Was President Trump accused of pressuring Qatar to rescue Jared Kushner financially?
In October 2018, social media users shared a meme posted by the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats reporting a series of events involving Gulf states were the result of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner "using American foreign policy to enrich themselves":   Although the sequence of events referenced in the meme is described accurately according to reputable news reports, the motives, connections, and causality the meme ascribes to those events have not been proved. It is true that Jared Kushner, who is married to President Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, was in need of over a billion dollars to cover the mortgage on 666 Fifth Avenue, a 41-story Manhattan building he purchased for $1.8 billion in 2007, as the New Yorker reported on 2 March 2018: reported Kushner Companies co-owns 666 Fifth Avenue with another developer, Vornado Realty. In 2007, at Jared Kushners urging, the company paid $1.8 billion for the building -- at the time, the highest price ever paid for a New York office tower. The property occupies a prime spot between Fifty-second and Fifty-third streets, but it was built in 1957 and needed extensive upgrades. It still has many vacancies, and the $1.2 billion mortgage, which reportedly has ballooned to almost $1.5 billion, is due in February, 2019. Right now, it is not entirely clear whether Kushner Companies is in a position to repay or refinance the loan. The company hoped to knock the building down and put up another, twice as tall and far more luxurious, in its place, Bloomberg reported. It sought funds from investors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, South Korea, Israel and France. No investors were announced for the plan, described by many as prohibitively expensive. That same day, The Intercept reported that in April 2017, Kushner's father Charles, who runs the family's real estate firm Kushner Companies, had made a direct appeal for financing to Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi, which was followed shortly afterwards by the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar: reported The 30-minute meeting, according to two sources in the financial industry who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the potential transaction, included aides to both parties, and was held at a suite at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. A follow-up meeting was held the next day in a glass-walled conference room at the Kushner property itself, though Al Emadi did not attend the second gathering in person. The failure to broker the deal would be followed only a month later by a Middle Eastern diplomatic row in which Jared Kushner provided critical support to Qatars neighbors. Led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a group of Middle Eastern countries, with Kushners backing, led a diplomatic assault that culminated in a blockade of Qatar. Kushner, according to reports at the time, subsequently undermined efforts by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to bring an end to the standoff. Middle Eastern diplomatic row subsequently undermined In May 2017, Qatar's Gulf neighbors commenced a blockade of that country, and within days President Trump tweeted his support of the blockage despite the fact that Qatar is home to Al Udeid Air Base, a key U.S. military installation: commenced tweeted During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017 June 6, 2017  In May 2018, the New York Times reported that the Kushner family was close to reaching a bailout deal for 666 Fifth Avenue with a company possessing Qatari government ties: reported Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it. Brookfield is a publicly traded company, and its real estate arm, Brookfield Property Partners, is partly owned by the Qatari government, through the Qatar Investment Authority. And, the Trump administration around that time reversed course with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling the Saudis in April 2018 that it was time to end the blockade against Qatar. telling It's likely the meme gained momentum on social media in October 2018 due to scrutiny over Kushner and Trump's relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in light of the gruesome murder of Jamal Kashoggi.  scrutiny Kashoggi, a Saudi national and columnist for the Washington Post, went missing on 2 October 2018 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul seeking documents he needed to get married. According to reports citing Turkish government and U.S. intelligence sources, the Virginia resident never left the consulate, where he was ambushed by Saudi agents, tortured and murdered, and his body dismembered. ambushed Trump has resisted calls by U.S. lawmakers to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the journalist's apparent death, comparing global condemnation of the Gulf kingdom to accusations of sexual misconduct leveled against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Trump told the Associated Press: "Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. I don't like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I'm concerned." calls told Cassidy, John.  "Jared Kushners Conflicts of Interest Reach a Crisis Point."
  The New Yorker.  2 March 2018. Swisher, Clayton and Ryan Grim.  "Jared Kushner's Real Estate Firm Sought Money Directly from Qatar Government Weeks Before Blockade."
  The Intercept.  2 March 2018. Bagli, Charles V. and Jesse Drucker.  "Kushners Near Deal with Qatar-Linked Company for Troubled Tower."
  The New York Times.  17 May 2018. Kirkpatrick, David D. and Carlotta Gall.  "Audio Offers Gruesome Details of Jamal Khashoggi Killing, Turkish Official Says."
  The New York Times.  17 October 2018.
