Greg Comer Prayer Request
A message requesting prayers Greg Comer, a man who battled cancer for over six years, is periodically reposted on social media sites: reposted  Greg Comer has battled cancer for almost 7 yrs. The doctors are giving him only days to live. Greg is 41, married & has 2 children, Jacob 11 & Alyssa 7. Jacob has asked his Mom for a special request, for everyone to pray for a miracle for his daddy. He wants a prayer chain across the world. Please pray for Greg and help start this prayer chain across the world for Jacob. Copy & re-post, and add your city and state before posting in order to keep prayer chain going. Bethpage TnGallatin TnGallatin,TnShiro, TXMagnolia, TXConroe, TXPorter, TXBrenham, txWillis, TXZanesville, OhioDunnellon, FlMarshalltown, IA.Mountain View, MOWaterford,NJMagnolia, NJAmarillo, TexasPittsburgh, Pa.Honolulu, HIJohnstown PAPhoenix, AZSacramento CaDix Hills, NYSuwanee GaLaurel Hollow,NYChandler, AZBuffalo, NYEast Elmhurst, NYForest Hills NY It is true that Greg Comer, a 41 year-old North Carolina man, put up a years-long fight against cancer. Unfortunately, however, messages requesting prayers on his behalf are outdated, as Comer has since passed away. This viral Facebook message was first shared in January 2011. Comer fought the disease for another month before he died on 26 February 2011: shared January 2011 died Gregory Lee Comer, 41, of Lincolnton, won his battle and was welcomed into Heaven to be with the Lord on February 26th, 2011. He leaves behind - but will see again one day -- his loving wife Tina Hilton Comer (he called his angel, the love of his life); their daughter Alyssa Brooke Comer, and his son Jacob Carl Comer. His loving parents, Ernest & Sue Clemmer Comer; his brother and sister-in-law, Jeff Carl & Emily Albright Comer; grandmother, Catherine Southerland; brother-in-law, Kenneth R. Hilton; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Mark & Melissa Hilton Saunders; father-in-law and mother-in-law, Tony and Juanita Hilton nieces & nephews, Nick & Katie Sue Comer, Kensie, Kayla and Brodie Hilton and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. Greg being the man he was would want you not to mourn his loss but rejoice for him. His concern would be for his family through this difficult time. Pray for them to have comfort only God can give because his family and faith gave him strength to battle for so long. Prayer chains are quite popular on social media, but they often contain incomplete, outdated, or inaccurate information.  In many cases, such as this one, the lack of a date in the original message often fosters renewed circulation of information that is no longer current.  Legacy.com.  "Greg Comer Obituary."
  28 February 2011.
Michael Richard Pompeo represented Kansas in the U.S. House of Representatives between 2011 and 2017 and then served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until April 26, 2018, when he was tapped by U.S. President Donald Trump to succeed the departed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. As The New York Times observed of Pompeo in March 2019, "no secretary of state in recent decades has been as open and fervent as Mr. Pompeo about discussing Christianity and foreign policy in the same breath. That has increasingly raised questions about the extent to which evangelical beliefs are influencing American diplomacy." observed That questioning of Pompeo's mixture of religiosity and policy was reflected in a meme circulated in January 2020, amidst escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad: airstrike  The quote reproduced in this meme  about continuing to fight battles and struggle until the moment of the Rapture  was taken from a talk Pompeo delivered at a "God and Country Rally" held at Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, on June 28, 2015. The event was just a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision holding that same-sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry. Rapture Obergefell v. Hodges The words reproduced above were excerpted from a portion of Pompeo's speech, as captured here:  However, that short clip doesn't provide the full context of Pompeo's remark, which was not specifically about military or political battles. We reproduce the surrounding context below, as taken from a video of the complete speech (beginning around the 23:19 mark): complete speech On Friday, just hours after the Supreme Court's [Obergefell v. Hodges] decision, my wife entered a retail establishment here in Kansas. She went to the counter to pay for the products that she had purchased, and the man behind the counter saw the credit card that she was using and said "Are you related?" And before he could finish she said, "Yes, yes, yes, I'm his wife," and he teared up and he said, "Thank your husband for what he's doing; thank you for allowing him to go do that. Have strength, Susan, and remember always that no matter what happens in Washington, D.C. or in Topeka, it is the Lord that is in control." This was a stranger to Susan. This was a man who[m] she had not met before, but he took time from his role to pray for her and to thank her and to make clear that his Christian understanding of our nation was not just in her heart but his, and that he would work every day to make sure that the Lord's work govern our actions each and every day. It was a remarkable moment. We are blessed to live in Kansas where there are so many people that understand that. We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle. Until that moment Pastor Fox spoke about, until the Rapture be part of it, be in the fight. Ask for forgiveness seek His wisdom, and heed your pastor's call to actions, and great things will be bestowed upon our nation and our world. Wong, Edward.  "The Rapture and the Real World: Mike Pompeo Blends Beliefs and Policy."
