Facebook Pedophile Warning
Claim:  Predators, pedophiles, and child trafficking rings are using Facebook to source new victims by friending trusting parents and mining images posted of their children. Example:  [Collected on Facebook, September 2014] A guy sends you a friend request. You don't know him, but he's got a cute profile pic, so you accept. It's baby girl's first day of school! She looks SO cute in her new outfit you just have to take a picture and put it on Facebook so all your friends and family can see. You're so excited dropping her off that you "check in" to her school on Fb saying "I can't believe how big she's gotten. Time sure flies. One proud momma/daddy right here!"... Meanwhile, the mystery guy whose friend request you hurriedly accepted earlier this morning is saving that picture you posted of your daughter in her cute new outfit to his phone and texting it to 60 other grown men across the world with the caption "Caucasian female. Age 5. Brown hair, green eyes. $2,500." Not only did you provide a picture of your little girl to a child trafficker, you've handed him the name and exact location of her school on a silver cyber platter. You go to pick her up at 3:00 this afternoon, but she's nowhere to be found. Little do you know, your precious baby girl was sold to a 43-year-old pedophile before you even stepped foot off campus this morning, and now she's on her way to South Africa with a bag over her head, confused, terrified and crying because a man she's never seen before picked her up from school, and now she doesn't know where her parents are, where she's going, or what's gonna happen to her. STOP ADDING STRANGERS ON FACEBOOK. Origins:  In September 2014, the post above (without original attribution) went viral on Facebook. While this iteration is a new one, panic over internet strangers is as old as the internet itself, and warnings such as this have largely morphed from email forwards to Facebook shares. panic over internet strangers In May and June of 2015, the story received a second wave of interest after it was published to the website StylishLisa on 27 May 2015. On 30 May 2015 the message appeared on the Facebook page Lil' Red Warriors, but was later deleted after Facebook commenters correctly identified the photograph's origin on a page about children's hairstyles. The photo and its claim were later published verbatim to the Facebook page of Cyn Malvita, from where it was shared hundreds of thousands of times. A cached version of the iteration involving the hairstyling picture is embedded below: published Lil' Red Warriors deleted children's hairstyles Cyn Malvita  The Facebook post currently in circulation bears some resemblance to a well-traveled warning from years back describing a similar danger. While the premise is similar, the stated risk has evolved, incorporating Facebook's open and share-friendly nature as the door through which rampant child predators will enter your life and summarily terrorize you. well-traveled warning This particular warning has some unpleasant undertones in its telling, suggesting that female users are too readily tempted by a "cute" potential predator to consider the safety of their children. It also tacitly condemns parents (mothers, presumably in particular) for even mentioning their children in hawking its highly improbable, sanctimonious premise. Facebook and similar social media sites have ushered in a new level of panic when it comes to internet safety, given that the social network requires users to supply accurate information about their true identities and real names to use the service. While many users flout this aspect of the site's terms and services, many others have been banned temporarily or permanently for using aliases in place of real names. Reading the circulating post above might lead one to believe that the danger is very real and omnipresent, but the scenario presented is one that is exceedingly unlikely. Among other implausibilities, this warning makes it sound as though the bad guys are stymied in their search for victims and don't know where to look for kids to abduct until they see pictures of them on Facebook. But potential abductors' seeing a Facebook photo of a particular child who attends a given school does nothing to facilitate the snatching of random children for sale to pedophiles  would-be kidnappers don't need Facebook photos, as they could simply lie in wait outside just about any school and try to grab children as such opportunities presented themselves. Aside from that, first and foremost, most schools nowadays do not release children to parties who have not been explicitly granted permission and had their names recorded on an authorized list, a fact to which any parent who has ever needed a friend to make a last-minute school pickup can attest. Secondly, while the risk of child abduction and trafficking may exist, children are far, far more likely to be endangered by a relative or other "trusted" adult than a random Facebook contact. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the most recent statistics reflect a far different danger than the one described above. Of 800,000 children reported missing, 200,000 were abducted by relatives, 58,000 were kids taken by nonfamily members, and only 115 missing child reports were considered "stereotypical" abductions involving a complete stranger with intent to harm or keep the child. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children A lengthy report on Child Exploitation Prevention presented to Congress by the Justice Department in 2010 [PDF] further delves into the profiles of predators involved in child abuse and trafficking. According to the data presented, the vast majority of children harmed in this manner are either introduced or otherwise victimized by family members or other trusted adults such as babysitters, coaches, or family friends. Only four percent of victims identified were exploited or abused by an adult not previously known to the child or their family. PDF In the cases examined, abuse typically occurred over the course of years and involved "grooming" and other behaviors designed to created compliance. Child victims were not at risk of being immediately whisked to Africa by a strange Facebook user, but rather more likely placed in harm's way by the people meant to ensure their safety and care. On rare occasions child predators may mine publicly posted photos of children for personal use or trade, and posted Facebook pictures and locations might facilitate a kidnapping if the abductors were seeking to grab a specific child (rather than trolling for random victims), but no evidence suggests the posting of kids' photos on Facebook has resulted in a general increase of kidnapping or abuse of children. Last updated:  4 June 2015
Since at least 2010, a set of awe-inspiring pictures have been shared in email forwards and on social media. The color photographs purportedly show the Russian Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber. One of the pictures was even displayed in a paid online advertisement: email forwards  The massive aircraft certainly looked quite heavy. (Courtesy: Levin)  However, while the Kalinin K-7 was once a real aircraft from the 1930s, the color pictures in question showed 3-D artist renderings.  The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber is seen from another angle in a 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin)  We were able to find the original website that hosted the original images, but it wasn't easy. At first, we thought it might be a fan-created 3-D model for the "Battlefield V" video game, as one of the color pictures appeared in the /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit. However, this was incorrect. /r/BattlefieldV/ subreddit Lots of reading of old blogs and message boards, combined with reverse image searching, finally led us to the original source. Thanks to a tip from englishrussia.com, we found the source to be a person using the handle "Levin." tip On the original page, which appeared to be from 2007, Levin wrote that his work had been misunderstood: original page In view of the fact that this work is discussed at various serious forums on aviation and military affairs, and it is being discussed, apparently, without a clear understanding of the purpose of this work and the attitude of the author himself (i.e. me) to what he did here, I want to warn you in advance - everything that lies below is nothing more than the usual techno-fantasy, techno-utopia, if you like - techno-absurdity. There are no serious applications on my part for something that can fly, and there cannot be. This work is an attempt to reproduce, quite possibly taking place in reality in the 30s, an attempt by some hypothetical and not quite healthy and poorly educated designer to build such an absurdity with state money. I can even assume that as a result, this hypothetical poor fellow-designer was again hypothetically arrested and soon shot for senseless waste of folk funds on an especially large scale. ))) And the main task from the point of view of technical reliability here was only to comply with the technical style of those years, so that the engines and other parts did not look taken from other eras. So if there is something worth discussing for aviation connoisseurs, then only this moment is the correspondence of the appearance of the parts and the whole structure in general to the level of aviation development in the early 30s of the 20th century. Levin also confirmed that Adobe Photoshop was not used in the process to make the renders. "This is not Photoshop. This is 3-D, three-dimensional models." WarHistoryOnline.com published the history of the real Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber, which was smaller than what was displayed for the 3-D renderings. "The Kalinin K-7 was a heavy experimental aircraft designed and tested in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s," the website read. "It was of unusual configuration with twin booms and large underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and machine gun turrets." published  The real Kalinin K-7 was large, but not as massive as the aircraft seen in the 3-D renderings.  Unfortunately, the aircraft had a brief history. On Nov. 21, 1933, the aircraft crashed. crashed  A flight crew stands in front of a Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber.  According to WarHistoryOnline.com, the accident "killed 14 people aboard and one on the ground." The K-7 first flew on 11 August 1933. The very brief first flight showed instability and serious vibration caused by the airframe resonating with the engine frequency. The solution to this was thought to be to shorten and strengthen the tail booms, little being known then about the natural frequencies of structures and their response to vibration. The aircraft completed seven test flights before a crash due to structural failure of one of the tail booms on 21 November 1933. The project was eventually scrapped in 1935. No known color photographs of the aircraft exist today. Levin, the 3-D artist, published more of his computer-generated work on his old website. One of them showed quite the battle in the skies:  The Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber battles an unidentified foe in this 3-D rendering. (Courtesy: Levin)  In sum, the Kalinin K-7 heavy bomber was real. However, color pictures that appeared in email forwards, social media, and ads were nothing more than 3-D renderings. 