Jesus Statue 'Miraculously' Opens Eyes
A viral video purporting to show a statue of Jesus Christ in Mexico miraculously opening and closing its eyes captured a fair amount of international media attention in early August 2016.  "SPOOKY footage has emerged of a statue of Jesus appearing to open its eyes, with many believers claiming the spectacle is a miracle," UK tabloid The Sun reported on 10 August. The coverage continued: reported Investigators have scoured over the vision which appears to show the figure quickly open its eyes at a church in Mexico. Social media users were quick to comment on the clip filmed in the Chapel of Saltillo, saying it was merely an optical illusion or Photoshop job. What a coincidence that there was someone there to record it, one person wrote. Paranormal investigator Ivan Escamilla of the web site Adimensional, where the video was first posted, was undaunted by the skeptical reaction, claiming the video had been examined "for weeks" by more than 20 specialists, including priests, who "found no proof it had been doctored," the Mirror reported. According to the Argentinian newspaper El Ancasti, officials of the Diocese of Saltillo, who were the first to receive the video, declined to even view it, much less issue a statement about its authenticity. Adimensional reported El Ancasti As an exercise in documenting paranormal activity, there is frankly very little to recommend the footage. It's dark, blurry, shaky and low-resolution. As has been pointed out, the serendipitous timing of the video is suspicious. One does see the statue apparently open and close its eyes, but the sequence is more apt to bring to mind the cheesy special effects in a low-budget horror film than the impression that a miracle has occurred. The most striking thing is how thoroughly creepy and terrifying Jesus Christ's eyes look when they're open. If it is a miracle, it's a very odd miracle indeed. The best clue to the fact that the video was doctored is the fact that alterations in other areas of the image occur at precisely the same moments the eyes open and close. For example, here, in sequence, are three frames showing the statue's eyes wide open, in the process of closing, and completely closed. Observe the changes in the shadows around the eyes and  not to be indelicate, but this is a giveaway  the change in the shape of Jesus' right nipple:       If the only thing happening in these relatively stable frames were the closing of the statue's eyes, no other changes ought to be visible. But changes are visible, especially when the footage is viewed at slow speed or frame-by-frame. For a much better demonstration of this than we can provide here, please give your attention to the video below uploaded by the Australian Phenomena YouTube channel. It seems the maker of this video, a UFO researcher named Dylan, had no trouble whatsoever finding the evidence of fakery that 20 previous experts (and priests) failed to detect. video
Claim:  Chart shows top 20 raises given to White House staffers in 2010. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2011] Well here you go folks - outrageous salary increases at the WH.  Go Google and set your search parm to white house top 20 raises and you'll get everything you want to know about this article. What the heck does a Director of African-American Media do to get an 86% increase? Hang out over at Black Entertainment TV or maybe sit around and read Ebony? Remember in November Remember: no Cost of Living Adjustment for seniors for two years.  HMMM...17% to 86% RAISES IN SALARY FOR HIS WHITE HOUSE STAFF MEMBERS!!. NO WONDER WE CAN'T HAVE A COST OF LIVING INCREASE & HE WANTS TO NOW RAISE OUR TAXES ALSO. SOUNDS LIKE THE ADMINISTRATION IS REALLY LOOKING OUT FOR THE VOTERS, DOESN'T IT ????    Origins:  This graphic detailing the "White House's Top 20 Raises" (which actually includes 21 entries) originated as an accompaniment to a 6 July 2011 Gawker article entitled "White House Staffers Got a Raise Last Year, And You Did Not."   graphic article The chart is accurate as far as it goes, but by itself it does not include the context that 19 of the 21 staffers listed also received new job titles, so the pay increases were not straight raises but came in tandem with promotions and/or increased job responsibilities.  The Gawker article also noted that, because the number of paid staffers decreased from 466 in 2010 to 451 in 2011, the White House's salary budget actually dropped from $38.8 million to $37.1 million, and the average salary for staffers also dropped from $82,721 to $81,765 (about 65% above the median household income). Last updated:  11 August 2011    Fader, Carole.  "White House Staff Got Pay Raises, But There's More to the Story."   