  The New York Times.  30 March 2009. In June 2019, scammers attempted to swindle millions of social media users by presenting a movie- and television-streaming service called "PlayJoltz," which spammy, fabricated online posts claimed was "better than Netflix" and was available for free for (you guessed it) a limited time only.  We received multiple inquiries about PlayJoltz after it was promoted on Facebook and Twitter in almost-identical posts, each targeting readers from a different nation.  For example, on 25 June the website worldnews24.co published a post with the headline "There is a Better Service Than Netflix...and It's Free for the Canadian!" The article went on to report that: worldnews24.co "The streaming giant Netflix has lost thousands of Canada users this week because of a new competing service which just came out and is lifetime free for the people living in North America (US & CA). The new service is called Playjoltz and provides an identical streaming service to that of Netflix but with a lot of extras. The users admit it is much faster, cleaner and with many more movies/series than Netflix. They currently give a free access to the first 5,000 people who subscribe even though it seems they have almost reached this number. Playjoltz "With an almost unlimited selection of HD movies and TV series having an incredibly good image quality and that loads up at blazing speeds on all devices (TV, smartphones, computers, tablets), it is not surprising that thousands of people have already switched from Netflix to this new service, Playjoltz, since it has been launched 3 weeks ago. Playjoltz informed us that the last day to subscribe for free is 27 June, 2019." In parallel with that, the website austria-news.co targeted readers in Austria, with the same claims and same text, this time in German. The scammers targeted readers in Australia with another version of the same article, this time on australia-news.co, as well as a poorly produced Facebook video that made the same claims: that the service was "free for Australians," and "100x better than Netflix": austria-news.co australia-news.co   These articles were not only fakes but also appeared to be part of a long-running scam orchestrated from the country of Cyprus, which has caused multiple users to be tricked into trying a "free trial" that they cannot end. Users are encouraged to provide their credit card details for the free trial, on the understanding that they will not be charged if they cancel their subscription by the billing date. However, some users have complained of being charged repeatedly, even after canceling before the end of the free trial.  The various websites on which these articles appeared in June 2019 were littered with spammy links. For example, clicking on any link on any of the sites led the user to the same webpage, www.smushgame.com, which offered users a sign-up form for a streaming service similar to the one described in the PlayJoltz articles.  sign-up   However, the smushgame.com homepage instead advertised a gaming service  "Unlimited access to all your gaming needs." That homepage was registered to "Japalta Consulting" in the city of Nicosia, Cyprus. Another website registered to a company in Cyprus (this time the city of Limassol) was PlayJoltz.com: homepage PlayJoltz.com   Since 2018, consumers from various countries have been reporting in online forums that they were swindled out of repeated, unsanctioned credit card debits after signing up for a "free trial" on both PlayJoltz.com and SmushGame.com. Both are scams.  online forums The wave of PlayJoltz articles published in late June 2019 offered other clues about the unreliability of their claims. For instance, every article contained the same "comments section," which was designed to resemble the Facebook-linked comments section common to many sites. In reality, clicking on a "username" lead only to the SmushGame sign-up page, rather than that "user's" Facebook account  a clear sign that the comments came from fabricated identities rather than the Facebook accounts of real people.  Similarly, every comment was gushing in its praise for PlayJoltz, and the exact same set of "commenters" left their positive reviews in each article, to the extent that they even appeared to comment in German, under the Austrian version of the article. The image below shows the set of comments included under the Canadian worldnews24.co article, and on the right, those included under the Austrian austria-news.co version:   Finally, each of the June 2019 articles included a cover image that was designed to indicate that the existence of PlayJoltz, and the supposed sudden collapse of Netflix as a result, was garnering mainstream television news coverage. The image featured a female news reader standing next to a giant screen that showed the Netflix logo and the flag of whichever country was being targeted in each article, whether Australia, Austria, or Canada:   In reality, these were digitally manipulated images of an Irish news reader, who can be seen below wearing the same outfit as the one shown in the "PlayJoltz" images (she is a co-presenter of the "Six One News," the main evening news broadcast on RT, Ireland's public-service broadcaster). The broadcaster stressed her image was used without consent: "RT can confirm it has not given permission for any use of its copyright imagery for commercial use and the news report featured is false. We urge anyone who sees these misleading ads to report them to the platform they are carried on."  wearing   In short, RT's Six One News has never reported on the triumphant rise of either PlayJoltz or SmushGame, because neither has experienced such a surge in popularity, and both are scams.  Worldnews24.co. "There is a Better Service Than Netflix...and It's Free for the Canadian!"
 25 June 2019. Australia-news.co. "This New HD Streaming Service is the Reason Why Aussies Are Canceling Their Netflix Subscriptions!"
