Government] to advise the GovernorGeneral in the government of the Commonwealth, and the members of the Council shall be chosen and summoned by the GovernorGeneral and sworn as Executive Councillors, and shall hold office during his pleasure. (emphasis added) Governor-General Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Government, even though it still enjoyed majority support in the House of Representatives to which, by constitutional convention, it was responsible. To replace it, Kerr appointed a caretaker Liberal Government with Fraser as prime minister. In justifying his decision, the Governor-General argued that, in the Australian system, the confidence of both Houses on supply is necessary to ensure its provision: When ... an Upper House possesses the power to reject a money bill including an appropriation bill, and exercises the power by denying supply, the principle that a government which has been denied supply by the Parliament should resign or go to an election must still applyit is a necessary consequence of Parliamentary control of appropriation and expenditure and of the expectation that the ordinary and necessary services of Government will continue to be provided. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 104) In this position the Governor-General was supported by the Chief Justice, who wrote that: the Senate has constitutional power to refuse to pass a money bill; it has power to refuse supply to the Government of the day. ... a Prime Minister who cannot ensure supply to the Crown, including funds for carrying on the ordinary services of Government, must either advise a general election (of a kind which the constitutional situation may then allow) or resign. (quoted in Odgers Australian Senate Practice 2001: 105) Not surprisingly, the two houses reacted very differently. The Senate acted almost instantaneously to pass the stalled appropriation bills. The House agreed to a motion expressing its lack of confidence in the newly-designated prime minister and requesting the Speaker to ask the Governor-General to have Whitlam again form a government. But before the Speaker was allowed to deliver this message, the Governor-General declared, at Frasers request and by pre-arrangement, a double dissolution of both houses. As Solomon put it: In the 1975 double dissolution, the Governor-General had to dismiss a Prime Minister (who controlled a majority in the House of Representatives) and appoint another (who lacked the confidence of that House) to find an advisor who was prepared to recommend to him the course he wished to adoptnamely the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament under section 57. (Solomon 1978: 169) While some Americans may look at Australia's constitutional crisis of 1975 as a "solution" to modern U.S. government shutdowns, "The Dismissal" remains one of the most controversial events in Australia's history:  Australia.gov.au.  "How Government Works."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. AustralianPolitics.com.  "Comparing the American and Australian Political Systems."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Whitlamdismissal.com.  "What Happened."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Barnett, Bronwyn.  "The Dismissal: Through the News Camera Lens."
  National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max.  "The Crisis of 1974-75."
  Parliament of Australia.  Retrieved 14 February 2019. ABC.Net.Au.  "The Dismissal, Australia's Constitutional Crisis."
  Retrieved 14 February 2019. Fisher, Max.  "Australia Had a Government Shutdown Once. In the End, the Queen Fired Everyone in Parliament."
  The Washington Post.  1 October 2013. 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. On 5 March 2019, a conspiracy-minded Twitter account shared a video purporting to be from the site of a construction project funded by West Virginia taxpayer money for the purpose of housing 321 Syrian refugees. The video also claimed this was being done at the expense of regular Americans who, the man claims, were being pushed into substandard housing. He asserted that the area he was standing in will be a sharia zone, and no non-Muslims will be allowed to enter: a video  Several factual problems exist with assertions in this video. Chief among them is the fact that this video shows the Littlepage Terrace housing project, a low-income, housing tax-credit property allocated through the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, which houses zero Syrian refugees and many regular Americans. Several lines of evidence support this conclusion. First, someone who works next to the project refers to it as Littlepage: Littlepage Terrace   Second, a wider, composite view of the mans video shows clearly identifiable markers of the Littlepage housing complex, including a tell-tale smokestack and buildings that exactly match the structures built at Littlepage:   For comparison, heres video shot at Littlepage:  Third, Mark Taylor, the chief executive officer of Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority, which works with the Littlepage Terrace project, confirmed to us by email that the suspect video was taken at that site during renovations that likely occurred in May 2017. He also confirmed to us that the community houses no Syrian refugees. Another significant oversight in the tweeted narrative is that the entire state of West Virginia has taken in far less than 321 Syrian refugees in total. In 2016, the year the United States took in the largest number of Syrian refugees, West Virginia resettled only five of them in their state. On 1 February 2017, the Trump Administration announced Executive Order 13769, commonly referred to as the travel ban," which indefinitely suspended the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States. In 2017, West Virginia took in 13 refugees, but these individuals were not necessarily Syrian. largest number only five travel ban 13 refugees It is true that Littlepage was torn down and rebuilt, but that decision had nothing to do with refugee housing. Instead, the renovations aimed to reduce crime and revitalize the area, as reported by West Virginias WCHS television station in 2016: reported The Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority is now on the last phase of revitalizing three housing projects. Similar to Orchard Manor and Washington Manor, Littlepage Terrace will be demolished and rebuilt as two-story town homes.  This housing project was built nearly 80 years ago with no air conditioning and poor visibility. Now it is simply not a secure living space.  The goal for these new developments is to reduce crime and revitalize the area. Because the housing complex displayed was not built for Syrian refugees, and because the state has taken virtually no Syrian refugees at all, we rank the claims made in this video as aggressively and demonstrably false. Charleston-Kanawha Housing.  Developments - Littlepage Terrace."