On March 25, 2023, a photo that appeared to show 86-year-old Pope Francis out and about in a fashionable white puffer jacket went viral on social media. Pope Francis  As many who saw it suspected, it was actually a deepfake image created via artificial intelligence (AI). It originally appeared on Reddit in the r/midjourney subreddit. Midjourney is an app that generates images from natural-language prompts (much like DALL-E, another well-known AI image-generating app). Many Midjourney experimenters share their creations in the subreddit. The image above was part of a gallery comprising four different views of the pope in a puffy coat. deepfake r/midjourney Midjourney DALL-E gallery March 2023 was something of a breakout month for AI-generated deepfakes. Mid-month, former U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he expected to be arrested soon in connection with the Stormy Daniels hush-money caseprompted a flood of deepfake images on social media positing imaginative scenarios surrounding such an arrest. Stormy Daniels hush-money case deepfake images Emery, David. "9 Wild Rumors About the Donald Trump-Stormy Daniels Affair." Snopes, 21 Mar. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/list/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-rumors/. Evon, Dan. "How to Spot a Deepfake." Snopes, 8 June 2022, https://www.snopes.com/articles/423004/how-to-spot-a-deepfake/. LaMagdeleine, Izz Scott. "No, This Is Not a Real Photo of Trump Being Arrested." Snopes, 20 Mar. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-getting-arrested-ai-image/. "Midjourney." Midjourney, https://www.midjourney.com/home/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023. https://www.reddit.com/gallery/120vhdc?rdt=63206. Accessed 26 Mar. 2023. An Internet meme circulating during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign purported to reveal financial trickery on the part of Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, who allegedly deducted $1 million from her 2015 income tax return after donating it "to herself" via contributions to the Clinton Foundation. On the assumption that this information came from the candidate's 2015 tax filing (released to the public earlier this year), that's where we went to verify the accuracy of the claims. Our findings were these: filing 1. The return was a joint filing for both Hillary and William J. Clinton. 2. Their shared charitable donations totaled $1,042,000: $42,000 to Desert Classic Charities and $1 million to the Clinton Family Foundation. Desert Classic Charities Clinton Family Foundation   3. Declaring an amount  say $1 million  as a charitable donation only reduces your taxable income; it doesn't mean your "tax bill" is reduced by that amount. 4. The Clinton Family Foundation is a separate entity from the Clinton Foundation. Inside Philanthropy describes the Clinton Family Foundation as "a traditional private foundation that serves as the vehicle for the couple's personal charitable giving." It has neither staff nor offices.  Clinton Foundation describes 5. According to Inside Philanthropy, the Clinton Family Foundation regularly disburses contributions to scores of different charities (one of which is, in fact, the Clinton Foundation): Digging into the Clinton Family Foundation's 2014 tax return reveals that they did around $3.8 million in grantmaking and held some $5.3 million in assets. Of total grantmaking in 2014, $1.8 million went to the Clinton Foundation, just under half of total giving.  2014 tax return However, in 2013, the Clintons gave $1.8 million through their personal foundation, with only around a fifth of that money going to the Clinton Foundation, around the same share as in 2012.  So where have all the other gifts gone? To lots of different places, is the short answer. In 2014, the Clintons gave money to 70 nonprofits through their foundation. The picture looked similar the year before, with many grants falling in the range of $5,000 to $25,000.  Recipients of the Clintons' largesse via the Clinton Family Foundation in 2014 ranged from the School of American Ballet to the Arkansas Childrens Hospital Foundation to Wellesley College to the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. 2014 The foundation's 2015 tax filing has not yet been made public, so we don't have an accounting of the organizations to whom the $1 million contributed by the Clintons that year was disbursed. Regarding the apparent assumption that any monies donated to the Clinton Foundation simply end up in the Clintons' own pockets, we refer readers, once again, to Inside Philanthropy, which describes the actual work the foundation does, and to the charity rating service Charity Navigator, which gives the Clinton Foundation an overall score of 94.74 points out of 100 in terms of its financials, accountability, and transparency. Inside Philanthropy Charity Navigator  Callahan, David."What the Heck Does the Clinton Foundation Actually DO?"
Inside Philanthropy.23 June 2016. Callahan, David and Adeniji, Ade."The Other Clinton Foundation: A Look at Bill and Hillary's Personal Philanthropy."