 25 June 2019. Austria-news.co. "Es Gibt Einen Besseren Dienst Als Netflix...und Er Ist Kostenlos fr sterreicher!"
 25 June 2019. On Feb. 19, 2024, X user Matt Wallace, who previously has trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories, suggested in a new post (archived) that hinted the sinking of the Titanic was an inside job. The post read, "Rumors are circulating that they sunk the Titanic to kill the powerful men on board who opposed a central bank." trafficked in various unsupported conspiracy theories post archived Similarly, a previous post from a Telegram user that was posted in 2022 also promoted the same conspiracy theory, and read, "These men opposed globalist's world banks (Federal Reserve). Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus, [and John] Jacob Astor [all] opposed the new Federal Reserve bank. Today, these men would be worth $11 billion. All three of these men were aboard the Titanic when it sank. All three died that night."  According to the TinEye reverse image search website, this meme had been shared since at least 2014. However, the rumor itself had started spreading several years before. It's true that American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, Macy's co-owner Isidor Straus and fur magnate and real estate developer John Jacob Astor all perished in the sinking of the Titanic. However, the overall claim intimated by the posts was nothing more than a baseless conspiracy theory. Titanic The misleading meme appeared to have been born out of previous ones that mentioned American financier J.P. Morgan. Morgan owned the companies that managed the Titanic and was not a passenger on its maiden voyage. owned Past memes suggested that Morgan had somehow miraculously orchestrated the voyage to end in tragedy in order to kill Guggenheim, Straus and Astor. According to the memes, Morgan's supposed reason for planning the demise of the three prominent men was because they all opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. (The centralized banking system was established in 1913, the year after the sinking of the Titanic.) established J.P. Morgan striking photographer with cane. (Courtesy: Library of Congress) The meme in question also said, "Today, these men would be worth $11 billion." However, it's unclear how much each of the men's descendants would be worth today had they survived. In March 2021, Reuters published a thorough report that debunked the rumor behind all of the memes on this subject. The article included an interview with a Titanic expert named George Behe, whose research into the history of Titanic goes all the way back to the 1970s. According to Behe, there is no known evidence that showed Guggenheim, Straus, or Astor opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. In fact, in 1911, The New York Times reported that Astor was very much in favor of the idea. published reported It's widely agreed upon by experts that the sinking of the Titanic was an accident, the reporting from Reuters said. The ship struck an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. Within hours, more than 1,500 people had died. died We contacted Behe in an effort to find out if there had been any updates since Reuters published its story in 2021. "To the best of my knowledge, the conspiracy theory is just as false today as it was when it was first created, and no important new revelations have turned up within the last couple of years," Behe told us in an email dated Jan. 8, 2023. "Sadly, once these nonsensical conspiracy theories have been foisted upon the general public via the internet, the theories are destined to plague humanity forevermore and will continue to fool innocent people who are unfamiliar with the facts." For further details, Behe pointed us in the direction of historian J. Kent Layton, who is credited as an author for books including, "Conspiracies at Sea: Titanic and Lusitania," "On a Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic" and "Recreating Titanic & Her Sisters: A Visual History." "We've been tackling this nonsense with historical data since at least the late-90s to early-00s," Layton told us by email in June 2023. "However, social media is a fantastic breeding ground for conspiracies of all sorts.Titanicseems to be a favorite of many." Layton remarked to us in detail regarding why the conspiracy theory made no sense to him: I would point out that if the sinking had actually been a conspiracy to kill those three individuals, there would have been no way that they could ensure their actual demise unless they had locked them somewhere inside the ship to die as it sank. Instead, the evidence indicates that all three were seen during the sinking. Guggenheim famously case aside his heavy coat and lifebelt after his steward had helped him into them, saying that he and his manservant were 'dressed in their best and prepared to go down as gentlemen'. Straus nearly made it into a lifeboat, and fellow passengers even recommended that he board a lifeboat with his wife, but he deferred, preferring to let women and children board while he waited behind with other men. Astor was seen very late in the disaster, helping his wife into a lifeboat; when he asked an officer loading the boat, apparently Second Officer Lightoller, if he could board, Lightoller said no. However, Lightoller had maintained a rather rigid policy of allowing no men into the lifeboats that he filled, and there had been plenty of other opportunities for Astor to board a boat. In fact, we recently discovered an account that indicated that Astor and his wife had approached an early boat on the other side of the ship, when the situation seemed less serious, but that they had stepped back from the lifeboat of their own accord at the last moment and stayed for a while longer on the ship. If a conspiracy to kill these three men had been so deep and involved so as to actually sink an ocean liner and kill hundreds of innocent people, one would think that the individuals responsible would not have left the survival of these three men to chance. This story will be updated in the future should we uncover any further helpful information. Beattie, Andrew, et al. "How the Federal Reserve Was Formed." Investopedia, 24 June 2007, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/federal-reserve.asp. Bird, Mike. "There's a Wild Conspiracy Theory That the Rothschilds Sank the Titanic to Set up the Federal Reserve." Business Insider, 12 Oct. 