Did Study Find Vegan Diet Could Be Better for Dogs' Health than Meat-Based Diets?
Well-rounded vegan diets may be less hazardous and better for the health of dogs compared to conventional meat or raw meat diets, according to research published in April 2022.  Pets are multibillion-dollar industries. According to estimates published in 2018, there are 471 million pet dogs and 373 million pet cats worldwide, which sets the international worth of pet food sales at nearly 132 billion euros. Such high demand has a large impact on the environment, particularly in the sourcing of the animal and agricultural products that make up pet food. Feeding pets is also a lucrative market. In 2020, the vegan pet food market alone was worth $8.7 billion in the U.S., and was expected to grow to over $15 billion in the next six years expected Because pets and their nutrition represent large shares of both the economy and its production line, researchers at the University of Winchester in the U.K. set out to determine what diets are best for the health of pets. To determine the links between diet and health, the team advertised an online survey through social media between May and December 2020 to determine the links between diet and health, and analyzed the data of more than 2,500 dogs that were included in survey responses from the pets' guardians.  Each dog had been living with its guardian for at least one year. About half were fed conventional meat-based diets, around one-third raw meat, and 13% were fed a vegan diet. The survey included questions about the dogs health, such as veterinary visits, medications, and overall health disorders, and consulted both the guardian and a veterinarian on its health status.  We believe our study of 2,536 dogs is by far the largest study published to date, exploring health outcomes of dogs fed vegan and meat-based diets, wrote the researchers in a news release.  news release It analyzed a range of objective data, as well as owner opinions and reported veterinary assessments of health. It revealed that the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choices for dogs, are nutritionally sound vegan diets.   Figures show the three main diets fed to the 2,536 dogs included in the survey. PLOS One  PLOS One Publishing their work in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, the team found that overall, dogs on conventional meat diets were less healthy than those on raw meat or vegan diets. Previously it was thought that raw meat diets were linked to an increased risk of pathogen exposure, while vegan diets may result in nutritional deficiencies. But when necessary hygienic and nutritional supplements were taken into consideration, both diets were, by and large, shown to be healthier and less hazardous to the canine consumer.  peer-reviewed PLOS One In summary, when jointly considering health outcomes and dietary hazards, our results and those of other studies indicate that the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choices for dogs, are nutritionally sound vegan diets, concluded the researchers. However, there are several limitations to the study that should be taken into consideration. For one, it could be the case that dogs given a raw meat diet were not necessarily healthier than those given a conventional diet, but rather that their guardians might have been less likely to take their pets to a veterinarian. Because the frequency of veterinarian visits was considered a health indication, this internal bias may have skewed the results. Furthermore, dogs given a raw meat diet tended to be younger in age than those eating other diets, which could further explain why they were deemed healthier.  The study authors also didnt factor in the sex or breed of each dog, a limitation that may have influence the results given that certain breeds are more prone to illness than others.  Lets also look at the structure of the study itself. Participating guardians were asked to consider the main ingredients within your pets normal diet, which means that a pet may not have been fed the identified diet exclusively, nor were treats or other dietary supplements excluded. It was also an opinion-based study in which respondents gave their thoughts on a dogs health in a non-standardized way. Additionally, because the survey was conducted online, this required that respondents have internet access and the time necessary to complete the survey, which may have excluded pet guardians of lower income statuses.  Lastly, there is an inherent unconscious bias within the study structure, which means that a given guardian might have been expecting a better health outcome based on the preferred diet, and this expectation could have influenced how they responded to the survey question.  While there is now scientific evidence to suggest that both raw meat and vegan diets are better than conventional diets alone, the study authors said more research is needed to determine which of the two is associated with better dog health outcomes. Dog guardians should ensure that all aspects of their dogs nutrition are being met, regardless of primary diet preference. Check pet food labels and check with manufacturers to make sure that healthy practices are in place to provide nutritional soundness.  https://www.theinsightpartners.com, The Insight Partners. Vegan Pet Food Market to Grow at a CAGR of 7.7% to Reach US$ 15,651.22 Million from 2020 to 2028. The Insight Partners, https://www.theinsightpartners.com/reports/vegan-pet-food-market. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022. Vegan Pet Food Market to Grow at a CAGR of 7.7% to Reach US$ 15,651.22 Million from 2020 to 2028. The Insight Partners, https://www.theinsightpartners.com/reports/vegan-pet-food-market. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022. Knight, Andrew, et al. Vegan versus Meat-Based Dog Food: Guardian-Reported Indicators of Health. PLOS ONE, vol. 17, no. 4, Apr. 2022, p. e0265662. PLoS Journals, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265662. Vegan Diets for Dogs May Be Linked with Better Health, and Could Be Less Hazardous, than Meat-Based Diets. EurekAlert!, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/948887. Accessed 13 Apr. 2022.