Jacksonville.com.  7 August 2011. In March 2016, photos showing a bottle of Coca-Cola with the words "share a Coke with the KKK" written on its label started circulating online:    This is not a real product sold by Coca-Cola. While the "Share a Coke" campaign allows Coca-Cola drinkers to personalize their cans, some words or phrases (such as "KKK") are not available:    The image showing the "KKK" bottle was created for an online petition on the web site Color Of Change, asking the company to pull its sponsorship of the Republican National Convention due to Donald Trump's failure to condemn the KKK in an interview: petition interview Even with Trump refusing to disavow the support of the Ku Klux Klan this weekend and declaring All Lives Matter at a rally, Coca-Cola and other companies still have not canceled their sponsorship of the RNC. How can Coca-Cola, a company that heavily markets to and profits from Black people, fund a platform for a presidential nominee that is being bolstered into office by former Grand Wizard David Duke, the KKK, and other white supremacists? The petition presupposes both that Coca-Cola will be sponsoring the 2016 Republican National Convention, and that Coca-Cola would be effectively endorsing the Ku Klux Klan by sponsoring the RNC. On 23 February 2016, representatives from the advocacy groups ColorofChange, Americas Voice, CREDO Action, Million Hoodies, MoveOn, and Presente.org admitted as much in an open letter to Coca-Cola and other alleged sponsors of the 2016 RNC: letter Based on your corporate sponsorship of the 2012 Republican National Convention we have reason to believe that your company is planning to again sponsor the RNC this year. We believe it is a sign of strong corporate leadership for you and your company to refrain from sponsoring Donald Trumps hateful and divisive rhetoric. While Coca-Cola did sponsor the Republican National Convention in 2012, the company also sponsored the Democratic National Convention that year: sponsored Many of the sponsors of the Democratic convention were also sponsors of the host committee in Tampa for last week's Republican National Convention. "The Coca-Cola Company believes we have a role to play in the political process and that includes helping to make the political conventions a success," said Coca-Cola spokeswoman Nancy Bailey. In Gov. Andrew Cuomos 10th State of the State address last week, he claimed that under his administration, We have the lowest corporate tax rate since 1968. New Yorks business climate has for years been thesubject of criticismfrom business groups and conservative lawmakers, so we wondered about this claim. We approached Cuomos office, where spokesman Jason Conwall provided us with historical tax data. The Department of Taxation and Finance maintains this data, and atabletitled History of Corporate Tax Rates in New York State, 1917-2009, shows that between 1968 and 1970, the corporate tax rate, also known as the corporation franchise tax, was 7 percent. The rate did not fall below 7 percent in later years, and in the final year, 2009, the rate was 7.1 percent. Since 2009, the rate changed once, when it was lowered to 6.5 percent, Conwall said. The 6.5 percent ratetook effect on Jan. 1, 2016. Historically, New York has had separate rates for banks and insurance companies. The bank tax wasmergedinto the corporate tax system in 2015. We reached out to observers of the states tax policies for context and to check for any conflicting data. The Tax Foundation, a national organization, studies federal and state tax policy and advocated for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act supported by President Trump and congressional Republicans. The Tax Foundation confirmed Cuomos claim. New York saw remarkable improvement in both its corporate rate - bringing it down to 6.5 percent - and structure - cutting four corporate bases down to three - through tax reform in 2014, said policy analyst Janelle Cammenga. The Tax Foundation advocates for simpler tax codes, and Cammenga noted that New Yorks complex individual income tax code affects so-called pass-through businesses, such as partnerships, sole-proprietorships, and limited liability companies. E.J. McMahon, founder and research director at the conservative Empire Center, also confirmed Cuomos claim. McMahon added that in the 12-county region in downstate New York served by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, a surcharge brings the tax rate to 8.34 percent there. But even with the surcharge, its still the lowest rate since 1970, McMahon said. At the left-leaning Fiscal Policy Institute, executive director Ron Deutsch confirmed Cuomos claim. Dave Friedfel, director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization in Albany and New York City, said that