Did Dems Write to Ukrainians in 2018 Asking Them to 'Investigate Trump'?
Revelations came to light in fall 2019 that U.S. President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate current Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and his son. In response, the presidents defenders have highlighted a May 4, 2018, letter signed by three Democratic senators to Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor general of Ukraine (a similar role to the U.S. attorney general), as evidence that claims of improper behavior are misplaced. The letter was notably described by Washington Post columnist Marc Theisen as betraying a double standard. have highlighted letter notably described This sentiment was amplified by several media outlets, as well as a viral tweet (retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.) from the Twitter account Comfortably Smug, which according to BuzzFeed News is run by a Republican political consultant and deliberate spreader of false information: retweeted run by   Several reasons exist why the above tweet and associated sentiment are incorrect and misleading. At the top of that list is the fact that the letter in question did not concern a request to investigate Trump, nor did it request the opening of any investigation. letter Instead, it requested information on why Ukrainian special prosecutor Serhiy Horbatyuk (who serves in a special prosecutor role charged with investigating corruption cases linked to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich) had been prohibited from issuing subpoenas for evidence or interviewing witnesses in four existing investigations into former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort. Manafort, prior to joining the Trump campaign, had worked as a political consultant for Yanukovich and his political party. The four investigations involved money that flowed either to Manafort for this consulting work or to a law firm working with Manafort and others to improve Yanukovichs image in the West. They did not involve Trump. consultant law firm The three Democratic senators  then-Foreign Affairs Committee members Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy  were responding to a May 2, 2018, New York Times report that the four Manafort investigations in Ukraine were specifically singled out from a docket of nearly 3,000 corruption cases in Horbatyuks portfolio to be blocked from issuing subpoenas and interviewing witnesses. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in his charge to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was investigating Manafort in part because of concerns that he owed substantial funds to Russian oligarchs as a result of this consulting work, potentially giving them leverage over him as he ran Trump's campaign. The reason Ukrainian officials impeded the investigation was no secret, according to the Times  it was to placate the Trump administration, which opposed the Mueller probe: report as a result according Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament who is an ally of [now former] President Petro O. Poroshenko, readily acknowledged that the intention in Kiev was to put investigations into Mr. Manaforts activities in the long-term box. In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials, Mr. Ariev said in an interview. We shouldnt spoil relations with the administration. These discussions came at a complicated time for Ukraine, a country that has been fighting Russian aggression and that had been in the process of securing arms from the United States. The decision to halt the investigations by an anti-corruption prosecutor was handed down as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins, the Times reported. reported Far from requesting an investigation, the senators requested answers to three specific questions from a specific Ukrainian government official: specific questions Manafort broadly admitted to involvement in activities related to those four Ukrainian probes via a September 2018 guilty plea. admitted Even ignoring the allegedly implied quid pro quo in the Trump-Zelensky call, a comparison between the senators request for information from the chief Ukrainian law enforcement official and Trumps requests of Zelensky is problematic. As senators on the Committee on Foreign Relations, which not only provides oversight for arms deals but also general oversight of Americas relationships with its allies, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy were acting within their constitutional rights and obligations as official representatives of the U.S. government with oversight responsibility over the executive branch. for arms deals constitutional rights Conversely, in his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump explicitly requested that the Ukrainian president meet with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani  an unelected private citizen without a security clearance or oversight from anyone but Trump  to initiate investigations into a disparate set of claims whose sole unifying feature is that they concern Trumps political rivals: the Democratic National Committee and the Biden family. disparate set of claims Because the letter at issue did not actually demand an investigation into Trump or even compel initiation of any investigation, we rank the claim that Democrats asked Ukraine to investigate Trump in 2018 as false. DailyWire.com.  Double Standard: Senate Democrats Asked Ukraine To Help Them Investigate Trump.
  25 September 2019. Pollack, Joel B.  Democrats Wrote to Ukraine in May 2018, Demanding It Investigate Trump.
  Breitbart News. &nbsp 24 September 2019. foreign.senate.gov.  Letter to Yuriy Lutsenko.
  4 May 2018. Thiessen, Marc A.  Democrats Double Standard on Ukraine.
  The Washington Post. 24 September 2019. Stuef, Jack.  The Man Behind @ComfortablySmug, Hurricane Sandy's Worst Twitter Villain.
  BuzzFeed News.  30 October 2012. Kramer, Andrew E.  Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation With Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 2 May 2018. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  1:17:cr-00201-ABJ #423 Statement of the Offenses and Other Acts.
  14 September 2018. WhiteHouse.gov.  Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: President Zelenskyy of Spain
  24 September 2019. Congressional Research Service.  Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process.
  Updated 14 August 2019. Graham, David, A..  Trumps Incriminating Conversation With the Ukrainian President.
  The Atlantic.  25 September 2019. Vogel, Kenneth and Matthew Goldstein.  How Skadden, the Giant Law Firm, Got Entangled in the Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 24 February 2019.
