What is the destination of the donations raised through the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?
Claim:  Most of the $100 million raised from ALS 'Ice Bucket Challenge' donations won't go to ALS-related research and services. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2014] Origins:  The email quoted above and other versions of it began to circulate on 28 August 2014, with widespread social media concern over the fate of 'Ice Bucket Challenge' funds donated to the ALS following shortly thereafter. On 27 August 2014, The ALS Association posted a press release confirming that the organization had received $94.3 million in donations between 29 July and 27 August 2014 due to the popularity of the Ice Bucket Challenge. In the release, Barbara Newhouse, President and CEO of The ALS Association, addressed the large infusion of funds and the organization's sudden social media fame: press release Given the large amount of cash suddenly flowing in the direction of The ALS Association, it's natural a public questioning of sorts would follow. After all, not every charity is well administrated, and not every cause is free of bad actors who would exploit public interest for financial gain. Services such as Charity Navigator, an independent assessor of charitable organizations, can be helpful in diffusing concerns in a situation such as the Ice Bucket Challenge phenomenon. According to the site, the ALS Association has a record of high transparency and ranks high in other areas, receiving an overall 90.73/100 rating anda four out of four stars ranking from Charity Navigator. Charity Navigator The claim made in the email above, that 73% of donations fund executive salaries and overhead, is demonstrably false. Charity Navigator's breakdown of the ALS Association's finances for the fiscal year ending January 2013 shows that 72.4% of the ALS Association's budget during that period was used for program expenses  that is, the programs and services the ALS Association delivers to the ALS community according to its mission, such as professional and public education, research into ALS treatments and cures, and patient and community services. Of the remaining budget, 11% went to administrative expenses and 16.5% to fundraising expenses. It appears that someone confused the term "program expenses" with "overhead" and mistakenly assumed the former represented money spent on bureaucracy rather than the vital ALS-related services provided by the ALS Association. The ALS Association's most recent fiscal year reporting is available on its website, with more detailed reports linked on the same page. fiscal year Last updated:  29 August 2014
Claim:  A man was ordered to pay $30,000 in support for a child that DNA testing proved was not his. Examples:  [Collected via Twitter, January 2015] We need justice for Carnell Alexander  just one victim of paternity fraud in MI.   Origins:  In January 2015, what appeared to be a child support-related horror story began to circulate on the Internet. According to several news articles (mainly of the "[news channel] on your side" variety), Detroit resident Carnell Alexander was  ordered by a court to pay more than $30,000 in support for a child that was provably not his. Moreover, the articles claimed, Alexander's DNA test results had been acknowledged by the court but disregarded in what was clearly a miscarriage of justice.  The claim was substantiated on a few levels: Alexander provided his DNA testing results proving that he did not father the child in question, and many articles offered visual evidence showing the amount ($30,000) owed by the Michigan resident to the state. Alexander's situation has been held up as an example of "paternity fraud," but a number of  aspects have been elided from the retellings of his story, aspects that provide context necessary to understanding how what looks to be a clear-cut case of injustice could have come to pass:  The vast majority of articles about the Carnell Alexander case all stem from one local Detroit news report about the issue, creating the false impression that a number of media outlets have verified the facts of the case rather than simply recycling single-source information.  Significant advances in DNA testing have been developed since Alexander was named the father of the now-adult child in 1987. Due to the relative ease of modern DNA testing, a case such as this one would be extremely unlikely to occur today.  An oft-repeated aspect of the case involves the mention of "paternity fraud," leading many readers to believe that the debt owed by Alexander is to the mother of the child and should therefore be forgiven because DNA test results have proved he was not the father. However, the unusual outcome of the case stemmed not from monies owed to the child's (unnamed) mother, but to monies owed to the state as compensation for welfare benefits obtained by the mother. By all accounts (which link back to an October 2014 news segment and article from Detroit station WXYZ), the child's mother intentionally and wrongly named Alexander as the father of her child in order to obtain state assistance: WXYZ [The mother] was struggling to care for the child. When she applied for state assistance, the case worker told her she had to name the father. "That was the only way I could get assistance," she said. She said she didn't realize the state would go after the father to pay the support given to the child. "Everything is my fault, that I put him through," she said. It was not easy [for him] to get a DNA test. Alexander didn't know where the woman was that had claimed he fathered a child. He only had an 8th-grade education, off-and-on employment at the time, and no money to hire help. He asked the court for help, but the court couldn't help him in the way he was asking. Friend of the Court employees are not allowed to give legal advice.  