Is Disney World Lowering the Drinking Age to 18?
On Aug. 20, 2022, a Disney blog known as The Mouse Trap published an article and TikTok video that both said Walt Disney World Resort was "lobbying to lower the drinking age to 18." However, this was nothing more than a bit of fun and satirical Disney fiction. The video from TikTok user @mousetrapnews was viewed nearly 3 million time in just two days. The account is affiliated with The Mouse Trap blog: video   The news was reported by its narrator as follows: Disney World is lobbying to lower the drinking age to 18. Disney World is battling the Florida government in court to get a resort exemption. The exemption would allow anyone 18 and older to drink on property. This is clearly an attempt to generate more money for the Disney company. For the full story, click the link in our bio or visit mousetrapnews.com. A comment was later added to the video by @mousetrapnews that said, "If you were thirsting for some fake Disney news, you got it! But you should still follow us and read the story! It's a solid read, we promise."    This comment appeared under the satirical video from @mousetrapnews. The article on the blog for The Mouse Trap began with a history lesson about former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act. The story then shifted to the supposed Disney World drinking age news, laying out the satire like this: article former U.S. President Ronald Reagan the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act Disney World Drinking Age at Disney World May be Lowered to 18 ... Disney World is looking to defy the minimum drinking age act. The Walt Disney Company is currently battling the state of Florida in the courts over the minimum drinking age. Disney is attempting to lower the minimum drinking age on Disney property to 18. They are clearly doing this to increase their revenue at EPCOT and across Disney World. We all know how popular drinks are at EPCOT. Whether you are having a few different concoctions or drinking around the world, alcoholic drinks are a big part of the EPCOT culture. The Mouse Trap blog's About page advised readers to keep their "hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the vehicle at all times," a nod to the instructions given to park guests when loading into Disney's many rides: About page The Mouse Trap is the world's best satire site. We write fake storiesabout Disney Parks stuff. From Disney park announcements to Disney hotel and resort news to made up Disney partnerships,you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun. So technically our sloganThe Moused Trusted Name in Disney Newsisn't true, but we thought it was creative and funny, so we are running with it. The Mouse Trapwas created on a whim to have some fun and write stories about Disney we wish were true.Some Disney sites write deceptive stories for clicks. We write 100% made up stories for your enjoyment. We also hope that Disney sees how much people like some of our stories and decide to actually make one of our stories a reality! While you read our articles, be sure to keep your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the vehicle at all times and remember these are strictly fictional for your enjoyment. Pleaseshare any articles you enjoy reading with your Disney friends and on social media to help us grow and continue to put out fun articles! In sum, no, Disney World isn't lowering the drinking age inside its parks to age 18, nor is Disneyland or any other Disney parks around the world. This was nothing more than a story created for fun on a satire blog. Disney World "Drinking Age at Disney World May Be Lowered to 18." The Mouse Trap, 20 Aug. 2022, https://www.mousetrapnews.com/post/drinking-age. @mousetrapnews. TikTok, 20 Aug. 2022, https://www.tiktok.com/@mousetrapnews/video/7134076416190139690. "The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act." APIS - Alcohol Policy Information System, https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/the-1984-national-minimum-drinking-age-act.
TheWisconsin Freedom Alliance, a conservative political group, splashed into the news briefly in 2016 when itfunded ads criticizing various Republican state Senate candidatesduring primary campaigns. Now the group is back with acampaigncharging that taxpayers are on the hook for bloated pensions, salaries and other benefits for state lawmakers of all political stripes. In an April 2017radio ad, the alliance ripped a practice that pays Wisconsin state lawmakers a per-diem amount when they travel to the Capitol for business. Did you know state politicians can collect their per diems even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel? No receipts are required for them to get paid. No receipts! Its the honor system for politicians paying themselves. Does that sound like a good idea? Is that the way the system works? The benefit Legislators in most states qualify for per-diems. In many cases they receive more than Wisconsin lawmakers can get. That hasnt prevented the per-diems from coming under occasional attack in Wisconsin. They top out at $115 a day for state senators, and $78.50 a day (and $157 for an overnight) for Assembly members. In2016, overall payments to Assembly members ranged from a low of $916 to state Rep. Nancy VanderMeer (R-Tomah) to a high of $9,591 to state Rep. Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), the Assembly minority leader. In total, the 99 Assembly members received $484,504. The 33 senators received $200,860 in 2016. The payments ranged from $2,024.00 to state Sen. Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls) to $14,256 to state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), the majority leader. Lawmakers living close to Madison qualify for lower per-diem rates. Lawmakers base salary is $50,950. The Wisconsin law governing the benefit says legislators shall be entitled to an allowance for expenses incurred for food and lodging for each day that he or she is in Madison on legislative business. (italics ours). So, if the allowance is tied to spending on food and lodging, is it possible, as the alliance contended, that it is paid even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel? Michael Flaherty, executive director of the Freedom Alliance, cited a Dec. 30, 2016 story by the USA Today Network-Wisconsin, headlinedMadison lawmakers max out hometown perk. The story said Lawmakers can collect the money as income without spending a dime on meals, lodging or gas. No receipts of expenses are required to get paid. The no-receipts claim is on target, according to the clerks for the Senate and Assembly. Lawmakers are not asked to itemize. As for whether a lawmaker who skips meals and drives home to sleep can still get a per diem, the answer is, yes, thats possible. But its impossible to say how often that happens, given the loose accounting system. Its a benefit, an allowance, said Senate Chief ClerkJeff Renk. In Renks opinion, despite the statutes talk of expenses incurred, lawmakers who incur no expense while collecting a per diem are not violating the law. The perk is so automatic that lawmakers, at the beginning of a two-year legislative session, choose whether to receive the maximum daily reimbursement for days they travel to Madison within that period. Thats how the law was written. All they have to do to collect is confirm their appearances by entering a mark in a computer program. One piece of the groups claim requires a minor clarification. Travel costs in the form of mileage are reimbursed separately from the per-diem payments. Our rating The Wisconsin Freedom Alliance claimed that state lawmakers get daily expense payments even if they dont spend a dime on meals, or lodging or travel, and no receipts are required for them to get paid. Per diems are built on an honor system that requires no documentation that any travel or lodging expense has been incurred. Travel costs, though, have nothing to do with per diems, and some clarification is necessary here because no one can say how often lawmakers get the per diem without spending anything. We rate the claim Mostly True. Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas came to national prominence in 2018 through his high-profile campaign to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. senator Ted Cruz. During the course of his campaign, the Democratic candidate has been confronted with various claims and allegations about himself and his family. One such meme, entitled "'Beto' Reality Check," was shared widely on Facebook in August 2018:A spokesperson for O'Rourke's campaign described the meme as "factually incorrect in countless ways" and largely referred us to several existing news reports about the allegations. The following is our breakdown of the five sections contained in the meme.O'Rourke adopted the name "Beto" to appeal to Latino voters: The meme claimed:NOT HISPANIC"Robert O'Rourke" became "Beto" for his political campaigns and on the ballot, a tactic that gives the false impression he's Latino, misleading voters in a state with many Hispanics.In fact, O'Rourke was known as "Beto" long before he entered political life, although his birth name is Robert and he appears to use both first names interchangeably. (For example, his July 2018 Federal Election Commission "Statement of Candidacy" lists his name as "Robert Beto O'Rourke.")O'Rourke told CNN that his parents referred to him as Beto "from day one," and that it "just stuck." Others have noted that the name is likely derived from a pronunciation of the Spanish "Roberto," and O'Rourke himself described it as "a nickname for Robert in El Paso." (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 78 percent of El Paso county residents listed themselves as being of Mexican heritage in 