Did a KGB Agent Confirm That the Sex Pistols Were Backed by the USSR to Destabilize the West?
On 9 May 2017, Facebook page "The Church of PUNK" shared an article reporting that a KGB agent admitted the band the Sex Pistols were an operation backed by the former Soviet Union to destabilize Western democracy: shared article   The April 2015 article reported that at the time it was published, a former KGB agent had just disclosed the punk rock plot: article Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin, a retired KGB agent, has admitted this week on National Russian Television (NTV) that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was behind the creation of the 1970s punk scene and financed major punk bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones. The USSR government at the time spent hundreds of millions of rubles on this covert operation destined to create utter chaos and pervert the Western youth to nihilist, anti-establishment and anti-american ideologies he explained in an hour long interview broadcast on national television. There is no truth to this story; World News Daily Report states on its own disclaimer page that all of the content on the site is fictional: no truth disclaimer WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website  even those based on real people  are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.
Austins typically soft-spoken mayor recently popped a big-as-Texas boast. Theres a reason Austin is number one in Texas in startups and venture capital and patents, Steve Adler said. Adler, speaking outside City Hall, went on: Theres a reason that tech and transportation companies come to Austin to roll out their new initiatives. And thats because Austin is where good ideas become real. Claiming that Austin is anti-innovation has no basis in fact. Hear hear! Still, we wondered about the rankings Adler declared whilerevealing his plansto vote against a ballot proposition, later rejected by voters, affecting background checks of drivers for ride-hailing services. Startups Adler's office didn't immediately offer his backup. Meantime, our online search for information on startups led us to a June 2015 report from the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation stating that in the last year, the Austin metropolitan area ranked No. 1 nationally for the areas pace launching startups, which the foundation defined as firms less than one-year old employing at least one person besides the owner. Asked what last year means in the report, foundation researcher E.J. Reedy advised by phone the conclusion tied to data from 2012 and 2014. According to the foundation,which saysit focuses on improving lives through education and entrepreneurship, the nations top 10 metropolitan areas for startup activity among the 40 most-populous metropolitan areas were:Austin;Miami, Fla.;San Jose, Calif.;Los Angeles;Denver;San Francisco;New York;Houston;San Diego; andSan Antonio. Per Adlers Texas point, the Austin area had 180.8 startups per 100,000 residents, the foundation says, outpacing theDallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area(142.5 startups per 100,000 residents),Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown(136.9 startups per 100,000 residents) and the San Antonio-New Braunfels area (111.9 startups per 100,000 residents). By email, foundation spokeswoman Lacey Graverson told us the presented concentrations drew on the U.S. Census BureausBusiness Dynamics Statisticsto tally startups matched with population data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Reedy agreed by phone that among the big Texas cities, the Austin area had the greatest concentration of startups. But generally, Reedy indicated, counts of startups can vary, partly because theres no single accepted definition of startups, which inherently come and go at a rapid pace. The government has official measures, Reedy added, but each one captures an aspect -- for instance new employer businesses or newly self-employed individuals. Also, Reedy said, observers differ over what merits counting. Some stress large firms that employ many, he said, others urge a fix on technology firms and others say that any count should recognize small businesses (including one-person endeavors) that grow by an employee or two a year. A foundation chart presenting Austins startup density since the late 1970s indicates the area has had peppier times--including in 2008 (201.7 startups per 100,000 residents), 2006 (214.9), 1999 (217.9) and, the charts high point, 1981 (499.5), which was up a huge measure from 1980 (31.4):        SOURCE:Web page,Startup Activity, Austin Area, 2015,Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, June 4, 2015 (viewed May 5, 2016) Venture capital Next, we turned to exploring Austins ranking for venture capital, which describes money invested in a business or project at considerable risk. A January 2016Austin American-Statesmannews story, citing a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association,  said Austin entities in 2015 were by far the states largest recipients of venture capital, with $740 million; Dallas firms placed second, fielding $214.4 million, ahead of Houston outfits, at $160 million. The Austin-connected investments added up to the largest annual dollar figure for Austin since 2001, the newspaper said, when 127 companies received $1.14 billion. By email, mayoral spokesman Jason Stanford pointed out another account of the survey results; a Silicon Hills Newsstorysaid the 99 Austin deals in 2015, mostly to develop software, were down from 114 in 2014. Also, the story said, Austins number one deal for the latest year was Civitas Learning, attracting $60 million in venture capital, followed by Aeglea Biotherapeautics with $44 million, Mirna Therapeutics with $41.8 million and SpareFoot with $30 million, the story said. Nationally in 2015, theStatesmanstory said, venture capital investments rose to $58.8 billion, up 22 percent from the year before. Silicon Valley, as usual, took in the most money, with the San Jose area receiving $27.3 billion in 1,333 deals, the story said. Patents Stanford said Adler made his claim about Austin leading Texas in patents based on a May 2010Forbes.com articleby Andy Greenberg stating that Austin and neighboring Round Rock had produced an impressive average 1.7 patents for every thousand residents over the last 12 months, the second-most per-capita of any metro area in the country, he wrote. Greenberg elaborated: Austins culture of innovation may be boosted by well-known tech credentials like the South by Southwest (SXSW) Web startup and music festival held annually in March, as well as the nearby headquarters of hardware industry giants Dell and Freescale Semiconductor. But they also have two secret weapons in the innovation race: the University of Texass Cockrell School of Engineering, and IBMs Austin research lab. IBM produces more patents than any other company in the world, and for the last seven years Austin has produced more of those patents than any