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 Soliciting contributions to her campaign fund, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin warned her supporters about the dangers of dark money -- cash spent on elections by groups that dont have to disclose their donors. In an Oct. 30, 2015 email, the Wisconsin Democrat wrote that groups backed by conservatives such asKarl Roveand theKoch brothershave spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure they get right-wing extremists elected into office. And its only getting worse. Today, Baldwins email continued, dark money spending is 10 times what it was at the same point in the 2012 election cycle. And in 2012, it ended up topping $308 million. Then she asked for a contribution of $5 or more. A year away from the 2016 general election, is dark-money spending already 10 times higher than it was at this point four years ago? The answer, from the source widely acknowledged as the best in this area: Yes. What dark is We consulted the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group that runs a website calledOpenSecrets.org. (Two other groups involved in campaign finance -- the Sunlight Foundation and the Campaign Finance Institute -- also referred us to the center.) Using data from the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Responsive Politics tracks so-called dark-money spending -- that is, expenditures by nonprofit groups, whose primary function is not supposed to be political activity, that dont have to disclose their donors. Those groupscan receiveunlimited corporate, individual, or union contributions. They can use the money for various election activities, including buying ads that advocate for or against a candidate, running phone banks and making contributions to super PACs. Butthey cantcoordinate with or donate money to candidates. Lets start with 2011 and 2012 -- that is, the 2012 election  cycle. 2012 election cycle The center reports that, as Baldwin indicated, more than$308 millionin dark money was spent during the entire 2012 election cycle. Some 86 percent was spent by conservative groups, 11 percent by liberal groups and 3 percent by other groups. The most -- $71 million -- was spent byAmerican Crossroads/Crossroads GPS, which was co-founded by Rove.Americans for Prosperity, founded in part by the billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, was second ($36 million) and theU.S. Chamber of Commercewas third ($35 million). The three leading liberal groups, as identified by the center, were theLeague of Conservation Voters($11 million),Patriot Majority USA($7 million), whose priorities include money for public schools and infrastructure, andPlanned Parenthood(nearly $7 million). 2016 cycle As for the 2016 cycle,$4.88 millionin dark money expenditures have already been made, according to the center. Thats more than 10 times the$440,000that was spent at this point during the 2012 cycle. The $4.88 millionhas been spent by six groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($3 million) and Americans for Prosperity ($1.5 million), The only liberal group was Planned Parenthood, which spent just under $75,000 Richard Skinner, policy analyst at the Sunlight Foundation, told us that the focus of early dark money being spent in the 2016 cycle is on U.S. Senate elections that are considered to be competitive, though some is also being spent on U.S. House races. (Baldwin isnt up for election again until 2018. But Wisconsins other senator, Republican Ron Johnson,is ratedas being in a pure toss-up race in 2016 from Democrat Russ Feingold, whom Johnson defeated in 2010. No dark money has been spent yet in that race, according to the Sunlight Foundation.) Skinner said he didnt know whether dark money spending so far means that the total for the 2016 cycle will ultimately be 10 times higher than four years earlier. But he said he expects more dark money to spent in the 2016 cycle than ever before. Our rating Baldwin said dark money spending in the 2016 election cycle is 10 times what it was at the same point in the 2012 election cycle, when it topped $308 million. So-called dark money spending in election campaigns -- by groups that dont have to disclose their donors -- exceeded $308 million in the 2012 election cycle. So far in the 2016 cycle, it has reached nearly $5 million, more than 10 times the $440,000 that had been spent at this point in the 2012 cycle. We rate Baldwins statement True. More on Tammy Baldwin The pope and Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin all agree on eliminating the carried-interest tax break.Half True. Scott Walker's views on abortion are more restrictive than any Republican president in recent times.True. Middle-class Americans pay a higher tax rate than millionaires and billionaires.Half True. Since at least 2008, a troubling image of a turtle with a drastically deformed shell has been circulating online, with multiple web sites employing it to illustrate posts about the dangers of plastic pollution in the oceans. The image shows a brown-colored turtle with a shell constricted in the middle, giving her a figure-eight shape: circulating  This image captures a snapping turtle named Mae West who currently resides at the STAR Eco Station in Los Angeles, California, where she is in good health. A representative from the station, which operates a wildlife rescue and environmental science museum, told us Mae West was