On Feb. 21, 2023, a Twitter user posted a video with a caption that claimed it had been recorded by NASA "eight years ago" and showed two rectangular UFOs being flown by aliens. The tweet read, "Two UFOs recorded by NASA eight years ago have finally been released. Two rectangular UFOs are fast moving through an 'atmosphereless' region of space. It turns out that it transcends the technology of NASA." The tweet ended with the hashtag, "#Aliens." Readers likely won't be surprised to learn that this was not true. [See also:Is Outer Space 'Only an Hour Away' if You Could Drive Straight up at 60 MPH?] Is Outer Space 'Only an Hour Away' if You Could Drive Straight up at 60 MPH? The video truly was released by NASA, but it had not been "recorded" with cameras. The clip showed a digital animation created byNASA's Scientific Visualization Studio thatshowed two twin spacecraft satellites from theGravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, not "two rectangular UFOs" being flown by aliens. (Twitter user @HoaxEye alsonotedthe truth behind this video.) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission noted The part from the tweet appears at the 1:37 mark in the video's upload on theNASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube channel.  The original GRACE science mission ended in October 2017.NASApublished that its purpose had been to "study key changes in the planet's waters, ice sheets and the solid Earth": NASA An award-winning mission that's changed the way we study Earth's gravitational forces and the Earth system, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, mission flew twin spacecraft in tandem around Earth to study key changes in the planet's waters, ice sheets and the solid Earth. In 2011, the gravity measurement technique pioneered by GRACE, which works by measuring changes in the push and pull between the twin spacecraft as they orbit Earth, was put to use on NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft embarking on an ambitious mission to study the gravitational forces of Earth's moon. In more than 15 years of operations, the GRACE satellite mission revolutionized our view of how water moves and is stored on Earth. GRACE measured changes in the local pull of gravity as water shifts around Earth due to changing seasons, weather and climate processes. Among its innovations, GRACE has monitored the loss of ice mass from Earth's ice sheets, improved understanding of the processes responsible for sea level rise and ocean circulation, provided insights into where global groundwater resources may be shrinking or growing and where dry soils are contributing to drought, and monitored changes in the solid Earth. This story will be updated if further details come to light. "15 Years of GRACE Earth Observations." YouTube, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 15 Mar. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKVPFyu_tHQ. "Grace - Earth Missions." NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/gravity-recovery-and-climate-experiment-grace. "Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)." NASA.Gov, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/index.html. @HoaxEye. "That's Animated. Source." Twitter, 21 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/hoaxeye/status/1628273280669851651. @uBF2fV1cVQxRjQo. "Two UFOs Recorded by NASA Eight Years Ago Have Finally Been Released. Two Rectangular UFOs Are Fast Moving through an Atmosphereless Region of Space. It Turns out That It Transcends the Technology of NASA." Twitter, 21 Feb. 2023, https://twitter.com/uBF2fV1cVQxRjQo/status/1627956530774675457. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz sees a consistent pattern of lawlessness from this president and this administration-- unilaterally altering laws and choosing which to enforce, Cruz said in Austin on Jan. 10, 2014. One example, the Texas Republican said, came last summer, when President Barack Obama delayed by a year the Obamacare laws requirement that companies with 50 or more employees provide coverage to their workers. The presidents a big fan of saying, Its the law of the land. We need to follow the law of the land. Oh, really? Lets see, that law of the land says on Jan. 1, 2014, the employer mandate shall kick in for big business, Cruz said at a Texas Public Policy Foundation conference. And yet the president just announced unilaterally, No, were not enforcing this. Im granting an exemption to all of big business. And by the way, this was done -- was this done through a big formal announcement, through an address to the American people: Theres a problem in this law; were going to have to change it? No. It was done through a blog post by a mid-level bureaucrat at the Department of Treasury on July 3, right before the Fourth of July break. Were not getting into whether laws were broken; not our purview. But we wondered if Cruz accurately captured how the change was revealed. Cruz spokesman Sean Rushton told us by email that Cruz was referring to a July 2, 2013,blog entryon Treasury.gov attributed to Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy. The post said, The administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. News coverage that day said the Treasury and White House websites broke the news.The New York Timesreported: In a significant setback for President Barack Obama's signature domestic initiative, the administration on Tuesday abruptly announced a one-year delay, until 2015, in his health care law's mandate that larger employers provide coverage for their workers or pay penalties. The decision postpones the effective date beyond next year's midterm elections. Employer groups welcomed the news of the concession, which followed complaints from businesses and was posted late in the day on the White House and Treasury websites while the president was flying home from Africa. TheWashington Posts Wonkblogsaid: The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively, Mark Mazur, Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, wrote in a late Tuesdayblog post. In a July 3, 2013,news story, Bloomberg News described the White House website announcement: Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, said in a blog post announcing the move that the administration decided on the delay so officials could simplify reporting requirements and give employers a chance to adjust their health-care coverage. Some months later, it looks to us like the Treasury announced the change shortly before the White House did. Jarrettspostis time-stamped 6 p.m. Eastern; the Treasury blog entry does not have a time stamp. But the earliest news accounts we saw solely cited the Treasury post: the Washington Post news blog entry, stamped 5:51 p.m., a Business Insidernews storystamped 5:41 p.m., and a Huffington Postitemstamped 5:50 p.m. Eastern. With the announcements, the government put in motion one-year delays for businesses to report certain information to the IRS and related penalties. The Obamacare law, approved in 2010, essentially requires affected employers and other health coverage providers to report whether their insurance plans meet the laws minimum coverage standards and whether employees are enrolled in them. There were more notification steps: A July 9, 2013, IRSnoticeformalized the change, and Treasury and the IRSpublishedproposed versions of the rules for comment Sept. 9, 2013, in the Federal Register. When we called in January 2014, IRS spokesman Eric Smith told us by phone that the final rules had not yet been issued. Debate has swirled over whether the administration had the authority to unilaterally make this change. Rushton emailed us a link to a July 8, 2013,blog postby the libertarian Cato Institute saying the Affordable Care Act gives Treasury the authority to collect penalties, not to waive them or the reporting requirements. In contrast, a Treasury officialtolda House subcommittee on July 17, 2013, that the departmentgenerally may delay effective dates in some circumstances -- such as easing the transition to new requirements -- because of a lawstatingthe IRS can prescribe all needful rules and regulations to enforce relevant laws. So: The news was announced on two government blogs. And was the originator a mid-level bureaucrat? John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that studies the federal workforce, told us by email, The assistant secretary for tax policy is far from a mid-level Department of Treasury employee. Of the approximately 2.1 million civilian employees in the executive branch of government (not counting the Postal Service), Mr. Mazur is one of only 1,217 Senate-confirmed, political employees in government paid at executive-level IV, which in 2013 was $155,500 a year. On the other hand, a University of North Carolina constitutional law professor who wrote abookon federal appointments told us by email, He could be described as mid-level but, because he is Senate-confirmed, not a bureaucrat. Under the Constitution, officials requiring Senate confirmation are thought of as officers of the U.S.  a term, Michael Gerhardt said, that has been defined by the Supreme Court as someone who wields some substantial policymaking authority. A bureaucrat sounds as if it is someone who does not have much authority or discretion, he said. Gerhardt said mid-level typically means ranking somewhere within the middle of the hierarchy of the department. It is not unusual for Senate-confirmable officials to be in such posts. Our ruling Cruz said that Obama unilaterally announced he was delaying the employer mandate through a blog post by a mid-level bureaucrat at the Department of Treasury. The announcement was also made on a White House blog, and mid-level bureaucrat isnt necessarily accurate. We rate his statement as Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Correction, 4:10 p.m. Jan. 21, 2014:We revised this story, which originally overstated the salary of executive-level IV government employees. This correction did not affect our rating of the claim. Claim:  Berkshire Hathaway, the legendary business concern headed by Warren Buffett and new owner of Pampered Chef, supports pro-choice causes.  