Food Stamp participation hits 10 year low.
Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, has been declining for the past several years largely due to an improving economy. President Donald Trump referred to the decline in a July 9 tweet, mentioning a right-wing media outlet that published anarticleabout the 10-year low hours before. Food Stamp participation hits 10 year low. Wow! @OANN, Trumpwrote. The White House and Trump campaign did not provide a comment. SNAP benefits are food vouchers issued by the government to eligible participants and families with no or low income. While the federal government oversees the program, benefits are administered monthly on the state level. When it comes to comparing SNAP participation over the past 10 years, the best way to do so is to examine the percentage of the U.S. population that is participating in the program, said Lauren Bauer, fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Its preferable to take the percentage of the population instead of a regular count because the U.S. population is growing. She pointed us to data from theU.S. Department of Agricultureand theU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Since April 2009, the only month that had a lower participation percentage was February 2019. As well see, there were unusual circumstances  a government shutdown  that affected the February numbers. The general decline in SNAP benefits is likely due to the consequences of the very low level of unemployment and gradually rising wages, said Michael Wiseman, professor of public policy at George Washington University. Due to agovernment shutdown, February 2019 had the lowest participation percentage  only 2.22% of people received SNAP benefits. As the record-breaking shutdown lasted from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, most February benefits were distributed in January to ensure SNAP recipients would receive their February 2019 benefits in a timely manner, according to the USDA. The number of SNAP participants largely depends on the economy, said Brynne Keith-Jennings, senior research analyst of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And experts noted that policy changes havent had significant long-term effects on the decline in participation  thats how strongly tied SNAP is to the economy. Because of the Great Recession, SNAP benefits were expanded at the beginning of the Obama administration in 2009 as a counter-recession effort, Wiseman said. The expansion was eliminated in 2013, so the 2009 Recovery Act had short-term if any effects, Keith-Jennings added. Another part of the 2009 stimulus was suspending a three-month limit to SNAP participation for Able-Bodied Adults without Dependents. States with high unemployment rates have the ability to waive the limit, at least for now. The Trump administration has proposed tightening standards for permitting relief from time limits, Wiseman said. In my judgment, time limits on (Able-Bodied Adults without Dependents), while questionable policy, are not the driving factor behind slowdown of SNAP enrollment. Aproposalby the U.S. Department of Agriculture would make it more difficult for states to waive the three-month limit. If the USDA rule is approved, an estimated 755,000 people would no longer be eligible for SNAP benefits, according to a USDA estimate thats part of theproposed rule. However, even if its approved, the economy would still have a larger effect on overall trends in SNAP participation due to the relatively small size of this population among SNAP participants, Keith-Jennings said. Our ruling Trump tweeted, Food Stamp participation hits 10 year low. Hes correct. The abnormally low SNAP participation in February 2019 was due to benefits for that month being distributed in January 2019 because of a government shutdown. We rate this True.
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 Facing Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris for a debate in October 2020, Vice President Mike Pence attempted to give credit to his boss, President Donald Trump, for developing policies that rebounded the economy after unprecedented losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic In particular, Pence said the U.S. workforce added millions of jobs since the early days of the outbreak because of Trump's fiscal and regulatory policies. He said: We're going through a pandemic that lost 22 million jobs at the height, we've already added back 11.6 million jobs, because we had a president who cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade. [...] We literally have spared no expense to help the American people and the American worker through this. In other words, he claimed the Trump administration spearheaded a variety of initiatives that added 11.6 million jobs in summer and fall 2020, regaining nearly half the roughly 22 million jobs lost at the start of the pandemic. The comment echoed multiple statements by Trump in which he, too, attempted to praise the administration's successful balance of public health and economic interests. "Our strategy to kill the China virus has focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy Americans to safety return to work and safely return to school," he said in August. "We added 1.8 million new jobs in July, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since May." said To determine the legitimacy of such assertions, we referred to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) "seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll," which is the standard measurement for determining how U.S. wage and salary jobs change over time. The payroll data are compiled monthly via a survey of about 145,000 businesses and government agencies across the country, excluding people who are self-employed, or work for farms or private households. compiled When a news story stated that, for instance, the economy added "661,000 new workers," that number was typically a reference to the month-to-month change in nonfarm payrolls  661,000 more jobs were added in September compared to August 2020. 661,000 new workers We obtained monthly nonfarm payroll data, which showed:   According to our analysis of the month-by-month statistics, the economy tallied almost 1.4 million less jobs in March compared to February. Then, the recession deepened, and April recorded 20.8 million less jobs than the month prior  the steepest decline since the Great Depression. since While Pence did not provide an explanation for his labor statistics at the debate, we assumed he was referencing the sum of job losses in March and April, showing employers cut about 22 million jobs during those two months, per the BLS data. Then, after that, the country started a slow, steady recovery. The data show the following increases in job totals, all approximations, on a month-by-month basis: (We should note here: The monthly employment figures for August and September 2020 were both preliminary and subject to revision, as of this writing.) Looking at the data, yes, about 11.4 millions jobs were added to the U.S. economy between May and September  and the Trump administration's comments about the economy showing significant job growth since the early weeks of the pandemic were true at face value. However, that upward trend had little to do with the White House and everything to do with how businesses on a grand scale adapted to new rules on social distancing to curb the spread of the deadly virus. In March, for instance, California issued the first statewide "stay at home order" and New York City closed all non-essential businesses  both decisions that contributed to April's historic job loss. March Then, over the weeks, employers developed plans for operating under public health officials' recommendations to curb the spread of COVID-19 and, as a result, were able to bring back workers who had been furloughed or reopen after a temporary shut down. Those trends significantly impacted job growth in the U.S.  not Trump.  