Inside Philanthropy.29 July 2016. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden put the final nail in the coffin of the Keystone XL pipeline when he revoked its construction permitvia an executive order. Several months later in June 2021, TC Energy Corporationannounced the terminationof the project, bringing an end to more than a decade of debate and legislative back-and-forth on it. The Keystone XL pipeline would have been an extension to the Keystone pipeline, an already existing structure that brings tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to storage and distribution facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma and eventually to refineries in Texas. The extension would have boosted this by carrying an additional 830,000 barrels per day from Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. Environmental activists, Indigenous communities and climate change experts hailed Bidens decision to cancel the pipeline, which could have damaged sacred sites, caused pollution and water contamination, imperiled wildlife and dramatically contributed to carbon emissions. But the decision was criticized heavily by many Republicans, includingU.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin,former Vice President Mike Penceand  most recently  Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, who had a personal stake in it all. On June 23, 2022, Michelstweeted: My company was building the Keystone Pipeline when Biden canceled it. Both he and Tony Evers are making us all pay the price. I'll stand by Wisconsinites and ensure you keep more of your hard-earned dollars as your next governor. He made another claim in a video posted with the tweet: Biden killed hundreds of jobs, sent gas prices way up, making everything more expensive. We rated thatMostly False. Michels is the co-owner of Michels Corporation, an energy and infrastructure contractor headquartered in Brownsville, Wisconsin, with locations across the United States and Canada Was Michels Corp. building the Keystone XL pipeline when Biden canceled it? In an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin, TC Energy confirmed that Michels Corp. had been awarded a significant construction scope on the Keystone XL pipeline for both the pipeline and facilities. Michels Corp. provided more details in an email: Michels Pipeline, a Division of Michels Corporation, received a contract related to the Keystone XL pipeline to construct pumping stations. Michels Canada Co. received another contract in Canada to help build the mainline pipeline of the Keystone XL pipeline. According to apost on Michels Corp.'s websitefrom September 2020, Michels Corp. was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct eight pump stations for the pipeline in Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas. Pump stations are facilities along a pipeline that maintain the flow and pressure of oil as it's being transported. They were one type of ancillary facility required for the Keystone XL project, which would have traversed through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. Oklahoma and Texas, however, are part of the existing Keystone pipeline structure, so some of the pump stations Michels Corp. was constructing may not have been for the Keystone XL pipeline. The post said that construction on the eight pump stations started in late June 2020 and was scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2021. It also said the company would employ more than 350 workers at peak construction. According to a June 2020post on Michels Canadas website, Michels Canada was awarded a contract from TC Energy to construct approximately 260 kilometers (about 162 miles) of the pipeline in Alberta. ATC Energy fact sheetabout the Canadian portion of the pipeline said it would be approximately 530 kilometers (about 329 miles) from Hardisty, Alberta, to Monchy, Saskatchewan. So Michels Canada would have constructed about half of the Canadian portion of the pipeline. The full pipeline was to run around 1,200 miles. So, Michels company was clearly a significant part of building the pipeline, but as stated readers might think it was the primary  or even sole  contractor. The post said that Michels Canada was projected to hire 1,000 workers each year of the two-year construction period, which was scheduled to begin the summer of 2020 near Oyen, Alberta, and finish in the spring of 2022 near Hardisty, Alberta. At the time Biden canceled the permit for the pipeline, on Jan. 20, 2021, Michels Corp.s construction of eight pump stations in the U.S. was likely nearing completion. Michels Canadas construction of its segment of the pipelines Canadian portion was likely about one-third complete. According to Reuters, only about 8% of the planned Keystone XL pipeline had been built by the time President Biden canceled the permit. In a tweet, Michels claimed his company was building the Keystone Pipeline when Biden canceled it. The way it was stated could leave readers thinking his company was fully responsible for the pipeline. And some of the pump stations his campaign and company cited apparently are tied to the existing portion of the pipeline. So, there is a lack of precision there. But Michels is right that his company had a significant role in the pipeline project. We rate the claim Mostly True. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO On July 16, 2020, as the U.S. recorded its single highest number of COVID-19 cases since the coronavirus health crisis began, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke at an event held on the South Lawn of the White House, ostensibly on the subject of "Rolling Back Regulations to Help All Americans." During his talk, according to a meme, Trump allegedly tackled the subject of energy-efficiency standards which have supposedly resulted in home appliances that do not function properly due to requirements aimed at conserving the amount of water and power they consume:  This was an accurate reproduction of a portion of Trump's talk, according to a White House transcript of the event: transcript Were bringing back consumer choice in home appliances so that you can buy washers and dryers, showerheads and faucets. So showerheads  you take a shower, the water doesnt come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesnt come out. So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer? Because my hair  I dont know about you, but it has to be perfect. Perfect. Dishwashers  you didnt have any water, so you  the people that do the dishes  you press it, and it goes again, and you do it again and again. So you might as well give them the water because youll end up using less water. So we made it so dishwashers now have a lot more water. And in many places  in most places of the country, water is not a problem. They dont know what to do with it. Its called rain. They dont have a problem. This was far from the first time the president had riffed on poorly functioning appliances. In December 2019, as Trump spoke in the Roosevelt Room of the White House amidst an impeachment inquiry, he digressed into railing about toilets and other bathroom fixtures that allegedly frustrate their users due to the use of low-flow technology. CNN reported: digressed railing about toilets The President claimed Americans are flushing their toilets "10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once" and argued that they are having difficulty with washing their hands in what appeared to be a tangent about low-flow sinks and toilets. "We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms where you turn the faucet on -- and in areas where there's tremendous amounts of water, where the water rushes out to sea because you could never handle it, and you don't get any water," the President said during a roundtable with small business leaders about deregulatory actions. "You turn on the faucet and you don't get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. Just dripping out, very quietly dripping out," the President continued, lowering his voice as he spoke about the drips. "People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once." It wasn't entirely clear what he was talking about, but