Status:  Sort of. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2003] Dear Friend: I am a Pampered Chef consultant who has recently learned that, due to the sale of The Pampered Chef toBerkshire Hathaway (www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/oct3102.html), Pampered Chef profits are now supporting the population control and abortion industries. These industries trade in the death of countless pre-born children, endanger the health of women, and deny the human rights of women in third world countries through forced sterilizations and abortions. Not only does Berkshire Hathaway contribute to these industries, but Warren Buffett, chief shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, has pledged to bequeath the majority of his personal fortune (28 billion) to The Buffett Foundation, positioning him to become the largest financier of abortion and population control in the history of the world. www.berkshirehathaway.com/news/oct3102.html As a result of this information, I have ceased to sell or recruit for The Pampered Chef. I have also launched an e-mail campaign to (1) educate Pampered Chef consultants, hosts and customers of the connection between The Pampered Chef and the population control and abortion industries; and (2) petition Warren Buffett to cease his personal and corporate financial support of these same industries. Origins:  In October 2002, Berkshire Hathaway acquired The Pampered Chef, a kitchen products company which vends items atin-home cooking demonstrations known as Kitchen Shows and is run by kitchen consultants (its name for the members of its sale force). More than one million of these events were held in the United States in 2002, and Pampered Chef has annual sales in excess of $700 million. Berkshire Hathaway The Pampered Chef kitchen consultants Besides Pampered Chef, Berkshire Hathaway owns a number of businesses outright (including Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom, Geico Insurance, and See's Candies) and also has significant holdings in some very large corporations, including  Coca-Cola. The motive force behind Berkshire Hathaway is its chairman and chief executive, Warren Buffett. Although Buffett is reckoned to be the second wealthiest man in the world, he still lives in the Omaha, Nebraska, home he purchased for $31,500 in 1958. His charitable organization, the Buffett Foundation, currently has $25.3 million in assets, and these holdings are expected to swell to $36 billion when Buffett and his wife die and their shares in Berkshire Hathaway go to the Buffett Foundation, which will make it the richest charitable foundation in the world. About 60 percent of the $33.4 million bestowed by the Buffett Foundation in fiscal year 2001 went toward family planning, reproductive rights, and population control programs operated by organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Johns Hopkins University, and the United Nations in accordance with Warren Buffett's beliefs that population growth must be checked before exceeding a level sustainable by the earth's resources. The Buffett Foundation also funds a number of college scholarships and awards in recognition of exemplary teachers. In July 2003 Berkshire Hathaway announced the end of its shareholder-designated contribution program, through which holders of A shares in Berkshire Hathaway could select the charities to which Berkshire Hathaway would donate funds.  It noted the shareholders' choices of certain charities (including some of Buffett's choices) had caused "harmful criticism" to be directed at Pampered Chef and cited that criticism as the reason for ending the donations program.  Berkshire said all its subsidiaries will continue to support local charities under direction of their local managers. What all this means is that Berkshire Hathaway itself no longer contributes money directly to various charities (controversial or otherwise) designated by its shareholders.  However, since Warren Buffett (as a private individual) holds shares in Berkshire Hathaway and is free to contribute the profit he derives from those holdings to The Buffett Foundation, the businesses owned by Berkshire Hathaway (such as The Pampered Chef) are indirectly providing money to the causes Buffett supports through his foundation. Barbara "missed hathaway" Mikkelson Additional Information:    Berkshire Hathaway holdings      Berkshire Hathaway press release  Last updated:  28 November 2007    Sources:   Jordon, Steve.  "Introductory Lesson on Warren Buffett."   Omaha World Herald.  3 May 2003  (p. D5).     Kawar, Mark.  "Touched by a Billionaire."   Omaha World Herald.  4 May 2003  (p. D1).     Shim, Grace.  "Berkshire Pantry Adds Pampered Chef."   Omaha World Herald.  24 September 2003  (p. D1).     Shim, Grace.  "Lasting Legacy."   Omaha World Herald.  27 April 2003  (p. D1).     The Associated Press.  "Berkshire Hathaway Ends Charity Program Over Criticism."   3 July 2003. One of the more unusual political memes we've come across presented four different cases of tax-related financial improprieties to suggest that tax-evasion prosecutions were somehow influenced by racial bias against non-blacks:  However, the "Tax Racism" meme offered examples  not all of which were actual cases of tax evasion  so widely spaced in time and so differing in circumstances as to be non-useful in making any point at all about either tax fraud or race. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the author of books on cooking, entertaining, and decorating, was not charged with, or imprisoned for, non-payment of income taxes. Stewart was found guilty in March 2004 of felony charges of conspiracy, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and making false statements to federal investigators in a case related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into insider trading activity: investigation Washington, D.C., June 4, 2003 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed securities fraud charges against Martha Stewart and her former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic. The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Stewart committed illegal insider trading when she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. The Commission further alleges that Stewart and Bacanovic subsequently created an alibi for Stewart's ImClone sales and concealed important facts during SEC and criminal investigations into her trades. In a separate action, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has obtained an indictment charging Stewart and Bacanovic criminally for their false statements concerning Stewart's ImClone trades. Stewart was sentenced to 5 months in prison and also settled a civil suit with the SEC by paying a $195,000 fine (a penalty that reflected four times the amount of stock value loss she avoided by taking advantage of inside information, plus interest). settled Stewart did engage in a dispute with the state of New York in 2002 over unpaid property taxes that she contended she didn't owe because she hardly spent any time in that state, and she was eventually ordered by a judge to pay $220,000 in back taxes plus penalties. But contrary to the false impression created by this meme, she was not prosecuted or jailed over that issue  the time she spent in prison was solely related to a later insider-trading case, not to tax evasion. dispute By the mid-1920s, notorious Chicago mobster Alphonse Gabriel Capone was reportedly taking in nearly $60 million annually ($878 million in 2018 dollars) from a variety of illegal activities, primarily Prohibition-era bootlegging. Capone was dubbed "Public Enemy No. 1" after the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in which gunmen allegedly hired by him posed as police officers to murder seven members of a rival gang, leading to increased public pressure on the government to rein Capone in. Federal authorities had difficulty gathering sufficient hard evidence to convict Capone on any substantial criminal charges, however, so they took what was then a novel tack: Even if they couldn't prove Capone was making his millions illegally, they could prove he wasn't paying income tax on his ill-gotten gains. Despite his obviously lavish lifestyle, Capone never filed a federal income tax return and claimed he had no taxable income, reportedly boasting at