rescuednearly two decades ago after she was discovered with a plastic milk jug ring around her midsection, although though it was unclear exactly how long the ring had been in place: In 2000, she was discovered in Louisiana with a plastic milk jug ring around the width of her shell. In addition to having an extremely narrow midsection, she was also found to be carrying several eggs at the time. The handler in Louisiana decided that she was no longer able to care for her and arranged to haveMaeplaced at the Eco Station. Some of the blogsposting this image in early 2017 incorrectly claimed the turtle had been caught in a rubber band from an early age, causing her to grow abnormally. Mae West was brought to her current home after being cared for by an anti-pollution non-profit called The 5 Gyers Institute, also based in Los Angeles. The image shown above was used in a 2009 Earth Day report by Oprah Winfrey discussing the effects of plastic pollution on marine life: used Sadly, the type of deformity afflicting Mae West isn't unique. Another famous turtle is living with a similar human-caused deformity: Peanut, a red-eared slider turtle who was rescued and nursed to health after being discovered entrapped in a plastic six-pack ring, has often been misidentified as Mae West (and vice-versa) in photographs. Peanut Peanut was found in Missouri in 1993 and taken to a zoo, where the plastic ring was removed from his midsection. The turtle (who was for years mistakenly believed to be female) is currently under the care of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Photographs provided by the department show he does indeed resemble a peanut:   Despite his deformation, Peanut has also managed to live a long and healthy life and is now believed to be a senior terrapin at 32 or 33 years old, said Dan Zarlenga, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Had he not been found and cared for by humans, Peanut probably would not have survived for long in the wild. Eriksen, Marcus."Meet the Famous Turtle With a Serious Plastic Problem."
Planet Experts.6 July 2015. Missouri Department of Conservation."The Story of Peanut the Turtle." Monks, Kieron. "The Plastic Plague: Can Our Oceans Be Saved From Environmental Ruin?
CNN.2 September 2016. Moore, Charles."Choking the Oceans With Plastic."
The New York Times.25 August 2015. In late June 2021, social media users shared a meme misinforming viewers that Walmart and other large businesses were taking customers' point-of-sale charitable donations and writing them off on their taxes. Readers have been asking Snopes about this meme since at least August 2020. The meme addresses a phenomenon called "checkout charity," in which many large businesses ask customers to donate a small amount to a charitable cause upon checkout:   according to What happens to the money you donate at the cash register? This is where you round up your bill to give to a charity designated by the retailer, and the donation amount appears on your receipt. The store serves only as a collection agent for your gift. Assuming the business is following the law, it will not include your donation as part of its business receipts, or income, nor will it claim the charitable gift as an expense. In other words, your gift has zero impact on the stores income taxes. Keep in mind that the store chooses the receiving charity, so make sure it is one you can support. As a customer, the donation will appear on your receipt and you can claim it as a charitable deduction when you file your income tax return. But you probably wont. A whopping nine out of ten customers don't write those donations off, even with a receipt, according to the Tax Policy Center, which estimates only 9% of households claim deductions for charitable donations. according to The Tampa Bay Times reported that the practice is gaining in popularity because both charities and businesses benefit from it: reported "Checkout charity, as it's sometimes called, has become big business for nonprofits and retailers. Charities love it because it raises money from the masses at little cost. Companies love it because it makes them look caring and generous, even if it comes on the backs of customers." Income inequality is the core issue of Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and he said it may also be why hes behind Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Meet the Presshost Chuck Todd asked Sanders why he thought 16 of 17 states with large wealth gaps were won by Clinton. Well, because poor people dont vote. I mean, thats just a fact,Sanders said. Thats a sad reality of American society. And thats why we have to transform one, as you know, one of thelowest voter turnouts of any major society of Earth. We have done a good job of bringing young people. But in America today, the last election in 2014, 80 percent of poor people did not vote. Is turnout among the poor really that low? The data shows that weve done slightly better at getting out the vote among low-income people than what Sanders suggests, but not by much. Sanders policy director Warren Gunnels pointed us to areportby the left-leaning policy and advocacy group Demos, which useddatafrom the Census Bureau. According to Demos, only one in four of those earning less than $10,000 voted in 2014, Gunnels said. Even worse, the turnout was just 12 percent among 18- to 24-year-olds earning less than $30,000. In other words, roughly 75 percent of people in the lowest income bracket didnt vote in the last midterm elections. However, theres one catch to this figure. While an annual income of less than $10,000 is undoubtedly poor, thepoverty threshold in 2014also