it appeared to have to do with bathroom fixtures with low-flow appliances. He said the Environmental Protection Agency was looking into the issue on his suggestion. "They end up using more water. So (the) EPA is looking at that very strongly at my suggestion," Trump said, though he did not give details on what suggestions, if any, he made. NPR quoted the Pacific Institute, a non-profit research institute with a focus on global and regional freshwater issues, as asserting that Trump's statements did not comport with reality: quoted asserting Peter Gleick with the Pacific Institute in Oakland considers this all to be Trumpian nostalgia for a time when showers were strong, toilets used 4 gallons a flush and lightbulbs burned your hands when you touched them. Gleick said these newer household items are part of an "efficiency revolution," doing the same tasks with less and halting the upward trajectory of water and energy consumption in America. And, yes, a dishwasher cycle takes longer, and incandescent bulbs are cheaper to buy upfront. But in the long run, "They're much more expensive, because they use a huge amount of energy, which we pay for over time and they burn out 20 times faster," Gleick said. Based on the way Trump talks about efficient lightbulbs, it seems his complaint is with compact fluorescent bulbs, which were the only low-energy bulbs widely available 10 years ago. But today, store shelves are full of LED bulbs with warmer-looking light and even longer life spans. Gleick suspects Trump's toilet complaints are outdated as well, because low-flow toilet technology has come a long way in recent years. "Some people got bad toilets, but that was 15 and 20 years ago," Gleick said. "And now the new toilets not only use a tiny fraction of the water the old toilets used to use, but the truth is they flush better  and if you have a bad toilet that doesn't flush, well, that's because you have a bad toilet." A video of the portion of the speech reproduced in the above meme can be viewed here:  Picheta, Rob et al.  "Trump Claims Americans Have to Flush the Toilet '10 Times, 15 Times, As Opposed to Once.'"
  CNN.  7 December 2019. Keith, Tamara.  "Trump vs. Toilets (And Showers, Dishwashers and Lightbulbs)."
  NPR.  27 December 2019. WhiteHouse.gov.  "Remarks by President Trump on Rolling Back Regulations to Help All Americans."
  16 July 2020. This story started making the rounds in June 2013: The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to "unauthorized" alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically occupied by thousands of "unauthorized" alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to "unauthorized" aliens were in Atlanta. The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth. Once the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began using Social Security Numbers (SSN) as the primary form of taxpayer identification, it ran into a problem: how to identify people who had federal tax reporting or filing requirements but were not eligible to obtain Social Security Numbers (such as non-resident foreign nationals who earned income which was taxable in the U.S.).  The IRS' initial solution was to create temporary numbers known as Internal Revenue Service Numbers (IRSN) to process the tax returns of such persons, but that system created a problem because IRSNs were assigned to tax returns rather than to the individuals filing those tax returns, a situation which made it difficult to track all the returns filed by any particular person.  To remedy that problem, in 1996 the IRS introduced the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), nine-digit numbers similar in structure to SSNs issued to individuals (regardless of their immigration status) who are required to have U.S. taxpayer identification numbers but are not eligible to obtain SSNs: ITIN An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is a tax processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service. It is a nine-digit number that always begins with the number 9. IRS issues ITINs to individuals who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who do not have, and are not eligible to obtain a Social Security Number (SSN) from the Social Security Administration (SSA). ITINs are issued regardless of immigration status because both resident and nonresident aliens may have a U.S. filing or reporting requirement under the Internal Revenue Code. Individuals must have a filing requirement and file a valid federal income tax return to receive an ITIN, unless they meet an exception. In July 2012, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) issued a final report titled "Substantial Changes Are Needed to the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number Program to Detect Fraudulent Applications" which stated the TIGTA had initiated an audit of the ITIN assignment process due to two congressional complaints alleging IRS management personnel were encouraging the approval of fraudulent ITIN applications, and that it found the complaints to be largely accurate: report This audit was initiated because TIGTA received IRS employee complaints referred from members of Congress alleging that IRS management responsible for overseeing the ITIN operation was encouraging employees to assign ITINs to applicants when the ITIN application was fraudulent. The objective of our review was to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the IRS's process to identify questionable ITIN applications. TIGTA substantiated many of the allegations set forth in the IRS employees' complaints. The complaints alleged that IRS management is not concerned with addressing questionable applications and is interested only in the volume of applications that can be processed, regardless of whether they are fraudulent. The audit found that the ITIN application review and verification process is so deficient that there is no assurance that ITINs are not being  assigned to individuals submitting questionable applications. Because of lax documentation requirements to obtain an ITIN, tax fraud can go undetected. Management also eliminated successful processes used to identify questionable ITIN application fraud patterns and schemes.  In its report, the TIGTA noted its analysis of ITIN application data had identified indications of possible fraud, such as ten addresses that were each issued thousands of tax refunds from returns using ITINs in 2011:   As stated in the example quoted in the head of this article, four of those ten addresses were located in Atlanta, Georgia, with one address accounting for a total of nearly 24,000 different tax returns and over $46,000,000 in refunds. However, whether such information is indicative of widespread tax fraud involving the use of ITINs by non-citizens cannot be determined from the information provided.  TIGTA's report did not claim to have uncovered specific cases of tax fraud; it offered charts such the one displayed as examples of how various analyses of IRS data could "identify indications of possible fraud."  It's possible some of the addresses referenced  above correspond to the offices of lawyers or accountants or some other service providers who assist immigrants and other non-citizens in preparing and filing tax returns. It's also possible that if some of those addresses are indeed connected to fraudulent tax return filings, the perpetrators of that activity are domestic criminals rather than "aliens." The July 2012 TIGTA report noted some of the deficiencies observed "had been brought to management's attention long ago" via a September 2002 report, but "management has failed to take sufficient action to address those deficiencies." In the 2012 report, TIGTA made nine different recommendations for modifying the ITIN review process to ensure the integrity of the program; in response, Peggy Bogadi, commissioner of the IRS's Wage and Investment Division, issued a memorandum stating the IRS was taking steps to implement seven of those recommendations by the end of 2012 and would consider the other two after conducting a broader review of the program and evaluating the feasibility and impact of those changes. Pickel, Mary Lou.  "Tea Party at the Capitol."