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/conspiracy-theory-that-the-rothschilds-and-federal-reserve-proponents-sank-the-titanic-2015-10. "CORRECTED-Fact Check-J.P. Morgan Did Not Sink the Titanic to Push Forward Plans for the U.S. Federal Reserve." Reuters, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-titanic-conspiracy-idUSL1N2LF18G. "Federal Reserve Board - Structure of the Federal Reserve System." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-system.htm. "ISIDOR STRAUS URGES NEW BANKING PLAN; Replies to J.J. Hill's Attack on the National Reserve Association Scheme." The New York Times, 16 Oct. 1911, https://www.nytimes.com/1911/10/16/archives/isidor-straus-urges-new-banking-plan-replies-to-jj-hills-attack-on.html. "John Jacob Astor | American Businessman [1864-1912]." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Jacob-Astor-American-businessman-1864-1912. Kennedy, Dana. "Divers Find Champagne, Dishes In Shipwreck, But No Gold Yet." AP News, 16 July 1987, https://apnews.com/article/a9b6a7e5cd8104edf4501f876eebf44b. Segal, Troy, et al. "Central Bank." Investopedia, 18 Nov. 2003, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/centralbank.asp. "The White Star Line and The International Mercantile Marine Company." Titanic Historical Society, 28 Mar. 2018, https://titanichistoricalsociety.org/international-mercantile-marine-company/. TinEye Reverse Image Search. https://tineye.com/. "Titanic | History, Sinking, Rescue, Survivors, Movies, & Facts." Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Titanic. In May 2016, syndicated talk radio host Sean Hannity aired an item claiming that Donald Trump had sent a plane to give 200 stranded U.S. marines a much-needed ride home after Operation Desert Storm in 1991: item When Corporal Ryan Stickney and 200 of his fellow Marines prepared to return to their families after Operation Desert Storm in 1991, a logistics error forced them to turn to a surprising source for a ride home: Donald J. Trump. Today, Stickney would like to say "thank you." Stickney (left), was a squad leader in a TOW company of a Marine reserve unit based in Miami, FL and spent approximately six months in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War between 1990 and 1991. Upon his units return to the United States, the former Marine says the group spent several weeks decompressing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before heading back to Miami. Stickney recalls being told that a mistake had been made within the logistics unit and that an aircraft wasnt available to take the Marines home on their scheduled departure date. This  according to Stickney  is where Donald Trump comes in. "The way the story was told to us was that Mr. Trump found out about it and sent the airline down to take care of us. And thats all we knew ... I remember asking 'Who is Donald Trump?' I truly didn't know anything about him," the former Marine said. Corporal Stickney snapped a photo to remember the day by:   The story came up several times during the course of the 2016 presidential campaign (Cpl. Stickney even told it in person at a Trump rally), but skeptics questioned its validity despite a statement from the Trump campaign allegedly confirming it: "The Trump campaign has confirmed to Hannity.com that Mr. Trump did indeed send his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami, Florida to transport over 200 Gulf War Marines back home. No further details were provided." told confirming The few details we do have about Trump's alleged participation don't, in fact, add up. We can confirm, based on military records, that the 209-member Anti-Tank (TOW) Company, part of the 8th Tank Battalion for Operation Desert Shield, deployed to Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, from their home base in Miami on 26 November 1990. And we can confirm that the company deployed from Camp LeJeune to Saudi Arabia on 22 December, served throughout the combat phase of Operation Desert Storm (from 17 January to 28 February 1991), and returned to North Carolina in April. A command chronology of the deployment notes that a "Cpl. Stickey" was among those receiving certificates of commendation. deployed command chronology We can also confirm, via a 23 April 1991 article from the Sun-Sentinel, that a series of flight delays stalled the company's homecoming to Miami on 22 April, but that they finally did arrive home after split across two separate flights. Stickney's photograph shows that he arrived on a plane marked "Trump," but it also proves something else: that even if Trump did send the plane, it wasn't his private jet. article That Trump didn't send the pictured plane at all was something noted by a sharp-eyed reader, who wrote to us to note: First, thats not Trumps private 727 jet; its one of the jets in the Trump Shuttle fleet. I wondered if maybe Trumps jet back in those days was painted differently, so I researched his private jet as of April 1991. I found that Trump was deep in the red, financially, and having to liquidate assets, one of which was his personal 727. The sale of that jet was finalized in the first week of May 1991, making it highly unlikely he was also flying reservists around while discussing the sale at the end of April. jet Shuttle The markings of the plane in Stickney's photo match those of the Trump Shuttle fleet, so the question becomes: Did Trump himself send a Trump Shuttle to retrieve the stranded Marines, or was it procured some other way? To arrive at an answer, it's necessary to go into a bit of the history of Trump Shuttle. A July 2015 article in NYC Aviation detailed Trump's short-lived airline industry involvement, beginning with an entirely separate carrier, Eastern Air Shuttle, which he immediately rebranded with his own name: article carrier rebranded CEO Frank Lorenzo ... began selling off assets including the prized Shuttle operation. Donald Trump placed a winning bid for the Shuttle, its aircraft and landing slots at LaGuardia and National for $380 million dollars that was financed through no less than 22 banks. The newly branded Trump Shuttle took the skies on June 7, 1989. Timing is everything in business, and unfortunately for Trump he entered the airline game at the wrong time. The US entered an economic recession in the late-80s leading many corporations to cut back on business travel. In addition, tensions in the Middle East leading up to the first Gulf war caused oil prices to spike. This 1-2 punch was devastating for the airline industry and led to the demise of a number of airlines including Eastern and Pan Am. Given these circumstances, the Trump Shuttle lost money, and with Trump continuing to accumulate debt in his other ventures it was becoming increasingly