2016.)O'Rourke's family is of Irish heritage. According to the New York Times, his family "came over from Ireland four generations ago to work on the railroad." His father Pat O'Rourke was a prominent El Paso County official during the 1980s.A 1986 article about Pat O'Rourke in the El Paso Times referred to his then 14-year-old son as "Beto O'Rourke." In 1999, six years before O'Rourke ran for El Paso city council, the same newspaper referred to "web site designer Beto O'Rourke" in a short article about his I.T. business Stanton Street Design.After checking the archives of the El Paso Times, we found multiple references to "Beto O'Rourke" between 1986 and 2004, when O'Rourk was either a child or a businessman and had never run for political office.In March, the campaign of O'Rourke's Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, launched a radio jingle that poked fun at the name "Beto" and included the following lyrics: "I remember reading stories/Liberal Robert wanted to fit in/So he changed his name to 'Beto'/And hid it with a grin ...":FIRST LISTEN: our new 60-second statewide radio ad introducing our liberal opponent, Congressman Robert ORourke, to Texas voters.Help #KeepTexasRed: https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 7, 2018The next day, O'Rourke posted a photograph of himself as a young boy, wearing a sweater with the nickname "Beto" stitched into it, establishing that, contrary to false accusation, he did not "change his name" for political reasons:pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 7, 2018O'Rourke used his father's connections to avoid trial for two felonies: UNPROVENThe meme claimed:FELONY ARREST RECORDAs an adult in his mid-20s, O'Rourke was caught breaking into the University of Texas El Paso. Charged with breaking and entering and burglary, he mysteriously avoided trial. A few years later, arrested for drunk driving, he again walked with a "deal." Being the song of a powerful, politically connected County Judge apparently has benefits. O'Rourke dismisses his felony convictions as "youthful pranks" and "mistakes"; it's old news, move along, nothing to see here.O'Rourke has indeed been arrested for burglary and drunk driving, a history which he has discussed several times over the course of his political career, as his spokesperson told us: "While charges were dismissed, this is something that Beto has always publicly addressed -- during his initial run for the city council, his run for Congress, in profiles written about him, during dozens of interviews, and at town halls across the state during this campaign."In a 27 August 2018 op-ed for the Houston Chronicle and  San Antonio Express-News, O'Rourke himself wrote:Twenty-three years ago I was arrested for attempted forcible entry after jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. I spent a night in the El Paso County Jail, was able to make bail the next day, and was released. Three years later, I was arrested for drunk driving -- a far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse.According to El Paso county jail records, O'Rourke was arrested for attempted burglary on 19 May 1995, when he was 22 years old. He was released from custody the same day. Court records show that the prosecutor dropped the charge in February 1996.O'Rourke was also arrested for driving while intoxicated on 27 September 1998, the day after his 26th birthday. He completed a "misdemeanor diversion program" (namely "DWI school") in October 1999, and the charge was dropped.In August 2018, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News cited police reports, including a witness account, which suggested that the incident leading to O'Rourke's DWI arrest was relatively serious and involved a collision with another vehicle and a possible attempt by O'Rourke to leave the scene:State and local police reports obtained by the Chronicle and Express-News show that ORourke was driving drunk at what a witness called a high rate of speed in a 75 mph zone on Interstate 10 about a mile from the New Mexico border. He lost control and hit a truck, sending his car careening across the center median into oncoming lanes. The witness, who stopped at the scene, later told police that ORourke had tried to drive away from the scene. O'Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on police breathalyzers, above a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, the state legal limit at the time.In the case of his DWI arrest, O'Rourke did not face prison time because he completed an alternative adjudication program. It's not clear why the attempted burglary charge was dropped in 1996 (we asked the O'Rourke campaign about this but didn't receive a response to that particular question in time for publication). However, we could find no evidence that O'Rourke's father had any role in either case, nor did the meme offer any evidence.Congressman O'Rourke's father Pat was the El Paso County judge until 1986 -- a kind of chief executive of the county's governing body, the Commissioners Court -- so he had not held office for nine years by the time of his son's attempted burglary arrest.O'Rourke violated 'insider trading' laws: The meme claimed:INSIDER TRADING VIOLATIONSAfter being sent a memo specifically prohibiting investment in Twitter's IPO [initial public offering], O'Rourke made a tidy one-day profit on it. When uncovered by a government watchdog, he quickly turned himself in. This violation of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) is apparently a habit, as there are several other instances of this behavior; he characterizes them as mistakes.Despite the meme's claim, O'Rourke has never been charged with, or convicted of, violating any laws related to insider trading, including the STOCK Act, which bars members of the U.S. Congress from benefiting from financial transactions made on the basis of information they received in their capacity as members of Congress.But this section of the meme does contain elements of truth in that -- after the matter was brought to light by a third party -- O'Rourke reported his potential violation of rules to the House Ethics Committee (for stock transactions he maintained were executed by his broker without his knowledge), and the matter was resolved without any charges being brought against him:U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke alerted the House Ethics Committee that he might have violated a new law restricting members of Congress from engaging in certain stock transactions.It is the first case to come before the committee involving a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress from participating in initial public offerings, or IPOs, other than what is available to members of the public generally, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Committee for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group.ORourke, a Democrat whose district covers a portion of western Texas, reported the possible violation after Legistorm, an online news site that tracks congressional issues, informed him that his Nov. 15 disclosure saying he participated in the Twitter IPO earlier in the month might indicate a violation of a 2012 law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act.The freshman congressman also reported that, through his stockbroker, he participated in six other initial public offerings this year. In an interview, ORourke said he didnt see a Nov. 5 memo from the House Ethics Committee warning members of Congress about participating in IPOs.On 27 November 2013, O'Rourke wrote on Facebook that the ethics committee had informed him they would consider the issue resolved once he sold off any remaining shares that he bought during any IPOs, and sent the U.S. Treasury a check equal to the amount he earned in profits from those IPO-related shares:Upon receiving the letter from the Committee today I instructed my broker to sell all remaining shares, which he did. I then sent a check for the full amount of the profit from all IPO trades this year to the U.S. Treasury by overnight mail. Copies of the trades and the check have been sent to the Ethics Committee.I apologize to the House of Representatives and to the people I represent for not exercising due diligence. I will be much more thorough in the future concerning financial transactions and do my best to ensure that I am in full compliance with all rules covering members of Congress.Records filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives show that O'Rourke bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of shares in Twitter on 7 November 2013 (the first day the company was traded on the stock market), before selling off between $1,000 and $15,000 in shares later that day.Records also indicate that on 27 November 2013, O'Rourke again sold off between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Twitter shares "pursuant to the recommendations made by House Ethics Committee in a letter from 11/27/13."A condom full of "white powder" was found in O'Rourke's father's car: trueThe meme claimed:FATHER'S DRUG SCANDALO'Rourke's father, while county judge, had a 2-way radio installed in his Jeep. Installers discovered a condom packed with a "white powder" concealed in his vehicle and called police. Much to the dismay of investigating officers, the Captain on duty, a friend and political ally of O'Rourke, flushed the evidence down the toilet and dropped the charges. The Captain was subsequently suspended and tried for tampering with evidence.This section of the meme relates to incidents which took place in 1983, when Beto O'Rourke was 10 years old, and which had absolutely nothing to do with him.Nevertheless, it's true that in February 1983, El Paso County Sheriff's Captain Willie Hill told two police officers to