  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  28 February 2009. Viral recitations of politicians' achievements and failures have become standard election-year fare on social media, and, like the campaign talking points on which they appear to be based, are long on declarative statements and short on nuance.  One of many such lists devoted to President Barack Obama touts his economic accomplishments in office. While the statements it contains are basically true, it behooves the reader to bear in mind that 1.) it's a short list, and 2.) most of the items benefit, accuracy-wise, from a little added context. "Biggest job growth in manufacturing since the '90s" It's accurate, as far as it goes, to say that Obama presided over the largest spurt of manufacturing job growth since the 1990s, but how remarkable is that, really? As illustrated in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics graph below, the six-year period from 2010 to 2016 saw the largest sustained increase in manufacturing jobs since 1998 (more than 800,000 added), but what it also shows is how deep a trough manufacturing labor had fallen into over the previous decade, and how depressed it remains to this day, despite a modicum of improvement.  "Auto industry breaking sales records"  Nothing to quibble with here. According to statistics compiled by Autodata, U.S. car sales have increased steadily every year since 2009, and in 2015 set an all-time record of 17.47 million vehicles sold. statistics "Clean energy production doubled" Partly true. Certain kinds of "clean energy" production have doubled during Obama's tenure in office, but others haven't -- hydroelectric power, for example, which is our largest single source of renewable energy. U.S. Energy Information Agency statistics show that the production of hydroelectricity has actually decreased somewhat since 2010, though we do, in fact, produce twice as much clean energy from other sources such as solar, wind and biomass today (300 million megawatthours) as we did in 2009 (150 million megawatthours). statistics "Unemployment cut in half" True. Between 2010 and 2016 the unemployment rate dropped from about 10 percent to about 5 percent, as illustrated in this Bureau of Labor graph:   Which is indeed a 50 percent drop, although, once again, our starting point for comparison is the peak of the Great Recession, when the unemployment rate was at a 20-year high. Perhaps the more impressive statistic is that at 5 percent, the current unemployment rate is below the historical median since 1948 of of 5.5 percent. "Deficit cut by three-quarters" True, provided that the starting point for comparison is fiscal year 2009, when Obama's stimulus program pushed the deficit to $1.4 trillion. Given that the 2015 deficit was $439 billion, a drop of about three-quarters from what it was in 2009, the claim holds water. If, however, one compares 2015 to 2008, when the deficit was about $459 billion, the reduction is relatively inconsequential. "Stock market tripled" True, and then some. As of August 2015, the S&P 500 was up 220 percent over 2009, Nasdaq was up 313 percent and the Dow was up 185 percent from its 2009 low. up 220 percent "And he did it all with Republicans obstructing" What's in question here is not so much whether the Republicans did or did not obstruct  whether you call it "obstructing" or "opposing Obama's liberal agenda," they've done so throughout his administration  but to what extent Obama "did it all." It's standard political practice for the incumbent to claim credit for economic good news (and blame opponents for the bad), but how much credit does Obama actually deserve for this list of "accomplishments"? On balance, the answer is probably some, but not all. "After all," writes Ben Smith in Politico.com, "the $18 trillion U.S. economy is a massive beast that rises and falls on tectonic forces well beyond the reach of short-term Washington policy changes." writes Some of the early moves by the Obama administration clearly helped get us to where we are right now, especially the government being the spender of last resort after the crisis, said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at Standard & Poors. But the Federal Reserve also played a very big role. And this is also the natural shape of a slow recovery from a deep financial crisis and recession that is finally getting some traction.  Burden, Melissa and Wayland, Michael.  "Auto Industry Sets All-Time Sales Record in 2015."