Additionally, a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan  which was developed by Congress, not the White House, via the March Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act  helped some small businesses bring back lost positions or keep workers who would otherwise have been laid off. That stimulus packages direct payments to Americans who earned 75,000 annually or less (or families that made up to $150,000 annually) may have also driven spending in the summer months and, consequently, kept some employers afloat after initial shock to their profits earlier in the year. Paycheck Protection Program Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act stimulus package All of that said, no evidence showed that the Trump administration enacted policies  whether related to taxes or trade  that "added back" the jobs but rather economic trends shifted from the early days of the outbreak, during mass furloughs and business closures. Here's the bottom line: Presidential administrations often exaggerate their influence on the economy  especially when employment is showing somewhat positive signs  no matter if they're leading the country during a crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak or comparatively normal times. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times in January 2017, just days before Trumps inauguration: wrote The reality is that presidents have far less control over the economy than you might imagine. Presidential economic records are highly dependent on the dumb luck of where the nation is in the economic cycle. And the White House has no control over the demographic and technological forces that influence the economy.  Additionally, the White House had little influence on how businesses quickly adapted recommendations by public health officials to safely operate during the pandemic.  For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and falsehoods. It was true that the country added back about half of the jobs lost during the early months of the pandemic, though it was a false misinterpretation of economic conditions to tie that job growth to Trump policies  or that he "cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade," like Pence alleged, and that those moves directly added jobs.  Here's video footage of Pence making the claim on the vice presidential debate stage, courtesy of C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4913299/user-clip-vp-pence-jobs-claim   Factba.se. "Press Conference: Donald Trump Holds A Coronavirus Pandemic Briefing In Bedminster - August 7, 2020."
 Accessed 9 October 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "BLS Data Viewer."
 9 October 2020. Reuters staff. "Timeline: How the Global Coronavirus Pandemic Unfolded."
 Accessed 12 October 2020. As the debt-ceiling crisis deepened, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, lambasted Democrats for failing to put together a public plan to bring down federal spending.Johnson, in anappearance on CNBCs Squawk Box, argued constitutional limits on government spending were the only way to keep politicians hands off the pocketbooks of their constituents. To illustrate his point, the freshman Republican reached way back into the history books.Well increase the debt ceiling, give the president what he wants, and all were saying is, Lets pass a constitutional limitation to the size of government, which by the way is the root cause of the problem, Johnson said. The federal government is spending 25 percent of our entire economy versus 100 years ago, we spent only 2 percent. The problem is the size, the scope, all the regulations and the cost of government.PolitiFact National has tested the current end of this claim andfound it True. But the back end is new territory.Has the federal governments share of the nations economy really jumped twelvefold in a century?A frequently cited source on the history of federal spending is the White House Office of Management and Budget.Itswebsite showsthe federal share of gross domestic product -- the GDP, essentially our total economic output for a year -- was 25 percent in 2009, 23.8 percent  in 2010 and is estimated at 25.3 percent for 2011.In 1930, by contrast, the federal government made up just 3.4 percent of the economy.There are many reasons for the change -- ones that go beyond year-to-year growth in spending for existing programs.Before the 1930s, the federal government was basically the post office, veterans benefits, a small defense department and national-debt payments, according to anofficial government summaryand experts we consulted. Local government was dominant.World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam pushed up the federal role considerably, and when that spending waned, it was more than offset as the country aged into Social Security and the Great Society programs --  including Medicare and Medicaid --  took off.The federal share of the economy went up and down in the 1980s and 1990s, amid recessions, higher debt interest payments, higher health care spending and tax cuts. Homeland security and military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks pushed the number up, as did the recession that began in 2007.The largest part of the growth since the 1950s, the Office of Management and Budget reports, came from a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, deposit insurance, and means-tested entitlements such as Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, the refundable portions of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits.A big part of the difference is that as the U.S. got richer, a lot more services were demanded, and a whole layer of protections unknown in 1910 got assumed by the government, said Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist.As we noted, the current numbers cited by Johnson are accurate.But what about 100 years ago?The OMB calculations on the federal share of the economy go back only to 1930, because GDP was not calculated before then.But earlier spending numbers are readily available, and several researchers have produced calculations dating back to the early 1900s. They use U.S. Census Bureau data that measured the economy in a different way, but produce comparable numbers, according to the economists we consulted.Johnsons staff pointed us to 1902. We also looked at other years in that first decade of the century, to see if they were consistent with the year in question.Economists Robert Gordon at Northwestern University andRandall Holcombeat Florida State University independently calculated a federal share right around 2 percent in that time period.Our calculations produced a similar result.So Johnsons numerical claim is on target.At the advice of our experts, though, we took one more step: We looked at what the combined local-state-federal share was a century ago compared to today.If local government was predominant and the federal government minuscule in earlier times, is it possible that all government spending combined took up the same share of the economy as today?No, we found.Holcombe said the total government share has gone up markedly, though not on the order of the twelvefold increase in the federal-only share.Gordon confirms that.Lets tally this up.Johnson turned the