The scene appeared to be dramatic. A picture showed a crashed UFO, perhaps an alien spacecraft, surrounded by military and government officials. The craft resembled the shape of a flying saucer. It appeared in an online advertisement:   The ad read: "[Gallery] 40+ Wild Photos That the Government Has Declassified." Readers who clicked the ad were led to a slideshow article on the Daily Forest website. The story lasted 80 pages. slideshow article The picture from the ad did not show up in the lengthy article. It was nothing more than a still frame from 2016's "The X-Files: The Event Series." A video from 20th Century Studios documented the creation of the alien UFO crash: video  The headline on Daily Forest read: "Check Out These Fascinating Government Classified Photos." However, the article appeared to contain nothing but interesting photographs. None of them appeared to have been classified or declassified in the past. For example, one of the pictures showed NASA astronauts practicing a water landing. Its caption read: "In June 1966, the Apollo 1 crew practices water egress procedures with a full-scale boilerplate model of the spacecraft": showed water landing  Photo via NASA  The list also featured a publicly available picture from 2015. It depicted a radio telescope under construction in China: featured  Photo by Visual China Group via Getty Images  A third example from the lengthy article was a photograph of the late U.S. Sen. John McCain. It showed the moment he was captured during the Vietnam War on Oct. 26, 1967. At the time, he was known as Lt. Cmdr. John McCain III: photograph  Senator John McCain is pulled out of a Hanoi lake by North Vietnamese Army soldiers and civilians on October 26, 1967.(Photo By Getty Images)  The picture had not been classified. In fact, the Los Angeles Times printed the photograph just two days after he was captured. printed the photograph In sum, the ad that claimed to lead to "40+ Wild Photos That the Government Has Declassified" was nothing more than clickbait. The story lasted 80 pages and the photographs hadn't been classified or declassified. Further, the article didn't explain the alien UFO crash picture that readers clicked in the first place. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, whohas raised warning flags about U.S. debt for decades, declared in an Iowa debate Aug. 11, 2011, that the country's bankrupt. Okay, we'll bite: Is it? PolitiFact Wisconsin tested a similar claim in February from Gov. Scott Walker (Were broke. We don't have any more money.) and found itFalse. But Paul's talking about the whole country. Claim:   The Seattle Seahawks are not selling tickets to the NFC Championship Game to California residents.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2014] Just read an article saying that Fearing 49er Fans, The Seahawks have banned NFC Championship Ticket Sales for Californians. Is this true, I don't see how it can be?  I want to know if it is true that the Seattle Seahawks website page is closed to residents in California and Carolina from buying tickets to the January 19th 2014 playoff game to the Super Bowl. It is only reported on a California news page. Is it true??? Origins:  When the NFL's Seattle Seahawks take the field on 19 January 2014 for the NFC Championship Game in the hopes of securing a berth in this year's Super Bowl, there likely will be a good many fans from California in the stands at Seattle's CenturyLink Field, because the Seahawks' opponents that day will be the San Francisco 49ers.  Possibly there will be far fewer fans from the Bay Area in the stands than would like to be there, though, because the Seahawks announced  announced on their web site on 11 January 2014 that tickets for the game would be available only to buyers in a specified geographic area  and that area does not include any part of California. According to the notice posted on the Seahawks' official web site, tickets for the NFC Championship Game can be purchased only by buyers with credit card billing addresses in the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta.  So a Canadian football fan from Edmonton, Alberta, has a shot a scoring some tickets to next Sunday's game (even though there are no NFL franchises anywhere in Canada), but not fans from Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego (all of which are home to NFL teams), or Los Angeles (the second-largest city in the U.S.).   The Seahawks offered no explanation for this restriction on their web site, but theories for the reasons behind it have ranged from its being a (likely ineffective) attempt to cut down on ticket scalping to a (mean-spirited) move to protect the Seahawks' home-field advantage by making it more difficult for 49ers fans to pack the stands.  As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "Niner fans are known for traveling. This season, several road stadiums were packed with 49ers fans, and 49ers' play-by-play voice Ted Robinson said there were droves of 49ers fans in Charlotte for [last] Sunday's 23-10 road win over the Panthers." Somewhere in between is the notion that the team simply wants to try to ensure that their allotment of tickets for the championship game ends up, as much as possible, in the hands of Seahawks fans as a reward for their support throughout the season, rather than being bought up by others who simply want to attend a championship game (regardless of who's playing in it) or re-sell the tickets for profit.   