 The Detroit News.  5 January 2016. Long, Heather. "Alarmed by Stocks? 5 Charts Break it Down."
 CNNMoney.  25 August 2015. Smith, Ben. "An Obama Boom?"
  Politico.com.  9 January 2015. "Energy in Brief."
 U.S. Energy Information Administration. 5 May 2016. If Mary Burke has said it once, shes said it a thousand times: Wisconsins dead last in Midwest job growth. The Democratic candidate for governor uses the line in TV ads, in interviews and her stump speech, all aimed at countering Republican Gov. Scott Walkers message that Wisconsin is back on after the Great Recession. Burkesalliesrepeat the claim. One example, from a Burkecampaign television spotthat first aired in July 2014: Its Walkers agency that gave millions in tax breaks to companies that relocated jobs overseas. Another reason Wisconsins dead last in Midwest job growth. As this is spoken, the TV spot rolls through a list of nine states before settling on Wisconsin at the bottom: North Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. With a new Walker TV ad bragging thatwere third in the Midwest in job growth, we thought it was time to look at both claims. In both cases, and like so many claims in a campaign that any numbers nerd would love, evaluation depends on two things: the timeframe and the measuring stick. In the Burke ad, the narrator in the spot doesnt say what time frame was analyzed. But the fine print in the ad cites data collected for the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. And the footnote says the ad compares quarter four of 2010 -- the last before Walker took office -- to quarter four of 2013. That is still the latest available quarterly data. That data, reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is considered the most exhaustive and credible for employment trends. It is based on a census of 96 percent of all American non-farm employers. Our examination of the data for the three-year period cited by Burke shows Wisconsin 10th out of the 10 states --  dead last -- just below Illinois when it comes to growth in private-sector jobs. The low growth in jobs in Wisconsin has been matched by very low income growth and poor levels of consumer spending, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee labor economist John Heywood told us. The state has been slower than its peers in recovering from the recession. Nationally, Wisconsinranked 35th. Heres the regional picture: State and midwest ranking on percentage growth in jobs Dec. 2010-Dec. 2013 Percentage change in employment National rank on percentage change 1. North Dakota 21.90% 1st 2. Michigan 8.71% 6th 3. Indiana 6.88% 15th 4. Minnesota 6.29% 20th 5. Nebraska 5.71% 24th 6. Ohio 5.65% 25th 7. South Dakota 5.28% 27th 8. Iowa 5.20% 28th 9. Illinois 4.21% 33th 10. Wisconsin 4.04% 35th Burke ranks the states by the percentage of growth. That is preferred by economists for state-by-state comparisons because it shows performance regardless of the states population. By another measure -- raw number of jobs created -- Wisconsin ranked sixth-best of the 10 states, we found. Limitations to the data There are two statistical points to consider. The most important is the definition of Midwest. Both Burke and Walker use the 10 states we mentioned. Theres a good case to be made for that: The Bureau of Labor Statistics Midwest regional office covers those 10 states. We found other instances in which the agency adds Missouri and Kansas into the Midwestern mix, for a total of 12 states. In that larger group, Wisconsin finishes 11th of 12, ahead of Missouri. Previously we ratedHalf Truea Burke claim in January 2014 that Wisconsin was last in the Midwest. The numbers worked out, but we faulted Burke mainly for a too-narrow comparison. She said Midwest, but looked only at the four states adjoining Wisconsin. We noted that at that time, before the 2013 numbers were complete, that Ohio and Nebraska (from the group of 10) and Missouri (from the more expansive BLS group of 12) had slower growth rates than Wisconsin. Finally, because its so comprehensive, reporting of the quarterly jobs data lags by at least six months, meaning the picture may be a bit outdated by the time it is released. The next quarterly jobs figures, covering the first quarter of 2014, are set for mid-September release. There is more recent jobs data available, from the monthly Current Employment Statistics surveys, but its based on a sample of only about 3 percent of employers. Those figures are prone to large margins of error but are also a widely cited source on job trends. Walker has called the quarterly data the gold standard, and has criticized the monthly data. But he has cited the monthly data, and does so in his new ad. Burke has used both at various times as well. Indeed, she was using the less-reliable monthly data back when we rated her earlier worst-in-Midwest claim Half True. Our rating Mary Burke contends that Wisconsins dead last in Midwest job growth. In the new version of this claim, she uses the most accurate jobs data for the longest Walker-era period that can be analyzed with it. And Wisconsin does bring up the rear. But due to the lag time, it does not reflect the most current trends. We rate the claim True. ...... Deciphering jobs claims Voters will hear many more jobs claims before the Nov. 4 election. Here are five tips for separating fact from fiction -- and hype from hard evidence -- when it comes to candidates and the numbers they use. Check the timeframe:If the statement covers a short period, it can be a red flag for cherry-picking data to find a good result. A longer time frame may be being used to mask more recent changes. Check the data source:The quarterly jobs numbers are more accurate than the monthly figures, but also more out of date. Be more skeptical of recent announcement about the monthly numbers, because they are subject to revisions can be significant. Raw numbers or percentages? :If the claim is that State X added more jobs than State Y, the statement may have limited information value. Look for percentage growth figures that level the playing field among states of varying sizes. Check the map:When the claim is best in the region, trust but verify. Are all relevant states included? Scrutinize the sector:Most claims focus on just the private sector, but sometimes partisans will add in public employees if it suits their purpose. On 26 October 2016, the web site React365 published a photograph purportedly supposedly showing two great white sharks in the Mississippi River near St. Louis.  