Gov. (Rick) Perry helped balance his budget with about $6 billion worth of federal help, which he happily took, and then started blaming the members of Congress who had offered that help.
Asked by a Dallas television reporter whether he agreed with Texas leaders that the federal government should take some governing cues from the Lone Star State, President Barack Obama said he saw a little inconsistency in that position. Keep in mind, Gov. (Rick) Perry helped balance his budget with about $6 billion worth of federal help, which he happily took, and then started blaming the members of Congress who had offered that help, Obama said during an April 18 interview with WFAA reporter Brad Watson at the White House. That so? We started our fact-check with Obamas budget claim. Adam Abrams, a White House spokesman, told us that Obama was referring to stimulus funds when he said Perry plugged the budget with federal aid. The roughly $800 billion federal stimulus package, named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act by Congress, became law in February 2009 after receiving only three Republican votes, all in the Senate. State governments were the primary recipients of the money, although funds have also gone directly to entities such as schools, hospitals and utilities. The law specified that governors had 45 days after its passage to certify that their state would request and use the offered funds. On Feb. 18, 2009, Perry sent Obama the requisite letter of certification, assuring the president that the state would accept the funds and use them in the best interest of Texas taxpayers. According to a February 2009 PBSNews Houronline post, some stimulus money was meant to help states avoid slashing funding for education and other programs that lawmakers could trim to offset shortfalls. Abrams, asked for backup for the presidents statement, pointed us to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which in turn sent us its July 2009 report on state budgets. According to the report, state budget-writing Texas lawmakers in 2009 were short $6.6 billion in revenue for 2010-11 and relied heavily on stimulus funds for a solution. We did our own budget research, finding that lawmakers agreed to spend $80.6 billion in state general revenue on basic expenses over the two-year period, according to a report by the Legislative Budget Board, which advises lawmakers on budgetary matters. However, the stimulus aid let legislators put an additional $6.4 billion toward programs, primarily Medicaid and education, historically financed with general revenue, according to a July 2009 House Research Organization report. Another $5.7 billion in stimulus money went to programs such as highway and bridge construction, child care development programs and weatherization assistance. Counting all funding sources, including the $12.1 billion in stimulus aid, the 2010-11 state budget totaled $182 billion. So, Obamas dollar figure holds up. What about his claim that after accepting the stimulus money, Perry started blaming members of Congress who voted for the bill  almost all of them Democrats? We searched news archives and websites for such jabs.For the record, Perry has long aired anti-Washington, anti-spending rhetoric. A December 2007Austin American-Statesmanstory reported that Perry, while campaigning in Iowa for presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, said President George W. Bush is not and he never was a fiscal conservative. Back to the stimulus: On Feb. 18, 2009, the same day Perry accepted the federal funds, the governor slammed the legislation as being full of pork and special interest handouts. On his campaignwebsite, Perry wrote: The Democrats think this bill will change our country's financial fortunes, but you and I know better. This administration is saddling future generations with an increasingly unbearable debt. He then urged readers to sign an online petition telling Washington that they are fed up with bailouts. In his letter to Obama accepting the aid, Perry said: As you know, I have been vocal in my opposition to this legislation because I believe there are better ways to reinvigorate our economy and believe (the stimulus plan) will burden future generations with unprecedented levels of debt. Perry also wrote that he opposed using these funds to expand existing government programs because the state would be burdened with ongoing expenditures long after the funding has dried up. (Elsewhere, Perry was quoted as saying that he welcomed federal dollars that could be used for one-time expenses.) During a Feb. 26, 2009, interview with conservative radio host Mike Gallagher, Perry criticized those members of Congress who had supported both the stimulus plan and the earlier $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which helped shore up struggling banks during the financial crisis. He said: Voting for the TARP in my opinion is even worse than voting for the stimulus; and theyre both very bad. ... At least some of the stimulus money may actually get into the hands of people where it might accidentally do some good. Theres more. In an April 7, 2009, video posted on his campaignwebsite, Perry urged fellow patriots to attend tea party rallies planned for April 15 to let Washington know what you think about the bailouts, all this stimulus, all this runaway spending thats going on. And during speeches at tea party rallies that day, Perry said the attendees were sending Washington a message that we will not stand for our pockets being picked, our childrens future being mortgaged, our rights being taken away. Perrys criticism of Washingtons policies was not limited to Democrats. Running against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the last Republican gubernatorial primary, Perry frequently attacked her by calling out Washington. According to a Sept. 25, 2009,Statesmanarticle, Perry wrote in a fundraising letter, If Washington Republicans hadn't spent like Democrats for 12 years, they might have maintained enough votes to actually kill Obamacare. More recently, during a January 2010 speech in favor of a proposal to require Congress to balance the federal budget, Perry said that leaders in Washington  pour out your tax dollars on every challenge, blissfully ignoring the consequences of their largesse while they consign our children, our grandchildren to a life of unprecedented, unmanageable debt. We asked the White House for examples of Perry blaming the members of Congress who supported the stimulus plan. Abrams didnt offer any but told us that the president was pointing out the well-documented habit of those who criticize Recovery Act assistance while using those funds to balance a state's budget. Summing up: Obama said Perry happily took federal stimulus funds that helped balance the states 2010-11 state budget. Perry hardly sounded happy about it, but Obama is correct that he accepted stimulus money that was used to help balance the budget. As to whether Perry then started blaming members of Congress who had supported the stimulus legislation  well, not in so many words. And as we noted, Perrys criticism of the federal government had started long before. But Perry criticized the plan specifically and the policies of Washington in general, using rhetoric that painted Congress and the White House with the same big-spending brush. We rate the statement Mostly True.