other IBM office. In total the lab produced 880 patents in 2009. Thats just 30 less than all of Cisco, and 300 more than Sun Microsystems, Boeing, AT&T or Toyota. We were unable to confirm or duplicate Greenbergs Austin conclusion. To get our own sense of how Texas cities stand in patents originated, we reached out to the Dallas-basedregional officeof the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. By email, spokesman Ryan Elliott pointed outpatent counts posted by the officeindicating that in 2012-13 and from 2000 through 2013, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area generated more patents than the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area. However, the regions raw counts were close, according to the agency, while the Austin area was responsible for more patents than any other Texas area from 2009, 2010 and 2011 through 2013, by our reckoning. Snapshot: The Austin area was responsible for 12,387 patents from 2009 through 2013, according to the office, with the Dallas area accounting for 11,546 patents -- which we took to mean that the less populous Austin area ran well ahead of the Dallas area in patents per 1,000 residents. Our search for relevant analyses led to a2013 reportby the Brookings Institution finding that from 1980 to 2012, most U.S. patents--63 percent--had been developed by people living in just 20 metro areas home to 34 percent of the U.S. population. Reflecting the advantages of large metropolitan economies, the report said, 92 percent of U.S. patents are concentrated in just 100 metro areas, with 59 percent of the population. For patents applied for from 2007 to 2011, the metro areas with the highest number per capita are San Jose; Burlington, VT; Rochester, MN; Corvallis, OR; and Boulder, CO. The authors wrote: From 1980 to 2011, a few large metros notably changed their share of U.S patents. At the top, San Jose moved up from ninth to first, and San Francisco moved from seventh to fourth, moving ahead of Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Boston. Seattle and San Diego moved up 15 and nine places, respectively, to become seventh and eighth. Meanwhile, Austin and Raleigh moved up 41 and 55 places, respectively, to become 11th and 20th. Cleveland fell 10 slots from 13th to 23rd, while Philadelphia fell from fourth to 13th. Not only did Austin surge in total patents, it lately achieved a high ranking in per-capita patents. From 2007 through 2011, a chart in the report indicates, the Austin metro area had 1,503 patents per million residents, tops in Texas and placing the area fourth nationally among high-patent areas behind San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California (5,066 patents per million residents); Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, New York (1,829); and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (1,638). In Texas, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metro area had 379 patents per million residents and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area had 310 per million, according to Brookings. Next, we heard back from Mark Muro of Brookings who shared a chart that he said was based on a different data source -- global PCT patents,meaningthe international patent system rather than the U.S. PTO. By that metric, the chart suggests that from 2008 through 2012, the Houston metropolitan area generated more cutting-edge technology patents per 1,000 residents (1,598) than the Austin area (1,294). An excerpt:             SOURCE:Chart ranking 100 U.S. Core Based Statistical Areas in tech patents invented per 1,000 population, 2008-2012 (received by email from Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings, May 5, 2016) Regardless of those results, Muro and a Brookings colleague, Nick Marchio, suggested we hew to the U.S. patent office counts as the best general way of assessing the mayors claim. Marchio even volunteered toadjust the patent offices raw counts for the population of each metropolitan area. Result: In 2013, the latest year of tabulated patents, the Austin area ranked No. 11 nationally with 1.55 patents per 1,000 residents, far outpacing the No. 2 Texas metro, Dallas, at 51st with 0.44 patents per 1,000 residents. Also, from 2009 through 2013, the Austin area ranked 10th nationally with 6.95 patents per 1,000 residents, far ahead of the No. 2 Texas metro, in this case the Houston area, which landed 52nd nationally with 1.81 patents per 1,000 residents. Our ruling Adler said: Austin is number one in Texas in startups, venture capital and patents. Houston has been running ahead in international technology patents, it looks to us, but Austin lately leads the state in overall patents, startups and venture capital. We rate the claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Claim:  E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies, policies and legislation that have contributed to the current and future US oil supply situation.  Did you know that the United States does NOT have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign. This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France  actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endlessbillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela to be used in propping up their economies. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democrat Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, off Cuba but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming. We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our dirt burms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no burm around it. People wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly nothing. So, America enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil. What the US government also does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "Record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc. amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon. To all you Democrats, when you go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama just keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin through a Democrat's name. William "Bill" Phillips Origins:  Several readers (including members of the Phillips family) have maintained to us that there is no descendant of Frank Phillips matching the description of the putative author of this piece, which itself appears to be a rewritten/expanded version of an earlier article (one not originally attributed to William "Bill" Phillips).  Given the uncertain provenance of the "Phillips" authorship version, we'll address our analysis primarily to the wording of the (presumed) original: article I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up. Ranking businesses according to "bigness" can be based on a variety of different metrics: geographic reach, scale of operations, market value, gross revenues, net profits, etc. Exxon Mobil is certainly one of the world's largest (in terms of gross revenues) and most profitable public companies.  (Many of the world's largest non-public companies are also in the oil business.)  The statement here about Exxon Mobil's being "only the 14th largest [oil company] in the world" refers to the amount of oil and gas reserves that company controls, and it is generally true that the major (public) oil companies have much less access to oil and gas resources than they did a few decades ago, most of which are now controlled by national oil companies: largest profitable non-public reserves Despite record crude prices, the major oil companies are struggling to access resources that are being jealously guarded by national companies with whom they are forced to establish partnerships. As paradoxical as it may seem, high oil prices do not mean a golden age for the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Totalor BP. Of course, with a barrel of oil at more than 140 dollars, they are seeing major profits, but the future has never seemed so uncertain. The problem is access to reserves. The oil majors now control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s, according to figures released by the office of Ernst and Young at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. As a result they are being forced to explore in increasingly extreme conditions. The statement that "94% of the world's oil supply [is] locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States" might be a considered a bit misleading since many of those "hostile" countries have relatively small oil reserves, while the country with the second-largest oil reserves, Canada, is U.S.-friendly (and both Mexico and the United States are also among the countries with the largest oil reserves). reserves This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France   actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. Drilling for oil off of most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts has largely been barred due to a moratorium imposed by Congress in the early 1980s and by an executive order signed by President George H.W. Bush (a Republican) in 1990.  The congressional moratorium has to be renewed every year, and it has remained in place for nearly three decades through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike.  (On 14 July 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the executive order barring offshore drilling that had been signed by his father eighteen years earlier.)  The congressional moratorium is due to expire on 1 October 2008 unless Congress votes to extend it. Some analysts have claimed that if the oil industry could extract oil and gas from oil shale in a cost-effective manner, oil shale deposits in the U.S. (particularly on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, site of the world's largest such deposit) could produce viable oil reserves of about 800 billion barrels (three times the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).  However, the cost and effectiveness of oil shale development (and the resource use and environmental effects attendant to accomplishing it) remain a subject of considerable debate, and oil companies remain barred from undertaking commercial oil shale projects on federal land: At best production is years away, while unpredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land for commercial-scale oil shale projects. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. The subject of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development is another issue that has been pursued across the years through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR.  As of now, both major-party presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are opposed to opening ANWR to oil exploration. pursued factors Last updated:  14 July 2008    Dechaux, Delphine.   "Despite Rocketing Prices, Outlook Is Bleak for Oil Majors."   Agence France Presse.  6 July 2008.     Feller Ben.   "Bush Trumps Congress; Moves First on Drilling."   Associated Press.  14 July 2008.     Forbes, Steve.   "Will We Rid Ourselves of This Pollution?"   Forbes.  16 April 2007.     Guerrera, Francesco and Carola Hoyos.   "Hidden Value: How Unlisted Companies Are Eclipsing the Public Equity Market."   Financial Times.  15 December 2006.     Ivanovich, David.   "Despite 800 Billion Barrel Potential, Oil Shale a Hard Sell."   The Houston Chronicle.  12 July 2008.     Simon, Richard.   "Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling."   Los Angeles Times.  14 July 2008. Since November 2020, an identically worded bit of text alleging that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "is a private nonprofit corporation" has been shared across multiple social media platforms. The claim has its origins on the website Armstrong Economics  which sells a variety of self-published conspiracy books by the titular Martin Armstrong  and would become a well-shared bit of copy-and-paste "copypasta," reproduced in part below: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention its origins well-shared Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation? [...] The CDC is quasi-government under the Department of Health and Human Services which strangely has sources of funding that are predicated on the fact that it also has a private 501(c)(3) public charity, like the Clinton Foundation. The CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, NGOs and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is NOT a government-funded organization. It is not exclusively a government-funded [sic]  very curious. Natural News, which boasts a massive audience of conspiracy theorists, republished it in December 2020. At the time of this writing, versions of this copypasta still creep up on various social media platforms. On May 3, 2021, a Facebook account named The Daily Callout published it along with a picture of purported CDC funding sources. Commenters to that post were evidently confused: republished published   The allegations leveled against the CDC are not all that coherent in these posts. The copypasta suggests the CDC is both a non-profit and a "quasi-government" agency. Further, those issues are tangled up in the separate issue of corporate donations to the CDC. The title of the post, however, provides Snopes with a clearly stated contention: "Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation?" You most likely did not know this, because it is, in fact, not true. The CDC is a federal agency housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The confusion stems from the fact that, in 1992, Congress mandated the creation of a non-profit foundation  the CDC Foundation  that would "not be an agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government" and whose purpose would be "to support and carry out activities for the prevention and control of diseases, disorders, injuries, and disabilities, and for promotion of public health." As part of that goal, the foundation has an endowment and accepts charitable gifts from a variety of entities, including corporations, which are forwarded to the CDC to support specific initiatives.  