The Denver Broncos have similarly restricted sales of tickets to the AFC Championship Game to residents of the Rocky Mountain region (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota and Western Kansas), an area that does not include the home of their opponents for that game, the Boston-based New England Patriots (but Denver and Boston are much father apart than Seattle and San Francisco are). restricted Boosters of the 49ers and other California football fans can still acquire tickets to the game through the secondary market (i.e., ticket resellers), but it will cost them.  According to Forbes, the NFC Championship Game will be the most expensive NFL game this season, with the cheapest ticket on the secondary market going for just under $400, and tickets selling for an average price of $740 each.  Last updated:  12 January 2014    Lynch, Kevin.  "Seahawks Block NFC Title Game Ticket Sales to California."   San Francisco Chronicle.  12 January 2014. In mid-2014 an odd image macro involving celebrity astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson began circulating, supposedly quoting Tyson as attributing his interest in astrological physics to stealing and consuming a large quantity of LSD as a young teenager: image macro circulating Let me tell you a story. When I was 13, I robbed a dope dealer in Harlem. The next day, I took 40 hits of LSD and stared at the sun for hours. That is the moment I knew that I had to become an astrological physicist. The quote was spread widely across social media, with many users wisely questioning whether the comment actually originated with Tyson: questioning  Although the image and its commentary were easily found in social media posts published from mid-2014 onward, what was missing from all of them was links to any credible direct or anecdotal evidence that the quote came from Tyson himself. Such a bizarre comment would certainly have been worthy of publication, but no news outlets ever covered the putative remarks or provided context for them. The words appear to exist only in image macro form. That the purported Neil DeGrasse Tyson quote referenced a notorious 1960s-era urban legend suggested it was an obvious fake.  And concise biographical information published about Tyson's early life states that his interest in science and space began at the age of nine, after he visited the sky theater of the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Neil DeGrasse Tyson urban legend The item below began circulating on the Internet since shortly after the 2000 U.S. presidential election, reappeared briefly after the 2004 presidential election, saw a strong resurgence in a modified form which replaced the names "Bush" and "Gore" with "McCain and "Obama" after the 2008 presidential election, and was circulated again after the 2012 election in a shortened version with the names "Obama" and Romney" replacing the original's "Bush" and "Gore": [Collected via e-mail, December 2000] At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough [sic]) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship." "The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From Bondage to spiritual faith;From spiritual faith to great courage;From courage to liberty;From liberty to abundance;From abundance to complacency;From complacency to apathy;From apathy to dependence;From dependence back into bondage." Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recentPresidential election: Population of counties won by:Gore = 127 millionBush = 143 million Square miles of land won by:Gore = 580,000Bush = 2,2427,000 States won by:Gore = 19Bush = 29 Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:Gore = 13.2Bush = 2.1 Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare ..." Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and "complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.  [Collected June 2013] Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election: Number of States won by:Obama: 19 Romney: 29 Square miles of land won by:Obama: 580,000 Romney: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by:Obama: 127 million Romney: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:Obama: 13.2 Romney: 2.1 Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the .territory Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country. Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population Already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.. If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years. If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. What follows is our analysis of the statements included in the original piece as it initially appeared in 2000: I really enjoyed one recent message that was circulated extremely widely, at least among conservatives. It gave several interesting "facts" supposedly compiled by statisticians and political scientists about the counties across the nation that voted for George Bush and the ones that voted for Al Gore in the recent election. Supposedly, the people in the counties for Bush had more education, more income, ad infinitum, than the counties for Gore. I didn't have time to check them all out, but I was curious about one item in particular... the contention that the murder rate in the Gore counties was about a billion times higher than in the Bush counties. This was attributed to a Professor Joseph Olson at the Hamline University School of Law. I never heard of such a university, but went online and found it. And Prof. Olson does exist. "Now I'm getting somewhere," I thought. But in response to my e-mail, Olson said the "research" was