After signing a coronavirus and economic relief plan into law, President Joe Biden turned to an infrastructure proposal as his next legislative priority. Cabinet members, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have fanned out to promote the presidents $2 trillion-plus package, while critics of the plan are complaining about the cost. In an interview on NBCs Meet the Press April 4, Buttigieg emphasized that the expenditures would be covered by revenue increases. The vision the president has put forward (in the infrastructure bill) is fully paid for,he said. Across 15 years, it would raise all of the revenue needed for these once-in-a-lifetime investments. The president himself re-emphasized the importance of this point in a speech touting the plan on April 7. Weve got to pay for this, he said. Buttigieg is largely correct, though there are some important caveats to note. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on NBCs Meet the Press on April 4, 2021. (Screenshot) Bidens proposal, called the American Jobs Plan, would provide funding for highways, bridges, ports, airports and transit systems, as well as infrastructure for water, the electric grid, and expanded high-speed Internet access. It would also support retrofitting and upgrading homes, commercial and federal buildings, schools, child care facilities and veterans hospitals, and it would invest in research and development. The proposal also includes items not traditionally considered infrastructure, such as funding to support home health care workers and job training, and pro-union provisions. In all, the proposal comes with a price tag of more than $2 trillion over a decade. To pay for it, Biden would lean heavily on new or higher taxes on corporations, including raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, preventing U.S. corporations from claiming an offshore tax haven as their place of business, eliminating tax preferences for fossil fuels, tightening tax enforcement by adding employees to the Internal Revenue Service, and changing other taxes that hit corporations. Republicans have attacked both the spending and revenue sides of Bidens proposal, arguing that some of the items in it are not really infrastructure, and that raising corporate tax rates could lead businesses to leave the United States. Biden said in his April 7 remarks that hes open to compromise on what a bill ultimately includes. For this article, well focus on whether the spending portions of the plan are equaled by the revenue-raising portions, as Buttigieg said. The White House pointed us to thefact sheetit has released on the plan, which makes that claim, but doesnt get into details. However, at least two independent groups have analyzed the plan and found that Buttigiegs formulation checks out. One was published by theCommittee for a Responsible Federal Budget. It found that the plan has approximately $2.65 trillion in new costs over eight years. Over the first 10 years, the group found, the plan would increase the deficit by about $900 billion. However, over a longer, 15-year period the one Buttigieg cited  the plans revenues would match its expenses and would actually reduce deficits beyond that. The other analysis, published by the University of PennsylvaniasPenn Wharton Budget Model, came to a similar conclusion. The Penn group said the Biden plan would spend $2.7 trillion over 10 years and raise $2.1 trillion in that period, expanding the deficit by about $600 billion. However, the group found that over 15 years, it would generate more than $3.6 billion, which would be more than enough to cover its costs. Projections are always just that  projections. Rght now, there is not even a formal bill, so the spending and revenue provisions could shift in either direction before theyre signed into law. For instance, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.  whose support would be required for any Democratic bill  has already said he wont support a corporate tax hike to anything higher than 25%. And under a 25% corporate tax, a lot of revenue would disappear. Similarly, some of the bills spending items could also disappear during lawmaker negotiations. Another asterisk is that these analyses are based on eight years worth of spending and 15 years of revenue increases, which is an unusual method. Typically, congressional legislation is judged based on what happens during a 10-year window. Buttigieg wouldnt have been able to say the plan paid for itself over the standard, 10-year budget window, so his focus on the 15-year time frame is a bit of cherry-picking. And the revenue impacts 15 years down the road are going to be harder to predict than the impacts in 10 years. That said, theres nothing economically significant about the 10-year window, said Marcos Dinerstein, an economist with the Penn Wharton Budget Model. Its just a convention. Just looking at a 10-year window can miss the benefits of policies like infrastructure and research and development that often take a while to start generating returns. Buttigieg said Bidens infrastructure proposal is fully paid for. Across 15 years, it would raise all of the revenue needed for these once-in-a-lifetime investments. Two independent analyses back up the notion that the new spending will be evened out by the new revenue raised in the plan after 15 years. But long-term projections like this are always tricky, and a 15-year time frame is unusual for evaluating the budget impact of legislation; under the typical 10-year time frame, the plan would not be fully paid for. We rate the statement Mostly True. Do three Americans really have more wealth than half the country? Its a claim made by the runner-up for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president,Bernie Sanders. Campaigningon July 14, 2018 for U.S. Sen.Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Sanderstold a crowdin Eau Claire: The three wealthiest people own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. The U.S. senator, an independent from Vermont, previously made the claimon Facebookand repeated it three days after his Wisconsin appearance in a column inUSA Today. What we found is the wealth lead enjoyed by the three billionaires is even larger than what Sanders said. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter:@PolitiFactWisc. A study Before we dig in, an important note about the nations wealth gap: Many Americans make a good income, have some savings and investments, and own a nice home; they also have debt, for a mortgage, credit cards and other bills. The result is, even some people with relatively healthy incomes, as well as many poorer people, have a negative net worth. To back Sanders claim, his campaign pointed us to a November 2017news articlein Forbes. The business magazine reported ona studypublished that month by the Institute for Policy Studies, which the article described as a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. The study, which advocates for reducing wealth inequality, also gained news coverage fromUSA TodayandThe Guardian. And its authors wrote opinion articles about it forNewsweekand theLos Angeles Times. The numbers The study used data from Forbes 2017 ranking of the 400 richest Americans; and data for the rest of the country from the 2016 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, which the study says has become widely accepted as the most comprehensive government dataset documenting household wealth. PolitiFact has alsoreliedonthisFed survey in our wealth fact checks. The first finding the study reported was this: The three wealthiest people in the United States now own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 160 million people. Those individuals and their source of wealth are, according to the study: 1.Bill Gates, Microsoft: $89 billion 2. Jeff Bezos, Amazon: $81.5 billion 3.Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway: $78 billion Thats a total of $248.5 billion. The wealth of the bottom 160 million was $245 billion, the Institute for Policy Studies'Josh Hoxietold us. Thats a gap of $3.5 billion. Hoxie, a former a aide to Sanders, also pointed out that the wealth of the three billionaires has ballooned to $330 billion, according to Forbeslatest estimate. We dont have an updated estimate for the bottom 160 million American, as the Fed survey is done only once every three years. But Hoxie said its nearly impossible that the wealth of Americans at the bottom has grown nearly as much as that of the three billionaires. For the 160 million people at the bottom of the scale, by the way, the study used the net worth figure reported by the Fed and then subtracted automobiles and other durable goods such as electronics, furniture, and household appliances, from that figure. Subtracting durable goods from net worth offers us a more accurate depiction of household wealth as these items are not easily sellable and neither appreciate nor hold constant their value, the study says. Other viewpoints More fact checks on wealth inequality Michael Moore, in 2011: Just 400 Americans -- 400 -- have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.True. One Wisconsin Now, in 2013: The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined.True. Starbucks, in 2015: White people control almost 90 percent of the nation's wealth.True. The studys methodology is sound and its conclusion cited by Sanders is accurate, according toAbdur Chowdhury, an emeritus economics professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and economics professorEmmanuel Saez, director of the Center for Equitable Growth at the University of California, Berkeley. As an aside, well note that Saez also said Sanders claim is somewhat meaningless. The meaningful thing to say, Saez told us, is the bottom half of the U.S. families owns essentially no wealth on net, because debts cancel out whatever small assets they may have, on average. Our rating Sanders says: The three wealthiest people own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. The wealth of Gates, Bezos and Buffett exceeded that of the 160 million at the bottom of the scale, according to a 2017 study. And more recent estimates indicate the wealth of the three has since grown dramatically, widening the gap even more. We rate Sanders statement True. In a debate that featured rehashed candidate positions, one new policy emerged: Sen. John McCains proposal to have the government buy and renegotiate what his top adviser later said would be literally millions of mortgages on houses whose values have dropped and whose owners are struggling to keep up with payments. Taxpayers would cover the difference between the original loan and the new one, at a cost the McCain campaign estimated to be at $300-billion. Is it expensive? Yes, McCain said during the debate on Oct. 7, 2008. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, were never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And weve got to give some trust and confidence back to America. In announcing the plan amid the question-and-answer of a town hall meeting, McCain sought to make clear that this was a bold, new idea all his own: And its my proposal, its not Sen. Obamas proposal, its not President Bushs proposal. The question is whether or not McCain's proposal is as original as he claims. But first, some details on the plan. Mechanically, the initiative is very simple, said Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign. A homeowner would initiate the process by calling a mortgage broker or other originator and basically saying, 'Id like to refinance my home, and they would start the underwriting process, verify incomes. The government loans would be available to mortgage holders who:  Live in the home as a primary residence. Can prove their creditworthiness (and made a down payment at the time of the purchase). The FHA would then issue a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at a rate Holtz-Eakin estimated would be in the low 5 percent range. Mortgage rates for 30-year fixed home loans are currently about 5.82 percent. Taxpayers would pick up the difference between the value of the two loans. While at least part of the expense of McCains plan would be borne by the recently approved $700-billion bailout plan, the initiative also would tap some of the $300-billion tied to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act passed this summer. Thats a plan that seeks to refinance loans for low- to