housed in in 1992 mandated the creation CDC Foundation "The government has unique capacities as well as limitations. The same is true for the private and philanthropic sectors," the CDC Foundation argues on its website. "We believe that people, groups and organizations have greater positive impact and can accomplish more collectively than individually." Funds raised by the CDC foundation are donated to various programs and initiatives within the CDC. its website The CDC Foundation is one of two ways corporations can legally provide funds to the CDC. Donations to the CDC foundation are an indirect route as, by law, "officers, employees, and members of the board of the Foundation shall not be officers or employees of the Federal Government." Direct gifts by corporations to the CDC are also allowed under a portion of the U.S. Code that authorizes the secretary of HHS "to accept on behalf of the United States gifts made ... for the benefit of the Service or for the carrying out of any of its functions." by law a portion For both direct gifts to the CDC and gifts made via the CDC Foundation, conditional funding is allowed so long as those requirements are not, as outlined in CDC policy documents: policy documents The acceptance of corporate donations earmarked for specific causes  both to the CDC Foundation and to the CDC itself  have caused apparent conflicts of interest. In 2015, the medical journal BMJ published an editorial outlining several examples of potential conflicts, including these examples: an editorial In 2010, the CDC, in conjunction with the CDC Foundation, formed the Viral Hepatitis Action Coalition, which supports research and promotes expanded testing and treatment of hepatitis C in the United States and globally. Industry has donated over $26m to the coalition through the CDC Foundation since 2010. Corporate members of the coalition include Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, OraSure Technologies, Quest Diagnostics, and Siemenseach of which produces products to test for or treat hepatitis C infection. [...] In 2012, [a company named] Genentech earmarked $600,000 in donations to the CDC Foundation for CDCs efforts to promote expanded testing and treatment of viral hepatitis. Genentech and its parent company, Roche, manufacture test kits and treatments for hepatitis C. The CDC argues that it has policies in place to prevent such conflicts. Its website states that "when we engage with the private sector  we maintain our scientific integrity by participating in a gift review process that is rigorous and transparent. CDCs gift acceptance policy requires a comprehensive gift review prior to accepting a gift. This includes CDC Foundation (CDCF) gifts and gifts given directly to [the] CDC, whether they are monetary or non-monetary." These processes have been refined and standardized several times since 2014. has policies since 2014 While the issue of potential corporate influence over public health policy merits scrutiny, it is also important to consider the scale of private funding compared to the overall congressionally appropriated budget of the CDC. In the 2020 fiscal year, the CDC received $13 million in conditional gifts from the CDC Foundation and $10 million in conditional and unconditional direct contributions from the private sector. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $8 billion in funding the CDC receives from Congress: 2020 fiscal year compared to   Even from a rhetorical standpoint it would be a stretch to argue the CDC proportionally is awash in corporate funding. Narrowly speaking, however, the assertion that the CDC is a non-profit, non-government organization is incorrect because that claim conflates the CDC (a federal agency) and the CDC Foundation (a 501(c)(3) charity). As such, the claim is On June 11, 2022, former Starbucks employee and self-described union organizer Laila Dalton (@lailaddaltonn) tweeted a picture of a blue garbage dumpster with the caption, "Food-share bags that Starbucks supposedly donates found in a dumpster in Grand Prairie, Texas." Starbucks employee union organizer tweeted Starbucks Texas In order to learn the facts behind the picture, we reached out with several questions for Dalton, Starbucks, and the Feeding America charity. Feeding America partners with Starbucks on what's known as FoodShare, a program that provides food for those in need. We received information from Dalton and Starbucks but are still awaiting a response from Feeding America. Starbucks Feeding America Starbucks Starbucks We have so far found no information that could conclusively identify the items seen in the dumpster in the photograph, nor did we locate details that would explain why the bags were thrown away. During our investigation, we learned that the picture was not recent. We were told that it was not captured behind a Starbucks store, something some users may have believed to be the case after glancing at the photograph. In fact, we received information from a Starbucks company spokesperson who said that local officials who represent Feeding America in Grand Prairie told them that they knew of no issues with recent daily deliveries. They also reiterated the positive impact of its FoodShare program on a national scale. Here's what we know. Starbucks Starbucks Grand Prairie According to the tweet's caption, the picture of the garbage dumpster that supposedly contained Starbucks FoodShare food donations was taken in Grand Prairie, Texas. However, little else could be gathered from just the text and photograph. Starbucks  By email, Dalton told us that she did not take the picture, but said it was captured by an "anonymous past partner" around 7 p.m. on Aug. 3, 2021. That made the photograph somewhat close to a year old by the time it was tweeted on June 11, 2022. According to Dalton, the location of the dumpster in the photograph that purportedly contained Starbucks FoodShare program donation bags was said to be at a building occupied by Penske Logistics. We reached out to Penske Logistics to see if the company handles any distribution for Starbucks in the area, or if that role belonged to a different organization located at the same address. We will update this story if we receive a response. Starbucks Starbucks The tweet received well over 200,000 total retweets and likes in just 48 hours. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, this was an extremely massive amount of people engaging with the tweet. The tweet was also shared as a screenshot on Reddit, where it received more than 18,000 points. This was likely enough positive interaction (upvotes) to land the post on the website's front page.  