Alexander explained to the judge and court again and again his situation. He says in hindsight, he didn't understand the formal legal steps necessary to make things right. Eventually he, by chance, ran into someone he knew would know where the woman was, and got a DNA test. It proved what he had been saying all along: the child he had never met was not his. The mother had realized that, and the real father was in the child's life. Alexander took this information to court. The judge was unmoved. "Case closed. I gotta pay for the baby," said Alexander. The case also involved an omission on the part of a process server who claimed to have served Alexander with notice of a pending paternity claim against him early on in the child's life. State records proved that Alexander was incarcerated at the time he was purportedly served notice, and that the individual responsible for serving him mistakenly or intentionally claimed otherwise: The court focused on a summons tied to the paternity case in the late 1980's. The state sent a process server to Alexanders dad's house in Highland Park to let him know about the paternity case. The process server turned a document into the court saying Alexander was delivered the summons, but he refused to sign the summons. "I wasn't there. I couldn't refuse to sign," said Alexander. Michigan Department of Corrections ... records confirm Alexander's story  he did not receive that order at a home in Highland Park. He was in prison for a crime he committed as a young man. However, one article about the case referenced a circumstance unmentioned by other reports, that Alexander had initially agreed to "admit" paternity in order to facilitate the mother's approval for welfare services: article But how did Alexander get entangled in a paternity case? Alexander's ex had a baby and didn't know who was the child's father. She reportedly needed state assistance, so the case worker demanded that she name a father for the child.  Alexander, who only went up to the eighth grade education-wise, decided to help his ex so that she could receive state assistance. According to the unnamed woman, she did not realize that the state would go after the child's father for monetary support. The state of Michigan unfortunately does not have paternity fraud laws that protect men.  This last point, if true, could be the crux of the issue: If Alexander in any way agreed to falsely allow the mother to name him as the father on the child's birth certificate, or was aware that she had done so and did not dispute it, it's likely that Michigan viewed him as legally responsible for half the expenses whether his DNA was a match or not. (That  aspect of the case cannot be verified because family court proceedings are not a matter of public record.) Ultimately, the case could hinge  not on whether Alexander was indeed the biological father of the child, but whether he claimed the child as his own as part of an attempt to facilitate his former partner's receipt of welfare (and thus prevented the state from recouping those funds from the child's true biological father).    Last updated:  29 January 2015 As is the case for many Western democracies, the Canadian government's formal efforts to help refugees settle in the country have been the subject of much speculation, criticism and misinformation in recent years. In the fall of 2017, a viral Facebook post spread yet more misinformation about the benefits received by refugees in Canada.  On 1 September 2017, Facebook user Mike Marcoux posted what appears to be a photograph of an itemized breakdown of benefits associated with the Resettlement Assistance Program, along with the message: "This is what 1 illegal refugee gets with the federal assistance program $3874 per month." posted We have modified the image to obscure the name of the recipient, which was included in the original photograph:   Although this document appears to be authentic, according to the Canadian Council for Refugees, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for refugees, its representation on Facebook was highly misleading: The document details payments to a family of five (not a single person) who were refugees accepted by Canada (and therefore are not in the country "illegally"), and most of the listed payments are one-time only resettlement assistance payments and not monthly benefits. A spokesperson for the Council told us the document showed "a start up breakdown of costs for a newly arrived Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) family" and that the amounts shown were consistent with benefit rates in the province of British Columbia. Despite the apparent authenticity of the document, Marcoux's post grossly misrepresents the contents. Firstly, contrary to Mike Marcoux's post, there is no such thing as an "illegal" refugee in this context. By definition, beneficiaries of the Canadian government's Resettlement Assistance Program are individuals and families formally recognized by the Canadian government as refugees before they travel to Canada. According to the Canadian Council for Refugees, Government-Assisted Refugees such as those to whom this document appears to relate are "referred by the [U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees] to Canada because they have been identified as being in need of resettlement." recognized refugees Secondly, the document does not relate to one refugee, as the Facebook post falsely claims. The document clearly shows that these benefits are for a family of five people:   