includes family incomes above $10,000. Sean McElwee, a policy analyst with Demos who authored the report, told us to look at annual incomes under $30,000 instead. The turnout rate for that group was31.5 percent, which means 68.5 percent of poor people didnt vote in 2014, about 10 percentage points less than what Sanders said. Sanders is indeed correct to highlight low turnout among the poor as an important factor that biases policy in favor of the wealthy, McElwee said. As PolitiFact hasreported, census data may overstate the turnout rates, as its based on self-reporting. So its possible that Sanders 80 percent figure is closer to actual rates than what the survey shows, but this is speculative. Sanders is more on target if we look at a definition of poor that is not based on income. A 2015 Pew Centersurveylooked at the politics of financial security, which analysts defined as having a credit card, a savings or checking account, and a retirement or investment plan; not needing to borrow money; not falling behind on bills, rent or mortgage payments; and not receiving food assistance or Medicaid benefits. The survey found that just 20 percent of the least financially secure were likely voters in 2014 compared to 69 percent of the most financially secure. Turnout always drops in midterm elections, when the White House isnt at stake, and overall turnout in 2014 was the worst it had been in72 years. Nonetheless, census data shows turnout is consistently lower among the poor than other income groups:  So why are the poor less likely to vote? The reasons are interconnected, if not unsurprising. For one, the political process sets hurdles for the poor. Registration barriers are key, said McElwee of Demos, pointing to census data that shows that low-income people are far less likely to be registered voters. Voter ID laws, for example, impose costs that people struggling to make ends meet cant really afford. The Government Accountability Officereportedin 2014 that a drivers license can cost between $5 to $58.50 in states with voter ID laws. And nearly 500,000 eligible voters dont have convenient access to an ID-issuing office, according to a2012 studyby New York University. The poor also make up 55 percent of people who cant vote (which include felons and immigrants as well as residents of Washington D.C., and U.S. territories), according to a 2013 Harvard Universityworking paper. This means that they can't vote but also they won't be mobilized by parties, who base their mobilization off of voter files, McElwee said. Being poor also means you cannot afford to devote time to the political process. The Pew study found that just 26 percent of the least financially secure knew which party controlled Congress compared to 62 percent of the most affluent. Similarly, compared to affluent non-voters, low-income non-voters were more likely to list disinterest, forgetting to vote, health and issues of access as reasons why they didnt vote, according tocensus data. They often have inflexible jobs, have limited transportation options to get to the polls, and/or insufficient knowledge about democracy and the choices they face, said Zoltan Hajnal, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. The poor also often lack efficacy and dont feel like their votes count as much. Our ruling Sanders said, In 2014, 80 percent of poor people did not vote. The figure is a bit high if we look at turnout by income. In 2014, about 75 percent of people who made under $10,000 and about 69 percent of those who made under $30,000 didnt vote. If we look at financial insecurity, however, Sanders is right on the money. We rate his claim Mostly True. Claim:  Text reproduces an open letter to Americans from Russian president Vladimir Putin. INCORRECT ATTRIBUTION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2013] A letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin to the American people has been circulating around the internet for the past couple of days. In the letter, Putin re-introduces Americans to some unpleasant facts about history and life theyd rather forget, such as Nixons reasoning behind massive carpet bombing of millions or North Vietnamese for the purpose of 'looking good' while exiting the war, and how Pakistan has been using the U.S. as a 'false ally' to gain foreign aid, while using the funds to embolden the Taliban in Afghanistan. He calls out Barrack Hussein Obama for having the audacity to meet with gay rights activists while he is in Russia next week, a group Putin despises, while refusing to carve away time to meet with him and solve the Syria issue. He compares the action to the equivalent of him (Putin) coming to the U.S. and meeting with Obamas domestic enemy, the N.R.A.  How do I put this politely? You Americans are dumb. Today, Russia and America are fighting each other over fighting the Muslim radicals. Instead, we should be uniting to crush these violent Islamists, once and for all.  You Americans want to remove my ally, the Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad. To borrow a phrase from your John F. Kennedy, Assad may be a son-of-a-bitch, but hes my son-of-a-bitch. So if you want to destroy him, what are you going to give me in return? If your answer is, "We will give you nothing," well, why would I ever agree to that? That's not negotiation, that's dictation; it's a return to the bad Yeltsin days, when Holy Mother Russia was pushed into the mud like a used whore. [Remainder of the letter can be viewed here.] here Origins:  This "open letter" from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Americans, putatively expressing that politician's viewpoints on U.S. military intervention in the Syrian civil war and other international matters, was published on breitbart.com on 3 September 2013 under the  breitbart.com title "LETS JOIN ONE ANOTHER TO CRUSH THE UNHOLY, UNRULY, JIHADI MUSLIMS" and attributed to Vladimir Putin.  