The same site later posted the same photograph again, this time claiming the pictured sharks had made "their way up the Mississippi River and in to the Illinois River somehow": same photograph   While it is not entirely impossible, it is incredibly uncommon for salt water dwelling creatures to stay for lengthy periods of time in fresh water. However, two Great White Sharks have managed to survive the trip and make their way up the Mississippi River and in to the Illinois River somehow. Believed to have started as a mating couple, the two are assumed to have swam the 1250 mile journey to the Chicago suburb River from the mouth of the Mississippi River that is also connected to the Gulf Of Mexico perhaps ending up at their current location as a recent influx of Asian Carp would be a great feeding ground for the apex predators. Officials in Morris have contacted the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and will likely have a team in the river soon to capture the two lost sharks. But this photograph does not show two great white sharks, nor was it taken in the Mississippi River (much less near St. Louis) or the Illinois River. This photograph has been circulating since at least 2008, when it was posted to Flickr along with the caption "Bull Shark  Rio Sirena River Mouth." A bull shark would indeed be more likely spotted in the Sirena River (which is located in Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica) than a great white shark would be in the Mississippi River near St. Louis.  Flickr Corcovado National Park React365 is one of the many web sites that allows users to create fake (but convincing-looking) news in order to, in its own words, "prank" others: "Create your false news and prank your friends. Share them on social networks! What are you waiting for?" This isn't the first time that this particular shark photograph has been shared with a fake backstory. In 2013, RFKDNews used the same image alongside a report that six people in Illinois jad been eaten by "river sharks" after their hot air balloon popped. (They weren't.) image The National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration provides a guide to identifying sharks based on their dorsal fins. White sharks, also called great whites, have dorsal fins with a more ragged edge and are darker in color than bull sharks: guide White shark  Bull shark  Great whites rarely attack from the surface, preferring instead to grab their prey from underneath. Bull sharks tend to butt potential prey with their heads in order to stun it before they bite. surface butt On 3 February 2019, Super Bowl Sunday, the viral news and entertainment site LADbible.com reported that the pop music band and Super Bowl LIII halftime act Maroon 5 had donated their "entire $500,000 Super Bowl fee" to a children's charity: reported   Although it's true that Maroon 5 partnered with their label Interscope Records and the National Football League (NFL) in making a $500,000 donation to the children's charity Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, the money didn't come out of the band's performance fee. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy clarified in an email that Super Bowl halftime acts don't receive performance fees. McCarthy referred us to a statement from Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine provided to People magazine that said: "Playing the Super Bowl has been a dream of our band for a long time. We thank the NFL for the opportunity and also to them, along with Interscope Records, for making this donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters, which will have a major impact for children across the country." People Maroon 5 followed the lead of rapper Travis Scott, who only agreed to perform at the Super Bowl after the NFL vowed to make a $500,000 donation to Dream Corps, a social justice-oriented non-profit founded by Van Jones in 2015. non-profit The large donations to charitable organizations were the result of the mounting pressure the NFL was facing over what critics called the "blacklisting" by the league of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. In 2016, Kaepernick began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before NFL games in protest over police violence against black Americans. As his protest spread and was adopted by other players in the league, so did the backlash. In reference to players' kneeling before games, President Donald Trump in September 2017 stated: Wouldnt you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! Hes fired. Hes fired! stated Kaepernick hasn't played since opting out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in 2017 and has filed a grievance against the NFL, accusing team owners of colluding in not signing him. grievance As a result of the controversy, the NFL had trouble securing halftime acts for Super Bowl LIII, with A-list entertainers such as Rihanna, Cardi B, Jay-Z, and Pink declining to perform in solidarity with Kaepernick. In an interview with the Associated Press, rapper Cardi B said, I got to sacrifice a lot of money to perform. But theres a man who sacrificed his job for us, so we got to stand behind him. Associated Press Maroon 5's act of charity didn't save them from harsh criticism for crossing "the ideological or intellectual picket line," as Kaepernick's attorney Mark Geragos put it in an interview with ABC News. "In fact, if anything, its a cop-out when you start talking about, 'Im not a politician Im just doing the music.' Most of the musicians who have any kind of consciousness whatsoever understand what's going on here." ABC News Tracy, Brianne.  "Maroon 5 and the NFL Announce $500,000 Charity Donation Ahead of Super Bowl Halftime Show."