clock way back in criticizing the size of the federal government. He claimed it took up just 2 percent of the economy a century ago, but 25 percent today. Johnsons reference hearkens back to an entirely different era in American governance -- and its not clear just how far back in time on a percentage basis Johnson thinks we should go.But based on widely available, and generally accepted, historical data, he accurately described the dramatic rise of Washington, D.C., in our economic lives over the last 100 years.We rate his statement True. A common item of interest on social media is a rather gruesome anecdote attributed to Soviet leader Josef Stalin, which describes him purportedly plucking a live chicken in order to demonstrate "how easy it is to govern stupid people":  We found no sources for this anecdote that were contemporaneous with Stalin's life (he died in 1953), nor from the next few decades afterwards. The earliest recountings of it seem to date from the early 1990s or late 1980s, which is consistent with the following excerpt from a 1988 New Yorker article that attributes it to the mid-1980s writings of anti-Stalinist Soviet/Kyrgyz author Chingiz Aitmatov: With the new Party line established, editors around the country unleashed an extraordinary torrent of articles damning Stalin. A novelist named Chingiz Aitmatov wrote one of the most powerful. Aitmatov has a distinguished history as an anti-Stalinist. In the early nineteen-eighties, when discipline of all kinds was lax, he managed to get past the censors a novel called "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years," which in elliptical, allegorical ways, attacked the Stalinist legacy, and sold five million copies. Now Aitmatov was free to use language as blunt as he liked. He began with an anecdote: Stalin called together his closest comrades-in-arms. "I understand you're wondering how I govern the people so that every last one of them ... thinks of me as a living god. Now I'll teach you the right attitude toward the people." And he ordered a chicken brought in. He plucked it live, in front of them all, down to the last feather, down to the red flesh, until only the comb was left on its head. "And now watch," he said, and let the chicken go. It could have gone off where it wished, but it went nowhere. It was too hot in the sun and too cold in the shade. The poor bird could only press itself against Stalin's boots. And then he tossed it a crumb of grain, and the bird followed him wherever he went. Otherwise, it would have fallen over from hunger. "That," he told his pupils, "is how you govern our people." Aitmatov appears to be the source of this tale, but as noted in the above New Yorker article and a 2008 Reuters obituary for Aitmatov, he wrote in "elliptical, allegorical ways," and his works "often interwove popular myths and folktales to create allegorical themes populated with down-to-earth characters." Aitmatov acknowledged that of himself as well, writing in the introduction to his novel "The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years": obituary As in previous works, here I also draw on legends and myths handed down to us from former generations; together with these, for the first time in my writing career I also use fantasy to form part of the story. But, for me, neither is an end in itself, simply a method of expressing thoughts, a means of identifying and interpreting realities. Given that Aitmatov is the apparent source for this anecdote, that it did not first appear until some 30 years after Stalin's death, and that Aitmatov was known for his use of allegory, most likely the tale is not a literal account of something Stalin did, but rather an illustrative sketch that Aitmatov either invented himself or heard elsewhere and subsequently attributed to Stalin. We therefore rate this claim "Legend." Cullen, Robert.  "Letter from Moscow."
  The New Yorker.  17 October 1988  (p. 100). Aitmatov, Chingiz.  The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years.
  Indiana University Press, 1988.  ISBN 0-253-20482-8. Reuters.  "Kyrgyz Writer, Perestroika Ally Aitmatov Dies."
  10 June 2008. Claim:  Wal-Mart is trying out products embedded with RFID tracking chips.  Example:  [Starrett, 2003] BIG BROTHER COMES TO WAL-MART  Starting this week, the nation's largest discount retailer will quietly begin selling tracking-chipped products to clueless shoppers. The first volley in their war against our privacy is set to start at their Brockton, Massachusetts store.  Wal-Mart will put Radio Frequency I.D. sensors on shelves stocked with RFID-tagged Gillette products, but they'd rather you didn't know about it, because, hey, you might not like it, and then you might make noise and then they'd have a big PR mess on their hands.  You might even stop buying Gillette products or, say, refuse to shop at Wal-Mart.  These chips, researched at M.I.T.'s Auto-ID Center are about the size of a grain of sand. Chipsters say the technology will only be used to help retailers keep track of inventory  like bar codes. But privacy-loving consumers question the very concept of a device that sends out radio waves to "readers" that not only identify the article, but where and with whom it's going.  [Click here to view rest of article] here Origins:  One of the keys to the success of giant retailing chains such as Wal-Mart has been the advancement of information technology which allows for tight control of inventory.  The ability to quickly and accurately track the movement of product through their stores enables retailers to ensure that customers don't find a wanted item out of stock, while avoiding the spoilage and costly inefficiencies that come with keeping too much unsold inventory on hand.  These improvements lower retailers' operating costs, and the savings are (theoretically) passed along to consumers in the form of lower  prices. The adoption of the Universal Product Code, or UPC (more commonly known as the "bar code"), in the 1970s was one of the most significant steps in automating the tracking of inventory.  With every product assigned a unique code (encoded in bar form on the packaging) which could be read by a scanner and matched up with information stored in a database, retailers could eliminate the costly and time-consuming processes of individually price-tagging every single item and manually counting items to determine the amount of inventory on hand; instead, prices could be read by scanners at the point of sale, and purchases could be tracked automatically and the number of items sold subtracted from stock-on-hand to calculate current inventory levels. UPC A more recent advance in inventory control has been the development of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.  Described as "bar codes on steroids," tiny RFID chips are being embedded in products (or their packaging) to assist retailers with Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC).  The RFID chips, when triggered by sensors, emit short bursts of identifying data streamed via radio waves; this system is a significant improvement over bar coding system for a number of reasons, including: RFID  RFID chips can store much more information than bar codes.  RFID chips are a read/write technology, so more information can be added to them as needed.  RFID chips don't require line-of-sight proximity (i.e., the information they store can be read even when products are still encased in boxes or crates).  RFID chips are more robust (i.e., not subject to problems caused by tearing, creasing, or alteration) than bar coding. Most important, perhaps, RFID chips can enable the tracking of individual pieces of merchandise.  