attributed to him erroneously. He said it came from a Sheriff Jay Printz in Montana. I e-mailed< Sheriff Printz, and guess what? He didn't do the research either, and didn't remember who had e-mailed it to him. In other words, he got the same legend e-mailed to him and passed it on to Olson without checking it out, and when Olson passed it on, someone thought it sounded better if a law professor had done the research, and so it grew. Who knows where it originally came from, but it's just not true. Alexander Fraser Tytler likely apocryphal election result map U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NAJCD) made available by CNN By calculating the murder rate for each county and then taking the averages, we found a murder rate (defined as number of murders per 100,000 residents) of about 5.2 for the average Gore county and 3.3 for the average Bush county. But since people, rather than counties, commit murders, a more appropriate approach was to calculate the total number of murders in the counties won by each candidate and divide that figure by the total number of residents in those counties. This more appropriate method yielded the following average murder rates in counties won by each candidate:   Gore:   6.5	  Bush:   4.1 There is a distinct difference between these two numbers, but it is nowhere near as large as the quoted email message states (i.e., 13.2 for Gore vs. 2.1 for Bush). analysis of federal spending In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, George W. Bush won most of the states that are net beneficiaries of federal spending programs, while Al Gore won most of the states that are net contributors to federal spending. The information in that study corresponds to a chart prepared by the Tax Foundation for fiscal year 2005 that ranks states according to federal spending per dollar of taxes paid. chart prepared by the Tax Foundation Hamrick, Dave.  "Don't Believe, Or Pass On, All You Read."   The [Fayette] Citizen.  17 January 2001. Lacy, Dean.  "A Curious Paradox of the Red States and Blue States."   2 March 2002. Tax Foundation.  "Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005."   9 October 2007. 24 June 2013: updated for 2012 election On 2 June 2015, New York firefighter Michael O'Connell took to Facebook to ask social media users for help in locating a helmet that had been stolen from his house a few years prior. O'Connell posted a photograph of his son with the helmet and explained that he had worn it throughout his FDNY career, including during 9/11 and its aftermath: Facebook   This was my FDNY helmet I wore my entire career including 9/11/01. It was stolen from my home a while back. I know it's a long shot but if enough people share maybe it turns up or is sent back so I can keep it in my family! Thanks! The NYC Wire Fire Facebook page helped spread O'Connell's message by resharing his post with the caption, "In case anyone comes across this ... maybe the thief is stupid enough to try to sell on eBay." Within a week, the message reportedly reached more than 8 million people and had been reshared hundreds of thousands of times. Unfortunately, despite the wide dissemination of this Facebook post, it did not result in the return of O'Connell's FDNY helmet. Facebook reportedly AM New York reported on 24 June 2015, a few weeks after the Facebook post went viral, that while O'Connell had not been reunited with his helmet, he did receive an outpouring of support from the community and two replica helmets from "good Samaritans hoping to sooth the sting" of his loss: reported Retired firefighter Michael O'Connell's social media campaign to retrieve his stolen FDNY helmet has gotten him the next best thing -- two replicas thanks to some good Samaritans. "There are still amazing people in this world!," O'Connell said. O'Connell, 39, recently turned to Facebook to track down the significant memento that he wore at Ground Zero following 9/11 and hoped to leave to his three children. What came back instead were two painstakingly created replica helmets from good Samaritans hoping to soothe the sting of his loss and an avalanche of human kindness and compassion. "I'm taking the good out of this story, not the bad," said O'Connell, who was forced to retire from the FDNY after being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that attacks the lungs and lymphatic system, in 2007. "We live in an amazing world. So many people are willing to help. I hope people recognize this more than all the hate out there," he said. Although this FDNY firefighter's message was originally posted in June 2015, social media users have continued to share his plea on Facebook over the ensuing years. In April 2019, for example, a screenshot of O'Connell's message that was posted by the "Ramsey, New Jersey Volunteer Fire Department" racked up more than 600,000 shares. Ramsey, New Jersey Volunteer Fire Department When viewers learned that this message was nearly four years old by the time they encountered it in April 2019, they were left wondering if O'Connell had ever been reunited with his firefighter helmet. Unfortunately, that's not the case. O'Connell told us in April 2019: "I appreciate everyones support in this matter. Unfortunately, my helmet was never returned! Hoping that it will make its way back home one day as I am a retired FF who has fallen sick to my work on September 11th and this was the helmet that I wore that day and throughout my career!" Stepansky, Joseph.  "FDNY Firefighter's Helmet Worn During 9/11 Stolen from Long Island Home."