one point that, They can't collect legal taxes from illegal money. He was proved wrong. IRS and Treasury agents gathered evidence that Capone had made millions of dollars in untaxed income, and the mobster was eventually indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. After conviction he was sentenced in 1931 to 11 years in prison, fined $50,000, and ordered to pay back taxes in the amount of $215,000. Capone was released from prison in 1939 with time off for good behavior and retired to Florida, where he died in 1947 at the relatively young age of 48. conviction In a literal sense Capone was indeed jailed for non-payment of income taxes, but the tax evasion charges were essentially a proxy for prosecuting the mobster over the multitude of vastly worse and violent crimes with which he was connected (and the immense profits he derived from those criminal activities). Capone was by no means an otherwise upright and law-abiding citizen who was thrown in prison simply because he didn't pay his income taxes. At this point in our narrative we need to distinguish between different forms of tax evasion. At one end of the spectrum are those who haven't engaged in any fraudulent behavior but simply didn't or can't pay their taxes for any number of reasons  maybe they didn't plan or withhold prudently, they received poor financial advisement, they had legitimate confusion or dispute over what constituted taxable income, or they simply overspent and ended up in debt. Although non-payment of taxes is a crime, the IRS will not usually seek prosecution in these types of case and will instead work with offenders in order to facilitate payment of their back debts (rather than making repayment difficult or impossible by incarcerating them). prosecution At the other end of the spectrum are those who actively engage in fraud in order to evade the full payment of taxes: They fail to disclose their full income, hide financial transactions, claim deductions to which they are not entitled, disguise monies earned as something other than income, or otherwise file falsified tax returns. The IRS will, at their discretion, seek prosecution in egregious cases of these forms of tax evasion. Leona Helmsley, derisively known by the nickname as the "Queen of Mean," was a billionaire who  along with her husband, real estate investor and broker Harry Helmsley  owned a vast portfolio of real estate and other assets, including a chain of hotels and the iconic Empire State Building. portfolio Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly asserted that We dont pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes, fell into the latter class of tax evader, falsely manipulating her personal finances, business expenses, and dealings with third parties in order to avoid paying immense sums of taxes: tax evader Some of [Helmsley's] luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelry she purchased at Van Cleef & Arpels, the exclusive Manhattan store. Two senior store officers were indicted on charges that they operated a scheme by which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them, thus avoiding city and state taxes. In 1987 a series of adverse articles in The New York Post about the Helmsleys, set off by one of their disgruntled employees, led to a broad investigation. The following year Harry and Leona Helmsley were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming as business expenses luxuries they purchased for Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, Conn, a 28-room Jacobean mansion on 26 acres with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound that they bought in 1983. In 235 counts in state and federal indictments brought by Robert Abrams, then the New York State attorney general, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the United States attorney and later mayor of New York, the Helmsleys were accused of draining their hotel and real estate empire to provide themselves with such extravagances at Dunnellen Hall as a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany card table, a $130,000 stereo system, and $500,000 worth of jade art objects. Nothing was too small or personal to be billed to their businesses, from Mrs. Helmsleys bras to a white lace and pink satin dress and jacket and a white chiffon skirt  the dress and skirt were entered in the Park Lane Hotel records as uniforms for the staff. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees. She was convicted of 33 felony counts related to her evasion of $1.2 million in federal income taxes. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison (reduced to four years on appeal), fined $7.1 million for tax fraud, and ordered to pay some $1.7 million in back federal and state taxes. She began serving her sentence in 1992 and was released from federal prison in Connecticut in 1994 after having served less than half her sentence. Where along the tax-evader spectrum between "legitimate dispute" and "willful tax fraud" civil rights activist Al Sharpton might fall is a difficult to determine. Claims were made in the press in 2014 that Sharpton owed some $4.5 million in unpaid taxes, but the accuracy of that number and how much of the monies owed might already have been repaid by Sharpton were unclear, and his tax-troubles narrative involved a muddied mixture of personal, business, and non-profit finances as well liabilities for federal taxes, state taxes, payroll taxes, and personal income taxes. Much of the dispute over the "why" and "how much" of Sharpton's unpaid tax bill stemmed from the operations of the National Action Network, a not-for-profit, civil rights organization founded by Sharpton in 1991. Sharpton contended in a 2014 New York Times account that he incurred an unexpected tax liability because he was taxed personally for income he had given to the non-profit organization, and that he was up to date on repayment plans. Officials contested that the amount he was in arrears for in unpaid taxes had actually grown larger, though: contended Today, Mr. Sharpton still faces personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million, and state tax liens of $777,657, according to records. Mr. Sharpton said the federal liens resulted from a demand by the I.R.S. that he pay taxes on earnings from speaking engagements that he had turned over to National Action Network. He said he was up to date on payment plans for both the federal and state liens, so, he said, the outstanding balance was much lower than records showed. But according to state officials, his balance on the state liens is actually $220,000 greater now than when they were first filed during the years 2008 through 2010. A spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said state law did not allow him to provide any further details. Sharpton then contested that news account, asserting that it referenced "old taxes" and insisting again his tax liens had been paid down below the $4.5 million debt claimed in the New York Times report that stated Sharpton's unpaid tax debt had nonetheless grown larger, not smaller: contested During a news conference at the headquarters of his National Action Network in Harlem, Mr. Sharpton sought to refute the assertion that there were $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens outstanding against him and the for-profit businesses he controls. He said that the liens had been paid down, although he declined to say by how much, and that he was current on all taxes he was obligated to pay under settlement agreements with tax authorities. Were talking about old taxes, he said, adding: Were not talking about anything new. So all of this, as if Im not paying taxes while Im doing whatever Im doing, it reads all right, but it just is not true. The accuracy of Mr. Sharptons assertion that the amount he owes the federal government is much lower than the $3.6 million shown in records could not be verified. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service said federal law prohibited the agency from divulging any details about individual taxpayers. As for the state tax liens, Mr. Sharptons assertion that he had paid them down conflicts with information provided by state officials. State authorities filed tax liens against Mr. Sharpton in 2008 and 2009, and again in 2010 against a for-profit business he controls, Revals Communications, all totaling $695,000. But a spokesman for the State Department of Taxation and Finance said the amount due had actually increased, to $916,000. Regardless of the numbers, Sharpton wasn't put in prison because tax officials did not deem his case to be an exceptional one of scofflaw tax fraud or evasion that merited prosecution, instead working with him to facilitate his paying down the debt. The conclusion here is a simple one: Cherry-picking four very disparate cases of financial wrongdoings spanning several decades, while ignoring the many other instances of tax evasion successfully prosecuted by the U.S. government, documents nothing about any purported racial bias in such prosecutions. tax evasion Buettner, Russ.  "Al Sharpton Criticizes New York Times Report on Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  19 November 2014. Buettner, Russ.  "As Sharpton Rose, So Did His Unpaid Taxes."