Third, the grand total value of the benefits ($3,874 CAD or $2,748 USD as of 28 January 2016) is not a recurring monthly payment, as the Facebook post falsely claims. The document clearly shows that the majority of benefits listed are one-off "start-up" benefits. The only regular monthly benefits are conveniently labelled "Regular Monthly Benefits," and consist of payments for food, rent and transportation, which, because of the size of the family, total $1,399 CAD per month ($1,094 USD as of 15 November 2017). These monthly benefits work out to $16,788 CAD ($13,132 USD) a year for a family of five (in addition to "start-up" benefits). Unless there are exceptional circumstances, these Resettlement Assistance Program benefits are only payable to refugees for one year. The amounts of benefits depend on the size of the family that receives them. If this document did relate to a single individual (as the Facebook post claims), the overall monthly payments could be expected to be significantly lower. The one-off start-up benefits which bring the total in this particular document to $3,874 also include a $375 loan for a security deposit for housing. Being a loan, that amount will have to be repaid to the federal government. Furthermore, depending on when this particular family arrived in Canada, they may be required to pay the Canadian government for the cost of their transportation into the country, which takes the form of loan debt. According to the Canadian Council for Refugees, the average loan debt between 2008 and 2012 was $3,090 CAD. transportation loan debt So while the document in the photograph does appear to be authentic, Mike Marcoux's Facebook post constitutes a gross misrepresentation of what's actually in it. The same document formed the basis of a similarly-outraged post on the right-wing blog "90 Miles from Tyranny" in December 2016. That blog post cited an earlier article by the now-defunct Magafeed web site, which is listed in the Fake News Codex as a "clickbait site with misleading, poorly [sourced], and outright false stories." post Codex It's hardly the first time that Canada's refugee policy has been the subject of false claims. For example, a factual error in a 2004 letter to the editor of the Toronto Star spawned a chain email and online memes falsely claiming that refugees in Canada receive more benefits each month than do Canadian pensioners. The rumor persisted for years. Toronto Star falsely Similar false rumors have been spread in the country's southern neighbor, the United States, often with the headline "INSANITY IS WHEN ILLEGAL REFUGEES GET $3,874 A MONTH IN FEDERAL ASSISTANCE WHILE SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS AVERAGE $1,200 A MONTH." false rumors English, Kathy.  "A Mistake That Travelled Around the World and Back Again: Public Editor."
  Toronto Star.  11 December 2015. Canadian Council for Refugees.  "Refugees and Income Assistance - Rebutting the Chain Email ("Pensioners' Myth.")
   Canadian Council for Refugees.  July 2013.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada.  "IP 3: In Canada Processing of Convention Refugees Abroad and Members of the Humanitarian Protected Persons Abroad Classes - Part 2 [Resettlement Assistance Program (RAP.)]
  Government of Canada.  13 January 2015. Claim:  A serious prospectus inviting investors to become part of a cat-and-rat farm was once circulated, the basic premise of which involved skinning cats for their fur, feeding the cat carcasses to rats, then feeding the rats to the cats being raised for their fur.  Origins:  This   grey-bearded leg pull has been around for a whopping 125 years, since that day in 1875 when Willis B. Powell, editor of a newspaper in Lacon, Illinois, pulled the wool over the collective eyes of Associated Press by supplying that newswire with details about a supposedly real cat-and-rat ranch being advertised in that area. Despite its silliness, the story evaded scrutiny, and an obvious prank took on a life of its own in the imaginations of many. Then, as now, the Associated Press imprimatur conferred credibility. Not until April 1940, when an article appeared in Goldfish Bowl (a publication of the National Press Club of Washington, D.C.), was the famous Lacon, Illinois, ranch for felines and rodents widely revealed as a hoax. The spurious prospectus on which the Associated Press news  accounts were based read as follows: Glorious Opportunity To Get Rich!!!  We are starting a cat ranch in Lacon with 100,000 cats. Each cat will average 12 kittens a year. The cat skins will sell for 30 cents each. One hundred men can skin 5,000 cats a day. We figure a daily net profit of over $10,000. Now what shall we feed the cats? We will start a rat farm next door with 1,000,000 rats. The rats breed 12 times faster than the cats. So we will have four rats to feed each day to each cat. Now what shall we feed the rats? We will feed the rats the carcasses of the cats after they have been skinned. Now Get This! We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and get the cat skins for nothing!Barbara "ratified" Mikkelson Sightings:  The 1934 film Maniac contains this urban legend, and various music lovers have informed me that on its 1985 album New Day Rising, Husker Du features a song called "How to Skin a Cat." The lyrics, I'm told, go something like "We'll feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats . . ." Just goes to show that you can't keep a good story down. Last updated:  10 August 2011 Hoaxes   Sifakis, Carl.  The Big Book of Hoaxes.  New York: Paradox Press, 1996.  ISBN 1-563-89252-9  (p. 41).  The Big Book of Hoaxes    Tan, Paul Lee.  Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations.  Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979.  ISBN 0-88469-100-4  (p. 289). Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Inauguration Day, Kamala Harris made history several times over. In being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021, the outgoing California senator became the first Black person, first woman, and first person of South Asian heritage to be elevated to the vice presidency.  Inauguration Day The historic nature of her achievement was placed in stark context in a viral meme that showed Harris, whose parents immigrated to the United States from India and Jamaica, respectively, juxtaposed with a long list of official portraits of white men. (Charles Curtis, who served with Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933, had some Native American heritage and was therefore the first person of color to hold the office of vice president). Charles Curtis The meme also highlighted several purported landmarks in the slow progress of women's rights and racial desegregation in the United States, as follows: Dont understand why its a big deal that Kamala Harris is VP? Until Red box? She would have been enslaved. Until Blue box? She couldnt vote. Until Yellow box? She had to attend a segregated school. Until Green one? She couldnt have her own bank account.   The following screenshot shows a selection of instances of the meme on Facebook and demonstrates its popularity on social media in January 2021: popularity   The vice presidents highlighted in various colors were as follows (along with the dates of their tenure as vice president): Red: Andrew Johnson, March 4 to April 15,1865 Andrew Johnson Blue: Calvin Coolidge, March 4, 1921, to Aug. 3, 1923 Calvin Coolidge Yellow: Richard Nixon, Jan. 20, 1953, to Jan. 20, 1961 Richard Nixon Green: Spiro Agnew, Jan. 20, 1969, to Oct. 10, 1973 Spiro Agnew The claims made in the meme were therefore that: until Johnson's tenure as vice president (in 1865), Harris would have been enslaved due to her racial heritage; until Coolidge's tenure as vice president (1921 to 1923), she would have been denied the right to vote due to her gender; until Nixon's tenure as vice president (1953 to 1961), she would have been forced to attend a segregated school due to her racial heritage; and until Agnew's tenure as vice president (1969 to 1973), she would have been denied the right to her own bank account, due to her status as a married woman.  On the whole, the claims contained a high degree of historical accuracy, though in some cases they over-simplified certain discriminatory practices and made some relatively minor errors in identifying the vice president in office during certain major reforms. As a result, we're issuing a rating of "true." The following is our assessment of each of those claims.   The creator of the meme appears to have chosen the year 1865, and therefore the tenure of Johnson, because that is the year in which the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, was passed. The text of the amendment reads as follows:  text Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress passed the amendment in January 1865, while Johnson was vice president-elect to President-elect Abraham Lincoln, but it was not ratified by the states until December 1865, by which time Johnson had ascended to the presidency after Lincoln's assassination, leaving the vice presidency vacant for the duration of his presidency. So the sequence of events is a bit muddled, but it is certainly reasonable to place the 13th Amendment, and the abolition of slavery, during the Johnson era.  Until the passing of the 13th Amendment, Black people in the United States lacked legal protection against enslavement. That doesn't mean that all Black people before 1865 were slaves, but the vast majority were. Based on figures included in the 1860 U.S. Census (page 14), some 89% of Black people in the country at that time were slaves. page 14 Slavery was far more prevalent in the southern states, but on average, a Black woman in the U.S. shortly before the 13th Amendment had close to a 90% likelihood of being enslaved. From a human rights perspective, Black people had no legal or constitutional protection from slavery, which is likely the thrust of the point made in the meme.   The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was passed by Congress in June 1919 and ratified by the states in August 1920. The text of the amendment read: text The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. On both those dates, Thomas Riley Marshall was vice president, under President Woodrow Wilson. So the meme was incorrect in stating that women could not vote until the vice presidency of Calvin Coolidge. In fact, women voted for the first time in the November 1920 election, which saw Warren Harding and his running mate Coolidge elected president and vice president, respectively.  Thomas Riley Marshall That inaccuracy does not impinge upon the truth of the broader point being made in the meme, namely that Harris, as a woman, would not have been able to vote in the United States until the early 1920s. However, the meme does miss an important additional barrier to voting rights that Harris, as a Black woman, could have faced even after the passage of the 19th Amendment.  While the 15th Amendment in principle gave Black men the right to vote, and the 19th Amendment gave all women the right to vote, states continued to discriminate against Black voters by imposing obstacles such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and "grandfather clauses"  all of which were designed to suppress Black voters. 