Twitter shared as a screenshot Reddit In 2016, Starbucks partnered with the Feeding America charity on a program called FoodShare. According to a Starbucks company spokesperson with whom we spoke over the phone, the FoodShare program's process begins when refrigerated trucks pick up the unsold food from stores. That food is then delivered so that it can be distributed by Feeding America to people in need. Starbucks FoodShare Starbucks The spokesperson added that the FoodShare program has helped to deliver more than 36.8 million meals nationally to those in need since it started six years earlier. Perhaps more important was that Starbucks said that, regarding the picture of the dumpster, people who represent Feeding America in the Grand Prairie area said that daily deliveries were being received and there were no known issues, as of early June 2022. Starbucks According to a 2021 presentation that's hosted on the Starbucks website, the company donates unsold food from "100% of its U.S. company-owned Starbucks stores." presentation Starbucks  The document also broke down the donation process into three main steps: Donate Food Instead of being thrown away, unsold food is rescued and donated to the Feeding America network of food banks and agencies to get into the hands of those who need it most. Tax Benefit Per the U.S. Enhanced Tax Deduction, companies receive a financial benefit for pounds of food donated, which can be used to fund backhaul logistics for food rescue. Backhaul Logistics Utilizing existing delivery trucks and routes to pickup food donations and return to a central site for consolidation unlocks consistent and efficient food rescue. According to the presentation, the tax benefit received by Starbucks from its FoodShare program is used to self-fund the initiative. Starbucks This story will be updated if we receive any further information about the picture of the dumpster. @lailaddaltonn. Twitter, 11 June 2022, https://twitter.com/lailaddaltonn/status/1535730614082469888. Scheiber, Noam. U.S. Labor Board Issues a Complaint against Starbucks. The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/business/economy/starbucks-union-nlrb-arizona.html. spiegel_im_spiegel. Food-Share Bags That Starbucks Supposedly Donates Found in a Dumpster in Grand Prairie, Texas. r/LateStageCapitalism via Reddit, 12 June 2022, https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/vamg8s/foodshare_bags_that_starbucks_supposedly_donates/. Starbucks Coffee Company. Starbucks Food Donation Guide. Apr. 2021, https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2021/09/Starbucks-US-Food-Donation-Guide.pdf. Claim:  The CDC has recommended mothers stop breastfeeding in order to increase the efficacy of vaccines.   Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2015]There's a rumor going around that the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention (CDC) ADVISES DELAYED BREASTFEEDING TO BOOST VACCINEEFFICACY.   Origins:  In January 2015, a long-circulating rumor about purported recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) about breastfeeding and vaccines  began to spread anew. According to claims made on blogs and social media sites, the CDC recommended mothers stop breastfeeding in order to ensure vaccines dispensed to newborn babies were fully effective. The rumor touched upon two often controversial baby care issues, vaccines and breastfeeding, and also tacitly suggested the CDC's focus was profit rather than what's best for babies. The claim referenced an October 2010 study published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal titled "Inhibitory effect of breast milk on infectivity of live oral rotavirus vaccines." At issue was the "Interpretation" portion on the study's abstract, which stated: study The lower immunogenicity and efficacy of rotavirus vaccines in poor developing countries could be explained, in part, by higher titers of IgA and neutralizing activity in breast milk consumed by their infants at the time of immunization that could effectively reduce the potency of the vaccine. Strategies to overcome this negative effect, such as delaying breast-feeding at the time of immunization, should be evaluated. As stated in the quoted portion above, the research pertained to studying the effect of breastfeeding in the direct aftermath of the administration of a single vaccine. The text clearly addressed the immediate effect of breastmilk on that one vaccine's efficacy, not an overall recommendation that mothers "stop breastfeeding" completely in order to increase the efficacy of all vaccines. The study inexplicably became the focus of scrutiny in January 2015, with one blogger claiming: claiming And now the authorities are recommending halting breastfeeding so their vaccines work more effectively! Despicable. Breastmilk alternatives such as infant formula contain synthetic nutrients, are full of sugar, GMO products, allergens, cow's milk products, have been shown to contain toxins melamine and BPA, and when combined with fluoridated tap water, and a microwaved plastic bottle, does not make for a great choice for any baby. On a more positive note, the study illustrates just how effective mother's  milk is at killing viruses. Several blogs amplified the misinterpretation, entrenching the belief the "authorities" at the CDC had recommended a cessation of breastfeeding in order to ensure vaccine efficacy. Earlier iterations of the claim conflated the findings of a study with recommendations made based on those findings, exacerbating the confusion: Ten researchers from the CDC's National Centers for Immunization and Respiratory Disease (NCIRD) released the ridiculous paper, entitled Inhibitory effect of breast milk on infectivity of live oral rotavirus vaccines, which claims the immune-boosting effects of breastmilk are a detriment to the efficacy of vaccines. The paper goes on to say that, rather than remove vaccines so that breastmilk can do its job, women should instead remove the breastmilk to allow vaccines to do their job. The quoted portion directly above illustrated a key fallacy in understanding the context of the study. The "ridiculous paper" in question simply produced data gathered in the study of a single vaccine's efficacy. Its findings neither constituted an agenda nor a recommendation; they simply provided an example of ways in which the observed effect might potentially be countered.  Putting aside confusion about the role and intent of medical science and its published findings, the claim can be proved false simply by reviewing the CDC's own published guidelines regarding breastfeeding, which largely defer to guidelines issued by the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP): guidelines Exclusive breastfeeding is ideal nutrition and sufficient to support optimal growth and development for approximately the first 6 months after birth. Infants weaned before 12 months of age should not receive cow's milk feedings but should receive iron-fortified infant formula. Gradual introduction of iron-enriched solid foods in the second half of the first year should complement the breast milk diet. It is recommended that breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months, and thereafter for as long as mutually desired. The CDC has also stated breastmilk is the preferred source of infant nutrition in all but a handful of instances: stated Health professionals agree that human milk provides the most complete form of nutrition