  New York Daily Post.  3 June 2015. Feeney, Sheila Anne.  "Retired FDNY Firefighter Michael O'Connell Searching for 9/11 Helmet."
  AM New York.  3 June 2015. Feeney, Sheila Anne.  "Retired FDNY Smoke Eater Michael O'Connell Receives Two Helmets for the One He Lost."
  AM New York.  24 June 2015. On 30 July 2017, the conservative Truth Division web site reported that the United States' national debt had fallen to a "surprising" extent in the seven months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump: Truth Division President Donald Trump and his administration are undoing the governments rampant spending that occurred under former President Obamas watch.  According the U.S. Treasurys direct record, a surprising amount of money has been saved over the course of seven months. On January 20th, the day Trump was inaugurated, the total debt was $19,947,304,555,212.49. On July 30th, seven short months later, its at $19,844,938,940,351.37. Overall the debt has decreased by $102,365,614,861.12. We have checked these numbers and set them in context, and found that the national debt did indeed fall by $102 billion between 20 January and the end of July 2017. This decline is also historically remarkable, in both absolute and percentage terms. This six-month fall in the national debt is also significant when measured against the size of the overall economy. National debt  the basics  The national debt is, in brief, the total value of what the federal government owes, and is made up of accumulated annual deficits (when the government spends more than it receives in taxes and other income). It is made up of "public debt" and "intragovernmental holdings." Public debt is, essentially, debt held by sources outside the central government. Intragovernmental holdings are debts between agencies within the federal government, in the form of government trust funds, such as Social Security trust funds.  National debt  the numbers According to figures published by the Treasury Department's Bureau of Fiscal Services on the TreasuryDirect web site, the national debt was $19.84 trillion on 27 July 2017 (not 30 July, as stated by Truth Division. On 20 January, it was $19.95 trillion. TreasuryDirect That shows a fall of $102.37 billion, or 0.51 percent, over a period of 131 business days. To set that in context, we analyzed national debt data stretching back to 12 July 1993, and examined every 131-day period in the last 24 years. You can download a spreadsheet containing all the relevant data here. here Debt-to-GDP ratio The national debt, however, is best viewed with reference to the overall economy. If two countries have about the same national debt, the one with the smaller economy will likely be more constrained in its spending, whereas the larger economy  despite having the same level of debt  will be less affected in terms of economic and fiscal policy. A good way of checking this is to compare the size of the debt to the size of the economy, measured as GDP (gross domestic product). GDP is the combined market value of all goods and services produced in a given jurisdiction (in this case, the United States). This comparison between the size of the national debt and the size of the economy is known as the debt-to-GDP ratio.  While the Treasury Department publishes the national debt for every business day, GDP is only published on a quarterly basis (once every three months). In order to compare the debt-to-GDP ratio on 27 July with the same figure on Inauguration Day, we have to get a little bit creative.  For example, we know that the United States GDP was $18.9 trillion at the end of December 2016 (the end of the fourth quarter), according to figures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  Bureau of Economic Analysis We also know that the national debt on 30 December 2016 was $19.98 trillion, so the estimated debt-to-GDP ratio on that date was 105.67 percent. In other words, the debts of the United States federal government were 5.67 percent bigger than the size of the Unites States economy (when measured by GDP). At the end of the first quarter of 2017 (the end of March), GDP was $19.06 trillion. And we know that on 31 March, the national debt was $19.85 trillion, meaning the debt-to-GDP ratio was 104.14 percent  a healthier number than at the end of December. But to estimate GDP for all the days in between 30 December and 31 March (including 20 January, Inauguration Day) we have to cheat a little bit. You can read more about our methodology by downloading this spreadsheet, but here's what our estimates revealed: Causes The Truth Division, a conservative, openly pro-Trump web site, clearly attributes this decline in the national debt to the president, claiming he and his administration are "undoing the government's rampant spending" and "keeping his promises regarding fiscal responsibility". However, the article does not cite any examples of actions taken by Donald Trump which would support this conclusion.  Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, dismissed any claims that President Trump is responsible:  Trump hasn't legislated anything that would have any impact on the fiscal accounts, so it simply doesn't make sense on the face it.  