That is, rather than simply identifying an item as a box of Cheerios (as bar codes do), an RFID chip can uniquely identify a particular box of Cheerios and enable it to be tracked all the way through the sales chain, from the warehouse to a consumer's shopping cart.  This level of uniqueness in tracking can, for example, aid in the removal of expired merchandise from store shelves or assist in locating items designated as part of a product recall. The announcement in June 2003 that Gillette would be trying out some of their RFID-tagged products (such as batteries, razors, oral care products) in cooperation with a Brockton, Massachusetts, Wal-Mart prompted the article by Mary Starrett quoted above, a dire "Big Brother" warning insinuating that RFID tags would not necessarily be disabled at the point of purchase and could be used to track items even after consumers had purchased them and taken them home.  Ms. Starrett also suggested that the Brockton store was chosen for this experiment because "the store's customers are typically lower income minorities who'd be less likely to be aware of the tracking devices, and even less likely to make a fuss about them." (RFID tags have no built-in batteries or power supplies; they're activated by radio waves sent out from RFID readers which emit just enough power to trigger the tags and have a limited range limit, so Orwellian nightmare scenarios involving avaricious corporations tracking the locations of every one of their products all over the globe are not yet a reality.) The wireless inventory control system trial referenced in this particular 2003 warning did not take place.  On 9 July 2003, CNET news reported that Wal-Mart had canceled it: canceled "The shelf was never completely installed," Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams said. "We didn't want it. Any materials that were there (in Brockton) were removed. We never had products with chips in them." In July 2010, news accounts stated that Wal-Mart would soon be placing removable RFID "smart tags" on individual garments such as jeans and underwear in order to optimize stocking and inventory control procedures (and, if the results were promising, the company would eventually roll out RFID-tagging with other products as well).  Privacy advocates responded by again raising concerns that the RFID technology could be used not just for inventory purposes, but for intrusive customer-tracking activities: While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can't be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers' homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought. They also worry that retailers will be able to scan customers who carry new types of personal ID cards as they walk through a store, without their knowledge. Several states, including Washington and New York, have begun issuing enhanced driver's licenses that contain radio- frequency tags with unique ID numbers, to make border crossings easier for frequent travelers. Some privacy advocates contend that retailers could theoretically scan people with such licenses as they make purchases, combine the info with their credit card data, and then know the person's identity the next time they stepped into the store. Wal-Mart tried to allay fears by noting that it was notifying customers about the RFID tags, that the tags would be easily removable, and that the tags themselves contain no personally identifying information: Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags. "Concerns about privacy are valid, but in this instance, the benefits far outweigh any concerns," says Sanjay Sarma, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The tags don't have any personal information. They are essentially barcodes with serial numbers attached. And you can easily remove them." Additional Information: Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering  (CASPIAN)  Last updated:  25 July 2010    Gaither, Chris.  "Tiny Tracking Chips Surface in Retail Use."   The Boston Globe.  9 June 2003.     Shim, Richard.  "Wal-Mart to Throw Its Weight Behind RFID."   CNET News.com.  5 June 2003.     Shim, Richard and Alorie Gilbert.  "Wal-Mart Cancels 'Smart Shelf' Trial."   CNET News.com.  9 July 2003. Claim:  Federal regulations require states to upgrade all street name signs to use mixed case lettering.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2010] A friend heard this on the radio today.  It was reported that there will be a federal mandate in 2012 that street signs must have a capital letter only at the beginning and the rest of the street sign must be in lower case.  He said the report stated that baby boomers were apparently having a difficult time reading the signs printed in all caps. I find this idea a little preposterous.  He indicated that it would cost Milwaukee, WI over a million $ to make the change.  it was also reported that there would be no federal grants available to assist in paying for the new signage.  Can this possibly be true?  Is there nothing more important for the federal government to worry about than street signs? They have mandated... without any funding... that all municipalities change traffic signs to a combination of upper and lower case letters... have we not been able to read our signs until now? Have we been eternally lost?? Government needs to get a life ...vote  I heard a gentleman telling a friend that President Obama was in New York City and didn't like the fact that the street signs were spelled in all caps.  He requested that Mayor Bloomberg change ALL the streets signs so they only began with a capital letter and he agreed, to the tune of $1mil+.  The conversation at the local scrap yard was about a mandate either Federal or Washington State requiring the change of all the street signs to ones that contain upper and lower case lettering (I guess most have all upper case lettering). This seemed so absurd I did not believe it but the scrap recyclers were excited about the huge amount of aluminum scrap that would be coming. Given the huge budget shortfalls and proposed cutbacks by most everyone, I find it offensive that someone is even payed to think about the font of the street signs. I sure hope this is just a rumor. Origins:  In October 2010, news outlets reported on new federal regulations regarding street and road signs that would be taking effect before the end of the decade, as exemplified by the following excerpt from the USA Today national newspaper: In a nod to the fading eyesight of the nation's growing number of aging Baby Boomers, the federal government is requiring communities around the USA to change street name signs from all capital letters to a combination of capital and lowercase letters. The government says that makes them easier to read. Cash-starved localities also will have to dig deep for new, more reflective traffic signs to make them easier to see at night, especially by older drivers. Under Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) regulations, communities have until 2015 to improve the nighttime visibility of roadside signs  such as stop, yield and railroad crossing signs. The issue is how well a sign redirects light from an automobile's headlights back toward the vehicle. Signs that fail to meet minimum standards must be replaced. Communities will be allowed to change the street name signs as they wear out. Unfortunately, the wording of some of these articles left readers unclear about exactly what the new federal regulations entail, leading to (mistaken) claims that officials in every state must upgrade all their street signs to used mixed case lettering by the year 2015. One of the new Federal Highway Administration regulations, as outlined in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), addresses the retroreflectivity of traffic signs: MUTCD For many years vehicle operators and the transportation industry have realized the importance of legible traffic signs and quality pavement markings for the purpose of highway safety and economical traffic flow, especially in low-light conditions. Light from a vehicle's headlights striking retroreflective traffic control devices bounces back to the driver's eyes allowing them to more easily see the road. Therefore, most traffic control devices are covered with retroreflective materials. These include transparent decals with embedded microprismatic reflectors for traffic signs and paint that has small sunken glass beads in the pavement markings.  