15th Amendment obstacles It wasn't until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that such practices were prohibited by federal law, although many activists argue that present-day voter-ID rules continue the legacy of electoral restrictions that have a disproportionate impact on voters of color. Voting Rights Act argue   The creator of the meme appears to have selected the vice presidency of Nixon (1953 to 1961) because that was the period during which the U.S. Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools constituted a violation of the Equal Protection clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, in the landmark 1954 ruling in Brown vs. the Board of Education. In a follow-up ruling in 1955, the court ordered school districts to arrange for the desegregation of public schools "with all deliberate speed."  declared follow-up ruling Most, though not all, schools were racially segregated in the 19th and early-20th centuries in the United States. So a Black student, such as Harris, would very likely have been forced to "attend a segregated school," as the meme claims. Brown vs. the Board of Education marked the beginning of the end of school segregation, but it did not bring about integration overnight. Over the course of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, state lawmakers and local authorities fought protracted and often bitter battles to resist the Supreme Court's clear mandate. battles So while the meme was right to point out that Black students would be very likely forced to attend segregated schools before the decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education, it's also the case that many Black students were forced to attend segregated schools for many years after the ruling, as well. What changed in 1954 was that the nation's highest court clearly declared that system of racial segregation to be unconstitutional.   The meme appears to refer to the enactment of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) in the early 1970s, which made it illegal for financial services companies to discriminate against customers on the basis of anything other than their creditworthiness. The legislation stated that: stated It shall be unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction(1) on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex or marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract)... However, the law wasn't enacted until October 1974, when the office of vice president was vacant. Spiro Agnew resigned in late 1973, after he was charged with bribery and tax fraud, and his replacement, Gerald Ford, ascended to the presidency in August 1974, after Nixon resigned. So the meme is again mistaken on the precise sequence of events. While Agnew was vice president, banks could (and did) legally deny credit to a woman on the basis of extraneous considerations such as her marital status, her husband's income and credit history, and so on. and did The meme also somewhat overstated the restrictions in place before 1974. Women, including married women, could open their own bank accounts before the ECOA was passed, but often faced difficulty and discrimination in doing so. It was particularly difficult for women to obtain a line of credit or a credit card, in her own name. In 1972, the National Commission on Consumer Finance published a report that found the following common discriminatory practices in lending: report What the ECOA changed in 1974, and what the meme appears to allude to, is that banks and lenders could no longer legally engage in such discriminatory practices. Claim:  Photograph shows a USA-shaped maze carved in a cornfield by a farmer. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002]  Here's an aerial picture of a cornfield in Lawrenceburg, TN.  The ownerallegedly drew the picture out on his computer, then downloaded it to hisGPS system, and then followed the GPS on his Bushhog (a big-league mowingdevice).      Origins:  As the economics of family farming in America have become increasingly difficult, many farmers have turned to alternative uses of their land to supplement their incomes.  One method of raising much-needed revenue has been the implementation of various agritourism schemes, such as leasing land for hunting and fishing, giving tours, or charging tourists to spend a day (and night) on the farm.    Another popular agritourism scheme (one which Barbara and I have experienced personally, at the cost of many aching muscles) is the conversion of corn fields into large, elaborate mazes, which hapless tourists fork over dollars for the privilege of wandering through for hours on end (also known as "solving" the maze). mazes When Jon Rose of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, decided to bring in some money by creating a maize maze on his farm for the second straight year in 2002, he went whole hog.  Inspired by a picture in a magazine, Rose planned a giant labyrinth based on a map of the United States of America (including Alaska and Hawaii), bordered above and below by the phrase "God Bless America," encompassing an endurance-straining 7.6 miles of aisles. Creating this monstrous maze would ordinarily have required the work of ten men hacking away at corn stalks for a full three weeks, a labor-intensive process Rose wanted to avoid.  Instead, he came up with an ingenious solution: He had a special program created for his GPS device, entered his design into it, and, using a map displayed on his GPS screen as a guide, sculpted the maze on a riding mower with just one day's effort.  The results are shown in the photograph above.  Jon Rose also created a whopping 34.8-acre American flag maze.  Last updated:  29 May 2005    Sources:   [Northwest Alabama] TimesDaily.  "A-Maizing: Giant Map of U.S., Flag Carved Into Cornfield."    27 August 2002. Sen. Mark Warner is pitching a plan that would allow some Bush-era tax cuts to expire as scheduled and apply the additional tax revenue toward business tax cuts and incentives to spur the economy.Laying out his plan in anOp-Ed in the Financial Times, Warner notes that a Republican-Democrat compromise is being considered by the Obama administration that would temporarily extend all the tax breaks for two more years.However, this latter approach has problems beyond the $65bn that would be added to the deficit if we keep the cuts for people on the highest incomes, Warner writes. In Washington such temporary benefits also have a strange way of becoming permanent.Since Warners own plan hinges on reapplying the $65 billion in additional tax revenue that would come from allowing the tax breaks for the wealthy to expire, we thought it prudent to check the figure.Asked for the source, Warners communication director Kevin Hall pointed to estimates by the U.S. Treasury.Those projections show that allowing the cuts to expire along with adjustments to the capital gains and dividends would amount to $74.4 billion over two years.Heres why we mention that factor: If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire as scheduled, the top tax rate on long-term capital gains would rise from 15 percent to 20 percent. Dividends, which are currently taxed at 15 percent, would be taxed at the same rates as ordinary income with a top rate of 39.9 percent.But if we look exclusively at allowing the Bush cuts to expire, its $62.5 billion for the two years.Hall said Warner excludes the capital gains and dividends change because they might not be enacted, and capital gains isnt really what people talk about when they say income taxes.Gerald Prante, senior economist with the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, disagreed on that point. He also  suggested looking at more recent figures from the Office of Management and Budget, noting that the Treasury numbers are based upon estimates that have since been revised.The OMB figures show that allowing the cuts for the wealthy to expire would generate more than $66 billion in tax revenue over two years. But thats including the adjustment to the capital gains.Without it, the two-year total is closer to $57 billion.Its worth noting, however, that the numbers from both sources look at the revenue to be gained from repealing the tax cuts permanently as opposed to eliminating them after a two-year extension.If there was only a two-year extension, the cost may not be $66 billion as [the] Joint Committee on Taxation/Treasury would assume tax planning that could change the costs, moving income between years, noted Prante. But overall, Warner's claim is fine...the $65 billion figure is not an exaggeration.So, if we use the Treasurys numbers, and look exclusively at the tax revenue raised by the two years worth of repealed cuts for the wealthy, then Warner is very close.Using the more recent OMB figures, hed be nearer  by including the capital gains adjustment, but is still in the neighborhood.Accepting that pinpointing a number using evolving projections is not an exact science, we find Warners claim to be Mostly True. On Jan. 7, 2021, a lengthy piece of text urging Americans to "wake up" was widely circulated on social media along with the claim that it had been penned by radio host Dave Ramsey. Scott Baio, a conservative pundit best known for playing Chachi on the 1970s sitcom "Happy Days," was one social media user who misattributed this text to Ramsey:   But this post was not written by Ramsey. The radio host posted a message to Facebook on Jan. 7 to clarify that he did not author this post: message   In addition to Ramsey's denial, we found versions of this text posted on the internet as far back as October 2020. At the time, Ramsey was not credited as the author.  This text was originally penned by "Bruce Hendry" and published on the right-wing website FrontPageMag.com on Oct. 7, 2020, under the title "Living in the Left's Upside Down World." FrontPageMag.com Here's an excerpt from the article, which is basically a list of grievances that Hendry finds confusing or hypocritical: This morning, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, lives are never going to be the same. [...] We see other countries going socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan for us. Somehow its un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America. [...] If a dude pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him. It was cool for Joe Biden to "blackmail" the President of Ukraine, but its an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquiries about it. [...] And, pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes you a "racist". Nothing makes sense anymore. No values, no morals, no civility and people are dying of a Chinese virus, but it is racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it originated in China. [...] Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water and sinking fast. While Hendry prefaced this article with a paragraph insisting that this information was "factual," not "political," many of the items listed above are based on misinformation. For example, President-elect Joe Biden did not blackmail the President of Ukraine, viruses don't have nationalities, transgender people are not "pretending," and the U.S. Census counts "every resident in the United States." did not blackmail U.S. Census So, what does Dave Ramsey have to do with this? One common tactic of purveyors of disinformation is to falsely claim that an extreme view was espoused by a well-known and respected voice. This gives the extreme opinion an air of credibility, and makes it more palatable to a mainstream audience.  