get rid of a condom full of white powder which they had found in Pat O'Rourke's car while they were installing a radio in it. The officers suspected the powder to be heroin or cocaine, but the substance was never tested to determine its true nature.Hill was temporarily suspended but was reinstated after being acquitted on a misdemeanor charge of evidence tampering. (The prosecutor had earlier dropped a charge of misconduct against him.) Hill testified that he made a snap decision about the discovery of the powder, which he strongly suspected had been planted there to embarrass or undermine either O'Rourke or one of the officers installing the radio.O'Rourke and Hill were friends, as O'Rourke (then county judge) told the El Paso Times: "Because he's a good man, it would be an injustice if Willie were to suffer grievous consequences from this whole episode. You have an honest and honorable man implicated by pure fluke. And that's just damn right not fair."O'Rourke was involved in a family business that was prosecuted for tax violations: The meme claimed:FAMILY BUSINESS FEDERALLY PROSECUTEDO'Rourke's family business "Charlotte's Furniture," a store "Beto," his mother and sister are involved with, was charged in 2010 with altering records to avoid IRS reporting. Investigators found they accepted cash payments, in one instance over $630,000 from an unnamed individual (that's a LOT of furniture)! Found guilty on 15 counts, the sentence was a $250,000 fine and 5 years' probation. Around the time O'Rourke announced as a senate candidate, the business was shuttered and its records became unavailable. O'Rourke passes the prosecution off as a "mistake"; it's been covered, move along, nothing to see here.The meme got the basic facts right about the federal tax case against Charlotte's, but it falsely claimed that Congressman O'Rourke was personally "involved" in the company. He was not.In 2010, Charlotte's Inc., an El Paso furniture store company started by O'Rourke's grandmother in 1951, was convicted of "structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements, a tax-related felony. The company was charged as a corporate entity, but the Congressman's mother, Melissa O'Rourke, acted as its authorized representative.The company pled guilty to accusations that it had restructured transactions in order to present relatively large cash payments as having been made in installments of less than $10,000. Anti-money laundering provisions of U.S. law require that a business reveal the identity of any individual who makes a cash payment above that threshold.In total, Charlotte's and its employees illegally restructured $630,000 in payments, all from one customer, in this way between May 2005 and October 2006. The identity of that customer is not known. U.S. District Court judge Kathleen Cardone gave a sentence of five years' probation and a $500,000 fine, with $250,000 of that suspended.In 2017, Melissa O'Rourke announced that she intended to close down the business but denied the decision was connected to her son's U.S. Senate campaign or the 2010 conviction.According to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts records for 2017, Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with Charlotte's Inc., whose directors were Melissa O'Rourke and the Congressman's sister Charlotte O'Rourke.Records for 2005 and 2006 (when the I.R.S. reporting violations took place) as well as 2010 (when the conviction happened) show that Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with the company at those times, either.The Congressman is part owner of the property where Charlotte's was located. According to O'Rourke's 2013 congressional financial disclosure, his mother gifted him an ownership stake worth between $1 million and $5 million in Peppertree Square, a shopping center on North Mesa St. in El Paso.However, his part ownership of the Peppertree Square property (which does not appear to entail any management function in any of the businesses located there) did not accrue until 31 December 2012, more than six years after the conclusion of the I.R.S. reporting violations at Charlotte's.  One such meme, entitled "'Beto' Reality Check," was shared widely on Facebook in August 2018: meme   A spokesperson for O'Rourke's campaign described the meme as "factually incorrect in countless ways" and largely referred us to several existing news reports about the allegations. The following is our breakdown of the five sections contained in the meme. The meme claimed: NOT HISPANIC "Robert O'Rourke" became "Beto" for his political campaigns and on the ballot, a tactic that gives the false impression he's Latino, misleading voters in a state with many Hispanics. In fact, O'Rourke was known as "Beto" long before he entered political life, although his birth name is Robert and he appears to use both first names interchangeably. (For example, his July 2018 Federal Election Commission "Statement of Candidacy" lists his name as "Robert Beto O'Rourke.") Statement O'Rourke told CNN that his parents referred to him as Beto "from day one," and that it "just stuck." Others have noted that the name is likely derived from a pronunciation of the Spanish "Roberto," and O'Rourke himself described it as "a nickname for Robert in El Paso." (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 78 percent of El Paso county residents listed themselves as being of Mexican heritage in 2016.) CNN noted listed O'Rourke's family is of Irish heritage. According to the New York Times, his family "came over from Ireland four generations ago to work on the railroad." His father Pat O'Rourke was a prominent El Paso County official during the 1980s. New York Times A 1986 article about Pat O'Rourke in the El Paso Times referred to his then 14-year-old son as "Beto O'Rourke." In 1999, six years before O'Rourke ran for El Paso city council, the same newspaper referred to "web site designer Beto O'Rourke" in a short article about his I.T. business Stanton Street Design. article article After checking the archives of the El Paso Times, we found multiple references to "Beto O'Rourke" between 1986 and 2004, when O'Rourk was either a child or a businessman and had never run for political office. In March, the campaign of O'Rourke's Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, launched a radio jingle that poked fun at the name "Beto" and included the following lyrics: "I remember reading stories/Liberal Robert wanted to fit in/So he changed his name to 'Beto'/And hid it with a grin ...": FIRST LISTEN: our new 60-second statewide radio ad introducing our liberal opponent, Congressman Robert ORourke, to Texas voters. Help #KeepTexasRed: https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek #KeepTexasRed https://t.co/PVsiCtbbyL #CruzCrew #TXSen pic.twitter.com/OxK61gZ0ek  Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 7, 2018 March 7, 2018  The next day, O'Rourke posted a photograph of himself as a young boy, wearing a sweater with the nickname "Beto" stitched into it, establishing that, contrary to false accusation, he did not "change his name" for political reasons: pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv pic.twitter.com/1IO1dgmCkv  Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 7, 2018 March 7, 2018  The meme claimed: FELONY ARREST RECORD As an adult in his mid-20s, O'Rourke was caught breaking into the University of Texas El Paso. Charged with breaking and entering and burglary, he mysteriously avoided trial. A few years later, arrested for drunk driving, he again walked with a "deal." Being the song of a powerful, politically connected County Judge apparently has benefits. O'Rourke dismisses his felony convictions as "youthful pranks" and "mistakes"; it's old news, move along, nothing to see here. O'Rourke has indeed been arrested for burglary and drunk driving, a history which he has discussed several times over the course of his political career, as his spokesperson told us: "While charges were dismissed, this is something that Beto has always publicly addressed -- during his initial run for the city council, his run for Congress, in profiles written about him, during dozens of interviews, and at town halls across the state during this campaign." In a 27 August 2018 op-ed for the Houston Chronicle and  San Antonio Express-News, O'Rourke himself wrote: op-ed Twenty-three years ago I was arrested for attempted forcible entry after jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso. I spent a night in the El Paso County Jail, was able to make bail the next day, and was released. Three years later, I was arrested for drunk driving -- a far more serious mistake for which there is no excuse. According to El Paso county jail records, O'Rourke was arrested for attempted burglary on 19 May 1995, when he was 22 years old. He was released from custody the same day. Court records show that the prosecutor dropped the charge in February 1996. records records O'Rourke was also arrested for driving while intoxicated on 27 September 1998, the day after his 26th birthday. He completed a "misdemeanor diversion program" (namely "DWI school") in October 1999, and the charge was dropped. arrested In August 2018, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News cited police reports, including a witness account, which suggested that the incident leading to O'Rourke's DWI arrest was relatively serious and involved a collision with another vehicle and a possible attempt by O'Rourke to leave the scene: cited State and local police reports obtained by the Chronicle and Express-News show that ORourke was driving drunk at what a witness called a high rate of speed in a 75 mph zone on Interstate 10 about a mile from the New Mexico border. He lost control and hit a truck, sending his car careening