Retroreflectivity is used to allow drivers to more easily see vital traffic control devices in nighttime and low-light conditions. The FHWA regulations require that states must upgrade post-mounted guide signs (e.g., stop signs, speed limit signs, pedestrian crossing signs) to meet minimum retroreflectivity standards by 2015.  States must also upgrade street name signs and overhead guide signs to meet minimum retroreflectivity requirements by 2018. A second  and distinctly different  FHWA regulation requires that newly-installed street name signs (or replacements for existing street name signs) must use a combination of upper and lower case letters rather than all upper case (i.e., capital) letters.  Signs executed in predominantly lower case letters are  generally easier to comprehend than signs written in all upper case letters (because the shapes of lower case letters have greater distinctiveness between them), so the new lettering requirements should make road signs easier for drivers (particularly older motorists) to read. The conflation of regulations regarding these  two new types of standards for signage  retroreflectivity and mixed case lettering  has created the  impression that all states must change every street name sign to used mixed case lettering by the year 2015 (at considerable cost to those states). This impression is false.  The only connection between these two standards is that if states have to replace some of their street name signs to meet the new retroreflectivity standards (which they are required to do by 2018), then those replacement signs must use mixed case lettering.  Otherwise, there is currently no requirement that states remove and replace street name signs which use only upper case lettering  such signs may remain in place until they reach the end of their service lives. Last updated:  14 November 2010 The photo montage displayed above is one of dozens circulating online since 2009, purporting to demonstrate that 50-plus years of rule by the Democratic Party wrought a level of destruction on Detroit comparable to that caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Some versions have sought to make the case verbally, as well. For example:What has caused more long term destruction - the A-bomb, or Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them? Japan does not have a welfare system. Work for it or do without. These are possibly the 5 best sentences youll ever read and all applicable to this experiment: 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it! 5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.   The comparison of 2010 Detroit to 1945 Hiroshima is grotesquely forced, however, as is the implication that Democratic policies are wholly to blame for the Detroit's decline since World War II. We'll start our analysis with the images, some of which are inaccurately labeled. Beginning with the upper left-hand photo, it is, in fact, an aerial view of the hypocenter (ground zero) of the atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, taken a few months after the fact. Here's a larger view of the image: hypocenter Working clockwise, the next image in the set supposedly depicts modern-day Hiroshima  except that it doesn't. It's actually a snapshot taken from the Landmark Tower Sky Garden in Yokohama, Japan much like this one from Flickr: Flickr   That having been pointed out, it's true that Hiroshima was rebuilt from its ashes and is now a beautiful and modern city. Nor is it too terribly hard to find an actual photo of it. rebuilt photo The photo at bottom-right  though taken in 2013, not 2010  does show a dilapidated building (of which there are plenty) on the east side of Detroit. It's the former Packard Automotive Plant, which closed in the late 1950s: plenty closed   However, the thing to note about the use of this image to portray Detroit as a locus of Hiroshima-like devastation is that all we actually see is one long-abandoned, crumbling building. It doesn't make the case. Lastly, we're shown a photo supposedly depicting Detroit in its mid-1940s heyday  except that it was taken in the mid-1930s. It's an aerial view of Navin Field (later Tiger Stadium): Navin Field   Granted, for the purposes of argument it doesn't really matter whether the above photo was taken in the '30s or '40s  the point remains that Detroit once had a teeming population, abundant jobs, and a booming economy. In 1950 it was the fourth-largest city in the United States, but no longer. The question is, who was responsible? There's no simple explanation (and therefore no single scapegoat at whom to point fingers) for Detroit's long, slow descent to bankruptcy. Scott Martelle, author of Detroit: A Biography, offered this capsule summary in an op-ed column published in 2011: column The collapse of Detroit has roots in intentional de-industrialization by the Big Three automakers, which in the 1950s began aggressively spider-webbing operations across the nation to produce cars closer to regional markets, and to reduce labor costs by investing in less labor-friendly places than union-heavy Detroit. Their flight was augmented by government policies that, in the 1970s and 1980s particularly, forced municipalities and states to compete with each other for jobs by offering corporate tax breaks and other inducements to keep or draw business investments, a bit of whipsawing that helped companies profit at the expense of communities. Another summary of Detroit's decline cited issues such as the city's dependence on a single industry (i.e., automobiles), decades of racial tensions, shortcomings of leadership (stretching back to the 1930s), and the lack of an efficient transit system. decline Did Democrats and Democratic policies play some role in the fall of Detroit? Surely they did. Every Detroit mayor since 1962 has been a Democrat, after all. But Republicans held the seat for the 12 years prior to that, from 1950 through 1961. The Packard plant whose hollowed-out remains were displayed above closed its doors during that time. Whatever blame is to be allotted to politicians must be shared by both Democrats and Republicans on the national level, as well. Detroit's decline since World War II took place during periods when both parties held the presidency and/or controlled Congress. Finally, the specific suggestion that Detroit's downfall was an unintended consequence of the spread of social welfare programs while Hiroshima's dramatic recovery is at least partially attributable to the lack of same in Japan is based on misinformation. Japan has maintained strong public health care and social welfare programs in one form or another since the 1920s. Yet Hiroshima was rebuilt and flourished just the same. maintained  Drury, Flora."A City Rebuilt from the Ashes."