for infants, including premature and sick newborns. However, there are rare exceptions when human milk is not recommended. Under certain circumstances, a physician will need to make a case-by-case assessment to determine whether a woman's environmental exposure or her own medical condition warrants her to interrupt or stop breastfeeding. The CDC has issued no guidelines whatsoever suggesting that breastfeeding should be delayed, either temporarily or at length, for any reason related to vaccine efficacy. Not only does the CDC not recommend mothers stop breastfeeding, that agency actively encourages nursing based on AAP guidance. The claim the CDC "recommended that mothers stop breastfeeding in order to increase the efficacy of vaccines" is a misleading one based on a 2010 study that simply observed the effects of breast milk on a single vaccine and neither made recommendations nor created guidelines about the cessation of breastfeeding in order to increase vaccine efficacy. Last updated:  19 January 2015 In February2016, links began circulating on Facebookpromising a treasure trove of Sharpie brand markers to users who completed a short series of steps:   The embedded links led toURLs which were generated seemingly at random and didn't link to Sharpie's web site. Users who clicked through to claim the promised prize were routed to pages which appeared plausibly Facebook-esque(but werehostedoff Facebook):   As evidenced by the above-reproduced screenshots, the associatedURLs don'tmatch the official domains of Sharpie or Facebook. The fake giveaway was another version of the common survey/sweepstakes scams which urge readers to share freebie bait on Facebook, which then spreads the scam to more friends and groups. Most social media users are familiar with survey scams conducted in this fashion: Kohl's, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's,Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, Target, and Walmart are among brandsused as enticementsbyscammers, many aiming to capturepersonal information and valuable page likes from Facebook users. Kohl's Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Target Walmart scammers A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureauexplained how to identify and avoidbad actorsimitating high-profilebrands on social media: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. As we've noted many times in these pages, one common way in which people attempt to demonstrate the aptness of a particular social or political viewpoint is to put its expression into the mouth of a revered historical figure.  [Collected via e-mail, April 2008] This quote is going around the internet. I would like to know if it really came from Cicero as claimed. "The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."  Cicero, 55 BC Surely if one of great minds of our civilization, someone who lived hundreds (or even thousands) of years ago, said the very same thing we're thinking today, then surely that's proof we've hit upon some eternal truth that should be sagaciously heeded. In short, attributing apocryphal quotations to everyone from Confucius to Abraham Lincoln is an attempt to capitalize on the maxim that "great minds think alike." One prime representative of this phenomenon is the passage reproduced above, which warns about the perils of governments' overspending their budgets and lavishing too much money on foreign aid and welfare programs. For the last half century it has been attributed to Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero and widely quoted by politicians and pundits seeking to bolster their arguments in favor of fiscal conservatism. For example, Louisiana representative Otto Passman, who for thirty years "pursued a relentless battle against spending for foreign aid" in the U.S. Congress, read these words into the Congressional Record on April 25, 1968: read these words into the Congressional Record Mr. Speaker, the record shows that in all ages where republican forms of government have been lost, it has been through the pretense of a share-the-wealth program, a blind faith in public officials, and apathy on the part of those who could act but did not. To mention only one of many, many examples from past history, may I quote from a statement made by Cicero over 2,000 years ago: The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence. History reveals that public officials heeded not the warning  therefore, the government collapsed. On March 29, 1971 the Chicago Tribune published a letter from a reader who invoked the same words to make a similar point: Someone said years ago: "The more things change, the more they are the same." Today's problems are not new. The Roman Empire faced bankruptcy 2,000 years ago, as more and more power was concentrated in central government and government spending grew. Cicero spoke out against the trend. This great Roman senator said: "The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. The mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence." Romans ignored Cicero; Rome fell. History is great if we learn from it. It is not too late for the United States to heed those words out of the past. Those words were never uttered by Cicero, however; and the reason no one ever quoted them as such until about fifty years ago is because they weren't written until 1965. They sprang from the pen of Taylor Caldwell, a fiction writer best known for historical novels such as Captains and the Kings, her 1972 best-selling chronicle of the rise to wealth and power of an Irish immigrant named Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh (which was also made into a popular television mini-series in 1976). popular television mini-series Caldwell penned several novels based on real-life religious and historical figures, including Genghis Khan (The Earth Is the Lord's), Cardinal Richelieu (The Arm and the Darkness), Saint Luke (Dear and Glorious Physician), Saint Paul (Great Lion of God), Aspasia (Glory and the Lightning), and Judas Iscariot (I, Judas). Her 1965 effort A Pillar of Iron was a historical novel about the life of Cicero, the great Roman statesman who "is a pillar of iron as he publicly maintains his search for honor and justice under law in the face of plots against his life and his country." Although A Pillar of Iron often drew directly from the recorded speeches and letters of Cicero for its dialogue, it was nonetheless a work of fiction, and the now famous statement from Cicero about "balancing the budget" was an invention of Caldwell's and not a reproduction of Cicero's own words. In fact, the novel doesn't even present these words as something spoken by Cicero, but rather as a summation of Cicero's political philosophy presented as a preface to an imagined conversation between Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida: Reared in republican virtues, Cicero found himself frequently confounded by Antonius. Antonius heartily agreed with him that the budget should be balanced, that the Treasury should be refilled, that public debt should be