across the center median into oncoming lanes. The witness, who stopped at the scene, later told police that ORourke had tried to drive away from the scene. O'Rourke recorded a 0.136 and 0.134 on police breathalyzers, above a blood-alcohol level of 0.10, the state legal limit at the time. In the case of his DWI arrest, O'Rourke did not face prison time because he completed an alternative adjudication program. It's not clear why the attempted burglary charge was dropped in 1996 (we asked the O'Rourke campaign about this but didn't receive a response to that particular question in time for publication). However, we could find no evidence that O'Rourke's father had any role in either case, nor did the meme offer any evidence. Congressman O'Rourke's father Pat was the El Paso County judge until 1986 -- a kind of chief executive of the county's governing body, the Commissioners Court -- so he had not held office for nine years by the time of his son's attempted burglary arrest. judge governing body The meme claimed: INSIDER TRADING VIOLATIONS After being sent a memo specifically prohibiting investment in Twitter's IPO [initial public offering], O'Rourke made a tidy one-day profit on it. When uncovered by a government watchdog, he quickly turned himself in. This violation of the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) is apparently a habit, as there are several other instances of this behavior; he characterizes them as mistakes. Despite the meme's claim, O'Rourke has never been charged with, or convicted of, violating any laws related to insider trading, including the STOCK Act, which bars members of the U.S. Congress from benefiting from financial transactions made on the basis of information they received in their capacity as members of Congress. STOCK Act But this section of the meme does contain elements of truth in that -- after the matter was brought to light by a third party -- O'Rourke reported his potential violation of rules to the House Ethics Committee (for stock transactions he maintained were executed by his broker without his knowledge), and the matter was resolved without any charges being brought against him: violation U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke alerted the House Ethics Committee that he might have violated a new law restricting members of Congress from engaging in certain stock transactions. It is the first case to come before the committee involving a 2012 law that prohibits members of Congress from participating in initial public offerings, or IPOs, other than what is available to members of the public generally, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Committee for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group. ORourke, a Democrat whose district covers a portion of western Texas, reported the possible violation after Legistorm, an online news site that tracks congressional issues, informed him that his Nov. 15 disclosure saying he participated in the Twitter IPO earlier in the month might indicate a violation of a 2012 law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act. The freshman congressman also reported that, through his stockbroker, he participated in six other initial public offerings this year. In an interview, ORourke said he didnt see a Nov. 5 memo from the House Ethics Committee warning members of Congress about participating in IPOs. On 27 November 2013, O'Rourke wrote on Facebook that the ethics committee had informed him they would consider the issue resolved once he sold off any remaining shares that he bought during any IPOs, and sent the U.S. Treasury a check equal to the amount he earned in profits from those IPO-related shares: wrote Upon receiving the letter from the Committee today I instructed my broker to sell all remaining shares, which he did. I then sent a check for the full amount of the profit from all IPO trades this year to the U.S. Treasury by overnight mail. Copies of the trades and the check have been sent to the Ethics Committee. I apologize to the House of Representatives and to the people I represent for not exercising due diligence. I will be much more thorough in the future concerning financial transactions and do my best to ensure that I am in full compliance with all rules covering members of Congress. Records filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives show that O'Rourke bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of shares in Twitter on 7 November 2013 (the first day the company was traded on the stock market), before selling off between $1,000 and $15,000 in shares later that day. filed Records also indicate that on 27 November 2013, O'Rourke again sold off between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Twitter shares "pursuant to the recommendations made by House Ethics Committee in a letter from 11/27/13." indicate The meme claimed: FATHER'S DRUG SCANDAL O'Rourke's father, while county judge, had a 2-way radio installed in his Jeep. Installers discovered a condom packed with a "white powder" concealed in his vehicle and called police. Much to the dismay of investigating officers, the Captain on duty, a friend and political ally of O'Rourke, flushed the evidence down the toilet and dropped the charges. The Captain was subsequently suspended and tried for tampering with evidence. This section of the meme relates to incidents which took place in 1983, when Beto O'Rourke was 10 years old, and which had absolutely nothing to do with him. Nevertheless, it's true that in February 1983, El Paso County Sheriff's Captain Willie Hill told two police officers to get rid of a condom full of white powder which they had found in Pat O'Rourke's car while they were installing a radio in it. The officers suspected the powder to be heroin or cocaine, but the substance was never tested to determine its true nature. Hill was temporarily suspended but was reinstated after being acquitted on a misdemeanor charge of evidence tampering. (The prosecutor had earlier dropped a charge of misconduct against him.) Hill testified that he made a snap decision about the discovery of the powder, which he strongly suspected had been planted there to embarrass or undermine either O'Rourke or one of the officers installing the radio. being acquitted O'Rourke and Hill were friends, as O'Rourke (then county judge) told the El Paso Times: "Because he's a good man, it would be an injustice if Willie were to suffer grievous consequences from this whole episode. You have an honest and honorable man implicated by pure fluke. And that's just damn right not fair." El Paso Times The meme claimed: FAMILY BUSINESS FEDERALLY PROSECUTED O'Rourke's family business "Charlotte's Furniture," a store "Beto," his mother and sister are involved with, was charged in 2010 with altering records to avoid IRS reporting. Investigators found they accepted cash payments, in one instance over $630,000 from an unnamed individual (that's a LOT of furniture)! Found guilty on 15 counts, the sentence was a $250,000 fine and 5 years' probation. Around the time O'Rourke announced as a senate candidate, the business was shuttered and its records became unavailable. O'Rourke passes the prosecution off as a "mistake"; it's been covered, move along, nothing to see here. The meme got the basic facts right about the federal tax case against Charlotte's, but it falsely claimed that Congressman O'Rourke was personally "involved" in the company. He was not. In 2010, Charlotte's Inc., an El Paso furniture store company started by O'Rourke's grandmother in 1951, was convicted of "structuring transactions to evade reporting requirements, a tax-related felony. The company was charged as a corporate entity, but the Congressman's mother, Melissa O'Rourke, acted as its authorized representative. felony The company pled guilty to accusations that it had restructured transactions in order to present relatively large cash payments as having been made in installments of less than $10,000. Anti-money laundering provisions of U.S. law require that a business reveal the identity of any individual who makes a cash payment above that threshold. restructured provisions In total, Charlotte's and its employees illegally restructured $630,000 in payments, all from one customer, in this way between May 2005 and October 2006. The identity of that customer is not known. U.S. District Court judge Kathleen Cardone gave a sentence of five years' probation and a $500,000 fine, with $250,000 of that suspended. sentence In 2017, Melissa O'Rourke announced that she intended to close down the business but denied the decision was connected to her son's U.S. Senate campaign or the 2010 conviction. announced According to Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts records for 2017, Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with Charlotte's Inc., whose directors were Melissa O'Rourke and the Congressman's sister Charlotte O'Rourke. records Records for 2005 and 2006 (when the I.R.S. reporting violations took place) as well as 2010 (when the conviction happened) show that Congressman O'Rourke had no formal role with the company at those times, either. Records The Congressman is part owner of the property where Charlotte's was located. According to O'Rourke's 2013 congressional financial disclosure, his mother gifted him an ownership stake worth between $1 million and $5 million in Peppertree Square, a shopping center on North Mesa St. in El Paso. disclosure However, his part ownership of the Peppertree Square property (which does not appear to entail any management function in any of the businesses located there) did not accrue until 31 December 2012, more than six years after the conclusion of the I.R.S. reporting violations at Charlotte's. O'Rourke, Robert Beto.  "Statement of Candidacy."