Daily Mail Online.5 August 2015. Martelle, Scott."The Collapse of Detroit."
Los Angeles Times.27 March 2011. "Anatomy of Detroit's Decline."
New York Times.8 December 2013. "Zombieland: The Abandoned Buildings of Detroit."
Beaumont Enterprise.18 July 2013. In December 2020, TikTok user @philupmecup posted a short clip, viewed more than 1 million times, that included the text "An 18 year old can legally adopt a 17 year old," along with the caption "Let that sink in": posted   Among the tens of thousands of comments posted in response to the video were some that appeared to come from teenagers excited or amused by the prospect of high school friends adopting one another once one of them turns 18.  teenagers In reality, the restrictions and protocols implemented by adoption agencies make it unlikely that one teenager could adopt another one, except in rare and tragic circumstances. However, on a purely legal, hypothetical basis, most U.S. states do not prohibit such an arrangement. As a result, we are issuing a rating of "Mixture." Adoption regulations vary from country to country, but the TikTok user who posted the claim lives in the United States, so our assessment will focus on the legal status quo there, which also varies between states. According to a January 2020 report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Colorado, Delaware, Oklahoma, and American Samoa explicitly prohibit adoption by anyone under 21 years old; and Georgia and Idaho set the minimum age at 25. report In seven states (California, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Utah) as well as the Northern Mariana Islands, the adopting parent must be at least 10 years older than the adoptive child, while in Puerto Rico that minimum age gap is 14 years, and in Idaho, it is 15 years.  In California, an exception exists to the age-gap requirement, namely where a court rules the adoption is in everyone's best interests and is done by a "stepparent, or by a sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or first cousin and, if that person is married, by that person and that person's spouse."  exception Similarly, Colorado law allows for an exception to the minimum age of 21, subject to court approval, and in South Dakota, the 10-year age gap can be waived where "the court finds the adoption of the child by the adult person in the best interest of the child." exception waived This means that only 10 out of the 50 states, whose combined population represents 79 million (or around 24% of the country's total population) legally prohibit an 18-year-old from adopting a 17-year-old  and in three of those states, loopholes exist which could, in principle, allow such an arrangement.  That's not to say that any 18-year-old could adopt any 17-year-old. Almost all states have some other legal prerequisites for adoption  in-state residency requirements, consent requirements, and the termination of the biological parents' parental rights. But  all other things being equal  only 10 states have age-specific limitations that would (in almost all cases) prohibit the arrangement in question. In practice, adoption agencies typically impose restrictions, or give preference to certain would-be adoptive parents, based on considerations such as financial stability. This alone would likely rule out the vast majority of 18-year-olds, who are only very rarely independently wealthy or have reliable, sustainable employment which they can balance with a college education and so on.  Another highly relevant consideration here is the time it can take to complete the rigorous procedures required for adopting a child. The California Department of Social Services, for example, advises that adoption agencies often taken between six months and one year to complete their assessment of would-be adoptive parents, and they typically take an additional "one to several months" to actually place the adoptive children with their new parents. Given these time frames, very few scenarios would warrant an 18-year-old's adopting a 17-year-old, when the 17-year-old will become a legal adult anyway, in at most 12 months.  advises On 5 September 2017, the web site Pagez.com published an article claiming that the cast of the hit NBC show The Officewould return for a new season in 2018: Pagez.com CONFIRMED: The Office US is returning in 2018! Last week we heard the news that NBC bosses have given writers the go ahead to create a new season of The Office US. Today, we hear the news that writer, Mindy Kaling is ready to write.  This week has been full of Office news ever since star Jenna Fisher posted an old un-shot episode script on Instagram. Calling out the crew to get back together and shoot!    This article was based on two other posts, an April Fool's Day joke on Medium.com and an Instagram post from actress Jenna Fischer, neither of which "confirmed" that the cast of The Office would reunite for a new season of the hit NBC show. Fischer's Instagram post, for instance, was posted in February 2017, not "this week" as alleged by this September 2017 article. Although Fischer's idea stirred up some fan interest in a reunion, neither NBC nor the show's creators had announced plans at that time to create new episodes of the program. Instagram The rest of the Pagez.com article was based on an April Fool's Day Joke published on Medium.com. In fact, the author of the Pagez article plagiarized an entire paragraph from the joke article on Medium. Here's a comparison of text from the joke article on Medium (left) and the fake news article on Pagez (right): Medium.c om   Pagez.com later retracted their claim: retracted The other day we reported that The Office US would be hitting our screens again in 2018. Well, we were wrong. We all make mistakes and it seems that we got fooled by an April Fools joke from earlier this year. After our writers read the original article they got so excited they just had to tell everyone. They went ahead and published the story. So blame them. Not me.  However, there is a real (albeit slight) possibility that NBC could reboot the hit series. NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt told Deadline in August 2017 that the network frequently talks about bringing back The Office (with a different cast), but added that a new season was not currently in the works: Deadline There had been a lot of chatter the past few weeks about NBC potentially bringing back Emmy-winning comedy The Office, with Greg Daniels  who developed and ran the U.S. version of the British series  at the helm and possibly a new cast. While Id heard some optimism around town that a new Office may be in the offing, NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt did not indicate that a deal is in the works. We often talk about The Office, Ive talked to Greg four times over the past few years. Its always, maybe some day but not now, Greenblatt said in an interview with Deadline during NBCs portion of the TCA press tour. There is certainly an open invitation but we dont have anything happening right now. If he wants to do it, I would do it. Rumors of an Office revival kicked in again in December 2017, when TVLine reported (without confirmation from NBC) that plans were in the works for a "continuation" of the series: NBC is getting ready to put pen to paper on a revival of The Office. Sources confirm to TVLine exclusively that the Peacock network is eyeing a continuation of the beloved workplace comedy for the 2018-2019 season. The revival would once again be set at Dunder Mifflins Scranton, PA., branch, and feature a mix of new and old cast members. Steve Carell, who starred as the branchs regional manager, Michael Scott, for seven of the comedys nine seasons, will not be involved in the new series. The search for a new RM/boss is said to be already underway.  NBC declined to comment on or confirm any details of this story. Andreeva, Nellie.  "NBC Boss Revival Wish List: The Office, 30 Rock, The West Wing & ER"
  Deadline.  3 August 2017. Ausiello, Michael.  "The Office Revival Eyed at NBC for 2018-2019 Season."