Many readers who encountered this item on that site (and elsewhere) mistook its attribution and first person tone as an indication that the piece was actually written by President Putin himself.   Even though this item may have been cast in the first person and mockingly bylined as something penned by "Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin," it's not an actual open letter to Americans written by the Russian president.  It's a political opinion piece that uses a "literary ventriloquism" device through which an author expresses his viewpoint by putting his words into someone else's mouth  highlighting what the writer wants the audience to understand by presenting the author's words as another person's, as if the audience were "inside the mind of" that other person. Coincidentally, nine days later the New York Times published a (much more temperate) op-ed piece about U.S. military intervention in Syria which was also bylined with Vladimir Putin's name.  According to the UK's Guardian newspaper, the editorial had been offered to the Times by the public relations firm Ketchum (which works on behalf of Russian interests), and the idea for the article and its basic content did indeed come from President Putin, with some of his assistants crafting the final text.  op-ed Last updated:  12 September 2013 Claim:   A mysterious "large weird truck convoy" in Virginia remains unexplained. : : Video shows a large convoy of tractor trailers in Virginia.     : No one knows why the convoy occurred.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] I saw the following post on Facebook today with the caption 'ALERT: Virginia Highway Completely Closed for Mysterious Convoy. I'm wondering if there's any truth to it.  Origins:  On 25 October 2014, a Facebook  user posted video of a large truck convoy spotted in Virginia involving dozens of tractor trailer trucks. The clip depicted several semis traveling on Virginia's Interstate 64 under what appeared to be State Trooper escort. video The unusual sighting and temporary interstate shutdown caused widespread speculation on social media sites as to what could possibly have been afoot. The most widely circulated clip of the large truck "parade" captured several branded trailers as they passed, including Coca-Cola and Walmart vehicles, further confusing the convoy's witnesses as to why the trucks might require a police escort. One user's comments echoed concerns repeatedly expressed as the truck convoy video circulated on sites like Facebook: I can tell you one thing. These trucks are transporting more than you think ? It's all starting. Some will know what I'm talking about and other's will just keep believing what FOX news tells them and vote for the candidate who lies the best ! We are SOOO screwed !  Well, we who are paying attention, know something big is going to happen for sure and really soon ! So many things and all of them are so close together........ I see a dictatorship being announced, military hitting the streets, jets overhead, forced Ebola/flu immunizations (rather true or not) Martial Law, food/water shortages, etc....... We'll see ? Many people worried the event was a covert maneuver to transport supplies, hide medical equipment, or engage in otherwise suspicious activity  fears that particularly loomed large due to the then-current concern over Ebola.  covert maneuver However, the convoy's purpose wasn't hard to discover with a small amount of digging: The truck convoy is a unique one-day celebration where police escort a convoy of trucks through cities and towns in 38 states and Canada. The event helps raise funds and awareness for Special Olympics athletes. About 110 vehicles participated in the ride. In 2013, over $20,000 was raised with 49 trucks participating in Virginia's nearly 50-mile round-trip convoy along Interstate 95 from Caroline County to Henrico County, according to a press release sent by Virginia State police. The footage from Virginia was taken during a leg of the Special Olympics' World's Largest Truck Convoy, described thusly on the organization's website: website Inspired by the powerful impact Special Olympics had on his life through his participation in the Law Enforcement Torch Run, combined with his family's involvement with the trucking industry, Norm Schneiderhan, a Corporal with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, created the Truck Convoy, a one-daycelebration of the trucking industry to help raise awareness and funds for Special Olympics.  Post by ABC 8 News - WRIC.   Post ABC 8 News - WRIC  Although some drivers in Virginia were confused and alarmed by the truck convoy on 25 October 2014, local news stations covered and explained the event on their pages. The purpose of the convoy was not immediately obvious to bystanders, but an explanation was not difficult to find after the fact.  