  Federal Election Commission.  9 July 2018. Bradner, Eric.  "With Primary Ending, Cruz Takes Opening Shot at Beto O'Rourke's Name."
  CNN.  7 March 2018. Stanton, John.  "Juarez's Biggest Booster Is an Irish-American Congressman."
  BuzzFeed News.  14 October 2014. Draper, Robert.  "Texas, Three Ways."
  The New York Times.  14 November 2014. Scharrer, Gary.  "O'Rourke Goes Out Talking."
  The El Paso Times.  8 December 1986. The El Paso Times.  "Consumers Dial Up Web Site."
  16 June 1999. O'Rourke, Beto.  "Texas Should Lead the Way on True Criminal Justice Reform."
  The Houston Chronicle.  27 August 2018. Diaz, Kevin.  "Police Reports Detail Beto O'Rourke's 1998 DWI Arrest."
  The Houston Chronicle.  31 August 2018. Cruz, Laura.  "Friends, Family Say Goodbye to O'Rourke."
  The El Paso Times.  7 July 2001. The White House.  "Fact Sheet: The STOCK Act -- Bans Members of Congress from Insider Trading."
  4 April 2012. The El Paso Times.  "Congressman May Have Broken Ethics Rules with Twitter Stock Purchase."
  26 November 2013. Landis, David.  "Jurors Decided Hill Negligent, Not Criminal."
  The El Paso Times.  23 December 1983. Scharrer, Gary.  "O'Rourke Expresses Sorrow Over Charge."
  The El Paso Times.  29 October 1983. Legal Information Institute.  "U.S. Code, Title 31, Subtitle IV, Chapter 53, Subchapter II, Section 5324 -- Structuring Transactions to Evade Reporting Requirement Prohibite."
  Cornell Law School.  Accessed 31 August 2018. U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division.  "U.S.A. vs Charlotte's Inc. -- Information."
  4 May 2010. U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, El Paso Division.  "U.S.A. vs Charlotte's Inc. -- Amended Judgment."
  8 June 2010. Villa, Pablo.  "Charlotte's Furniture Store to Close This Year, Owner Says."
  The El Paso Times.  4 August 2017. Correction [4 September 2018]: This article has been updated to more accurately describe the role of El Paso County judge. Despite what scammers would like to have you think, "Fixer Upper" star andNew York Times bestselling author Joanna Gaines never endorsed an "intermittent keto routine," keto gummies, or any kind of "bedtime routine" involving weight loss gummies, pills, or supplements. Her husband, Chip, also had nothing to do with any of these products. In May 2023, paid ads circulated on Facebook and Instagram that showed pictures of Gaines. Those ads led to a fake CNN article that showed a picture of the married couple. That "article" was never hosted on cnn.com. The headline of the scammy and fictional article read, "How Millions Of Women Are Melting Body Fat & Getting Ripped Thanks To Joanna Gaines And Her Intermittent Keto Routine!" According to the article, Gaines spoke about weight loss and keto gummies on a "recent segment" of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." However, in reality, Gaines never said anything about these subjects on DeGeneres' show, which ended in 2022. Gaines The article also falsely claimed that Kelly Osbourne, Rachael Ray, and Wendy Lopez all took the alleged "amazing miracle pill" pushed by Gaines. Osbourne and Ray have been targets of similar scams in the past, including one that featured afake People article about Rebel Wilson. fake People article about Rebel Wilson Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon best known as "Dr. Oz," was also named on the order pages for these scammy products. Such pages falsely claimed he said of apple cider vinegar (ACV) keto gummies, "it works," and that they were the "holy grail of weight loss." However, like Gaines and others, he had nothing to do with the products. We advise readers to stay away from strange medicinal products that are referred to as weight loss "miracles." If an online offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Scam offers for weight loss keto gummies often enroll customers in monthly subscription charges, a stipulation that can only be found in the fine print of a page where people input their personal information. We recommend readers who have been the victims of these scams call their credit card company to ensure they don't receive future charges. For more information on the inner workings of these weight loss keto gummies scams, we recommend our past stories on the subject. our past stories As we previously reported, this was in no way the first time that Gaines' image and likeness was used without permission to promote these sorts of products  and it likely won't be the last. reported Fix Austin Schools, a group advocating voter approval of four bond propositions benefiting the Austin school district, slammed Gov. Rick Perrys education plan in a leaflet fielded by local voters in early May 2013.Under the word cut in capital letters, one side of the leaflet says: Under Rick Perry, Texas has CUT funding for public schools by 25%, a conclusion attributed to PolitiFact.Lynda Rife, a consultant to the group, told us the claim echoed our January 2013 review of Perrys statement to reporters at the time that Texas public school funding grew at three times the rate of enrollment from 2002 to 2012.In raw terms, there was a basis for Perrys claim. However, after adjusting for inflation and the effect of an annual tax swap put in motion by lawmakers and Perry in 2006, we concluded that Texas schools in 2012 were fielding 25 percent less in state aid than what they reaped in 2002. Perrys claim drew arating of False.At the time, we looked at enrollment changes and at both overall school spending, counting dollars from state, federal and local sources, and state education aid alone.EnrollmentEnrollment increased about 20 percent from 2001-02 to 2011-12, from more than 4.1 million to nearly 5 million students, according to a December 2012 report by the Texas Education Agency. By email, agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe told us 2012-13 enrollment was expected to exceed 5 million, a figure subsequently confirmed, Ratcliffe told us recently by email.Overall spendingOverall school expenditures totaled $27.9 billion in 2002 and $44.2 billion in 2012, according to a chart from the Legislative Budget Board, which tracks fiscal issues for lawmakers.That makes for a difference of 58 percent, though thats also before adjusting for inflation, which the boards staff did by converting figures to 2004 dollars using an inflation adjuster devised by the federal government, the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government.In 2004 dollars, Texas public school spending in 2002 totaled $30.1 billion. In 2012, the total was $33.3 billion--11 percent greater than in 2002.By this measure, then, it looks like school enrollment went up faster than spending. Then again, we learned, these figures were not behind Perrys statement.State spending alonePerrys then-spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, told us by email that Perry was referring to the difference in state education spending alone as those are the funds the state has control over.The budget boards chart shows $10.9 billion in state spending on the schools in 2002 and $18.9 billion in 2012, for a 73 percent difference, or a little more than Perrys declared 70 percent.Adjusting for inflation, though, reduces the increase to 20 percent, which was still outpacing enrollment growth. In 2004 dollars, such spending was $14.2 billion in 2012, compared with $11.8 billion in 2002.Another crucial factorAnalyst Eva DeLuna Castro of the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities and school lobbyist Lynn Moak, a former Texas Education Agency official, each pointed out another wrinkle, suggesting that any consideration of state education spending should take into account changes in law approved in 2006 resulting in the state picking up about $7 billion more in annual costs