reduced, that the arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled, that assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, that the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on the government for subsistence, and that prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible. But when Cicero produced facts and figures how all these things must and should be accomplished, by austerity and discipline and commonsense, Antonius became troubled. "But this  or that  would bring hardship on this  or that  class," Antonius said. "The people are accustomed to lavish displays in the circuses and the theaters, and the lotteries, and free grain and beans and beef when they are destitute, and shelter when they are homeless and a part of the city is rebuilt. Is not the welfare of our people paramount?" "There will be no welfare of the people if we become bankrupt," said Cicero, grimly. "We can become solvent again, and strong, only by self-denial and by spending as little as possible until the public debt is paid and the Treasury refilled." "But one cannot  if one has a heart at all  deprive the people of what they have received for many decades from government, and which they expect. It will create the most terrible hardships." "Better that all of us tighten our girdles than Rome fall," said Cicero. As Jess Stearn observed in In Search of Taylor Caldwell, this imagined historical conversation was reflective of Caldwell's own political outlook much more than Cicero's: "She was a conservative politically, believing the spoils belonged to those who toiled for them. There were not free lunches. She abhorred the welfare philosophy that gave handouts to free-loaders, decrying rewards for indolence and incompetence." Or, as John Blundell aptly quipped in Ladies for Liberty, "Taylor Caldwell gives us fiscal policy, civil service reform, cuts in aid to less developed countries, and welfare reform all in one sentence." The reproductions of Caldwell's words as a historical quote from Cicero have altered the original a fair bit over the years: the admonition that "prudence and frugality should be put into practice as soon as possible" was quickly dropped from the end of the sentence; "people" have replaced "mobs" as the ones who should be "forced to work and not depend on the government for subsistence"; the proclamation that the "arrogance of the generals should be tempered and controlled" now refers to generic "officialdom" rather than military figures; and the warning that this advice need be followed "lest Rome become bankrupt" has mutated into the more ominous-sounding "lest Rome fall." Blundell, John.  Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History.
  New York: Algora Publishing, 2013.  0-875-86865-7  (p. 145). Caldwell, Taylor.  A Pillar of Iron.
  Lake Oswego, OR: eNet Press Inc., 2013.  ASIN B00CEINOCW. Collins, John H.  "False Quotations."
  Chicago Tribune.  20 April 1971. Connolly, Jerry.  "Warning from the Past."
  Chicago Tribune.  29 March 1971  (p. 14). Lueck, Thomas J.  "Otto Passman, 88, Louisiana Congressman Who Fought Spending."
  The New York Times.  14 August 1988. Stearn, Jess.  In Search of Taylor Caldwell.
  New York: Stein & Day, 1981.  0-812-82791-0. Tench, Helen.  "Cicero's Rome Quarried for a Scholarly Novel."
  Ottawa Citizen.  14 August 1965 (p. 24). Congressional Record [House].  "History's Warning."
  25 April 1968  (p. 10635). One of Donald Trumps signature issues in his 2016 presidential bid has been stopping the outflow of American jobs to other countries. During avisitto Delaware, Ohio, heciteda recent example of a major American company moving some of its work out of the United States. Companies like Carrier are firing their workers and moving to Mexico, Trump said. Ford is moving all of their small-car production to Mexico. When I'm president, if a company wants to fire their workers and leave for Mexico or other countries, then we will charge them a 35 percent tax when they want to ship their products back into the United States. Is it really true that Ford is moving all of their small car production to Mexico? Well take a closer look. On Sept. 14, 2016, Ford CEO Mark Fields announced at an event with Wall Street analysts that we will have migrated all of our small-car production to Mexico and out of the United States over the next two to three years, according toReuters. Ford had already announced that it would be investing $1.6 billion in Mexico for small-car production starting in 2018. During contract talks in 2015, Ford confirmed that it would move Focus and C-Max production out of its Wayne, Mich., plant in 2018. The United Auto Workers Union said at the time that Ford planned to build the next Focus in Mexico, Reuters reported. The Focus and the C-Max are considered small cars. The company cited declining interest among U.S. consumers for smaller cars and growing sales for bigger vehicles in an era of low gasoline prices. It also cited Mexican labor costs that are about 40 percent lower than than in the United States. That's what it takes to compete in that (small car) segment, Fields toldCNN. So Trump is right that the company is moving all small-car production in North America to Mexico. However, he overlooked a salient point -- that both the company and the United Auto Workers do not expect any jobs to be lost at the Wayne plant. Instead of building small cars, the Wayne facility will transition into producing SUVs and pickup trucks that are more popular in the United States. Our U.S. workforce at that plant will be making those new vehicles, said Ford spokeswoman Christin Tinsworth Baker. In the past five years, Ford has invested $12 billion in U.S. plants and created nearly 28,000 U.S. jobs, Baker said. In all, the company has 85,000 U.S. employees. In a September interview with Fox News, Trump mischaracterized the changes at Ford, saying the company planned to fire all their employees in the United States and  move to Mexico. The company aggressively countered that allegation. In an interview withCNN, Fields was asked whether the company would cut any U.S. jobs as part of the relocation of work to Mexico. He said, Absolutely not. Zero. Not one job will be lost. Most of our investment is here in the U.S. And that's the way it will continue to be. In his speech in Ohio, however, Trump stuck closer to the facts. Our ruling Trump said that Ford is moving all of their small-car production to Mexico. Thats correct as far as it goes, but framing it that way ignores an important qualifier -- that no U.S. jobs will be lost in the transition. The company says that workers at the Ford plant in question will instead make SUVs and pickups. We rate the statement Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/0f5ed3db-289b-4d1c-a1d6-4c03ac61e82e Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO On March 11, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package to provide relief to Americans who have been struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the days leading up to this bill's passage, a number of Republican lawmakers and pundits criticized the bill, arguing that only 9% of the relief package had anything to do with COVID-19.  