difficult to pay back the loans taken to purchase the airline. In September of 1990 Trump defaulted on his loan and control of the airline went back to the banks led by Citibank. Given that the bankers, not Donald Trump, owned Trump Shuttle from September 1990 until it was sold to U.S. Air in 1996, Trump wasn't in a position to send the planes anywhere, much less on a spur-of-the-moment Marine transport mission. So who did? As it turns out, the U.S. military itself chartered the flights -- a common practice in the day, according to an 11 August 2016 report by The Washington Post: Lt. Gen. Vernon J. Kondra, now retired, was in charge of all military airlift operations. He said that relying on commercial carriers freed up the military cargo aircraft for equipment transport. Vernon J. Kondra Kondra's notes on the flight are declassified and available online and show a contract for Trump Shuttle to "move troops in [the] continental United States" during the 1990-91 timeframe: online There are several references to a 1990-91 contract for Trump Shuttle to carry personnel across the United States, between the East and West Coasts, on a standard LaGuardia-Dover-Charleston-Travis-Chord-Kelly-Dover-LaGuardia run.   "It worked very well, and the crews loved it, and really thought that we'd done something special for them," Kondra recalled in the oral history. "It was a helluva lot better than using 141s [cargo craft], which we could use for something else." But Kondra said that the notion that Trump personally arranged to help the stranded soldiers made little sense. "I certainly was not aware of that. It does not sound reasonable that it would happen like that. It would not fit in with how we did business. I don't even know of how he would have known there was a need." So the real story underlying the claim that Donald Trump personally sent his jet to pick up stranded soldiers and return them to the U.S. is that the military paid to charter a plane from an airline Trump no longer owned in order to bring those service personnel home. Kessler, Glenn.  "Too Good to Check: Sean Hannitys Tale of a Trump Rescue."
  The Washington Post.  11 August 2016. Reed, Ted.  "Trump: I Ran a Great Airline."
  The Globe and Mail.  26 September 2011. Rodriguez-Florido, Lourdes.  "Grand Homecoming Welcomes War-Weary Marine Reservists Company Looks Forward to Settling Into Life's Regular Routines."
  Sun-Sentinel.  23 April 1991. CNN.  "Inside Donald Trump's Private Jet."
  10 November 2009. GulfLINK.  "8th Tank BN Command Chronology 8th Nov 90 to March 91."
  12 April 1991. Claim:  Photograph shows military jets in formation spelling out an obscene phrase.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2011] Look at it very very carefully - until you can appreciate the message. Final Harrier salute The Harrier boys might appreciate this  view from the left side and at a distance (or half close your eyes) if you cant see the message immediately. Looks like the Joint force Harrier Pilots had a few thoughts on the decision to axe the Harrier.  [Collected via e-mail, November 2011] BRIT'S SPECIAL HARRIER JETS FLY-BY 'SALUTE' TO OBAMA I'll BET YOU A $100 to a nickel... he never noticed what the position of the aircraft were spelling.... until one of his aides told him... Way to go Brits..... love it. In case Obama didn't understand how the Brits felt when he sent the bust of Churchill back to England, a gift from the English during the Bush administration. These pilots have not forgotten Obama's disrespect for America's friend and ally. YOU HAVE TO LOOK REALLY CLOSE IT SPELLS OUT 2 WORDS Subject: Harrier jets fly past special salute to Obama to a select few. ENJOY the Brits humor on Obama's last visit. They will never forget nor forgive! The Brits may be prim and proper but they still get their point across. Harrier jets' fly past (fly-bys) over Downing Street in a air show salute to Obama. It's good to see the RAF have a sense of humor. Look at it from an angle or lean back in your chair, and squint; squinting works best.     Origins:  As indicated by the examples reproduced above, we originally happened upon this image at the beginning of 2011 when it was positioned as a Joint Force Harrier pilots' expression of disgruntlement with the UK government's decision to discontinue operations with the BAE Systems Harrier GR9/9A ground-attack aircraft, and we encountered it again at the end of 2011, when it was claimed to be a British protest over President Obama's returning a bust of Winston Churchill which had been loaned to President Bush by former British prime minister Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks in 2001.  discontinue returning Neither explanation is correct, among other reasons because any such event would have received widespread coverage in the UK yet nary a mention of it appeared in the British press.  This image is an obvious digital creation, supposedly featuring a staggering total of nearly four dozen different aircraft (the actual farewell formation flight of Joint Force Harriers involved only sixteen planes) which all have exactly the same profile in flight, all flying with the very same attitude, with no visible individual variations in size, shape, or distance between any of the jets. A similar digital manipulation can be seen in a much-circulated image claimed to be  a photograph of jets from Randolph Air Force Base spelling out "USA." Randolph Last updated:  27 July 2012 The Oracle of Omaha is still for Obama. So the president claimed on60 Minutes, interrupting interviewer Steve Kroft to tout the continued support of Warren Buffett, the Omaha-based stock-picker extraordinaire. Your plan really for solving the banking crisis was met with very, very, very tepid response, Kroft said to Obama. A lot of people said they didn't understand it. A lot of people said it didn't have any, enough details to solve the problem. I know you're coming out with something next week on this. But these criticisms were coming from people like Warren Buffett, people who had supported you, and you had counted as being your... And Warren still does support me, Obama interjected. But I think that, understand, Warren's also a big player in the financial markets who's a major owner of Wells Fargo. And so he's got a perspective from the perspective of somebody who is part owner of a bank. Indeed Buffett, who endorsed Obama during the campaign, did explicitly say during a three-hour interview March 9 with CNBC that he still supports Obama. I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy, Buffett said early in the interview.Buffett did