in return for school districts cutting local maintenance and operation property tax rates.Castro said by email: The property tax cut was $14.2 billion a biennium, or $7.1 billion every year. That means the state had to put in that amount of money a year to offset local property taxes falling by the same amount.The shift in funding sources did not, in itself, step up aid received by the schools, Castro said.Moak said by phone: This was simply a source-of-funds transfer.To adjust for the annual cost shift, we subtracted $7.1 billion from the state spending in 2012, suggesting a $0.9 billion difference from the 2002 spending. However, adjusting for inflation makes the 2012 state spending equal $8.2 billion in 2002 dollars--25 percent less than the $10.9 billion spent in 2002, which also would mean that spending trailed enrollment growth.For this article, finally, we weighed the message that the reduced spending was Perrys education plan. Perry was governor through all the spending decisions, but the reality is that Republican majorities of the 150-member House and 31-member Senate were needed to pass the decisions into law. Perry was key, but he didn't dictate actions. No governor can.Our rulingThe pro-bonds group said that under Perrys education plan, Texas has cut funding for public schools by 25 percent.State education spending in 2012 was 25 percent lower than it was in 2002, adjusting for inflation and the real effects of the 2006 law giving the state more responsibility for education revenues.Yet Perry didnt cause the reduction by himself; lawmakers acted, too. This clarification is missing from the groups statement, which we rate as Mostly True. During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of Spring 2020, one the familiar features of the daily news cycle was the White House coronavirus task force briefings, at which President Trump frequently spoke and answered questions from the press. Trump regularly boasted at these briefings about how the United States led the world in COVID-19 testing until he finally stomped out of one after being challenged by a reporter to explain why it was important to cast virus testing as if it were a global competition. CNBC reported that: boasted stomped President Donald Trump stormed out of a coronavirus press conference at the White House on Monday after becoming angry with two reporters, one who asked a question about testing, and another who didnt get to ask a question at all. The event in the Rose Garden was meant to give the president a chance to boast about the recent increases in testing, and Trump spoke and answered questions for nearly an hour. At around 5:15 p.m., CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang asked Trump, You have said many times that the U.S. is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing, to which Trump said, Yes. Jiang, who is Chinese American, continued, Why does that matter? Why is it global competition to you, if every day Americans are still losing their lives, and we are still seeing more cases every day? Theyre losing their lives everywhere in the world, Trump replied, And maybe thats a question you should ask China. Dont ask me. Ask China that question, okay? If you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer. As Trump proceeded to call on another reporter, Jiang followed up. Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically? Im not saying it specifically to anybody, Trump responded, growing visibly irate. Im saying that to anyone who would ask a nasty question like that. Trump's boasts about America's being the world leader in testing led to many debates over the tests' accuracy, particularly in how "most" was being reckoned -- was it more accurate to count the gross number of tests being performed (which would generally be higher for countries with larger populations), or to measure the proportion of a country's population that had been tested to date, otherwise known as per capita testing (which is a better gauge of efficiency). CNN reported that: per capita Two giant signs at a White House press conference amplified a claim that President Donald Trump consistently makes: "AMERICA LEADS THE WORLD IN TESTING" "We've prevailed on testing," Trump said, standing between the signs. While the US may have performed the most number of coronavirus tests, it's nowhere near the world's leader in testing per capita, multiple studies show. And health experts say the US isn't close to the rate of testing needed to safely reopen the economy. Some critics asserted that, based on responses offered by Trump when questioned about testing rates, that the president didn't even understand what "per capita" meant:  The remarks offered in the above meme are accurately reproduced. During a May 20, 2020, meeting with Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Governor Laura Kelly of Kansas, Trump reiterated his common pronouncement that increased testing made the U.S. look bad in comparison by revealing a greater number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. than in other countries: meeting increased testing TRUMP: But when you do 14 million tests, youre going to find more cases. If instead of 14 million tests we did 3 million  like, Germany is at about 3 million; South Korea is at 3 million, and theyve done a very good job. Its not a knock, but were at almost 14 million. Were going to be passing 14 million very soon. So youre going to have more tests. If we do 3 million, everyone would say, Oh, were doing great, you know, in terms of cases. Were going to have more cases. If we did 3 million  maybe thats what we shouldve done. I said  if I wouldve done 3 million, theyd say, Oh, they have very few cases. United States is doing well. Were finding a lot of people. By doing testing, youre finding people. So were doing 14, Germany is doing 3, South Korea doing 3, and I think theyre number two and three. So were way ahead of everybody. But when you do that, you have more cases. So a lot of times, the fake news media will say, You know, there are a lot of cases in the United States. Well, if we didnt do testing at a level that nobody has ever dreamt possible, you wouldnt have very many cases. When asked about how U.S. testing compared to that of other countries on a per capita basis, Trump strangely asserted that "there's many per capitas" and questioned "per capita relative to what?": Q: How does [testing] compare to a per capita basis? Obviously, the United States is much larger than a lot of these European countries. How does our testing compare per capita to those nations? TRUMP: And, you know, when you say per capita, theres many per capitas. Its, like, per capita relative to what? But you can look at just about any category, and were really at the top, meaning positive on a per capita basis, too. Theyve done a great job. Trump appeared to be making the point that whichever metric one used, number of tests or per capita testing rate, the U.S. ranked as the highest in the world (although the latter claim was false). But his proclaiming that "there's many per capitas" and questioning what "per capita relative to what" was cryptic beyond explanation. latter claim The term per capita literally means "by heads," or "per person." Many different concepts can be measured on a per capita basis (anything from car ownership to hamburger consumption), but such measurements are always relative to one thing (i.e., number of people), as many commenters pointed out: per capita   Woodward, Aylin and Shayanne Gal.  "Trump Says the US leads the World in Coronavirus Testing, But This Chart Shows How the Country Still Lags Behind in Tests per Capita."
  Business Insider.  12 May 2020. Wilkie, Christina.  "Trump Abruptly Ends Press Conference After Reporters Challenge Him on Coronavirus Testing."