moderate-income homeowners struggling to pay for homes they bought for more than they are now worth.The McCain plan outlines a dramatic shift in emphasis for the $700-billion bailout plan. While the bailout contained provisions to allow the Treasury to purchase mortgages directly, the legislation primarily was intended as a means for the government to buy troubled assets from financial institutions that might otherwise fail and that could later be sold when the markets recover. The hope, said Holtz-Eakin, is that McCains bottom level up plan will offset the need for some of that $700-billion. When McCain announced the plan at the debate, Obama supporters were quick to note that Obama had in previous weeks recommended that the bailout plan include the option of buying individual mortgages. We cant simply bail out Wall Street without helping the millions of innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure  or, for that matter, are seeing their home values decline, Obama said. McCain argued, during the debate and afterward, that his proposal is nothing like what Obama talked about. And after hearing details the next day, the Obama campaign agreed with McCain. Obama has always supported plans to have the government buy loans at market prices (in other words, the loan companies would have to swallow some loss), said Obama campaign economic policy director Jason Furman. And homeowners would have to share some of the profits should the value of the home rise. But McCain's proposal wouldn't do either of those things. The government would refinance homes at their new, lower value and absorb the loss in propoerty values entirely. Okay, so who's idea is it? Charlie Black, a senior adviser to McCain, told theNew York Timesthe mortgage renewal idea actually originated with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who borrowed it from a Depression-era New Deal agency, the Home Owners Loan Corp. Clinton spoke about her plan before Congress on Sept. 18, 2008. A new government entity like the HOLC with a focus on attacking the source of the problem can serve the purpose of clearing a lot of those toxic mortgage securities from the market, Clinton said. We know there will not be any semblance of a normal or orderly marketplace until we have found a way to resolve these mortgage securities that are metastasizing in the bottom of our markets. By taking this paper out of the market and quarantining it in this new entity we will be able to give the market breathing room to recover. We will also be able to set the stage for an orderly sale of these securities and in turn allow some of them to recover and actually regain some of their value. Perhaps just as importantly, not only would our financial markets stabilize but so would our housing markets. Although Clinton did not offer specifics of her plan, she seemed to suggest that it would entail buying mortgages at discounted current market rates, and that taxpayers might ultimately turn a profit on them. That's not McCain's plan. So here's where we stand: It's true that terms of the $700-billion bailout plan first initiated by President Bush contains authority for the Treasury to purchase mortgages directly. And it's true that Obama has called for a component of the buyout plan to include direct purchase of mortgages to alleviate homeowners struggling to make payments. Finally, it's true that Clinton sketched out a plan last spring that shared some of the goals and traits of McCain's proposal. The method McCain proposes  buying mortgages at their original value and renegotiating at the current market value (with taxpayers picking up the difference)  is indeed new. But while McCain can rightly take credit for the details of his proposal, he is by no means alone with the idea of having the federal government buy mortgages directly. We rate his statement Mostly True. In late March 2020, a meme circulated on social media that falsely reported the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., had "laundered" COVID-19 stimulus money for the Democratic Party instead of paying its workforce, including musicians with the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO):The Kennedy Center, a major venue for classical performing arts in Washington, D.C., did receive $25 million from the $2.2 trillion federal-relief package to stem financial fallout from the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. The relief package included millions earmarked to support various arts organizations.  The Center also completed a privately funded $250 million renovation in late 2019 and received an appropriation in 2019 of $41 million from the U.S. government in 2019. Both examples listed in the meme, however, are unrelated to funds it received in the coronavirus-relief package. $250 million $41 million Furthermore, the Center did indeed furlough workers, including orchestral musicians, even after learning it would receive $25 million from the U.S. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27, 2020. However, the Center, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, did not then donate $5 million of relief funds to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Under U.S. tax law, 501(c)3 organizations are legally prohibited from making "contributions to political campaign funds." A spokeswoman for the Center confirmed to us that the organization made no contribution to the DNC and said the Center "has never donated money to a political organization." legally According to a statement from the Center, the organization furloughed the majority of its workforce beginning April 6 through "at least May 10, 2020." Even with the $25 million federal relief funds, the Center said its financial projections showed it would "run out of cash as early as July. In order to stretch the Centers finances as long as possible, we must take immediate action to change our expense structure and preserve cash." The Twitter user who originated the meme followed up by clarifying that she meant the scenario as a "hypothetical" and not as something to be taken literally: clarifying  John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts."A Statement from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts."