readers should be aware that companies in New York pay more than just the corporate franchise tax. In addition to the MTA surcharge,set by the state, New York City imposes a 8.85 percent corporate franchise tax. Overall, its good that New York States corporate franchise tax rates are lower than they were and arecompetitive nationwide, but its just a small part of the taxes paid by businesses in New York, Friedfel said. Cuomo claims that under his administration, New York has the lowest corporate tax rate since 1968. Though there are other taxes levied on businesses in New York, experts from the left and the right agree with Cuomo's assertion. We rate Cuomos statement True. Republican senate candidate George Allen says he has the will and experience to bring tax relief to Virginia families.When I was elected Governor, we had an audacious agenda that naysayers said couldnt be enacted with a Democrat majority in the state legislature, Allen said in a Feb. 23 guest column forInsideNova.com. However, we worked across party lines and enacted historic reforms. Working together, we cut taxes by more than $600 million...Well stipulate that Allen, who was governor from 1994 to 1998, did convince a Democrat-controlled legislature to pass major reforms to welfare, criminal sentencing and juvenile justice. But his claim of cutting taxes by $600 million, which Allen first made in his farewell address to the General Assembly at the end of his term, has gone largely unexamined.Until now.We asked Dan Allen, a spokesman for the Allen campaign, for proof. He sent us a list of more than a dozen bills and budget changes that occurred on George Allens watch as governor. We scoured economic impact statements for those pieces of legislation and searched newspaper archives to find monetary values for each item.Three of the biggest tax cuts were approved in 1994. *A Social Security income tax deduction for self-employed Virginians valued at $162.1 million over six years, according to a 1997 estimate of the Finance Department. The measure was introduced by previous Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, in his farewell budget. *A tax cut for senior citizens that the Finance Department valued at $215.7 million over six years. The action was tied to a settlement after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia policy of taxing the pensions of federal retirees but not of state government retirees. The high court ruled the groups had to be treated equally. *A tax cut on the tangible assets of corporations worth $104.3 million over four years. The program was originally passed under Gov. Gerald L. Baliles in 1988 and slated to last for eight years. It was suspended for two years in 1992 under Wilder, who was battling a poor economy. Wilder, in his 1994 farewell budget, urged resuming the tax cut for the final four years and Allen, who came to office that January, agreed.Those three cuts add up to $482.1 million.In 1997, Allen signed a bill giving self-employed Virginians a break on unemployment insurance taxes that was worth $137 million over four years, according to the Finance Department document.The campaign also sent us a list of smaller tax cuts that passed when Allen was governor. We found their value by researching impact statements that were prepared at the time by the Department of Planning and Budget. Heres the list:*Major Business Facility Jobs Tax Credit, 1994, worth $2.1 million over two years. *Coal Employment Enhancement Credits, 1995, totaling $33.2 million over two years. *Enterprise Zones, 1995, worth $2.8 million over two years. *Film Production Tax Exemption, 1995, worth $571,000 in two years. *Military Tax Relief, 1996, worth $600,000 in two years. *Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, 1996, totaling $1.25 million in two years. *Space Flight and Space Launch Activities, 1997, worth $1.35 million annually. *Worker Retraining Tax Credit, 1997, worth $2.1 million in one year. *Virginia Coal Employment and Production Incentive Tax Credit, 1997, worth $13 million over two year.The list from Allen also included the BPOL tax cut on the earnings of businesses. The local tax was estimated to generate $300 million annually. The legislation allowed varying tax reductions depending on the size cities and counties.We were unable to find a value for the BPOL cut and the Allen campaign didnt have one. Dan Allen did not include this reduction in his $600 million calculation. Localities had their own flexibility on this, so it would be hard to quantify, he said.They also didnt include tax cut proposals from George Allens farewell budget in 1998, which news reports valued at $350 million. The major one, approved by the General Assembly, was setting aside $260 million to phase in the first two years