criticize Obama's handling of the banking crisis, saying that a bank that's going to go broke should be allowed to go broke, as long as the depositors are protected. (Obama's approach has leaned toward giving the banks more bailout money in some form rather than letting them fail and having the government take them over. )But Buffett's primary concern was that Obama wasn't communicating clearly with the public about struggling banks. The right answer for me (to the banking crisis) is the president to clarify things as only he can, because you have heard so many different things, he said. He is the commander in chief on this, and it has to be clarified ... because if people aren't clear, they're going to be confused. And if they're going to be confused, they are going to be scared stiff. And that has to end.It's not surprising Buffett would want Obama to focus on the financial crisis  it has cost Buffett $25 billion. That's how much of his $62 billion fortune he lost in the past year, as shares of his holding company Berkshire Hathaway fell nearly 50 percent,Forbesreports. That knocked Buffett off his perch as the world's richest man, to No. 2 behind Bill Gates.Toward the end of the three-hour interview, Buffett reiterated his support for Obama. He is the right president, Buffett said. He's very, very smart. He's got, I think, exactly the right goals. He's articulate and I  you know, he will be the right person to be the commander in chief in this economic crisis.So clearly Obama was on solid ground touting Buffett's continued support. We find this claim to be True. In April 2018, social media posts claiming "Donald Trump and U.S. Congress voted yesterday on a bill" to end all child support in the U.S. by 11 June 2018 were widely shared. posts  These posts were just variants of a similar hoax from September 2017 created using the prank generator React365 which suggested that President Trump and Congress had effectively ended all child support payments as of 2018, blaring "No more child support after 2017!" and "CHILD SUPPORT SAID TO END BY BEGINNING OF 2018": React365 child support The word salad "news" content originated with React365, a prank generator whose sole purpose is to enable users to generate fake news and share it on social media:   React365   On the footer of each page, a poorly-worded disclaimer explains that its headlines are "created by users" and are not a "source of information":   Fake news about child support typically spreads with alacrity. However, there have been no legitimate news reports of either the President or Congress ending (or even intending to end) child support. It is simply false information generated by a prank web site. child support As the debt-ceiling crisis deepened, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, lambasted Democrats for failing to put together a public plan to bring down federal spending.Johnson, in anappearance on CNBCs Squawk Box, argued constitutional limits on government spending were the only way to keep politicians hands off the pocketbooks of their constituents. To illustrate his point, the freshman Republican reached way back into the history books.Well increase the debt ceiling, give the president what he wants, and all were saying is, Lets pass a constitutional limitation to the size of government, which by the way is the root cause of the problem, Johnson said. The federal government is spending 25 percent of our entire economy versus 100 years ago, we spent only 2 percent. The problem is the size, the scope, all the regulations and the cost of government.PolitiFact National has tested the current end of this claim andfound it True. But the back end is new territory.Has the federal governments share of the nations economy really jumped twelvefold in a century?A frequently cited source on the history of federal spending is the White House Office of Management and Budget.Itswebsite showsthe federal share of gross domestic product -- the GDP, essentially our total economic output for a year -- was 25 percent in 2009, 23.8 percent  in 2010 and is estimated at 25.3 percent for 2011.In 1930, by contrast, the federal government made up just 3.4 percent of the economy.There are many reasons for the change -- ones that go beyond year-to-year growth in spending for existing programs.Before the 1930s, the federal government was basically the post office, veterans benefits, a small defense department and national-debt payments, according to anofficial government summaryand experts we consulted. Local government was dominant.World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam pushed up the federal role considerably, and when that spending waned, it was more than offset as the country aged into Social Security and the Great Society programs --  including Medicare and Medicaid --  took off.The federal share of the economy went up and down in the 1980s and 1990s, amid recessions, higher debt interest payments, higher health care spending and tax cuts. Homeland security and military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks pushed the number up, as did the recession that began in 2007.The largest part of the growth since the 1950s, the Office of Management and Budget reports, came from a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, deposit insurance, and means-tested entitlements such as Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portions of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits.A big part of the difference is that as the U.S. got richer, a lot more services were demanded, and a whole layer of protections unknown in 1910 got assumed by the government, said Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist.As we noted, the current numbers cited by Johnson are accurate.But what about 100 years ago?The OMB calculations on the federal share of the economy go back only to 1930, because GDP was not calculated before then.But earlier spending numbers are readily available, and several researchers have produced calculations dating back to the early 1900s. They use U.S. Census Bureau data that measured the economy in a different way, but produce comparable numbers, according to the economists we consulted.Johnsons staff pointed us to 1902. We also looked at other years in that first decade of the century, to see if they were consistent with the year in question.Economists Robert Gordon at Northwestern University andRandall Holcombeat Florida State University independently calculated a federal share right around 2 percent in that time period.Our calculations produced a similar result.So Johnsons numerical claim is on