  The New York Times.  18 November 2014. Nemyaug, Enid.  "Leona Helmsley, Hotel Queen, Dies at 87."
  The New York Times.  20 August 2007. Erb, Kelly Phillips.  "Al Capone Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion on This Day in 1931."
  Forbes.com.  17 October 2018. Wood, Robert W.  "10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley Proved Little People Can Put You in Jail."
  Forbes.com.  17 April 2015. Wood, Robert W.  "Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton's $4.5 Million Tax Bill."
  Forbes.com.  19 November 2014. Department of Justice -- Office of Public Affairs.  "Tax Crime Does Not Pay."
  10 April 2018. Johnson, Carrie.  "Stewart to Pay $195,000 in Settlement of Civil Suit."
  The Washington Post.  8 August 2006. Kratsas, Gabrielle.  "13 Infamous Tax Cheaters."
  USA Today.  28 February 2014. Claim:  "Poison pill" amendment inserted into Health Care Bill by Senator Reid makes proposed bill unamendable if passed. false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2010] The impudent tyranny of Sen. Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light. Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid's anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation! Beginning on page 1,000 of the measure, Section 3403 reads in part: ". it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection." In other words, if President Barack Obama signs this measure into law, no future Senate or House will be able to change a single word of Section 3403, regardless whether future Americans or their representatives in Congress wish otherwise!! [Rest of article here.] here   Origins:  The gist of this piece, a reproduction of a Washington Examiner editorial, is that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada furtively slipped language into a health care reform bill which would absolutely prevent Congress from ever modifying or repealing the section of the bill to which it applied.  Although the language cited does appear in the bill, it has been quoted out of context and its applicability has been exaggerated. editorial It is true that beginning on page 1,001 of the referenced measure, Section 3403 reads in part:  '... it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.'"  However, that sentence fragment is a misleading, selective excerpt which doesn't provide the full context.  The passage reads, in full: measure (A) IN GENERAL   It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, or amendment, pursuant to this subsection or conference report thereon, that fails to satisfy the requirements of subparagraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2).  (B) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE BOARD RECOMMENDATIONS IN OTHER LEGISLATION  It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report (other than pursuant to this section) that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the Board if that change would fail to satisfy the requirements of subparagraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2). (C) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS SUBSECTION.  It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection. What that means, in effect, is that Congress may not make modifications to the referenced section if such modifications do not meet criteria specified elsewhere  ["subparagraphs (A)(i) and (C) of subsection (c)(2)"] in the measure.  Those criteria are: (A) REQUIREMENTS.  Each proposal submitted under this section in a proposal year shall meet each of the following requirements:(i) If the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has made a determination under paragraph (7)(A) in the determination year, the proposal shall include recommendations so that the proposal as a whole (after taking into account recommendations under clause (v)) will result in a net reduction in total Medicare program spending in the implementation year that is at least equal to the applicable savings target established under paragraph (7)(B) for such implementation year. In determining whether a proposal meets the requirement of the preceding sentence, reductions in Medicare program spending during the 3-month period immediately preceding the implementation year shall be counted to the extent that such reductions are a result of the implementation of recommendations contained in the proposal for a change in the payment rate for an item or service that was effective during such period pursuant to subsection (e)(2)(A). (C) NO INCREASE IN TOTAL MEDICARE PROGRAM SPENDING.  Each proposal submitted under this section shall be designed in such a manner that implementation of the recommendations contained in the proposal would not be expected to result, over the 10-year period starting with the implementation year, in any increase in the total amount of net Medicare program spending relative to the total amount of net Medicare program spending that would have occurred absent such implementation. In other words,  these prolix passages do not absolutely bar any changes to the measure; they're simply protections that prohibit Congress from enacting modifications to the referenced section that would create an increase in net Medicare program spending or cause it to go over budget.  Moreover, page 1002 specifically states that such protections may be waived by a three-fifths vote of the Senate: (D) WAIVER.  This paragraph may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn. (E) APPEALS.  An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required in the Senate to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this paragraph. Last updated:  22 March 2010 After the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost a historic 1,175 points in a single day in February 2018, the left-wing Facebook page Occupy Democrats was keen to point out a trend. In a 6 February meme, the page listed what it called the "Biggest One-Day Drops in Dow Jones History," along with the name of the U.S. president in office at the time of each point drop. meme According to the meme, each of the largest drops occurred during the presidencies of Donald Trump and George W. Bush -- both Republicans. The meme concluded: "Share this for your friends who STILL think Republicans are GOOD for the economy!"    The meme correctly lists the seven biggest one-day points drops in Dow Jones history, which all took place during the tenure of two Republican presidents, though it leaves out the eighth, ninth and 10th, which occurred with Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the White House. The main problem with the meme, however, is that its conclusion (that the numbers show which president is good for the economy) overstates the influence of a president -- as opposed to macro-economic and geopolitical forces -- on stock market trends. In fact, one-day losses and gains can sometimes happen despite the policies and efforts of the person in the Oval Office. For example, many commentators attributed the 29 September 2008 points drop -- the second-biggest ever -- to the U.S. House of Representatives' failure to pass a $700 billion bank bailout bill, which President George W. Bush had pushed for.  many commentators attributed Even if one simply wanted to examine during which presidencies the Dow suffered largest single-day losses, looking at the largest point drops wouldn't be the way to do it. As the stock market has grown in value over the last century, large point drops have become more common, even if their impact on the overall market value isn't particularly great. To get a clearer picture of the impact of these drops, one would have to measure the drop in percentage terms, rather than points.  Biggest one-day percentage losses (Sources: Wall Street Journal's Market Data and Yahoo! Finance's downloadable Dow Jones data) Market Data data Five of these 10 events took place during the era of the Great Depression, and all but one occurred during the tenure of Republican presidents.  However, if one were to insist on linking the occupant of the White House to the performance of the stock market, a better way to do it would be to track the average performance of the Dow Jones over the entire course of a presidency, rather than looking at one-day outliers in isolation.  To illustrate this, we looked at the average performance of the Dow over the course of the last nine presidential terms. We used Yahoo! Finance data for this, which only goes back as far as 29 January 1985, so we're missing figures for the first week or so of Ronald Reagan's second administration.  Average one-day percentage change in Dow Jones Average Industrial Index, Last Nine Terms   So while Donald Trump's presidency did see the largest one-day points drop in Dow Jones history, it has also seen the biggest average one-day percentage growth since 1985. However, this is based on only 12 months of data, and the next three years could see that 0.09 percent growth rate drop.  The biggest average daily percentage growth over the course of a four-year presidency was 0.08 percent, during Bill Clinton's first administration between 1993 and 1997. Market Data Center. "U.S. Stocks -- Historical Index Data."