  Accessed 14 March 2019. Zong, Jie, and Jeanne Batalova.  Syrian Refugees in the United States
  Migration Policy Institute.  17 January 2017. Beck, Erin.  Few Syrian Refugees Resettle in WV, At Least for Now.
  Charleston Gazette-Mail.  2 September 2016. Whitehouse.gov.  Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States."
  27 January 2017. U.S. Department of State.  Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2019."
  24 September 2018. Gunderson, Kaela.  Residents, Housing Officials Hope Littlepage Terrace Project Will Boost Safety.
  WCHS/WCAH ABC 8.  3 August 2016. Claim:  A construction worker survived an accident that poked an 18-inch-long drill bit through one eye and out the side of his skull.    . Origins:  Although we dread the gory industrial accidents that leave their victims dead or result in the loss of a limb (or more), other types of on-the-job injuries can strike us as far more horrific. One such accident took place on 15 August 2003, when Ron Hunt, a Truckee, California, construction worker, landed face-first on a large drill  bit. Hunt was working in the Tahoe Donner Subdivision in Truckee, standing atop a six-foot ladder while drilling over his head, when he gave the drill an extra push to bore a hole.  As he felt the ladder begin to wobble out from under him, he tried tossing his power drill aside (a standard practice in the construction industry, intended to prevent workers from injuring themselves attempting to regain grips on out-of-control power tools) before falling to the ground.  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to throw the drill far enough away, and he landed upon it face-first.  The 18-inch-long, 1.5-inch diameter chip auger drill bit pierced Hunt's right eye and exited through the side of his skull.  As Hunt described the mishap: By the time I was falling, and I let the drill go down, I was already on top of it.  The drill was facing up but it was off. When the drill hit, it just exploded my eye. It skewered me. I ran my hands up the drill bit, up to my eye, and put my other hand in the back of my head and felt it coming through the back of my head, and that's where pretty much the shock set in. The first thing I thought was 'Am I going to die?' I knew it was serious. I was scared. I didn't know if it was in my brain or not. The only other worker on the site that morning, Forrest Keating, heard Hunt call for help and rushed to assist him: The first thing I saw was this drill sticking out about 6 inches from the back of his head and 6 inches out the front. It was a trip, like something out of a horror movie. I was amazed he was still alive. Keating removed his shirt and attempted to stem the flow of blood gushing from Hunt's eye by wrapping the shirt around the drill.  He then ran   300 yards to a nearby house to summon medical help, and when paramedics arrived they released the body of the drill from the bit and loaded Hunt onto a gurney.  Hunt (conscious throughout his ordeal) was then flown by helicopter to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, where doctors pondered their options for treating the bizarre injury.  Miraculously, although the drill bit tunneled between Hunt's scalp and his skull as it came out of the side of his head, it pushed his brain aside rather than pushing into it, sparing him from death, brain damage, or paralysis.  Dr. Paul Ludlow, an ear, nose and throat specialist who was the facial trauma physician on call that morning, initially intended to cut off the drill bit but eventually decided that the best approach was to, in effect, unscrew it from Hunt's head: We had to either cut down on it, which meant making a rather long incision through a lot of muscle, or just unscrew it - twist it all the way through and out. We would have cut it off, but after a few minutes of drilling, we noticed that it was loose. And so we just put down our blade and twisted the bit. Hunt had sufficiently recovered from his injuries by early September to appear on national television programs such as CNN News and ABC's "Good Morning America."  Although he was truly fortunate not to have suffered more severe injuries (or damage to his motor or speech skills), he came away from the accident far from unscathed: besides suffering a fractured skull (which required a second operation to insert two titanium plates to reinforce the fractured bone), he lost an eye and now faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and rehabilitation costs.  According to news accounts, Hunt is not covered by state compensation for on-the-job injuries, and he was a self-employed worker with no medical insurance. Injuries of this type always call to mind the case of Phineas Gage, who in 1848 survived an accident which blew a 3-foot, 7-inch tamping iron under a cheek bone and completely out through the top of his head.   Although Gage lived on for almost another dozen years, he suffered dramatic changes in personality and was subject to epileptic seizures in his final months. Phineas Gage Last updated:  14 July 2006    Sources:   Hess, Scott.  "Man Survives Horrific Construction Accident."   Sierra Sun.  27 August 2003.    