Last updated:  16 July 2015 Immigration is a sensitive and touchy issue, and never more so than in the United States during an election year. Thus, when stories started to emerge in 2016 about a group of veterans of the U.S. military living in Mexico after they had been deported from the United States (a story we previously reported on) it seemed natural to question what looked like nothing more than a chunk of political kryptonite. Mexico previously reported However, deported veterans exist, although no one  not even the Department of Homeland Security  knows how many. Their issue has been slowly brought into mainstream American consciousness largely by the efforts of committed activists in Tijuana. exist many "The Bunker," also known as the Deported Veterans Support House, is in a small cinderbrick building tucked away on a side street in Mexico's border town of Tijuana, and is frequented by veterans of every branch of the United States military, who fought everywhere from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Former Army paratrooper Hector Barajas, 39, opened it to be a gathering place and a refuge for veterans who, like him, had been deported: The Bunker deported "I started The Bunker because there was a need," Barajas told us. He said since his deportation, he had been meeting others like him living in Tijuana, and discovered that they lived throughout Mexico  but not just Mexico. There are hundreds of deported military vets living in at least twenty countries, he said. Since then, The Bunker has since become less a refuge and more a cause: Our vision is to end the deportations of Deported Veterans, repatriate the ones who have already been deported, and offer support until they all go home. We shouldn't honor our Deported Veterans by allowing them to return upon death. Honor them by allowing them to return home to their families and give them any benefits that they are eligible for. It may come as a surprise to learn that serving in the United States military does not automatically confer citizenship, but it doesn't. It can smooth the way, provided the aspiring citizen is aware of what they need to do in order to apply for citizenship and gets it done within a certain timeframe. However, it's not uncommon for enlistees to wrongly assume (having never been told otherwise) they have done all they need to do in order to be awarded citizenship, and thus all they have to do after their honorable discharge is wait. citizenship timeframe   Sometimes, too, there are bureaucratic foulups. One man was deported after he was unable to attend a hearing, despite his reason: he was in the hospital receiving surgery at the time. Others do everything the way they're supposed to, filing their paperwork and appearing at their meetings, but still get deported, and no one seems to know exactly why. Once they are outside the U.S., they maintain a legal right to VA benefits such as healthcare, and to whatever funds they might be entitled, but they have no way of getting back into the United States to obtain that assistance, and there are no satellite offices outside the country to help them. VA benefits Because these particular veterans are either in the United States on green cards or without documentation after their discharges, they can be deported with cause, or for no reason at all. Past and present members of the armed forces are supposed to receive special consideration during deportation hearings, but the guidelines are inconsistently applied. consideration However, some of these veterans have spent time in prison for assault or drug offenses, which makes their situation more difficult to parse, at least politically. Elected officials (and candidates) who might ordinarily be in full-throated cry about the importance of military rights tend to go oddly silent when confronted with the spectres of undocumented soldiers. Sympathy for those wounded on the battlefield under the American flag suddenly falters when it turns out they had entered the country without documentation years before. Miguel Perez, a United States Army veteran, falls under that category. The 39-year-old Illinois man, who served two tours in Afghanistan and who has been in the U.S. since he was eight, was convicted of a drug trafficking offense in 2008. The green card holder had served half of a 15-year prison sentence when Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement took him for deportation proceedings. After losing an appeal, Perez was deported in March 2018: deported Perez was flown from Gary, Indiana, to Brownsville, Texas, where officers escorted him across the border and turned him over to Mexican authorities, ICE officials said. Perez appeared shocked by his treatment during his final moments on U.S. soil. An ICE agent who described himself as a fellow veteran told Perez they would "fix this" while leading him to a gate, Perez said. "When we go there he just closed the gate behind me and he said, 'OK, we're done here,'" he said. "He said, 'You see those green lights? You go that way and when you get there just ask for help.'" Perez recalls thinking, "Really? This is it?" The veteran said he immediately contemplated suicide but then said he felt he needed to keep walking and continue the fight to let others know how he and other undocumented veterans are treated by the U.S. Unless something changes for them, the only way most of the deported veterans will be able to return to the United States is by dying. By law, all military veterans (except those who have been dishonorably discharged) are entitled to burial in a national cemetery, and immigration laws don't apply to corpses. entitled apply On 20 April 2016, lawmakers introduced a bill to readmit military veterans who were deported and who were not previously convicted of serious crimes. It would also prevent the removal of military veterans from the U.S. in the future. bill On 13 April 2018, Hector Barajas, the deported veteran who was one of the first to shine a spotlight on their plight, received his American citizenship, potentially paving the way for hundreds of other former United States military members:   Kao, Joanna and Vo, Lam Thuy. "Deported Vets: Life in the Bunker."