target.At the advice of our experts, though, we took one more step: We looked at what the combined local-state-federal share was a century ago compared to today.If local government was predominant and the federal government minuscule in earlier times, is it possible that all government spending combined took up the same share of the economy as today?No, we found.Holcombe said the total government share has gone up markedly, though not on the order of the twelvefold increase in the federal-only share.Gordon confirms that.Lets tally this up.Johnson turned the clock way back in criticizing the size of the federal government. He claimed it took up just 2 percent of the economy a century ago, but 25 percent today. Johnsons reference hearkens back to an entirely different era in American governance -- and its not clear just how far back in time on a percentage basis Johnson thinks we should go.But based on widely available, and generally accepted, historical data, he accurately described the dramatic rise of Washington, D.C., in our economic lives over the last 100 years.We rate his statement True. Amid tense talks between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over the 2018 federal budget, the attention of many observers turned to each side's record on government spending, benefits and entitlements, and fiscal priorities.  In that vein, a widely-shared Facebook meme took aim at Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, accusing him of supporting a modified version of a long-standing liberal bte noire  drug-testing for welfare recipients.  On 21 January 2018, Facebook user Ken Stanley wrote: wrote Tom Cotton calls for every person who receives Social Security to be drug tested those who test positive will lose benefits.     This claim is false. We searched Cotton's speeches, op-eds, and press releases, as well as the Congressional Record and news archives, and found no evidence of the Senator ever having advocated such a policy. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for Cotton told us the meme was "completely false": Senator Cotton does not support (nor has he ever supported) drug testing for Social Security recipients.  Indeed, even those who call for drug-testing for welfare recipients do not typically propose the same policy for Social Security. This is because Social Security is more widely regarded as an earned benefit (workers contribute to it through payroll taxes), while programs such as housing assistance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) are regarded as welfare. Senator Cotton does, however, have a record of making statements and advocating policies around welfare assistance which have raised eyebrows.  In 2015, Salon and Raw Story headlines accused Cotton of "blaming" drug addiction on Social Security benefits, and claiming that receiving Social Security disability benefits causes individuals to "spiral" into drug addiction. The articles, as well as Cotton's actually comments were more nuanced.  blaming spiral In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think thank, Cotton advocated for reform of the Social Security disability system, and drew a link between population decline and social ills (including drug addiction) in certain counties and regions, and rates of Social Security disability insurance uptake:  It's hard to say what came first or caused the other: population decline or increased disability usage. Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be  at least at the county and regional level  something like a disability tipping point. When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm. It becomes an acceptable way of life and an alternative source of income to a good-paying, full-time job...After a certain point, when disability keeps climbing and becomes endemic, employers will struggle to find employees, or begin  or continue  to move out of the area.  Population continues to fall, and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once-thriving communities into further decline. Not only that, but once this kind of spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime. In 2014, while running for the Senate, a Huffington Post writer accused Cotton of "calling food stamp recipients addicts." Again, his comments were much more nuanced than that description.  accused According to a Huffington Post transcript of a virtual town hall hosted by Cotton in July 2014, the then-Congressman defended voting down a Democratic bill relating to agricultural payments and federal food aid, on the basis that it did not sufficiently reform the food stamps program, including by requiring drug testing for applicants: voting I dont think that we should be using farmers as a way to pack more welfare spending into Barack Obamas government, Cotton said. Nor should we have a food stamp program that isnt reformed, that doesnt have job training and work requirements, that doesnt have drug testing requirements, so we can get people who are addicted the help they need. Or make sure that long-term addicts or recidivists are not abusing taxpayer dollars. In March 2017, Cotton joined with Republican Senate colleagues in voting to nullify an Obama-era Department of Labor rule which limited the circumstances under which states could conduct drug-testing for individuals applying for unemployment insurance.  voting rule President Donald Trump later formally reversed the guideline, effectively giving states greater powers in conducting drug screening for jobless benefits. So Senator Cotton has certainly supported drug testing for welfare programs  but never for Social Security.  reversed Gauthier, Brendan. "Tom Cotton Blames Social Security for 'Heroin and Meth Addiction' Because Reasons."
 Salon. 10 November 2015. Edwards, David. "Sen. Tom Cotton: Social Security Benefits Cause People to 'Spiral Downward' Into Heroin Addiction."
 Raw Story. 9 November 2015. Lachman, Samantha. "GOP Senate Candidate Tom Cotton Calls Food Stamp Recipients 'Addicts.'"
 Huffington Post. 17 July 2014. Brady, Rep. Kevin. "House Joint Resolution 42 -- Disapproving the Rule Submitted by the Department of Labor Relating to Drug Testing of Unemployment Compensation Applicants."
 Congressional Record. 31 March 2017. U.S. Department of Labor. "Final Rule --Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program; Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 Provision on Establishing Appropriate Occupations for Drug Testing of Unemployment Compensation Applicants."
 Federal Register. 1 August 2016. U.S. Department of Labor. "President Trump Nullifies Drug Testing Rule."