Powers, Lenita.  "Freak Accident Draws National Attention."   Reno Gazette-Journal.  2 September 2003.    Associated Press.  "Man Survives 18-Inch Drill Bit Through Head; X-Ray Proves It."   Reno Gazette-Journal.  2 September 2003.    Associated Press.  "Construction Worker Survives Drill Through Head."   CNN.com.  3 September 2003. Claim:  In 2002 you could trigger a $1 donation to paralysis research by sending a birthday greeting to actor Christopher Reeve.   . Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] Please forward this email to your friends and encourage them to sign Christopher Reeve's birthday card at https://www.christopherreeve.org. For every signed birthday card, an anonymous donor will contribute $1 to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. Help support CRPF and Christopher by telling your friends!  Together we can raise even more money for paralysis research. Origins:  Most everyone familiar with actor Christopher Reeve (most famous for his portrayal of comic book superhero Superman in a series of four films between 1978 and 1987) knows that he had been paralyzed from the shoulders down since being thrown from a horse in a 1995 accident.  Reeve fell on his head, fracturing his first and second cervical vertebrae and damaging the nerve fibers of his spinal cord just below the brain stem; the injury left him a quadriplegic, dependent upon a ventilator to breathe and a power wheelchair for movement.   Christopher Reeve Superman Reeve (who died in 2004)   again came into the news in 2002 with the announcement of some small but extraordinary improvements in his condition.  Although doctors believed he had permanently lost all instantaneous and voluntary motor control and sensation below the shoulders, Reeve was able to move his right wrist and the fingers of his left hand, straighten his arms and legs and move them around in a swimming pool, breathe on his own for up to two hours without the aid of a respirator, and had regained the ability to distinguish between hot and cold and up to two-thirds of a normal sense of touch.   For the years prior to the improvements noted in 2002, Reeve had also devoted a good deal of his time and effort to raising funds for research to develop treatments and cures for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury and other central nervous system disorders and for programs aimed at improving the quality of life for people living with disabilities, causes he supported as Chairman of the Board of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation (CRPF). CRPF In honor of Christopher Reeve's 50th birthday celebration on 25 September 2002, the CRPF web site offered visitors a chance to send virtual birthday greetings to the actor.  An anonymous donor offered to contribute $1 to the CRPF for every birthday greeting sent.   birthday greetings The usual question is: "Is this for real?"  The CRPF wouldn't provide us with details of who was funding the birthday greeting donations (that's what "anonymous" is all about, after all), but there's no reason to believe this program was anything other than what it claimed to be.  Participants didn't need to provide anything other than their names and addresses, and for the cynical who believed this was just another address-harvesting scheme, the CRPF's privacy policy promised that they "will not disclose your e-mail address or any other contact information you have provided."  (For the ultra-cynical,  we point out that you can always lie to the computer; it won't know the difference.) privacy policy Last updated:  8 October 2007    Sources:   Kluger, Jeffrey.  "Against All the Odds."   Time.  16 September 2002.     Talan, Jamie.  "Reeve's 'Exciting' Progress Lifts Hopes."   Newsday.  24 September 2002. Elizabeth Warren pins a lot of hopes on her ultra-millionaire tax. The Democratic presidential candidate would like to put a 2% levy on assets over the $50 million mark, and 3% on those over $1 billion. The revenues would pay for her plans to pay for universal child care, student debt forgiveness and other programs she has in mind. In a Fox News op-ed, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation noted that a wealth tax isnt a new idea. Joel Griffith said many European nations have tried it. And scrapped it. Of the 14 wealthy (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries with a wealth tax in 1996, 10 have since then abandoned it, Griffith wroteApril 28. We found different numbers, but there has been a turn away from wealth taxes. And with Warrens plan on the table, the European experience is worth exploring. Griffith got his numbers from an article on the website of theTax Foundation, a group that is concerned about the ways that taxes distort business decisions. The foundations analysis drew on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based international body that has its roots in the post-war recovery of Europe. The OECD datashows 13 countries collected revenues from net wealth taxes in 1996, measured in local currency. But it shows 14 when measured as a percentage of GDP. We cant account for the difference. Theres