Instead, Bernstein told us, the cause of the drop in the debt is simple  the federal debt ceiling that has been in place since March 2017. If you look at a plot of the total debt right now, it's holding steady at the limit, because to go over the limit is unconstitutional. So you either have to engage in extraordinary measures or eventually default, and the latter is unimaginable so right now Treasury is engaged in the former. That is, they are delaying or suspending various payments that need to be made, particularly within some of their intra-governmental accounts... By those measures, they can hold the national debt where it is for a certain amount of time.  Eventually, Bernstein says, the debt ceiling will have to be lifted, and the payments that had been delayed will cause the national debt to increase once again.  That pattern can be seen in this chart, which shows the national debt from January 2011 up to the end of July 2017. There are four flat lines showing four periods during which the debt ceiling was frozen: from May to August 2011; May to October 2013; March to October 2015; and the ongoing period since March 2017.  2011 2013 2015   Conclusion The Truth Division article accurately describes the extent to which the national debt fell between the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017 and the end of July of the same year. And it rightly describes this fall as "surprising", since it ranks among the very largest 131-day declines in the national debt since July 1993, both in absolute and percentage terms.  Similarly, the decline in both components of the national debt  public debt and intragovernmental holdings  was highly significant between 20 January and 27 July 2017, both in absolute and percentage terms, and as we have shown, the national debt has fallen by an estimated 2.25 percent since Inauguration Day  even when measured against the size of the overall Unites States economy. Whether or not any actions or decisions made by Donald Trump have caused or contributed to these historically remarkable declines in the debt is a question that goes beyond the scope of this particular fact check. Unfortunately, the  national debt resumed its upward march in August 2017 and by mid-August 2018 stood at about $21.3 trillion (up $1.4 trillion since Inauguration Day), so the early 2017 drop has not proved to be a long-term trend. national debt A spreadsheet containing all the data relevant to this article can be downloaded here. here Bureau of Fiscal Services.  "Frequently Asked Questions About the Public Debt".
 TreasuryDirect.gov.  1 April 2016. Claim:  List demonstrates the concept of "a billion." Status:  Multiple  see below. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2003] A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.  A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it. Origins:  We   don't know the specific origins of this piece illustrating the enormousness represented by the number one billion, but it's reasonably accurate as far as the arithmetic goes.  We collected the example quoted above and first published this article back in 2003, and rather than updating this page annually, we've chosen to keep our comments relative to that year. We have to start out by noting that the definition of "billion" is not standardized.  In some places and usages, a billion is a one followed by nine zeros, or one thousand million; in other cases, a billion is a one followed by twelve zeros, or one million million.  In the U.S., the common usage of "billion" refers to a one followed by nine zeros (or 1,000,000,000), so that's the standard we employ here. billion  A billion seconds: One billion seconds is about 31.7 years, so going back in time a billion seconds would put us in 1972.  (The discrepancy in the version cited above, which puts the year at 1959, might have come about because the example we collected was compiled or last updated in 1990.)  A billion minutes:  One billion minutes is approximately 1901 years, so travelling back to a time one billion minutes ago would land us in the year A.D. 102.  This date is about seventy years too late to encompass the life of Jesus according to traditional accounts. (The discrepancy of several decades might be the result of someone's faulty arithmetic or historical knowledge, or it could be an indication that this piece originated back in the 1930s.)  A billion hours:  One billion hours ago represents a time a bit over 114,000 years in the past, an era generally classified as the Lower Paleolithic era, or the "Old Stone Age."  A billion days ago: Some versions of this piece include the line "A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet."  A billion days is approximately 2.74 million years; the era defined by that time period is generally estimated to be about when the first species of the genus Homo appeared in Africa, having diverged from the Australopithecines. Homo  A billion dollars ago:  If the U.S. federal government were spending a billion dollars every 8 hours and 20 minutes, its total yearly expenditure would be a little more than $1 trillion.  In the last few years, the budgets approved by Congress have been about double that amount, or $2 trillion per year. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, someone politicized the "billions" piece by adding the following coda to it: Some interesting statistics While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans  It'samazing what you can learn with some simple division ... Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean? Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every  man,  woman, child), you each get $516,528. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787 Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012. Are all your calculators broken in Washington, D.C.? Maybe all of us should just flood their houses, then we can all be on the "big easy" street for the rest of our lives, and forget about working, and paying taxes and all that useless stuff! In September 2005, the two U.S. Senators from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu (a Democrat) and David Vitter (a Republican), jointly introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act in Congress, a bill that sought a total of $250 billion in federal funds to provide long-term relief and assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.  Of course, the legislation didn't propose that the entire amount be spent on New Orleans alone, or that the money literally be distributed to New Orleans  residents  the point of the coda was to provide some perspective on how much $250 billion is by presenting it relative to the number of people in the area hardest hit by the hurricane. Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act In any case, the arithmetic is a little bit off.  Assuming the population and home figures provided to be correct, dividing $250 billion equally among all New Orleans residents would mean:   Each person would receive $515,810.   The money/home ratio would be $1,328,014.   A family of four would take in an aggregate total of $2,063,240. Last updated:  22 April 2008    Sources:   Grunwald, Michael and Susan B. Glasser.  "Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions."   The Washington Post.  26 September 2005  (p. A1). On 14 February 2017, the web site America's Last Line of Defense published an article reporting that President Donald Trump had ended "Obama's vacation scam." article According to the story, former President Barack Obama had taken funds from the "Office of Presidential Visits and Vacations" to pay for vacations for himself, his family, and two dozen staff members through the year 2036. Once the "scam" was uncovered, the article said, Trump allegedly sent a bill to Obama to repay the money used for those vacations: Before Obama left office he arranged with the State Department for a series of official visits to foreign countries spanning the next 20 years. Using discretionary funds from the Office of Presidential Visits and Vacations, Obama was able to weasel what would have been another $2.1 billion in free vacations for him and up to 24 members of his family plus staff and a dog sitter until the year 2036. He would have, that is, had he not lost his office to Donald Trump. Trump, who is always looking for ways to save money, was having the office used for vacations repainted with 24 karat gold leaf trim and having the shelves lined with leather when he was presented with a ledger that contained all of the travel plans and expenses. The ledger was found by one of the 31 workers Trump hired from outside the typical White House staff to make alterations requiring specialized craftsmen. Our President immediately canceled the plans and recalled all Secret Service agents scheduled to protect the Obamas anywhere outside of the United States. The Obamas, who are still waiting in Kenya for their documents so they can re-enter the country, are also facing another new challenge at the hands of Trump: Theyre going to have to repay the government for all of those vacations that werent official state business. Of course, there is absolutely no truth to this story. President Obama did not steal $2.1 billion to fund family vacations until 2036, nor did President Trump end his "vacation scam" or send Obama a bill to repay the money. TheLastLineOfDefense.orghas a long history of publishing false information, and while the web site also reported that the Obamas were "waiting in Kenya" for their documents, the former President was actually with former First Lady Michelle Obama in the British Virgin Islands. On 14 February 2017, Michelle Obama posted a photograph from the beach, wishing her husband a happy Valentine's Day: history British Virgin Islands photograph An argument could be made here that Kenya also has beaches, which it does; in fact, its beaches are renowned for their beauty. However, before you conclude that the Obama family is lying about where in the world they are (and somehow fooling the press assigned to cover their stay in the islands), consider the following disclaimer, taken directly from TheLastLineOfDefense.org's own "About" page:  beauty About DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that dont necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real. Horton, Helena.  "Barack Obama Tweets Romantic Valentine's Day Message to His Wife Michelle."
  The Telegraph.  14 February 2017. The Last Line of Defense.  "Trump Just Ended Obamas Vacation Scam and Sent Him a Bill You Have to See to Believe."