 U.S. Department of Labor. 31 March 2017. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned about the financial crisis of the 2000s before it happened, she claimed during a CNN town hall where she pitched herself as the best option for president in the 2020 election. Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor, told an audience of college students that her whole lifes work has been about what's happening to working families. And starting in the early 2000s, the crisis was coming. I was waving my arms, ringing the bell, doing everything I could. I said families are getting cheated all over this country,Warren said April 22 in Manchester, N.H.It started when the mortgage companies targeted communities of color. They targeted seniors. They targeted Latinos. They came in and sold the worst possible mortgages and stripped wealth out of those communities, and then took those products across the nation. I went everywhere I could. I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. But nobody wanted to listen, Warren said, so the crisis hit in 2007, 2008, and just took us down. We confirmed that Warren did raise the alarm about the looming housing and financial crisis. She spoke about debt, financial lending practices and other factors affecting families and the economy years before the financial crisis peaked in 2008. Millions of peoplelost their jobs and homes during the recent Great Recession, generally regarded as happening from late 2007 to mid 2009. Experts say the financial crisis resulted from a number ofcolliding factors, including an unsustainable housing boom partly driven by an easy availability of mortgages, banks taking on too much risk, government policies and lax regulation. Subprime loans  loans at higher interest rates made to people perceived to be at greater risk for defaulting on loans (including families with low and moderate income and poor credit histories)  played a key role in the housing crisis. Warrens presidential campaigncitedseveralblogpostsand comments to media outlets in 2005 and 2006, and Warrens 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, as examples of Warren warning about subprime lending and an imminent housing crisis. Warren has represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 2013. Before going to Congress, she taught law at the university level for more than 30 years, most recently at Harvard, specializing in commercial law, contracts, and bankruptcy. Subprime lenders defended their business practices by saying they were helping more families own homes, Warrens book said, but thats little more than public relations hot air. In the overwhelming majority of cases, subprime lenders prey on families that already own their own homes, rather than expanding access to new homeowners. Fully 80 percent of subprime mortgages involve refinancing loans for families that already own their homes,Warren said in the book. For these families, subprime lending does nothing more than increase the family's housing costs, taking resources away from other investments and increasing the chances that the family will lose its home if anything goes wrong. In aJune 2004 interviewwith PBSs NOW host David Brancaccio, Warren spoke about growing household debt, against risky mortgage lending practices and what she regarded as bad advice to Americans by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Warren said Greenspan encouraged families to borrow against their house to pay for basic expenses. I think what the landscape shows is the middle class is under assault in a way that has not happened before in our history, Warren said. Stagnant wages, rising costs, wildly rising debt. It's in everyone's interest to turn that back around. Warrens campaign noted that The New York Times quoted Warren in an October 2005articlethat said homeowners in suburbs were taking on more and more home-equity debt to stay out of bankruptcy. The article said: Professor Warren of Harvard believes that disaster lurks as homeowners borrow against their homes to forestall bankruptcy. When the stock market tumbled five years ago, people in trouble could sell stocks to stay afloat, she said. But home equity doesn't work the same way. As she put it, You can't sell a part of your home like you could a stock in the stock market bubble. Warren told the newspaper that after a new bankruptcy law went into effect that month, filing for bankruptcy would become more difficult: And that means more families are set up to lose their homes. Warren was substantially correct in herassessmentthat home prices were going up rapidly relative to incomes (particularly for households with a one wage earner), said Ed Pinto, co-director of the Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. But Pinto disagrees with Warren about what caused the crisis. Warren blames banks and lenders, when in fact Congress andgovernment policiesaimed at making homes more affordable are the root cause, Pinto said. (Check out our2008 in-depth analysison the causes of the financial crisis and how that issue was debated in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then, both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama said they sounded warnings, and both blamed the other for helping cause the crisis.) Warren was also a vocal opponent of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, because she thought the law would hurt consumers, said Deborah Goldstein, an executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending, which advocates for consumer financial protections. Risingcredit card debthurt Americans already struggling with mortgage payments. I remember (Warren) talking about credit card abuses and how they were harming families, Goldstein said. People were using credit to manage basic daily expenses. Goldstein said that her group, also concerned about the imminent financial crisis, in the early 2000s communicated with Warren on what could be done about it. I'd give then-professor Warren the credit for banging the drum and ringing the bell early on unfair financial practices, said Ed Mierzwinski, senior director of the Federal Consumer Program at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Warren was the No. 1 go-to academic expert in the mid-to-late '90s and 2000s in the debate over changes to the bankruptcy code, he said. Warren in January 2007testifiedbefore the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, saying that the credit card market was broken and hurt consumers. Warren was chosen in 2008 to lead theCongressional Oversight Panel, established by Congress to review the state of the financial markets and the regulatory system. Warren also helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau emerged from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, designed to enforce federal consumer financial laws and protect consumers. In 2013 and 2014, Goldstein's groupcollaborated with the CFPBin drafting payday lending rules. Speaking of the financial crisis that gained traction in 2007, Warren said, I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. There is documented evidence that Warren spoke against risky mortgage lending practices, rising debt and other factors that contributed to the financial and housing crisis years before it materialized. We rate Warren's claim True.