The article above originated on a right-wing website and initially gained currency among a similar-minded crowd on conservative forums and social media networks like 4chan. In January 2021, someone tried to get this article in front of a larger audience by falsely claiming that this opinion originated with Ramsey, a popular radio host and finance guru with mainstream appeal. By attaching Ramsey's name to these opinions, the article was spread as if it had been "endorsed" by someone in the mainstream, therefore making it more palatable to people who might have initially balked at this article if they encountered it on a hyperpartisan website.  conservative forums 4chan But Ramsey, of course, did not actually write this article. The protracted, often bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded into a hot war on Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel and Israel retaliated by bombarding the Gaza Strip. More than 20,000 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were reportedly killed during the first two months of the war alone. The violence is driven by mutual hostilities and territorial ambitions dating back more than a century. The internet has become an unofficial front in that war and is rife with misinformation, which Snopes is dedicated to countering with facts and context. You can help. Read the latest fact checks. Submit questionable claims. Become a Snopes Member to support our work. We welcome your participation and feedback. Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hamas deadly attack on Israel retaliated were reportedly killed mutual hostilities Read Submit Become a Snopes Member feedback In late 2023 and into 2024, as the Israel-Hamas conflict continued, a number of social media posts highlighted U.S. President Joe Bidens longtime support of Israel. Many such posts sought to criticize him for that support as the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardment approached more than 27,000. posts criticize killed The posts included an old video clip of then-U.S. Sen. Biden from 1986 in which he allegedly said, [Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region. (Screenshot via X) Biden indeed said the above words, in the context of opposing an arms sale to Saudi Arabia. He argued that sending weapons to that country would compromise Israel's security. Biden was arguing during a Senate debate for overriding a presidential veto pertaining to arms sales in Saudi Arabia. In May 1986, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan had vetoed a congressional resolution that sought to block his request to sell advanced missiles to Saudi Arabia. May 1986 Biden supported the prohibition of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and called on the Senate to override Reagans veto because it would put Saudi Arabia in the position of having to support their Arab brethren against Israel. The quote in question emerged at the end of Bidens statement, transcribed below. supported Around three hours' worth of the Senate debate, including Bidens full statement, is available for viewing on C-SPAN. We transcribed sections of Bidens speech below (emphasis, ours): C-SPAN Quite frankly, the Saudis are an 80-member family oligarchy that finds themselves adrift in the midst of an Islamic revolution, the consequences of which they do not comprehend any more than we [...] the government of Saudi Arabia, is the anachronism of the 20th century in the Middle East, and the fact of the matter is [...] the Saudis have no choice but to fund the PLO. The Saudis have no choice but to be supportive of their Arab brethren. The Saudis have no choice but to do that for in fact, about 55,000 Palestinians control the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia. They literally have their hands on the spigots [...] that control the oil. And so I would suggest to my colleagues we should not be viewing this so much in terms of whether or not the Saudis are good guys or bad guys. We should view it in terms of what is realistic. Madam President, it is this senator's opinion that it is totally unrealistic to expect the Saudiswith or without our help in terms of arms salesto do anything other than maintain a policy which they have had, which is one that is not particularly helpful to our interest. And furthermore, I would suggest to my colleagues in the Senate that we're doing a disservice to Saudi Arabia. [...] For I believe the Saudis do not want to have a war with Israel. But I believe once we send their arsenal soaring in terms of sophisticated weapons, they will be put in the untenable position the next time there is a conflict in the region, of having to get directly involved, of having to move with their Arab brethren. For if they don't, they will be moved. Biden went on to argue that the U.S. should support Saudi Arabia through other means, including helping its internal security, and concluded by saying Israel could not afford to have an unstable Saudi Arabia either (emphasis, ours): argue We do not have a Middle East foreign policy at this moment and to suggest that we are going to substitute an arms sales package for a policy in the name of trying to suggest that this is a litmus test once again. I've been here 14 years. I'm tired of being subjected to a litmus test by the Saudis. Litmus test by anyone else. We should operate and move in what is the naked self interest of the United States of America. And if we wish to help the Saudis, what we should be doing for Saudi Arabia is helping them with their infrastructure as it relates to their domestic security requirements. [...] We should be dealing with their ability to protect their own internal security from within. [...] if we look at the Middle East, I think it's about time we stopped those of us who supportas most of us doIsrael in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There's no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.  