of a car tax cut promised by incoming Gov. Jim Gilmore, a Republican.We should note that Allen also proposed a massive $2.1 billion package of tax cuts in 1995 that was opposed by the business community and defeated by Democrats in the General Assembly. And despite Allens tax cutting efforts,state spending roseat an average level for Virginia governors during Allens term.Our ruling:George Allen said more than $600 million in taxes were cut during his governorship.We came up with $676.1 million in cuts, although we should point out that some of these reductions took place over six years. Allen, however, never qualified the time period for the tax cuts. And he arguably could have added other reductions to his list.We rate his statement True. If former Gov. Ted Strickland had used a theme song in his unsuccessful re-election bid, it might have been I've Been Working on the Railroad.Jobs were the biggest issue of the fall campaign, and Strickland said that thousands would be created by his plan for a 3C Corridor passenger rail system linking Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He described Gov.-elect John Kasichs intention to kill the plan and return a $400 million federal grant as tragic and a job-killer.Critics of the plan claimed that its employment potential was exaggerated, its ridership forecasts were too optimistic and its cost projections too low.Ultimately, Plain Dealer columnist and former editorial director Brent Larkin wrote: Voters never warmed to the idea of spending hundreds of millions on a passenger rail project that would have taken riders from Cleveland to Cincinnati over a period an hour and 15 minutes longer than it would have taken on a New York Central train in 1935.We dont usually look at remarks from columnists, but that comment stopped PolitiFact Ohio in its tracks.We knew that the 3C Corridor was not a high-speed rail plan. We had not realized it was more like a trip back in time.So PolitiFact Ohio asked Larkin where he got his figures.He referred us first to a year-old feasibility report on the proposed Cleveland-to-Columbus-to- Cincinnati Amtrak service.This is the schedule Amtrak said it would run, and the schedule Ohio included as part of its application to the feds for the $400 million, Larkin said. No other schedule was ever formally provided to the feds.The proposed schedule shows a 255-mile Cleveland to Cincinnati trip taking 6-1/2 hours. The first daily train would leave Cleveland at 6:30 a.m. and arrive in Cincinnati at 1 p.m.Larkin then shared a railroad timetable from New York Central Lines, effective Feb 3, 1935. It showed a departure time of 3:10 p.m. from Cincinnati and an arrival in Cleveland of 8:20 p.m., for a travel time of 5 hours 10 minutes -- an hour and 20 minutes faster than the 3C line.Criticism of the 3C as snail rail with an average speed of 39 mph started as soon as the project was proposed.The Ohio Department of Transportation responded in September with a new average estimate of 50 mph and speed up to 79. It shortened the Cleveland-to-Cincinnati trip to 5 hours 12 minutes.But, not so fast.As an October story in the Columbus Dispatch noted, ODOT itself had said a year earlier that the trip couldn't be made in less than 5 hours 20 minutes -- even if the trains didn't stop. ODOTs revised schedule hadn't even been seen by the three freight lines that own the tracks the 3C passenger trains would use, putting its feasibility in serious doubt.And, no matter how weak or strong its support, the optimistic revision still comes up longer than the best rail time of 1935.The schedules speak for themselves, Larkin said.We rate his statement as True. 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 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. In December 2020, Twitter users enjoyed what appeared to be a delightfully weird coincidence when the author of an article debunking claims about alien life emerged as "Hugh Mann."  In a widely shared Dec. 14 tweet, @mmastrac included a screenshot of the article headlined, "There is No Secret Underground Base on Mars," along with the author's name highlighted in red. @mmastrac added the caption, "Nice try aliens": tweet     The screenshot was not digitally manipulated or faked and showed part of an article that appeared on the website Slate earlier in December 2020. However, the article itself was clearly intended to be humorous. All in all, the piece presented the author as an alien clumsily emphasizing their thoroughgoing "humanness" while desperately, and ineffectively, attempting to cover up evidence of alien life and operating under a blatantly fake pseudonym that sounds exactly like "human": Slate Like all humans, my light-sensing organs nearly popped out of their orbits when I heard that a