31 March 2020. DC Federation of Musicians."Kennedy Center Unilaterally Cuts Off National Symphony Orchestra Musicians Pay."
29 March 2020. McGlone, Peggy."Kennedy Center Announces 250 More Layoffs in Wake of $25 Million Federal Grant."
 The Washington Post.31 March 2020. Internal Revenue Service."The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations." Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2009] What most people know is that the Associated Press (AP) is one of the largest, internationally recognized, syndicated news services. What most people don't know that is in 2004, the AP was a "birther" news organization. How so? Because in a syndicated report, published Sunday, June 27, 2004, by the Kenyan Standard Times, and which was, as of this report, available here. here The AP reporter stated the following: Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.  (Sunday Standard/Internet Archive) article However, The Associated Press made no such reference; the identification of Barack Obama as "Kenyan-born" was added to the Sunday Standard's version of the AP story by someone else (who misspelled the politician's given name as "Barrack" in the process) and is apparently unique to that publication. The full text of the "Jack Ryan Abandons Senate Bid" article as originally issued by the Associated Press is retrievable from the LexisNexis archive of global news sources, and it contains no reference (in the lead-in or elsewhere) to Barack Obama's being "Kenyan-born": Associated Press Online June 25, 2004 Friday Illinois' Jack Ryan Abandons Senate Bid BYLINE: MAURA KELLY LANNAN; Associated Press WriterSECTION: NATIONAL POLITICAL NEWSDATELINE: CHICAGO Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan dropped out of the race Friday amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days. "It's clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race," Ryan, 44, said in a statement. "What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign - the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play." The campaign began to come apart Monday following the release of embarrassing records from Ryan's divorce. In those records, his ex-wife, "Boston Public" actress Jeri Ryan, said Ryan took her to kinky sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans and tried to get her to perform sex acts with him while others watched. Ryan disputed the allegations, saying he and his wife went to one "avant-garde" club in Paris and left because they felt uncomfortable. In quitting the race, Ryan lashed out at the media and said it was "truly outrageous" that the Chicago Tribune got a judge to unseal the records. "The media has gotten out of control," he said. Top Illinois Republicans immediately began the work of selecting a new candidate. Their choice will become an instant underdog against Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama in the campaign for the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Peter Fitzgerald. Obama held a wide lead even before the scandal broke. "I feel for him actually," Obama said on WLS-AM. "What he's gone through over the last three days I think is something you wouldn't wish on anybody. Unfortunately, I think our politics has gotten so personalized and cutthroat that it's very difficult for people to want to get in the business." Ryan had faced mounting pressure to quit from party leaders, who met several times in Washington this week to discuss whether the campaign could survive. "He really was a dead man walking," Gary MacDougal, former Illinois Republican Party chairman. Ryan conducted an overnight poll to gauge his support. After reviewing the results, Ryan's advisers told the candidate that the only way to survive would be wage an extremely negative and expensive response. "Jack Ryan made the right decision. I know it must have been a difficult one," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, who made his feelings known by canceling a fund-raising event scheduled for Thursday with Ryan. Ryan was a political neophyte when he got into the race - a millionaire investment banker who had left business four years ago to teach at an all-boys parochial school in Chicago. He spent $3 million of his own fortune to win the primary. With his good looks and Harvard background, Ryan was seen by many as the party's best hope for revitalizing the Illinois GOP. The party lost control of the governor's office and nearly every statewide office two years ago in the wake of a corruption scandal involving then-Gov. George Ryan, who has since been indicted. He is not related to Jack Ryan. During the primary, Ryan waved off rumors of damaging sex allegations in his sealed divorce records, assuring state officials there was nothing in the file to worry about. But the Tribune and Chicago TV station WLS sued for the records' release, and a California judge ordered them unsealed. The couple fought to keep the records sealed, saying the release could harm their 9-year-old son. "The fact that the Chicago Tribune sues for access to sealed custody documents and then takes unto itself the right to publish details of a custody dispute - over the objections of two parents who agree that the re-airing of their arguments will hurt their ability to co-parent their child and hurt their child - is truly outrageous," he said. Although most party leaders abandoned Ryan, Fitzgerald said Friday that he had encouraged him to stay in the race. "I think the public stoning of Jack Ryan is one of the most grotesque things I've seen in politics," the senator said. He said the party's bigwigs pushed Ryan out: "It was like piranhas. They smelled blood in the water and they just devoured him." Ryan won the GOP primary by more than 10 percentage points over his two closest rivals, dairy owner James Oberweis and state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger. Both Oberweis and Rauschenberger said this week that they would step in as Ryan's replacement if party leaders asked. Other possible candidates mentioned include U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, former Gov. Jim Edgar and Sen. Fitzgerald, though all three have said they are not interested. Likewise, archived versions of U.S. newspapers that published the same AP wire story (such as the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Seattle Times) do not include lead-ins identifying Barack Obama as "Kenyan-born." San Diego Union-Tribune Seattle Times Lannan, Maura Kelly. "Illinois' Jack Ryan Abandons Senate Bid."