In June 1986, the Senate voted to uphold Reagans veto with a narrow margin of a single vote. However, opponents of the arms sale also claimed a victory because the overall package of sales was reduced significantly. uphold claimed This was not the only time Biden used such language to describe his support for Israel. In 2020, Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed a 1986 document detailing Biden's meeting with Israel's ambassador in Washington, D.C. In the meeting, Biden was thanked for supporting aid to Israel, to which Biden reportedly said, Thats our best investment, where we get the biggest bang for our buck." Haaretz Levinson, Chaim. Rare 1986 Document Reveals Bidens Views on Israel and Saudi Arabia. Haaretz, 28 Dec. 2020. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-12-28/ty-article/rare-1986-document-reveals-bidens-views-on-israel-and-saudi-arabia/0000017f-f2ca-d8a1-a5ff-f2ca769b0000.Accessed 8 Feb. 2024. Osgood, Brian and Linah Alsaafin, Tamila Varshalomidze. UN: 300k in North Gaza at Risk of Famine as Israel Continues to Block Aid. Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/2/8/israels-war-on-gaza-live-us-says-space-for-truce-deal-israel-vows-war.Accessed 8 Feb. 2024. Roberts, Steven V. PRESIDENT VETOES EFFORT TO BLOCK ARMS FOR SAUDIS. The New York Times, 22 May 1986. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/22/world/president-vetoes-effort-to-block-arms-for-saudis.html.Accessed 8 Feb. 2024. "Senate Session." June 5, 1986 | C-SPAN.Org. https://www.c-span.org/video/?45851-1/senate-session. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024. A photograph supposedly showing a help-wanted bulletin featuring a starting wage of $16.50 for a position at a Chick-fil-A restaurant was widely circulated on Facebook in August 2019: Facebook This single photograph of this lone sign led some viewers to believe that a starting wage of $16.50 was available at all Chick-fil-A locations. But that isn't the case.  For starters, the sign notes that this wage is "based on position and availability." In other words, this wage isn't available to all new hires. Furthermore, Chick-fil-A restaurants are individually owned, meaning wages vary depending on location. While some Chick-fil-A franchises may offer similar wages to those featured on this sign, the wage is not a company-wide policy.  This photograph was taken at a Chick-Fil-A in Pleasanton, California. In July 2019, this Chick-fil-A location posted a similar flyer to their Facebook page: This isn't the only Chick-fil-A restaurant that is offering close to $17 an hour. Another Chick-fil-A restaurant in Sacramento, California, raised its starting wage to $17 hour. raised its starting wage Eric Mason, owner of the Sacramento Chick-fil-A, told a television station in June 2019 that he was hoping to attract "hospitality professionals" with his new wage offer. television station According to a CBS News report: report The owner of a Chick-fil-A location in Sacramento, California, calls it a "living wage." In Eric Mason's view, that would be $17 or $18 an hour, which is what he vows he'll be paying his workers, starting Monday, June 4. The rate represents a sizable increase for employees now making $12 to $13 an hour. "As the owner, I'm looking at it big-picture and long-term," Mason told a local news station. "What that does for the business is provide consistency, someone that has relationships with our guests, and it's going to be building a long-term culture." While at least two Chick-fil-A restaurants are truly offering starting wages close to $17 an hour, this pay is not available at all Chick-fil-A locations. According to Payscale, a company that surveys employees and employers for information about wages, the average hourly rate for a Chick-fil-A employee is about $10 an hour.  Payscale A spokesperson for the company told us that because Chick-fil-A restaurants are individually owned, franchise owners set their own wages: Chick-fil-A restaurants are individually owned and operated, so wage decisions are made at the local level. With that said, Chick-fil-A strives to create a compelling employment value proposition including competitive wages, leadership development opportunities and scholarships. In fact, since 1973, Chick-fil-A has helped 53,000 Team Members attend college through a total investment of $75 million in scholarships. While the wage mentioned on the above-displayed sign does not apply to all Chick-fil-A locations or positions, the company truly does offer "scholarship opportunities." The company writes on its website: website We offer college scholarship opportunities and tuition discounts Chick-fil-A, Inc. recognizes and appreciates the tremendous talent and capabilities of Team Members working at their local Chick-fil-A restaurants. To help invest in their futures, Chick-fil-A restaurant Team Members can apply for college scholarships, as well as receive tuition discounts at dozens of universities across the U.S. Wang, Frances.  "Sacramento Chick-Fil-A Hiring 'Hospitality Professionals' for $17 an Hour."
  ABC 10.  26 March 2018. Gibson, Kate.  "Chick-fil-A Store Owner Raises Minimum Wage to $17 an Hour 'Living Wage.'"
  CBS News.  7 June 2019. Updated [18 September 2019]: Added statement from Chick-fil-A and information about the origins of the photograph.