  13 February 2017. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here Throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has frequently referred to his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Some social media users questioned whether this was the same "Scranton" from the U.S. sitcom "The Office" (and whether Scranton was indeed a real American city). Meanwhile, Biden's political rival, U.S. President Donald Trump, accused Biden of exaggerating his connections to the small Pennsylvania city.  This topic came up once again during the final presidential debate of 2020. Twice during the debate, Biden mentioned his small-town roots while talking about middle-class families. Here are transcripts from these two moments: mentioned Where I come from, in Scranton and Claymont, the people don't live off of the stock market. This isn't about me. There's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. There's a reason for it. He doesn't want to talk about the substantive issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family, and your family's hurting badly. If you're making less than, if you're a middle class family, you're getting hurt badly right now. You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning deciding, well, we can't get new tires, theyre bald, because we have to wait another month. Or, so are we going to be able to pay the mortgage? Who's going to tell her, she can't go back to community college? They're the decisions you're making in the middle class families like I grew up in Scranton and Claymont. They're in trouble. We should be talking about your families but that's the last thing he wants to talk about. Later in the debate, Trump disputed Biden's connections to Scranton: And he doesn't come from Scranton. That's like, what -- he lived there for a short period of time before he even knew -- And he left. And the people of Pennsylvania will tell you that. In the past, Trump has pushed an exaggerated version of this claim, saying that Biden "wasn't born here" in Scranton. wasn't born here The president is wrong. Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Here's a November 1942 newspaper clipping of Biden's birth announcement from The Tribune, a local Scranton newspaper: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/61652359/ For fans of "The Office," this is the same Scranton that serves as the home of the fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin.  Scranton Biden lived in Scranton until he was 10 years old. His father struggled to find work and eventually landed a job cleaning boilers in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden's father made the two-hour commute for a time, but in 1953 he moved the family to Claymont to be closer to work. The New York Times reported: reported Though Scranton was sharing in the postwar economic boom, Joe Sr. had trouble finding steady work, and nothing that measured up to his previous success. For a time, he commuted to Wilmington to clean boilers for a heating and cooling company. In 1953, he moved the family there. [...] After a few years in a drab apartment in Claymont, Del., the Bidens moved to a nondescript split-level home on Wilson Road in Wilmington, where they stayed until the children were grown. While the Bidens moved out of Scranton when he was 10 years old, the family maintained some connections to his hometown. In 1987, Jean Finnegan Biden, the former vice president's mother, told the Scrantonian Tribune, "Scranton's our hometown... we have fond memories of it." In 2008, Delaware's The News Journal published an article about Biden's hometown friends and his authentic connection to the city: Scrantonian Tribune  Mon, Sep 1, 2008  Page 10  The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)  Newspapers.com  Mon, Sep 1, 2008  Page 10  The News Journal (Wilmington, Delaware)  Newspapers.com In an interview with GQ, Biden talked about his childhood in Scranton and noted that his family spent most holidays and summers visiting friends in Scranton until he was about 16 years old. Biden also said that a few of his friends from Scranton were in his wedding: GQ I go back [to Scranton] lot. For the last thirty-five years, any time Scranton needs something I don't know how to say no to them. For real. I really don't. You know, it's still home. I moved outta there when I was 11 years old, but probably till I was 16, we spent every holiday up there. And almost every summer. And when I got married, to Neilia, my deceased wife, there were six, seven guys in the wedding and three of them were from Scranton. In short: 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in November 1942. This is the same Scranton that is featured in the show "The Office." Biden lived in Scranton for about 10 years until his father moved the family a few hours away to Clayton after getting a job in Delaware.  The Associated Press.  "The Office sheds light on Scranton, Pa."
  3 March 2006. Tavernise, Sabrina.  "Biden Says He Gets Places Like Scranton. Some in Town Arent So Sure."
  The New York Times.  23 Otober 2020. Calefati, Jessica.  "Fact-Checking Trumps Frequent Claim That Joe Biden Abandoned Scranton.'"
  PolitiFact.  29 August 2020. Depaulo, Lisa.  "$#!% Joe Biden Says."
  GQ.  19 November 2010. Solender, Andrew.  "He Wasnt Born Here: Trump Birthers Biden Near Scranton Ahead Of DNC Acceptance Speech."
  Forbes.  20 August 2020. Broder, John.  "Fathers Tough Life an Inspiration for Biden."
  The New York Times.  23 October 2008. USA Today.  "Debate Transcript: Trump, Biden Final Presidential Debate Moderated by Kristen Welker."
  23 October 2020.