The Associated Press. 25 June 2004. On 10 December 2014, the web site Earth We Are One published an article claiming a UFO shaped like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars had been discovered at the bottom of the Baltic Sea: article  The divers exploring a 'UFO-shaped' object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea say their equipment stops working when they approach within 200 meters of the object. Professional diver Stefan Hogerborn, part of the Ocean X team which is exploring the anomaly, said some of the teams' cameras and satellite phones would refuse to work when directly above the object, and would only work once they had sailed away. He is quoted as saying: "Anything electric out there, and the satellite phone as well, stopped working when we were above the object. And then when we got away about 200 meters, it turned on again, and when we got back over the object it didn't work." Hefty trajectory: The Swedish diving team noted a 985-foot flattened out 'runway' leading up to the object, implying that it skidded along the path before stopping but no true answers to this are clear. "I was kind of prepared just to find a stone or cliff or outcrop or pile of mud but it was nothing like that, so for me it has been a missing experience I must say." Member Dennis Asberg said: "I am one hundred percent convinced and confident that we have found something that is very, very, very unique." "Is it a meteorite or an asteroid? Or a volcano? Or a base from say, a U-boat from the Cold War which has manufactured and placed there? Or if it is a UFO? Well, honestly, it has to be something." The article published by Earth We Are One in December of 2014 was a repurposed version of a story published by the UK newspaper Daily Mail in June 2012. Although both articles dealt with a real discovery by the shipwreck hunting team Ocean X, experts have since weighed in and determined the object found on the bottom of the Baltic Sea was not an alien spaceship.  published Rumors about the Baltic Sea UFO began circulating after Ocean X returned from an expedition in the summer of 2011 with an interesting sonar image. The group paid a follow-up visit to the site the following year to get a better look at the object, but due to mysterious (and convenient) electrical interference, Ocean X was not able to get a good look at the submerged anomaly. Expedition leader Peter Lindberg did, however, claim he had found a second object: "I confirm that we have found two anomalies. We did find the other anomaly approximately 200 meters (about 219 yards) from the circular find at the same sonar run." Lindberg explained why his team had not released the sonar image of the second object: "We decided not to expose that anomaly so much because there is a lot of disturbance on the sonar image when we passed it, so it's very blurry. We can see it's something but to an untrained eye it might just look like 'pea soup.'" Neither of these sonar images, however, provided a reliable look at the Baltic Sea anomaly. First, the Ocean X team used an inexpensive sonar technique called side-scan sonar which, although well-suited for finding shipwrecks, it is not designed to give a detailed look at the sea floor. Second, according to Hanumant Singh, a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the sonar they used wasn't properly calibrated: side-scan sonar sonar If you look carefully, you can see a reflection of the circular formation on the right side of the image. Since side-scan sonar is taken with two instruments that bounce acoustic waves in opposite directions from the boat, a feature on one side shouldn't affect the image on the other side. "This means you've got 'cross-talk,' in which one channel is electrically contaminating the other," Singh says. In other words, the sonar instruments aren't wired properly. Strike one, he says.  Strike two: The black horizontal lines going through the image show that sonar signals are dropping out (that is, the instruments aren't detecting them), further calling the measurements into question, Singh says. Finally, he says, the edges of the image, just beyond the circular formation, are gray, meaning the sonar couldn't tell what was there. That shows the sonar isn't calibrated well enough to trust, Singh says. "That's strike three." With only a single blurry image and little information, many people speculated the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea could be a UFO, a portal into another world, or an underwater Stonehenge. These theories received more attention when artist Hauke Vagt created a 3D interpretation of the mysterious object: artist  Scientists, however, have less fantastical theories about what lies at the bottom of the Baltic. Charles Paull, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, said the anomaly is probably just a rock outcropping or the result of gas venting from the seafloor.  Other experts argue it is merely a glacial depost.  Even Peter Lindberg, the man behind the discovery, expressed skepticism about the object's supposed otherworldly origins: "It's not obviously an alien spacecraft. It's not made of metal." experts skepticism Team Ocean X's discovery created a stir due to the fact that they could not identify the object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, not because any evidence supported the idea it was a UFO.  Popular Mechanics. Wolchover, Natalie.  "Mysterious Baltic Sea Object Is a Glacial Deposit."