  CNBC.  11 May 2020. Yan, Holly.  "Trump Says the US leads the World in Testing. But It's Far Behind in Testing per Capita, Studies Show."
  CNN.  12 May 2020. The Virginia Education Association says the state has been saving money by lowering public school standards.Since the 2008 General Assembly, we have permanently cut biennial funding for public education by $1.6 billion through changes in the Standards of Quality funding formula, VEA President Kitty Boitnottsaidin a Jan. 23 news conference.The $1.6 billion cited by Boitnott is an eye-popping number. We wanted to know if her figure is correct and if the loss of the funding is, as she said permanent.The Standards of Quality are minimum mandates Virginia sets forth for public education on teacher-pupil ratios, benefits for educators and basic curricula. The General Assembly sets the benchmarks every two years after considering recommendations by the state Board of Education.Virginia is required by law to pay 55 percent of the overall cost of the SOQs and local school districts must pay the rest. For this two-year budget cycle, which began July 1, 2010, the state will pay about $9.6 billion toward meeting the SOQs, and localities will pay about $7.8 billion.Boitnott is essentially saying the state obligation would have been $1.6 billion higher if the General Assembly had not taken steps since 2008 to lower Virginias education standards.Robley Jones, the VEAs director of government relations, said Boitnotts figures came from areporton education funding released last month by the Senate Finance Committee. The study contained a table detailing the 10 substantive reductions to public education programs approved by the General Assembly since 2008. The cuts came to a biennial total of $1.57 billion, and Boitnott rounded up.The biggest savings came from reducing the number of support positions -- such as clerks, teacher aides and bus drivers -- required by the state. That action removed $754 million in SOQ obligations.Lawmakers in 2010 found another $513 million in savings by eliminating certain types of equipment and travel from SOQ calculations and changing the formula for estimating health care costs for school employees.Boitnott, however, is slightly off in her analysis of the the Senate Finance Committees data. The table makes no claim that the 10 cut education programs it lists were part of the SOQs, as Boitnott suggests.In fact, four of the items were not part of the states minimum requirements, according to Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Department of Education. They account for $174 million in biennial costs.So the real reduction in SOQ mandates comes to about $1.4 billion per biennium. Jones, who provided the information for Boitnotts statement, said he made an inadvertent mistake in computing the SOQ reductions.That brings us down to one last question: Are the cuts to the SOQ formula permanent, as Boitnott says?Technically, they are not. The General Assembly is free to restore the funding, but that is not likely to happen. Julie Grimes, a spokeswoman at the Department of Education, said officials there cannot recall an instance where legislators cut funding for an SOQ program and later replenished it.When the state reduces funding for SOQ programs, localities often absorb the costs. Most school districts in Virginia are not satisfied with just attaining minimum SOQ standards and fund their schools at far greater levels than the state demands.The SOQs allow legislators to claim they fund 55 percent of the states educational mandates. But a different picture emerges when total expenditures on Virginia public education are computed. The localities pay about 50 percent, the state, the state pays 40 percent and roughly 10 percent comes from the federal government.Our ruling:Boitnott said that since 2008, the legislature has permanently cut $1.6 billion in programs from the states formula for funding public schools. Shes a bit off; the actual figure is $1.4 billion.Boitnott said these losses are permanent. The General Assembly could restore funding, but a spokesman at the state Department of Education said officials cannot recall an instance where lawmakers cut an SOQ program and later reversed themselves.We rate Boitnotts claim Mostly True. Claim:  The IRS is sending out unsolicited e-mail providing taxpayers with a web form to use to check on the status of their federal income tax returns and refunds. Status:  False. Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2005]  You filed your tax return and you're expecting a refund. You have just one question and you want the answer now - Where's My Refund? Access this secure Web site to find out if the IRS received your return and whether your refund was processed and sent to you. New program enhancements allow you to begin a refund trace online if you have not received your check within 28 days from the original IRS mailing date. Some of you will also be able to correct or change your mailing address within this application if your check was returned to us as undelivered by the U.S. Postal Service. "Where's My Refund?" will prompt you when these features are available for your situation. To get to your refund status, you'll need to provide the following information as shown on your return:  Your first and last name Your Social Security Number (or IRS Individual Taxpayer Identification Number)   Your Credit Card Information  Okay now, Where's My Refund? Where's My Refund? Under the Privacy Act of 1974, we must tell you that our legal right to ask for information is Internal Revenue Code Sections 6001, 6011, 6012(a) and their regulations. They say that you must furnish us with records or statements for any tax for which you are liable, including the withholding of taxes by your employer.We ask for information to carry out the Internal Revenue laws of the United States, and you are required to give us this information. We may give the information to the Department of Justice for civil and criminal litigation, other federal agencies, states, cities, and the District of Columbia for use in administering their tax laws.If you don't provide this information, or provide fraudulent information, the law provides that you may be charged penalties and, in certain cases, you may be subject to criminal prosecution. We may also have to disallow the exemptions, exclusions, credits, deductions, or adjustments shown on the tax return. This could make your tax higher or delay any refund. Interest may also be charged. Origins:   In  December 2005 we began seeing copies of the above-reproduced phishing scam, an e-mail purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service (sent with a return address of <irs_notice@irs.gov>) and offering consumers a link to a handy web form they can use to check the status of their federal income tax returns and refunds.   Of course, the web form the recipient is directed to after clicking on the provided link is not from the real IRS web site,  but an imitation hosted on a server in a foreign country (Mexico in the example we received) that harvests information scammers can use for identity and financial theft by prompting the user to input all sorts of personal data (name, Social Security number, address) as well as other financial information (credit card number, ATM PIN). phishing The IRS does not ask for personal identifying or financial information via unsolicited e-mail, and in no case would the IRS need information such as credit card numbers or ATM PINs in order to respond to inquiries about the status of tax returns or refunds.  Taxpayers can contact the IRS via telephone at  1-800-829-1040 for questions regarding their taxes, or they can visit the genuine Where's My Refund? page on the IRS web site. Where's My Refund? Last updated:  20 December 2005    Sources:   Tri-Town News [Howell, NJ].  "IRS Warns of E-Mail Scam."   8 December 2005. On 27 May 2016, President Obama became the first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, Japan since the end of World War II. While some media outlets painted the historic visit as another stop on Obama's "apology tour," the president did not actually apologize. apology tour Still, social media users were outraged at the President's supposed apology:    On 26 May 2016, the New York Post published an article criticizing the president for his "shameful" apology tour. While the author assumed that Obama would apologize (despite the White House saying that an apology would not be forthcoming), the article came out a day before Obama's speech and therefore did not serve as evidence: article An American presidents highest moral, constitutional and political duty is protecting his fellow citizens from foreign threats. Presidents should adhere to our values and the Constitution, and not treat Americas enemies as morally equivalent to us. If they do, they need not apologize to anyone. The White House says that President Obama wont apologize as he visits Hiroshima Friday. But who believes his press flacks? The president did make an apology while he was in Japan, but it wasn't for the atomic bomb. On 25 May 2016, the President offered his "deepest regrets" for the death of a Japanese woman who reportedly had been murdered by a former U.S. Marine: murdered "The U.S. will continue to cooperate fully" and will continue to ensure "justice is done under the Japanese legal system," Obama said. While critics of President Obama preemptively condemned him for apologizing for the United States' 1945 actions (which collectively killed more than 100,000 people), and while the President did apologize for an unrelated incident, he did not actually offer an apology during his speech. Obama did offer condolences for the loss of those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but nowhere in the full text of his remarks did he offer an apology: actions apology ull text Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself. Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans, a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us. They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and what we might become.  NY Times.  "Text of President Obamas Speech in Hiroshima, Japan."