 Wall Street Journal. 30 December 2011. Yahoo! Finance. "Dow Jones Industrial Average -- Historical Data."
 Yahoo! Finance. 6 February 2018. CBS News/Associated Press. "Stocks Take Record Tumble, Down 777 Points."
 CBS News/Associated Press. 29 September 2008. Twin, Alexandra. "Stocks Crushed."
 CNN Money. 29 September 2008. Bajaj, Vikas; Grynbaum, Michael M. "For Stocks, Worst Single-Day Drop in Two Decades."
 New York Times. 29 September 2008. Romans, Christine. "Remembering the Worst Day in Wall Street History."
 CNN Money. 19 October 2017. Various social media posts circulating in late December 2021 claimed that thanks to coronavirus stimulus legislation known as the American Rescue Plan, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration and Democratic legislators would begin "spying" or "snooping" on users of cash apps like PayPal and Venmo. Here is an example of one such post: example   The truth is, unsurprisingly, more nuanced, but the bottom line is that, contrary to what the above Twitter posts state, the effect of the legislation in question isn't that the Biden administration or Democrats will be "tapping into" or "spying on" bank or cash app accounts. This is a misleading characterization. What the legislation does is significantly lower the threshold for reporting taxable transactions made using cash apps like Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle for goods and services to the IRS. And when you reach that threshold, the app companies will then be required to send a tax form called a 1099-K to both you and the IRS. A 1099-K is, according to PayPal, an "informational tax form that is used to report goods and services payments received by a business or individual in the calendar year." PayPal As of this writing, the current threshold for such reporting is $20,000 and 200 payments in goods and services. Come Jan. 1, 2022, that reporting threshold will drop down to $600. threshold This could have a significant impact on platform users' tax returns. Here's how Bloomberg Tax described how users might experience the change: Bloomberg Tax For example, a model train collector may have paid $5,000 for model train pieces over several years that they now sell for $8,000, and the marketplace that introduced the seller to the buyer and through which the sale took place may charge the seller a total fee of $800. It may cost the model train seller $200 in postage to send the pieces to its buyers. The Form 1099-K that the seller will receive from the TPSO will report $8,000 in gross proceeds paid. However, the sellers taxable gain from that sale would only be $2,000. As a result, collectors and other online sellers will need to keep extensive records of their expenses going forward to avoid over-reporting of income and overpayment of tax. Also, consider the alternativea teenager who walks dogs to earn extra money. If their income in 2022 exceeds $600, their expenses may be limited to the fees charged by the website that connects them to pet owners, but they will owe income taxand possibly self-employment taxon the income they earn. According to PayPal, which owns Venmo, the change doesn't affect people who use the apps for personal transactions, like paying a friend back for your share of dinner, gifts, or chipping in for trips. PayPal also states that its app allows users to categorize their own transactions as personal versus rendering payment for "goods and services." PayPal Business Users on Cash Apps Will Begin Receiving Tax Forms. Heres What You Need to Know. WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather, 14 Oct. 2021, https://www.wjhl.com/news/business-users-on-cash-apps-to-begin-receiving-tax-forms-what-you-need-to-know/. Pflieger, Deborah. "New Form 1099 Reporting Coming in 2022," Bloomberg Tax, 15 Dec. 2021, https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/new-form-1099-reporting-coming-in-2022. New U.S. Tax Reporting Requirements: Your Questions Answered. PayPal Newsroom, 4 Nov. 2021, https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2021-11-04-New-US-Tax-Reporting-Requirements-Your-Questions-Answered. "PayPal and Venmo Taxes: What You Need to Know About P2P Platforms." TurboTax, 27 Nov. 2021, https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/paypal-and-venmo-taxes-what-you-need-to-know-about-p2p-platforms/L5DNjOUM1. Driven by a thriving retail industry, a cultural penchant for obligatory gift-giving, and a fascination with the West, the Japanese adopted (and adapted) several traditional Western holiday celebrations after World War II.  Stripped of their meaning and bent to the whims of retailers, however, these holidays have taken some rather unusual forms in Japan over the years. The Mary Chocolate Co. is credited with bringing Valentine's Day to Japan in 1958, with the twist that it should be a day for girls to give gifts to guys.  Naturally, this led to the retail industry's creation of "White Day" on March 14, an occasion for the boys to reciprocate all those chocolates they'd been given a month earlier by buying white presents (such as white candy, handkerchiefs, or panties) for their gals.  Likewise, the Seibu department store recast St. Patrick's Day as "Green Day," a retail promotion featuring things green and Irish.  (It didn't work.)  The Japan Biscuit Association touted Halloween as an occasion that Americans celebrate by eating biscuits.  (When that failed to go over well, the custom melded into one of friends giving each other orange candy and cakes.) White Day Green Day However, the Western holiday that carries the most influence in Japan is, not surprisingly, the holiday that carries the most influence in the West as well: Christmas.  Although St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, the celebration of Christmas was mostly limited to churches and missionary schools until the 20th century.  (Indeed, Christianity was outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639 and henceforth practiced only clandestinely until 1854.) The exchanging of gifts at Christmastime by Japanese families began in a small way early this century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. Starting with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Christianity enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, and Christmas took off in a big (and commercialized) way. As you'd expect in a country where less than 2% of the population is Christian, Christmas is a primarily a secular occasion in Japan, with shops and businesses remaining open for the day. The Japanese have adopted many of the traditional trappings of 'Kurisumasu,' such as stores with elaborate displays of Christmas decorations and piped-in Christmas music, and homes made festive with Christmas lights, Christmas trees, and poinsettias.  The elimination of the religious aspects of Christmas and its hyper-commercialization have led to some unique (and, to us, bizarre) ways of celebrating it, however.  The exchanging of kurisumasu cakes is not exactly a Western tradition, but it doesn't sound too unusual to us. What we do find unusual is reports of Japanese Christmas customs such as young couples exchanging presents of expensive jewelry, heading out to high-priced hotels, and being directed by scantily-clad female elves to rooms complete with Christmas trees, where the lovebirds spend their Christmas Eve in romantic bliss.  