retired Israeli military commander had given an interview claiming that space aliens made contact with Earths leaders years ago. According to Haim Eshed, who served as the head of Israels space security program for three decades, representatives of the Galactic Federation traveled to our solar system to conduct research into the fabric of the universe, and, with the help of a local political faction known as the United States of America, have constructed an underground base on Helios IV, which we humans call Mars. given an interview As a respected human journalist, I think I speak for our entire species of only-recently-sentient bipeds when I say, Thats ridiculous! Haim Esheds carbon-based neurological organ is simply malfunctioning as he nears the end of his pitifully short biological life cycle, and there is absolutely no reason to look into his story any further. The joke may have been obvious to many readers and Twitter users, but the screenshot shared by @mmastrac didn't include the body of the article itself, which would have made it clearer. Even with the benefit of the full text of the piece, some readers appear to have mistaken "Hugh Mann" for a real Slate contributor and responded to the article in earnest. On the website News Break, which republished the Slate article, commenters wrote, "There are numerous people who claim this that have served in the military just saying"; "Your [sic] a fucking reporter with no knowledge past the end of your pencil! its [sic] ignorant morons like you that keep the truth in the shadows"; and "This reporter is a [sic] asshat." republished wrote In the summer of 2021, an old poem, touching on several conservative talking points including abortion, re-emerged on social media. The poem, entitled "America the Beautiful," was widely attributed to controversial former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore. He lost a U.S. Senate election to Democrat Doug Jones in 2017, after several women accused him of sexual impropriety decades ago, when they were in their teens and Moore was in his 30s. The former judge has denied the allegations.  controversial Roy Moore denied Many Facebook posts in July and August 2021 began with the following introduction:  Some of you may be wondering what Alabama Judge Roy Moore has been doing since he was removed from the bench for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom wall. The following is a poem written by Judge Moore...   The poem was also widely shared in 2020, especially after it was posted to Facebook by Sharon Baptist Church in Iron Station, North Carolina. Most of the Facebook posts in 2020 and 2021 included a photograph of a bearded and bespectacled man (shown above) who is, definitively, not Moore. It's not clear who the man is, or why his picture was almost universally associated with the poem in Facebook posts.  posted to Facebook Snopes readers have inquired about "America the Beautiful" for at least a decade, and the poem has been attributed to Moore as far back as 1999. On the website of the Foundation for Moral Law, a non-profit organization started by Moore but now headed by his wife, Kayla, the poem is published along with following assertion: " Copyright 2007 Roy S. Moore": 1999 published America the Beautiful, or so you used to be,Land of the Pilgrims pride, Im glad theyre not here to see,Babies piled in dumpsters, abortion on demand,Oh, sweet land of liberty, your house is on the sand. Your children wander aimlessly poisoned by cocaine,Choosing to indulge their lusts, when God has said abstain.From sea to shining sea this Nation has turned away,From the teaching of Gods Law, and a need to always pray. So many worldly pastors telling lies about our Rock,Saying God is going broke so they can fleece the flock.Weve kept God in our temples, how foolish we have grown,When all the earth is but His footstool, and Heaven is His throne. Weve voted in governments that are rotting to the core,Appointing Godless judges who throw reason out the door.Too soft to put a killer in a well deserved tomb,But brave enough to kill that child before he leaves the womb. You think that Gods not angry, that our lands a moral slum?How much longer will it be before His judgment comes?And how can we face our God, from Whom we cannot hide?What is left for us to do, but stem this evil tide! For if we who are His children, will humbly turn and pray,If we seek His holy face, and mend our evil way,Then God will hear from Heaven and forgive us of our sins.Hell heal our sickly land and those who live within. But, America the beautiful, if you dont then you will see,A sad but Holy God withdraw His hand from Thee.   Moore also recited "America the Beautiful" during his speech at the October 2017 Values Voter Summit, which can be watched here (beginning around 3:00:00).  