  Live Science.  30 August 2012.
 Piui, Tibi.  "So Called Baltic Sea 'UFO' Mystery Solved, Other Questions Arise." 
  ZME Science.  18 June 2012. In August 2018, a bit of Islamophobic copypasta started making its way around social media, asserting that the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota had canceled a 4th of July city fireworks display but allowed "Muslim animal sacrifice" to be held in the city's U.S. Bank Stadium (home of the Minnesota Vikings football team) the following month: copypasta   This copypasta was based on a bit of fake news, a fear-mongering report about the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, and a misreading of two genuine news reports. Fake News On 10 June 2018, the Last Line of Defense web site published an article positing that the Muslim mayor of Minneapolis had "canceled the 4th of July": article Mayor Ahneid al Ahmed of Haskentot, Minnesota has done the unthinkable and canceled the 4th of July. According to his office, the city has no desire to spend money on something so frivolous. Muslim spokesman Art Tubolls said: This city elected our mayor to do what is best. We dont hink buying a bunch of flags and fireworks and spending a day celebrating nationalism like nazis is a good idea. This was not a genuine news story about the mayor of Minneapolis, who is neither named "Ahneid al Ahmed" nor a Muslim. (The city's actual mayor is Jacob Frey.) The Last Line of Defense is part of a network of sites that engages in political trolling under the guise of proffering "satire." Jacob Frey This junk news piece may have prompted some confusion, as it resembled a genuine news story about a nearby Minnesota city. The mayor of St. Paul did cancel the city's Independence Day firework show due to budgetary concerns: cancel St. Paul will go without the rockets red glare on Independence Day this year. Mayor Melvin Carter announced that the city wont hold a Fourth of July fireworks event. The cancellation may foreshadow of what could be a difficult budget season. Carters announcement, posted to Facebook, cited concerns about the citys budget climate. Minneapolis, on the other hand, hosted multiple firework shows on July 4th. multiple firework shows Fear-Mongering Reports About Eid al-Adha The Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha is also referred to as the "Feast of Sacrifice." The holiday, which honors Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, is celebrated by Muslims around the world. In many places, Muslims observe that holiday by  sacrificing an animal and then sharing its meat with the poor: sacrificing To commemorate God's test of Ibrahim, many Muslim families sacrifice an animal and share the meat with the poor. They also are required to donate to charities that benefit the poor. Muslims also routinely exchange presents during the holiday. When it was announced that U.S. Bank Stadium would be hosting a Eid al-Adha festival, the Islamophobic web site "Bare Naked Islam" published an article about the upcoming event imploring readers to "imagine" 50,000 Muslims at the stadium and displaying various photographs and videos of animal sacrifices from around the world. article The following photograph, for instance, was taken in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2008: taken   These photographs led many readers to mistakenly believe that the "Super EID" festival at U.S. Bank Stadium would also feature animal sacrifices, but that wasn't the case. Ahmed Anshur, executive director of Masjid Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in St. Paul and one of the organizers of "Super EID," attempted to quell these fears, telling Minnesota Public Radio that no animal sacrifices would take place at the event: Minnesota Public Radio Eid Al-Adha, the second Muslim holiday of the year, comes at the end of the pilgrimage. Its name in Arabic means the "festival of sacrifice." Muslims celebrate by sacrificing animals and donating meat to charity. But Ahmed Anshur, executive director of Masjid Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in St. Paul and one of the organizers, wants to be clear: The actual ritual will not take place at U.S. Bank Stadium. "Nobody is going to sacrifice an animal, or nobody is going to slaughter an animal in that field," he said. "I can assure you that, 100 percent." The Minneapolis Star Tribune filed a report after the 21 August 2018 celebration on  which stated that in fact no animal sacrifices had taken place at the stadium during the EID celebration: report The holiday honors the prophet Ibrahim, also known as Abraham in Judaism and Christianity, and his willingness to sacrifice his son for God. It comes at the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage. It is one of the holiest days of the year for Muslims, who celebrate with prayer, shared meals and gifts. In some places, families who can afford it slaughter an animal and share the meat with family and charities. No animals were sacrificed at the stadium Tuesday. Bowling, Chris.  "Thousands Join in 'Super Eid' Celebration at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis."
  [Minneapolis] Star Tribune.  21 August 2018. Feshir, Riham.  "Thousands Expected for 'Super Eid' in Downtown Minneapolis."
  MPR News.  20 August 2018. CNN.  "5 Things to Know About the Muslim Holiday Eid al-Adha."
  21 August 2018. The Current.  "Fourth of July 2018: Where to See Fireworks in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Beyond."