  TVLine.  18 December 2017. On April 29, 2020, a large asteroid is expected to fly by earth at a distance of approximately 4 million miles. That may be of interest to stargazers, but the previous sentence isn't very alarming or attention-grabbing. Yet many media outlets wrote headlines about this incoming asteroid as if it posed an immediate and catastrophic threat to the planet. An article in the Daily Express, for instance, was headlined: "Asteroid warning: NASA tracks a 4KM asteroid approach - Could end civilisation if it hits." The site used a similar message when promoting this article on Twitter:  headlined   While these headlines may bring clicks, they also may lead readers to falsely believe that this asteroid poses an immediate threat to life on Earth. That isn't the case. While Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) will approach Earth in April 2020, the asteroid is not expected to come within 3.9 million miles of the planet.  NASA is constantly monitoring the skies for asteroids and meteors that pose a potential threat to Earth. When these near-Earth objects (NEOs) are discovered, NASA monitors them to find out when they will approach Earth, how fast they will be traveling, how large they are, and how close they will get. All of this data is publicly available on the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) website.  Center for Near Earth Object Studies Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) was first discovered (as its name implies) in 1998, so this asteroid isn't making a sudden and scary appearance above Earth. NASA has been monitoring it for more than two decades and has learned quite a bit. For instance, the asteroid is relatively large with a diameter between 1.1 and 2.5 miles, and it will be traveling at just under 20,000 mph when it makes its closest approach to Earth.  discovered While an asteroid of this size would cause catastrophic damage if it hit Earth, there's practically no chance that will happen in April 2020. According to NASA, this asteroid won't come within 3.9 million miles of Earth. In other words, it will approach no closer than about 16 times the distance between us and the moon. Asteroid Watch, the official Twitter account of the CNEOS, attempted to quell fears about this asteroid, writing that it will "safely pass" Earth and that NASA did not issue a "warning" about a possible catastrophic collision. Asteroid 52768 (1998 OR2) is not currently listed on NASA's list of potential future Earth impact events.  Twitter account  potential future Earth impact events CNEOS writes (emphasis ours):  CNEOS  On a daily basis, about one hundred tons of interplanetary material drifts down to the Earths surface. Most of the smallest interplanetary particles that reach the Earths surface are the tiny dust particles that are released by comets as their ices vaporize in the solar neighborhood. The vast majority of the larger interplanetary material that reaches the Earths surface originates as the collision fragments of asteroids that have run into one another some eons ago. With an average interval of about 10,000 years, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 100 meters would be expected to reach the Earths surface and cause local disasters or produce the tidal waves that can inundate low lying coastal areas. On an average of every several hundred thousand years or so, asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters. In this case, the impact debris would spread throughout the Earths atmosphere so that plant life would suffer from acid rain, partial blocking of sunlight, and from the firestorms resulting from heated impact debris raining back down upon the Earths surface. Since their orbital paths often cross that of the Earth, collisions with near-Earth objects have occurred in the past and we should remain alert to the possibility of future close Earth approaches. It seems prudent to mount efforts to discover and study these objects, to characterize their sizes, compositions and structures and to keep an eye upon their future trajectories. [...] No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs. Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted. At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them. NASA is currently tracking about 20,000 NEOs. While these objects routinely pass by Earth without incident, every now and again a media outlet will write an outlandish story about how one of these objects is posed to wipe out life on earth. While we've seen several of these fear-mongering rumors over the years, these "doomsday" asteroids never seem to arrive.  fear-mongering rumors years Kettley, Sebastian.  "Asteroid Warning: NASA Tracks a 4KM Asteroid Approach - Could End Civilisation if it Hits."
  Daily Express.  4 March 2020. Strickland, Ashley.  "Large Asteroid Will Fly by the Earth Next Month, But Won't Hit Us, Reassures NASA."