  People.  31 January 2019. Ruggieri, Melissa.  "Super Bowl 53: Travis Scotts Halftime Inclusion Comes Wwth Charitable Contribution from NFL."
  Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  14 January 2019. Landrum, Jonathan Jr.  "Cardi B Declined Super Bowl Halftime with Mixed Feelings.'"
  Associated Press.  1 February 2019. Allen, Karma et al.  "Maroon 5's Adam Levine Addresses 'Controversy' Surrounding Super Bowl Halftime Show, Teases Performance."
  ABC News.  1 February 2019. Langone, Alix.  "Here's How Much Maroon 5 Is Getting Paid to Perform at the 2019 Super Bowl."
  Yahoo Finance.  3 February 2019. Bieler, Des. " Colin Kaepernick Thanks Rihanna for Her Super Bowl Boycott."
  The Washington Post.  5 February 2019. As President Donald Trump prepared on 8 January 2019 to deliver a televised speech to the nation making the case for billions of dollars to construct a wall along the roughly 2,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico, some social media users circulated an inaccurate meme containing the claim that the preceding Obama administration, with the help of Democratic lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, had given Iran $150 billion in cash.   President Trump battled Congress over his request for $5.7 billion to fulfill a 2016 campaign promise to "build the wall." The resulting impasse over budget appropriations for the wall's construction led to a protracted shutdown of the federal government. build the wall impasse shutdown As with many memes, the one above paired two topics that were unrelated to each other, along with a generous helping of inaccuracy. The "enemy of the U.S." referred to Iran, which was never given a $150 billion cash payment by President Barack Obama with the help of Pelosi and Schumer. Instead, billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets were unfrozen as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated with that country, which had nothing to do with the U.S. federal budget or border wall construction. nuclear deal Trump floated the "$150 billion" figure in conjunction with his desired border wall construction in a 12 December 2018 Twitter post: The Democrats and President Obama gave Iran 150 Billion Dollars and got nothing, but they cant give 5 Billion Dollars for National Security and a Wall?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2018 December 12, 2018 The $150 billion figure is an estimate of the value of Iranian assets that were unfrozen as a result of Iran's agreeing to the terms of the nuclear agreement reached with seven nations in 2015, including the U.S., an agreement formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In other words, Iran gained access to assets that already belonged to them, assets that had been frozen in various financial institutions around the world due to sanctions imposed to curb Irans nuclear program. But Iran didn't get $150 billion in cash, nor did they receive any money at all from U.S. taxpayers -- they only regained access to assets that had been frozen in several different countries (not just the U.S.), and the $150 billion figure was merely an upper estimate. agreement Moreover, that $150 billion figure was the highest estimate of the value of Iran's frozen assets, with multiple sources reporting much lower figures. For example, Adam J. Szubin, Acting Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, supplied written testimony to a U.S. Senate committee in August 2015 stating that U.S. assessment of the total liquid assets Iran would regain control of as a result of the nuclear agreement was "a little more than $50 billion": testimony We must also be measured and realistic in understanding what sanctions relief will really mean to Iran. Estimates of total Central Bank of Iran (CBI) foreign exchange assets worldwide are in the range of $100 to $125 billion. Our assessment is that Irans usable liquid assets after sanctions relief will be much lower, at a little more than $50 billion. The other $50-70 billion of total CBI foreign exchange assets are either obligated in illiquid projects (such as over 50 projects with China) that cannot be monetized quickly, if at all, or are composed of outstanding loans to Iranian entities that cannot repay them. These assets would not become accessible following sanctions relief. Nader Habibi, professor of economics of the Middle East at Brandeis University, told us via email his best estimate was that between $30 billion and $50 billion of unfrozen funds were made available to Iran as a result of the deal. On 8 May 2018, President Trump announced that he was pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal with Iran, which had been negotiated over the course of two years. Associated Press.  "Democrats and Obama Did Not Give $150 Billion to Iran."
  14 December 2018. Hirschfeld Davis, Julie.  "Schumer and Pelosi Tap Themselves to Respond to Trump Speech."
  The New York Times.  8 January 2019. Bozorgmehr, Najmeh.  "Iran to Keep Most Unfrozen Overseas Assets in Foreign Banks."
  Financial Times.  8 February 2016. Cunningham, Erin, and Bijan Sabbagh.  "Iran to Negotiate with Europeans, Russia and China About Remaining in Nuclear Deal."
  The Washington Post. 8 May 2018. Dahl, Fredrik.  "Iran Has $100 Billion Abroad, Can Draw $4.2 Billion: U.S. Official."
  Reuters.  17 January 2014. Habibi, Nader. " Irans Frozen Funds: How Much Is Really There and How Will They Be Used?"
  The Conversation.  11 August 2015.