The co-optation of familiar Christmas figures, (both secular and religious) in the service of mass merchandising has also produced some rather curious blendings (real and imagined): Colonel Sanders dressed in a Santa suit (as KFC tried strenuously to promote fried chicken as the "traditional" Christmas meal), nuns singing advertising jingles to the tune of Christmas carols, Christmas cards featuring a ghoulish Santa in a graveyard accompanied by the Virgin Mary on broomstick, elves plastered on sake, and a Christmas revue featuring "stripping nuns and three lecherous Wise Men." And sometimes they just don't get it at all, such as when a Japanese TV station reportedly ran the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,  a disturbing film about English soldiers in a Japanese POW camp, as its festive holiday offering. By far the most well known of these Japanese/Western holiday blendings is the notorious story of a department store somewhere in Japan that one year supposedly erected a prominent Christmas display featuring as its centerpiece the smiling figure Santa Claus nailed to a cross.  It's a perfect expression of the clash between the holy and the profane, the secular and the religious, the East and the West.  It speaks to xenophobic fears (these foreigners can't be trusted with our religion and our traditions!), and it's a darn funny story. Examples:  A few Decembers ago a Japanese department store, desperate to appear westernised and with-it, mounted an extravagant Christmas display, featuring a life-sized Santa Claus, crucified upon a cross.1  The granddaddy of cultural faux pas [in Japan] occurred just after World War II, when a Ginza department store rolled out its elaborate Christmas promotion: a smiling Santa nailed to a crucifix.2  A Japanese department store reputedly once put up a big Christmas cartoon which had a Santa Claus prominently displayed on a crucifix. Whether or not this story, which has been doing the rounds in Tokyo for some years, is true or just another urban legend, is unclear.3  [An American Motorola executive] recounted a famous story of 1945, the first year of the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, when shopkeepers in Tokyo's Ginza district knew there was a big Western holiday coming and they wanted to capitalize on it.  "They knew there was this guy in a white beard and a red suit, and they knew there was a religious angle," [he] said. "And the result was little Santa Clauses on crucifixes."4  A few years ago, in Kyoto, one department store filled its center window with an enormous effigy of a crucified Santa Claus.5 However, despite all the people who assert that the tale of the crucified Santa is true and that they know someone who actually saw it, the literal truthfulness of this legend is suspect.  No one to our knowledge has produced evidence documenting that such a Christmas display was ever used commercially in Japan (other than as a knowing joke), such as a photograph of the scene or a contemporaneous news account that recorded its date and location.    As well, in true urban legend fashion the details of where, when, and how the crucified Santa Claus was displayed are vague and vary from telling to telling:  Santa appeared on a cross in Kyoto, Tokyo, the Ginza district, or a specific department store (such as Mitsukoshi); he was represented with a gigantic figure, a life-sized display, several small characters, a billboard, or a cartoon drawing; and Santa was nailed to a cross in Japan in 1945 or 1962 or 1990 or anywhere between "just after World War II" to  "a few years ago." As well, the mixing of Christian crucifixion iconography and Santa Claus is an unlikely pairing, even to non-Christians.  Nativity scenes, not crucifixes, are the religious displays featured at Christmastime, and anyone with the least bit of thoughtfulness would have to wonder why a smiling, happy, jolly figure would be depicted hanging from boards with nails driven through his hands and feet.  Santa Claus in a creche might be a plausible mistake (there are claims that figures such as the Seven Dwarfs have been spotted standing in for the Three Wise Men in various parts of the world), but a crucified Santa challenges credulity.  As parody it's believable; as an honest mistake we find it implausible. Perhaps the key to this legend is the timing.  Despite claims of crucified Santas in Japan that span the entire post-war era, the earliest reports of this legend we've found so far all stem from the early 1990s. Not coincidentally, up until that time Japan had been riding the economic high of their "bubble economy," and Americans watched in dismay as the Japanese business model was widely touted as superior to the American, dire predictions were made about the dominance of the American (and world economy) by Japan, and asset-rich Japanese began snapping up foreign (especially American) real estate such as New York's Rockefeller Center.  Should we be surprised that a xenophobic legend involving a clash between Japan and one of the most hallowed aspects of Western culture might arise from such circumstances? Alternatively, we can ignore all the foreign trappings and simply interpret this legend as a commentary on the commercialization of Christmas, a holiday in which Jesus Christ has now been replaced (symbolically and literally) by Santa Claus.  This was the point artist Robert Cenedella was trying to make when he drew the ire of religious groups over his painting of a crucified Santa Claus, which was displayed in the window of New York's Art Students League in December 1997:  Anderson, Walter Truett.  The Truth About the Truth.
  New York: J P Tarcher, 1995.  ISBN 0-874-77801-8. The Truth About the Truth Conry, Kieron.  "A Time Not to Forget the Suffering Figure on the Cross."
  The [London] Independent.  27 December 1994  (p. 15). Gaskell, John and Adam Hock.  "Our Memories of Christmas Past Lost to Japanese."
  The Sunday Telegraph.  6 January 1991  (p. 7). Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill.  "Urban Myths #67: Santa Sleighed."
  The Guardian.  23 December 1993  (p. 43). McCarthy, Terry.  "Christmastime for Everyone."
  The [London] Independent.  19 December 1993  (p. 77). McKibben, Bill.  "Christmas Unplugged."
  Christianity Today.  9 December 1996  (p. 18). McQueen, Anjetta.  "Artist's Crucified Santa Draws Fire."
  Associated Press.  22 December 1997. Shweder, Richard.  "Why Do Men Barbeque?"
  Daedalus.  Winter 1993. Sullivan, Kevin.  "Dashing Through the Dough."
  The Washington Post.  22 December 1995  (p. A21). Watanabe, Teresa.  "Japanese Parade for St. Patrick, Whoever He Was."
  Los Angeles Times.  16 March 1993  (p. 6). Yates, Ronald E.  "Japanese Merrily Leave the Christ out of 'Kurisumasu.'"
  Chicago Tribune.  22 December 1985  (p. 16). The Buffalo News.  "Buffalo's Favorite Santa Stories."
  24 December 1995  (p. M8). The Economist.  "Santa Christ."
  25 December 1993  (p. 77). Financial Times.  "A Cultural Clash of Symbols."
  27 December 1984  (p. 8). Fortean Times.  "Strange Days."
  December 1994  (p. 5). The Hartford Courant.  "Santa on a Cross."