3:00:00 The assertion of Moore's copyright, and the consistent attribution of the poem to him in various forums over the past two decades, all point towards his authorship. However, the earliest publication of the poem that we could find was dated 1992 and attributed to someone else entirely.  On Oct. 28, 1992, the Victoria Advocate newspaper in Victoria, Texas, published a letter to the editor written by a Richard A. Barsness, in support of anti-abortion politicians. The letter incorporated a nearly identical poem to the one later claimed by Moore, but attributed it to a David Hungerford, as shown below: published   Snopes contacted individuals who might be able to shed further light on Barsness' letter, and the possible involvement of a David Hungerford in the writing of the poem, but we did not receive responses in time for publication. Speaking on behalf of Moore, a staff member at the Foundation for Moral Law told Snopes, "Judge Moore has been writing poetry since the early 1980s and cannot say when this was written." When we pressed the spokesperson on whether that statement meant Moore was continuing to assert that he wrote "America the Beautiful," the spokesperson did not elaborate.  We found only one other attribution of the poem to a David Hungerford, in an undated document hosted on the website of the Calvary Chapel in Eagle, Idaho. By contrast, Moore has been cited as its author on dozens of occasions over the past two decades. undated document However, because the earliest publication of the poem that we could find so far (in 1992) was attributed to David Hungerford, and Moore did not provide evidence that he wrote the poem before then, we cannot rule out the possibility that someone by the name of Hungerford, or even someone else entirely, was the original writer of the poem later claimed by Moore. As such, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven," for now. If definitive evidence becomes available, we will update this fact check accordingly. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here During his 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump on multiple occasions claimed his Democratic opponent Joe Biden would impose the "biggest tax increase in history" if voters elected him. In an August interview on Fox News, for instance, Trump said of Democrats: said They want to tax $4 trillion, going to be the biggest tax increase in history by far. It will triple up records, and they're big taxers. It's just something that won't work. We'll have  you will see a depression, the likes of which you have never seen. In the following weeks, he reiterated the claim  that "you are going to have the tax increase of your life" if Biden wins the 2020 election  in social media posts and during campaign events, without explaining who would bear the brunt of the alleged hike. Trump tweeted on Oct. 5: tweeted   Below is an analysis of Biden's tax proposal assessing whether it would indeed raise taxes by an amount never seen before in modern U.S. history, and who would most feel its impact. According to his campaign website, Biden ran for president on the promise that he would change multiple aspects of the country's tax system  specifically in regards to individual income and payroll taxes, business taxes, and tax expenditures. campaign website promise The proposed changes would repeal aspects of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which the Trump administration and Republicans framed as a solution to fuel economic growth ,and Democrats saw as a gift to the country's richest individuals and large corporations at the expense of low-to-middle-class Americans. 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Specifically, Biden's tax plan would roll back the act's income tax reductions for the country's top bracket of taxpayers, as well as expand that category to include Americans with incomes over $400,000 annually, rather than just those who earn more than $518,400. $518,400 His proposal would also require that group of top earners to limit deductions and pay an additional Social Security payroll tax, per an analysis by Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Millionaires and billionaires would be subject to taxes on long-term capital gains at ordinary  not preferential  income tax rates. analysis long-term capital gains Additionally, Biden's plan would increase the top tax rate for corporations from 21% to 28% and impose a 15% minimum tax on companies' book income, according to his campaign website. It would also reduce tax subsidies for commercial real estate and fossil fuels and incentivize renewable energy investments, among other changes. All of that said, the country's richest taxpayers and corporations