another twist. One of those countries is Austria, but Austria ended its wealth tax in 1994. So the actual count that year was either 12 or 13. (Its only slightly off from what Griffith wrote, but we care about these details.) Tallying the countries that have a wealth tax today is even trickier, largely because definitions vary. We found room for debate over what constitutes a wealth tax. All wealth taxes tax things that are owned, not money earned, but they vary in a couple of key respects. They might target the wealthy (Norways tax, for example, affects net worth above 1.48 million Norwegian Kroner) or a broader swath of residents. And some tax all assets, while others  such as Belgium with stocks and bonds, or France with real estate  focus only on specific assets. A 2018 report from the respected German-based think tankIfo Institute for Economic Researchcounted just three countries with a wealth tax: Switzerland, Norway and Spain. But the authors noted that Italy and the Netherlands also tax wealth in limited ways, and France swapped a broad wealth tax for a narrow one on real estate wealth that kicks in on property worth at least 1.3 million Euros. The international accounting firmErnst and Youngaffirmed that Italy does have a wealth tax. Another accounting firmKPMG reported in 2018 that Belgiumadded a wealth tax when it imposed a tax on securities, such as stocks and bonds. To make things even more complicated, some OECD countries dropped, added, or changed their wealth taxes since 1996. The Tax Foundation article Griffith relied on said that today, six OECD countries had wealth taxes in one form or another. (One of its charts showed four, but that stopped counting in 2017.) How to sort this out? By the strictest definition, today only three wealthy OECD countries have a wealth tax. With a looser standard, as many as seven do. (Some tallies include Hungary, but it might not count as a wealthy country, as the claim says.) The general reason European countries dropped their wealth taxes was they were more trouble than they were worth. In Germany, the tax was found unconstitutional, but it wasnt raising that much money anyway. Areview of the wealth tax optionby the European Commission said that in the past, determining the value of assets was challenging and cheating was easier. Opportunities of avoidance and evasion reduce the capacity of wealth taxes to generate revenue, and they contribute to the perception that wealth taxes produce little net benefit, the report said. Decisions to repeal net wealth taxes have often been justified by efficiency and administrative concerns, OECD analystswrote in a 2018 report. The revenues collected from net wealth taxes have also, with a few exceptions, been very low. Switzerland reaps far more than other nations, taking in revenues equal to 1% of GDP. But Norway brings in 0.4% and Spain 0.2%. Of the countries that did away with a wealth tax, Denmark was typical. In 1996, the tax brought in just 0.1% of GDP. The earlier taxes also tended to reach down into the middle class, not just the uber-rich. Getting rid of them was politically popular. For some, the European experience casts a deep shadow over Warrens proposal. Wojciech Kopczuk, an economist at Columbia University, warned that no matter what, valuing assets is tough. (Warrens) plan would apply only to the very rich, Kopczuk said. That does not at all resolve administrative problems. Those are as daunting in the United State as in Europe. On the other hand, Kopczuk added that a tax that starts at $50 million could hold popular support. Theres also a difference in overall tax regimes. The OECD analysts said that the arguments for and against a wealth tax depend on all the other tax laws in a given country. In that light, Reuven Avi-Yonah, director of the international tax program at the University of Michigan Law School, said Europe is not at all like America. Income tax rates and sometime inheritance taxes are higher in Europe, Avi-Yonah said. This means there is less need to tax the rich through a wealth tax. Weve looked before at the debatewhether Warrens plan would raise as much as she hopes. Warrens campaign staff told us that they have learned the lessons from Europe. They argue that focusing on the 76,000 wealthiest people and taxing all assets with no complicating exceptions would lighten the administrative burden. Theres also a hint that Europe is taking a second look at wealth taxes. Both the OECD and the European Commission wrote of a renewed interest in wealth taxation. Griffith said that of the 14 wealthy OECD countries with a wealth tax in 1996, 10 have since then abandoned it. We found there are different ways to consider wealth taxes, and Griffith used the strictest one based on dated information. We found that either 12 or 13 countries had a wealth tax in 1996, and nine ended their taxes since then. Today, six or seven European nations have some form of a wealth taxes, either broad ones or narrow ones. The meaning of the European experience from two decades ago is debatable, but thats not the basis for our ruling. We looked only at the countries and their tax laws. The