   23 December 1997  (p. F2). Claim:   Photograph shows U.S. Air Force jets celebrating a Supreme Court ruling regarding the Defense of Marriage Act.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2013] THIS PICTURE IS CIRCULATING ON FACEBOOK, STATING THAT THE US AIR FORCE SENT UP THESE JETS WITH COLORED SMOKE TO SYMBOLIZE THE GAY PRIDE FLAG, AND CELEBRATE MARRIAGE EQUALITY AS DEFINED BY THE SUPREME COURT TODAY 26 JUNE 2013. COLORS ARE ALL WRONG, AND IT LOOKS PHOTOSHOPPED. WOULD LOVE FOR IT TO BE REAL, BUT DONT WANT TO REPOST ANYTHING MISLEADING.  Origins:  On 26 June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of United States v. Windsor which struck down a section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that strictly defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thereby paving the way for same-sex couples who are legally married to access numerous federal privileges  and programs that use marital status as a criterion for eligibility (such as Social Security  survivors' benefits and the ability to file joint tax returns). Shortly afterwards, the photograph displayed above was widely circulated in social media with claims that it pictured U.S. Air Force jets participating in a celebration of the DOMA ruling, the colored smoke trails behind them symbolizing the rainbow of colors that became the standard symbol of the gay community in the 1970s.  However, this image has nothing to do with a purported celebration of the DOMA ruling by the U.S. Air Force, as this same picture has been widely reproduced on numerous web sites all over the world since well before June 2013.  The source of the original (as displayed on flickr) appears to bea photograph taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) Airshow in  Fairford, Gloucestershire (UK), on 17 July 2010. flickr RIAT Last updated:  27 June 2013 On the morning of 1 September 2016 a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket carrying an Israeli satellite called Amos-6 exploded three minutes prior to a scheduled static fire test. SpaceX confirmed the event, stating that an anomaly had occurred in the upper stage of the oxygen tank as they were loading propellant into the rocket. The cause is still under review. anomaly Also lost during the explosion was the rockets payload: the Amos-6 satellite, which was built by Israel Aerospace Industries (an aerospace and defense contractor) and operated by the telecommunications company Spacecom. According to Spacecoms web site, the new satellite would provide expanded coverage and redundancy in case of other existing satellite malfunction: expanded coverage and redundancy AMOS-6 strengthens 4W orbital location with wider coverage and new services. AMOS-6 high power and large amount of Ku-band transponders offer Spacecoms existing and new customers a reliable growth-engine for their business. AMOS-6 enhances Spacecoms existing service offering by supporting a full range of services, including Direct-To-Home (DTH), video distribution, VSAT communications and broadband Internet. Facebook had also leased some of the communication equipment on this satellite to support their effort to provide free internet access to large swaths of Africa. After this loss of the satellite, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement: posted a statement As I'm here in Africa, I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent. Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided. The most widely shared video of the explosion comes from USLaunchReport.com (an NGO that produces video reports of all things space"). This video appears to show a rapidly moving object cross above the rocket right before it explodes: USLaunchReport.com https://www.youtube.com/embed/_BgJEXQkjNQThe video does show an object that enters from the right of the screen and passes in a fairly straight line above the rocket (at least from the camera angle) as it explodes. This has led to accusations from some corners of the internet that someone or something of intentionally bringing the rocket down. The video Reddit, Sptember 2016Early this morning there was a test-fire for Elon Musk's Falcon-9 rocket, which is standard procedure before any launch (static fire test). They reported an anomalous explosion originating near the second stage oxygen tank. From footage posted by USLaunchReport.Com, (a non profit that brings Veterans to rocket launches  I don't question the footage on that note) there is a clearly identifiable-unidentifiable that passes by at incredible rate of speed as the explosion occurs. It destroyed the launch vehicle & the payload. Hypothesis: The AMOS-6 was destroyed by the passing UFO. (I know this is hard to accept for some, but others who are aware of certain things going on right now will appreciate this.) Some culprits discussed on the original Reddit thread include: aliens, a private aerospace competitor to SpaceX, a government worried about an Israeli spy satellite/weapons system, and/or Facebooks world domination plans. These claims have been amplified by the conspiracy focused website Neon Nettle and others. Reddit thread Neon Nettle What complicates this evidence is that there are a number of other objects, generally reported as birds or bugs, that make similar appearances before (and after) the explosion with far less fanfare. To successfully argue something scandalous, one has to prove that the object cant be a bird or a bug. Those in favor of an intentional sabotage conspiracy point to three arguments: Unfortunately, the fact that a massive telephoto lens captured the video adds to the challenge, if not outright impossibility of accurately assessing any of these questions scientifically. This camera, based on the time it took the noise of the explosion to reach it (~12 seconds) is easily over two miles away from the pad (assuming sound traveling at 0.2 miles per second). The further the zoom, the more of an effect the lens will have on an object's perceived distance and size. An object closer to the camera, additionally, would be required to travel at a much slower speed to make it from one side of the frame to the other compared to something two miles away. more of an effect Moreover, YouTube videos such as the uslaunchreport.com video are subjected to lossy compression, an effect resulting in loss of information as well as the introduction of potential artifacts. Per the FBIs Recommendations and Guidelines for the Use of Digital Image Processing in the Criminal Justice System: lossy compression Recommendations and Guidelines for the Use of Digital Image Processing in the Criminal Justice System Lossy compression achieves greater reduction in file size by removing both redundant and irrelevant information. Because the irrelevant information (as determined by the compression algorithm) cannot be replaced upon reconstruction of an image for display, lossy compression results in some loss of image content as well as the introduction of artifacts. This effect is minimal when you are not zooming in; but it becomes a bigger issue when you try to get a level of detail that has already been removed by a compression algorithm. compression algorithm An image treated in this way has been making the rounds as evidence that this object was clearly behind the left-most tower on the launch pad (these towers are used to protect the rocket from lightning strikes): image treated in this way Without more information, it is impossible to know what these pixels are telling us. If the object is in the foreground (and not in the background, as conspiracy theorists suggest) then the issues of the object's apparent larger-than-bird size and faster-than-bug speed can easily be attributed to that fact. The other argument in favor of the object being both distant and fast moving also comes from questionable handling of compressed images. According to some believers, there is a reflected glow off of the object when it passes over the explosion. These images, which also purport to show that the object doesnt look bird- or bug-like, have been enhanced, by methods that are not plainly documented: These images It is unclear what processes, outside of inverting the colors, went into the creation of these images; but zooming in on the object in each frame without any enhancement does not appear to reveal much about reflected light or shape: https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-07-at-11.32.48-AM.pngA final flaw in the alien/government/evil corporation argument is that it does not explain how an object traveling above the rocket (without making any physical contact) would cause its explosion, nor does it touch on why this novel method might have been employed. Do we know for sure what this object is? No. But the prevalence of similar harmless objects prior to the explosion, the fact that the evidence is based on wishfully enhanced screengrabs of downsampled video, and the fact that rockets are super explosive on their own, make an outside agent low on the list of possible explanations. Updated [30 September 2017]: Added information about other websites sharing similar claims.