would cover the majority of Biden's proposed tax increases  not average Americans  both in dollar amounts and as a share of their incomes. But let's look at the anticipated impact at a granular level. All income levels would face some sort of tax burden in 2021 under Biden's plan (we explain more below), though the highest-income households would pay higher income taxes directly and see substantially larger increases than anyone else. Gleckman made the following estimations: His plan would raise taxes on households in the top 1% of the income distribution (those with income more than $837,000) by an average of about $299,000. [...] By contrast, taxpayers in the middle-income quintile (those with income between $52,000 and $93,000) would experience an average tax increase of just $260. [...] Taxpayers in the bottom quintile (those with income less than $26,000) would see an average tax increase of only $30. That added burden on low- and middle-income households representing about 2% of the proposed change  would be an indirect result of employers shifting the cost of the higher corporate tax rate to some workers. Corporations on a grand scale would slightly lower wages and investment income, which would, on average, more than offset the effects of Biden's new tax credits, the center concluded. Alicyn McLeod, a tax adviser and writer for Accounting Today, said in October 2020: Accounting Today Bidens proposal is primarily motivated by fairness. Many U.S. taxpayers are concerned that large corporations arent paying their fair share. While understandable, this position ignores the belief among many tax and economic policy experts that a significant portion of corporate taxes are ultimately paid by workers, shareholders, and consumers as opposed to companies themselves.  In sum, the overwhelming majority of Americans  those who earn $400,000 or less annually  would not see their taxes increase as a direct result of Biden's tax proposal, and the top 1% earners would shoulder the brunt of his proposed hike. But low-to-middle-class workers would see slightly lower investment returns and wages as a result of corporate tax increases, according to economists' analysis including a a budgetary model by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. budgetary model Biden's plan would raise about $3.38 trillion in additional tax revenue over 10 years, according to the university's model. Concurrently, per Gleckman's analysis, that would amount to an increase in federal revenue by about 1.5% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is the economy's total output of goods and services, and economists rely on it greatly to measure the economy's health and how fiscal or regulatory policies could impact it  not raw dollar amounts that don't consider inflation and population changes. To determine the legitimacy of Trump's claim, we considered federal tax proposals and their impact on GDP over decades. Of almost two dozen congressional tax bills that increased federal tax revenues between 1940 and 2012, for example, the five largest tax increases raised annual revenue between 1.33% and 5.04% of GDP, according to a 2013 compilation of such records by the U.S. Department of Treasury. the U.S. Department of Treasury The following table compiled by the Tax Foundation, another independent public policy think tank, showed where Biden's plan would stand in comparison to those other proposals: Tax Foundation   According to those findings, Biden's tax proposal, if enacted by Congress, would amount to the fifth-largest tax increase since the 1940s  not the biggest hike in modern U.S. history.  Biden-Harris.  "Tale Of Two Tax Policies: Trump Rewards Wealth, Biden Rewards Work."
  Accessed 15 October 2020. Adamczyk, Alicia.  "Here's Who Would Pay More Under Joe Biden's Tax Plan."
 CNBC. 7 October 2020. Penn Wharton University of Pennsylvania.  "PWBM Analysis of The Biden Platform."
  14 September 2020. DePietro, Andrew.  "Here's How Much The Top 5% Earns In America's Largest Cities."
 Forbes.  30 June 2019. McLeod, Alicyn.  "Trump vs. Biden: Whose Tax Plan Makes For Good Tax Law?"
 AccountingToday.  14 October 2020. Frank, Robert. "Biden Defines $400,000 a Year as 'Wealthy': Here's What That Buys In A Big City."
 CNBC. 6 October 2020. Wilson, Garrett, and Erica York.  "Reviewing Joe Biden's Tax Vision."
 Tax Foundation. 20 August 2020. Fordham, Evie. "Trump Tells 'Mornings with Maria' Biden Presidency Would Bring 'Biggest Tax Increase In History'."
 FoxBusiness.  13 August 2020. Wilson, Garrett and Erica York.  "Placing Joe Biden's Tax Increases In Historical Context."
 Tax Foundation.  3 September 2020. Mermin, Gordon, et. al.  "An Analysis of Former Vice President Biden's Tax Proposals."
 Tax Policy Center.  5 March 2020.