Al Jazeera.  26 September 2014. Siegal, Erin. "U.S. Veterans 'Banished' to Mexico."
KPBS.org. 12 November 2012. Tobia, P.J. "They Served Their Country. Now They Can't Live In It."
PBS.org.  10 September 2015. "Naturalization Through Military Service: Fact Sheet."
USCIS.gov. Update [13 April 2018, 2:20 P.M.]: Added detail about Hector receiving U.S. citizenship. On 20 January 2017, the day Donald J. Trump took office as President of the United States, news outlets posted photospurporting to compare the size of the crowd attending Trump's inauguration to that attending Barack Obama's first inaugural ceremony in 2009. Although there was not yet an official count of how many people actually showed up atthe Trump event, so an accurate numerical comparison couldn't be made, the photos did appear to show a significantdisparity between the sizes of the crowds, with far fewer in attendance at Trump's inauguration than Obama's. photos For obvious reasons, the side-by-side images were relished byanti-Trump factions, whoshared and retweeted them all day long. There wasone instance in particular wherein a retweet of the photos caught the attention of incoming Trump officials, who deemed them inappropriate  so inappropriate, in fact, that the Department of Interior promptlydeactivated every oneof its Twitter accounts in response. The offending retweet (since deleted) appeared on the National Park Service (@NatlParkService) Twitter feed:   This was followed by another retweet (since deleted) of a text suggesting that the Trump administration had scrubbed information from the White House web site for ideological reasons: scrubbed   All of which caused a smalluproar on Twitter, where some users jokedthat the National Park Service had "gone rogue," others wondered about the legality of the retweets, and still others defended their content as "factual, not anti-Trump." Later that day, the NPS Twitter account, along with all the other Department of Interior accounts, went silent. According to a report by CNN, the order came down from a "career staffer" at the department: gone rogue report In statements to The Washington Post, a National Park Service spokesperson explained why the action was taken and saidit would only be temporary: Thomas Crosson, a spokesmanfor the National Park Service, the Interior agency whose employee retweeted the offending tweets,said the action was inconsistent with the agencys approach to engaging the public through social media. The Department of Interiors communications team determined that it was important to stand down Twitter activity across the Department temporarily, except in the case of public safety, Crosson said in an email. Now that social media guidance has been clarified, the Department and its bureaus should resume Twitter engagement as normal this weekend. With one exception, Crosson said: No social media posts on the policy priorities of the new Interior secretary, because Trump nominee Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) has not yet been confirmed. Indeed, by the next morning, U.S.Department of Interior Twitter accounts went online again, commencing with a note of contritiontweeted by @NatlParkService: note We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you pic.twitter.com/mctNNvlrmv pic.twitter.com/mctNNvlrmv  NationalParkService (@NatlParkService) January 21, 2017 January 21, 2017 There has been no announcement regarding who may have been responsible for the retweets, or whether disciplinary action would be taken. Klein, Betsy. "Comparing Donald Trump and Barack Obama's Inaugural Crowd Sizes."
CNN. 21 January 2017. Merica, Dan."Trump Admin Tells National Park Service to Halt Tweets."
CNN.20 January 2017. Rein, Lisa."Interior Department Reactivates Twitter Accounts Ffter Shutdown Following Inauguration."
The Washington Post.21 January 2017.