  CNN.  3 March 2020. Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907. "In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Theodore Roosevelt was about to finish his first two-year term as governor of the state of New York when the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice president in the 1900 national election. The Republicans were victorious at the ballot box that year, but Roosevelt held the vice-presidency for less than a year before he was elevated to the White House upon the assassination of President William McKinley on 14 September 1901, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president in 1904, and among his many notable achievements was his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for his part in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Treaty of Portsmouth Although Roosevelt did not hold public office again after leaving the presidency in 1909 (his efforts to regain the White House as a third party candidate in 1912 proving unsuccessful), he remained active in the public political sphere. In the waning years of his life, as World War I raged in Europe and America entered the conflict on the side of the Allies, he frequently spoke of his belief that immigrants taking up residence in the U.S. should assimilate into American society as quickly as possible, learn the English language, eschew hyphenated national identities (e.g., "Italian-American") and declare their primary national allegiance to the United States of America. On 1 February 1916, for example, Roosevelt advocated measures for strengthening and ensuring the "loyalty" of American immigrants: Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at a luncheon given yesterday by Mrs. Vincent Astor for the National Americanization Committee in the Astor Court Building, declared that one of the reasons why many German-Americans have shown greater love for their native land that for their adopted country is that the German system demands greater loyalty than is demanded in this country, and a greater contribution to the common welfare. "And all of you know I am free from a taint of neutrality," he added, "so I can say this without suspicion." The encouragement of better housing conditions and a compulsion to learn the English language, Colonel Roosevelt said, would help the process of Americanization. "We cannot make the Americanization movement a success," Colonel Roosevelt said, "unless we approach it from the economic standpoint. It is true that governmentally Germany is an autocracy. But there has been a great deal more industrial freedom there than many of our old industrial communities. The German Government says we expect you to work out good results, to get together with the laborer, and yourselves decide what you are going to pay to the doctors who are to pass upon the health of the employes, and the amount of damages any employe merits. The Government insists upon a great amount of self-government by the people themselves. "I feel that by insistence upon proper housing conditions we shall indirectly approach this. I want to see the immigrant know that he has got to spend a certain amount of his money in decent housing; that he will not be allowed to live on $2.50 per month board basis. "Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn English, but that he has got to learn it. Let the immigrant who does not learn it go back. He has got to consider the interest of the United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend upon his knowing English and observing American standards. The employer cannot be permitted to regard him only as an industrial asset. "We must in every way possible encourage the immigrant to rise, help him up, give him a chance to help himself. If we try to carry him he may well prove not well worth carrying. We must in turn insist upon his showing the same standard of fealty to this country and to join with us in raising the level of our common American citizenship. "If I could I would have the kind of restriction which would not allow any immigrant to come here unless I was content that his grandchildren would be fellow-citizens of my grandchildren. They will not be so if he lives in a boarding house at $2.50 per month with ten other boarders and contracts tuberculosis and contributes to the next generation a body of citizens inferior not only morally and spiritually but also physically."1 A few months later, Roosevelt expanded on this theme in a series of Memorial Day speeches he delivered in St. Louis: Moral treason to the United States was charged by Mr. Roosevelt, in an address delivered before the City Club, against German-Americans who seek to make their governmental representatives act in the interests of Germany rather than this country. He characterized the German-American Alliance as "an anti-American alliance," but added that he believed that its members "not only do not represent but scandalously misrepresent" the great majority of real Americans of German origin. Using the motto "America for Americans" for all Americans, whether they were born here or abroad, the former President declared that "the salvation of our people lies in having a nationalized and unified America, ready for the tremendous tasks of both war and peace." "I appeal to all our citizens," the colonel said, "no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind, and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischiefmakers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, or birthplace or of national origin." Col. Roosevelt said he came to St. Louis to speak on Americanism  to speak of and condemn the use of the hyphen "whenever it represents an effort to form political parties along racial lines or to bring pressure to bear on parties and politicians, not for American purposes, but in the interest of some group of voters of a certain national origin or of the country from which they or their fathers came." He was equally against the native American of the wrong kind and for the immigrant of the right kind, the former President declared, but the immigrant who did not become in good faith an American "is out of place" in the United States. He said each nation should be judged by its conduct and that the United States should oppose encroachment on its own rights, whether Germany, England, France or Russia be guilty of misconduct. "The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself," the colonel continued, "by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries amd jealousies and hatreds."2 In a Fourth of July speech in 1917, Roosevelt urged the adoption of linguistic uniformity, including a requirement that all foreign-language newspapers published in the U.S. should also include English translations: Touching on the matter of language, Col. Roosevelt declared that "We must have in this country but one flag, and for the speech of the people but one language, the English language. During the present war all newspapers published in German, or in the speech of any of our foes, should be required to publish, side by side with the foreign text, columns in English containing the exact translation of everything said in the foreign language. Ultimately this should be done with all newspapers published in foreign languages in this country."3 Likewise, on 27 May 1918, Roosevelt urged in a speech at Des Moines, Iowa, that English be the sole language of instruction used in American schools: English as the sole language for schools, newspapers and other usage in this country was urged by Theodore Roosevelt in an address here tonight under the direction of the National Security League ... In voicing his approval of the recent proclamation by Gov. Harding, ordering that English be the only medium of instruction in public or private schools in Iowa, Col. Roosevelt said: "This is a nation  not a polyglot boarding house. There is not room in the country for any 50-50 American, nor can there be but one loyalty  to the Stars and Stripes."4  The comments quoted at this head of the page are more in the same vein; excerpts not from (as claimed in the accompanying text) a statement made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 (while he was still President), but from a letter written shortly before his death in January 1919, just a few months after the armistice that ended the fighting in World War I: NEW YORK, Jan. 6.  What was the last public statement by Col. Roosevelt was read last night at an "All-American concert" here under the auspices of the American Defense society, of which he was honorary president. "I cannot be with you and so all I can do is to wish you Godspeed," it read. "There may be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. "There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations which more directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people. Our principle in this matter should be absolutely simple. "In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the mans becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. "If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. "We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul [sic] loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."5 A copy of this letter, obtained from the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, can be viewed here. here 3.  Boston Daily Globe.  "'Moral Treason' to Attack Allies."
  5 July 1917  (p. 10). 5.  The Chicago Daily Tribune.  "Abolish Hyphen Roosevelt's Last Words to Public."
  7 January 1919  (p. 4). 1.  The New York Times.  "A Roosevelt Idea Made in Germany."
  2 February 1916  (p. 5). 2.  The Washington Post.  "T.R. Assails Wilson."
  1 June 1916  (p. 1). 4.  The Washington Post.  "Use Only English, Roosevelt Urges."
  28 May 1918  (p. 2).