signed Conservative author Melisa Tate, for example, wrote on Twitter that the bill "only gives 9% to the American people" while the rest went to politicians and their cronies. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said that she voted against the "COVID relief" bill because "only 9% of this bill is COVID-related" while "the rest is allocated to liberal pet projects and blue state bailouts." Twitter voted against   The claim that only 9% of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is going to COVID relief is largely false. The vast majority of this bill will provide financial relief to people, businesses, and governments who have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The argument that only 9% of the measure will go to COVID relief appears to be an exaggeration of the fact that the American Rescue Plan will provide approximately $160 billion (about 8.5% of the total) for testing, protective gear, vaccine production and distribution, and other measures to directly combat the virus. $160 billion (about 8.5% of the total) for testing While it's true that only about 9% of this bill goes to fighting the virus directly, that figure does not include the vast majority of funds aimed at providing financial relief to those who have struggled through the pandemic. For example, the 9% does not include the most famous part of the American Rescue Plan, the $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals, which is expected to amount to around $400 billion (or about 21% of the total). This 9% figure also doesn't account for items such as unemployment insurance, a child tax care credit, funding for schools to re-open, rent assistance, and other measures aimed at providing relief to Americans.  $400 billion account for items Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told NPR that there were two parts to the American Rescue Plan. The first dealt with combating COVID directly, while the second aimed at dealing with the financial crisis that resulted from the pandemic: NPR "There are really two pieces to this bill. One is directly related to the health crisis, but the other, and the larger piece, is related to the economic crisis that the health crisis has created." The vast majority of the American Rescue Plan is concerned with providing relief to people, businesses, and governments that have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, about $300 billion (or 15% of the bill) "is spent on long-standing policy priorities that are not directly related to the current crisis." In other words, about 85% of the bill is related specifically to the impacts of COVID-19.  Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget In short: The American Rescue Plan is a multi-faceted, $1.9 trillion to bill that provides financial relief to those struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it's true that only 9% of this funding will be used to directly combat the virus (via vaccine distribution and other health measures), this bill provides relief to Americans in several other ways. The $1,400 COVID-19 relief checks, for example, account for more than 20% of this $1.9 trillion bill. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In late May 2020, social media users shared a meme that contained a misleading claim about the state of California. The meme said the state had announced it would give undocumented residents a stimulus payment on the same day it said it would lay off first responders due to diminished state funds resulting from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, implying the two events are causally linked.   California Gov. Gavin Newsom on April 15, 2020, acknowledged undocumented residents paid $2.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2019. He then announced the state would draw up a total of $125 million sourced from charitable donations and taxpayer funds to provide $500 stimulus payments to those residents. That was because they didn't qualify to receive federal stimulus checks under the CARES Act, a relief package meant to blunt the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. acknowledged CARES Act This announcement was unrelated to another statement Newsom made more than a month later. In the latter, he urged the federal government to provide financial assistance to states and local governments struggling with economic shortfalls to their operating budgets due to forced business closures during the pandemic. In an interview on CNN on May 21, Newsom stated that without federal help, cities and counties may be forced to lay off first responders. interview "The next time they want to salute our heroes, our first responders, our police officers and firefighters, consider the fact that they are the first ones to be laid off by cities and counties," Newsom said when asked by CNN host Jake Tapper what would happen if the federal government failed to bail out states and local governments. "The folks who are out there, the true heroes of this pandemic, are health care workers and nurses. Those county health systems have been ravaged, their budgets have been devastated and depleted, the budget accounts depleted since this pandemic." Budgets that deal with first responders like police, firefighters, and paramedics are generally administered by local governments, meaning it would be cities and counties in California, not the state itself, that would have discretion over whether or when to cut those services. Furthermore, Newsom didn't "announce" such layoffs would take place; he simply suggested cuts may occur in the absence of intervention from the federal government to financially shore up local governments. As of late May, California was facing a $54 billion budget shortfall resulting from economic fallout of stay-at-home orders that forced shuttering of most commerce beginning in mid-March, in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease. The state one year earlier had a surplus of $21 billion. $54 billion In sum, Newsom didn't "announce" layoffs for first responders but instead projected that layoffs at the local level were a looming possibility. He also didn't make the statement on the same day that he announced California would commit $125 million ($75 million of which would come from taxpayers) to give undocumented state residents $500 stimulus payments. The two events are unrelated, although the meme attempted to link them causally. We therefore rate this claim  Lightman, David."Fact Check: Gavin Newsom Warns of Layoffs for Police, Firefighters. Is He Exaggerating?"
Sacramento Bee.21 May 2020. CNN."Newsom Warns of Police, Fire Layoffs in California."
21 May 2020. Associated Press."California Announces $125 Million Fund for Undocumented Immigrants Impacted by Coronavirus."
15 April 2020. Associated Press."California Faces a Staggering $54 Billion Budget Deficit Due to Economic Devastation from Coronavirus."
7 May 2020.