  27 May 2016 . Spitzer, Kirk.  "Sympathy for victims but no apology as Obama makes historic Hiroshima visit."
  USA Today.  27 May 2016. Bolton, John.  "Obama's Apology Tour Lands In Hiroshima."
  NY Post.  26 May 2016. Michael Wolff's bombshell bookFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White Houseis full of salacious stories from President Donald Trump's first year in office. As media outlets published excerpts from the book in early January 2018, Twitter user PixelatedBoat took advantage of the frenzy to share a fake passage in which White House aides purportedly confessed that they had created a "Gorilla Channel" in order to placate a furious Trump: book share  (@pixelatedboat/Twitter) This fake excerpt ended up getting mixed in with real excerpts from the book, effectively fooling some readers into believing (in not such an unlikely turn of events, given how improbable much of 2016 and 2017 were) that the White House had actually created a "Gorilla Channel" to entertain the President of the United States. Twitter user @PixelatedBoat is best known for creating the internet phrase"Milkshake Duck," which refers to a beloved entity that the Internet quickly turns on and devours after damaging information about it is revealed; they frequently post humorous and obviously satirically content on their feed. After the Gorilla Channel joke was mistaken for a genuine excerpt, they changed their handle to "the gorilla channel thing is a joke" and posted a message expressing remorse: @PixelatedBoat phrase Milkshake Duck tfw you parody a guy making up shit about Trump but people believe it so you become part of the problem PixelatedBoat's "Gorilla Channel" joke is reminiscent of the fake transcripts between President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair that were created by comedian Michael Spicer. In case you were curious, Bill Clinton never said that he punchesslabs of ham to work through his frustrations. punches Ever since Georgia voters roundly rejected regional sales taxes to fund road and transit projects in 2012, state leaders have pledged to take the lead on transportation. The Legislature made good on that promise this year with House Bill 170. Awaiting the governors signature, the measure is projected to raise nearly $670 million in transportation funding next year, by moving the state from a series of sales and excise taxes on gasoline to a single excise tax. That plus a mix of new fees for drivers of electric car and heavy trucks, the end of a popular tax credit for electric cars and a $5 per-night fee on hotel/motel stays, is expected to generate close to $1 billion a year to tackle the states backlog of transportation projects. That is really what all of this has been about --- finding sensible and fair ways to make our transportation network better and keep Georgia moving forward, House Transportation Committee chair Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla, wrote in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not that everyone was on board. Sen. Mike Crane, R-Newnan called the bill a midnight run on taxpayers. Debbie Dooley, who led part of the opposition to the 2012 sales tax referendum as chairman of the Atlanta Tea Party, echoed that language on her Twitter page. GA Republicans just pulled a midnight run on taxpayers and passed a billion-dollar tax increase with a rushed vote giving only 2 hours, Dooley posted on March 31. Is that right? Does the long-awaited transportation plan translate into a massive tax hike? And with that, PolitiFact Georgia waded into the squishy semantics of what counts as a tax and what is a fee. In public policy terms, a broad swath of people pay taxes, for broad services, even if they dont use them. Homeowners pay property taxes to local governments, for instance, to fund police and fire departments they may never need. Fees, meanwhile, are charged for the use of a facility, service or good that government provides. Your federal taxes help fund national parks but you still pay a fee to camp under the stars. That much is clear. Where the lines blur is when politicos and journalists begin using the terms interchangeably. House Bill 170, for instance, refers to the states gas tax. The money paid by Leaf drivers, or hotel visitors? Those are called fees. But to public policy folks, the gas tax is more like a fee, said Barbara Neuby, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University who specializes in budget and finance issues. Thats because you can opt out of owning a car, never buy a gallon of gas and still benefit from others picking up the tab, making what they pay a fee. And to complicate things further? You can pay a tax and a fee at the same time. Dont own a car but need some gas for your lawn mower? You arent using the road to drive but you still pay for the product. A lot of it is semantics, Neuby said. Its a tax increase, or additional fees if you use certain things. To some people, thats splitting hairs. Any time government extracts money from your pocket, folks tend to see it as a tax, even if it isnt. There is not, in economic circles, a clear or bright line between the two terms. After all, the gas tax could be a user fee if only motorists paid it. But to an economist, if a 10-year-old walks to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone, the price will include the cost of getting the treats ingredients to the store, said William J. Smith, the economics department chairman at the University of West Georgia. Any good or service you purchase that involves transportation will involve the gas tax, Smith said. So thats why its so hard to say with any conviction that any one thing is either a tax or a fee. All told, both expert realms lend some credibility to Dooley, and the public, seeing the transportation bill as a giant tax hike. But that refers to the language distinction. Math math, however, does not fully back up claims about a tax increase. Jared Walczak, an analyst with the right-leaning Tax Foundation, examined Georgias gas tax at PolitiFact Georgias request. The current mixed system includes a 7.5 cent per gallon excise tax, a 4 percent sales tax and, generally a 3-4 percent local tax. The effective rate: 26.5 cents per gallon, based on the current AAA fuel price of $2.37 a gallon. And with the elimination of the local and state sales taxes and jump in excise tax? At todays prices, motorists would pay 26 cents a gallon in taxes. The break-even point would be gas prices at $2.65 a gallon, Walczak said. And those calculations do not include the local option, which could add an additional 1 percent sales tax after a public vote. But because the bill also will index the excise tax to inflation, the amount paid is projected to go up over time, as the cost of living gradually rises. The states amended fiscal note acknowledges that index inits projections.The impact of the gas tax in 2016 will be up to $668 million. By 2020, the tax could generate as much as $867 million. Some people will pay more under this proposal. Those who drive a heavy truck, those who drive an alternative vehicle, will certainly pay more immediately, Walczak said. Certain others may pay less or identical amounts at this juncture, but in succeeding years that burden will be indexed to inflation and is apt to increase. Dooley said that conclusion remains the same, regardless of the semantic dispute. The Tea Party understood the need for transportation funding, she said. Members supported the bill repealing a jet fuel tax exemption for Delta, estimated to bring in $21 million this year and up to about $32 million in 2020. By not looking at other tax incentives to cut  such as credits given to the movie industry or breaks that helped lure Mercedes Benz USAs headquarters  lawmakers ensured most Georgians will pay more for the necessary work, she said. They are increasing the burden on everyday motorists in Georgia while giving out all of these subsidies to businesses, Dooley said. They can call it a fee all they like, but if it raises revenue like this does, its a tax, Experts quibble over the semantic distinction. And at least in the short term, people will pay slightly less, or about the same, on the tax that is the biggest piece of the funding overhaul. But over time, the experts agree that the burden on taxpayers will increase. The distinction between a tax and a fee brings it down a notch, but we rate Dooleys statement about a billion dollar tax increase to be Mostly True.