numbers in the statement are off. European countries did move away from the wealth taxes, but not quite to the extent stated in the op-ed. We rate this claim Mostly True. Fix Austin Schools, a group advocating voter approval of four bond propositions benefiting the Austin school district, slammed Gov. Rick Perrys education plan in a leaflet fielded by local voters in early May 2013.Under the word cut in capital letters, one side of the leaflet says: Under Rick Perry, Texas has CUT funding for public schools by 25%, a conclusion attributed to PolitiFact.Lynda Rife, a consultant to the group, told us the claim echoed our January 2013 review of Perrys statement to reporters at the time that Texas public school funding grew at three times the rate of enrollment from 2002 to 2012.In raw terms, there was a basis for Perrys claim. However, after adjusting for inflation and the effect of an annual tax swap put in motion by lawmakers and Perry in 2006, we concluded that Texas schools in 2012 were fielding 25 percent less in state aid than what they reaped in 2002. Perrys claim drew arating of False.At the time, we looked at enrollment changes and at both overall school spending, counting dollars from state, federal and local sources, and state education aid alone.EnrollmentEnrollment increased about 20 percent from 2001-02 to 2011-12, from more than 4.1 million to nearly 5 million students, according to a December 2012 report by the Texas Education Agency. By email, agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe told us 2012-13 enrollment was expected to exceed 5 million, a figure subsequently confirmed, Ratcliffe told us recently by email.Overall spendingOverall school expenditures totaled $27.9 billion in 2002 and $44.2 billion in 2012, according to a chart from the Legislative Budget Board, which tracks fiscal issues for lawmakers.That makes for a difference of 58 percent, though thats also before adjusting for inflation, which the boards staff did by converting figures to 2004 dollars using an inflation adjuster devised by the federal government, the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government.In 2004 dollars, Texas public school spending in 2002 totaled $30.1 billion. In 2012, the total was $33.3 billion--11 percent greater than in 2002.By this measure, then, it looks like school enrollment went up faster than spending. Then again, we learned, these figures were not behind Perrys statement.State spending alonePerrys then-spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, told us by email that Perry was referring to the difference in state education spending alone as those are the funds the state has control over.The budget boards chart shows $10.9 billion in state spending on the schools in 2002 and $18.9 billion in 2012, for a 73 percent difference, or a little more than Perrys declared 70 percent.Adjusting for inflation, though, reduces the increase to 20 percent, which was still outpacing enrollment growth. In 2004 dollars, such spending was $14.2 billion in 2012, compared with $11.8 billion in 2002.Another crucial factorAnalyst Eva DeLuna Castro of the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities and school lobbyist Lynn Moak, a former Texas Education Agency official, each pointed out another wrinkle, suggesting that any consideration of state education spending should take into account changes in law approved in 2006 resulting in the state picking up about $7 billion more in annual costs in return for school districts cutting local maintenance and operation property tax rates.Castro said by email: The property tax cut was $14.2 billion a biennium, or $7.1 billion every year. That means the state had to put in that amount of money a year to offset local property taxes falling by the same amount.The shift in funding sources did not, in itself, step up aid received by the schools, Castro said.Moak said by phone: This was simply a source-of-funds transfer.To adjust for the annual cost shift, we subtracted $7.1 billion from the state spending in 2012, suggesting a $0.9 billion difference from the 2002 spending. However, adjusting for inflation makes the 2012 state spending equal $8.2 billion in 2002 dollars--25 percent less than the $10.9 billion spent in 2002, which also would mean that spending trailed enrollment growth.For this article, finally, we weighed the message that the reduced spending was Perrys education plan. Perry was governor through all the spending decisions, but the reality is that Republican majorities of the 150-member House and 31-member Senate were needed to pass the decisions into law. Perry was key, but he didn't dictate actions. No governor can.Our rulingThe pro-bonds group said that under Perrys education plan, Texas has cut funding for public schools by 25 percent.State education spending in 2012 was 25 percent lower than it was in 2002, adjusting for inflation and the real effects of the 2006 law giving the state more responsibility for education revenues.Yet Perry didnt cause the reduction by himself; lawmakers acted, too. This clarification is missing from the groups statement, which we rate as Mostly True.