  26 June 2018. Melo, Frederick.  "St. Paul Mayor Cancels July 4 Fireworks, Cites Budget Concerns."
  TwinCities.com.  27 June 2018. An anecdote about Donald Trump and his outsized U.S. flag and pole neatly encapsulated what so many people found either most appealing or most distasteful about the business magnate and 2016 Republican presidential candidate: to some he was the no-nonsense take-charge type who had the power and influence to thwart those who would insist on allowing the enforcement of petty rules or "political correctness" impede the progress of business and the course of "making America great again"; to others he was a wealthy blowhard who thought the rules didn't apply to him and habitually bullied others into submission to feed his lust for self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment: When Trump purchased and rebuilt Mar-A-Lago the Grand mansion and estate in Palm beach, Florida he got into a dispute with the city, who are well known for being strict on zoning regulations. Trump put up a 50 foot flag pole even though 30 foot is the maximum allowed. The city imposed a 1,000 dollar fine per day. While Trump and the city argued back and forth, finally when the fine had reached 120,000 dollars Trump proposed a solution. He would donate that amount to veterans organizations, would move the flag and pole to a different location in front of the mansion and would only use a 30 foot flag pole. The city agreed. So Trump brought in the company who does Golf course construction had them build a 20 foot high grassy hill and put a 30 foot flag pole on top of it. The basic facts are these: In 1985, Donald Trump paid $10 million for Mar-A-Lago, the name of the Marjorie Merriweather Post estate in Palm Beach, Florida. On 3 October 2006, Trump had an outsized American flag (variously described as being either 15x25 feet or 20x30 feet) installed on an 80-foot-high flagpole at Mar-a-Lago, in violation of local zoning regulations that established a maximum size of 4x6 feet for flags and a maximum height of 42 feet for flagpoles. Trump put up his regulation-violating flag and pole without obtaining either a building permit permit or a variance from local authorities, and the Palm Beach town council accordingly fined him $1,250 (or, in some accounts, $250) for every day the flag remained in place (apparently citing him only for the pole but not the flag itself). Trump in turn filed a $25 million lawsuit against Palm Beach, claiming that the town was selectively enforcing its rules (by not fining other properties that were flying flags in violation of town ordinances) and infringing his constitutional right to free speech. Six months later the two sides finally reached an agreement during "secret, court-ordered negotiations," with the town agreeing to waive all fines against Trump for his code-busting flagpole and to "review its ordinances and codes dealing with flagpoles and flags during the next zoning season," and Trump agreeing to drop his lawsuit, lower the height of his flagpole from 80 to 70 feet, obtain a permit for the pole and move it farther inland, and donate $100,000 "to charities dealing with Iraq War Veterans, [the] American Flag, or the local VA hospital." So, the anecdote reproduced above is true in its broad strokes, although all of the numbers it cites (dollar amounts and dimensions) are inaccurate, the issue was resolved via court-ordered mediation (not by Trump's "proposing a solution"), and the money Trump agreed to donate to settle the matter went to organizations selected by both sides (although Trump had previously stated that if he won his 15x25 feet or $25 million lawsuit, the proceeds would go to military members returning from Iraq). However, the New York state attorney general later sued Trump for paying the fine through his nonprofit Donald J. Trump Foundation instead of from his personal finances: sued The New York state attorney general sued U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his children and his foundation, saying he illegally used the nonprofit as a personal "checkbook" for his own benefit, including his 2016 presidential campaign. Another $100,000 went to another charity in 2007 to settle a legal dispute over a flagpole erected in violation of local ordinances at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club and sometime residence in Palm Beach, Florida. We also haven't been able to verify whether Trump connived to maintain (or even exceed) the height of the original pole by installing a 10-foot-shorter pole on a 20-foot-high hill  pictures of the estate show the flagpole rising from a mound, but the height of the mound is difficult to estimate from photographs:  Trump's lawsuit maintained that he couldn't bring his flag and pole into compliance with regulations because "A smaller flag and pole on Mar-A-Lago's property would be lost given its massive size, look silly instead of make a statement, and most importantly would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump's and the Club's members' patriotism." In his statements to the news media at the time he typically framed the issue as being one of his standing up to anti-American, anti-flag, anti-patriotic forces, while acknowledging that he hadn't even bothered applying for a permit first (because he didn't think he'd get one) and stating that he didn't believe rules should apply to the American flag (and therefore to him in this instance): "Well, I put up an American flag on the front of the Mar-a-Lago Club, which is a great house, probably the greatest house in America that I turned into a private club very successfully in Palm Beach, Florida. And the flag is very proudly waving, and the town wants me to take it down. Because they say I put it up without a permit and, frankly, had I gone to the town for a permit they wouldn't have given it to me, probably. But more importantly, I say that you don't need a permit to put up the American flag. I don't think they know what their beef is. I'm not sure they really understand what their beef is. They don't talk about the flag. They only talk about the flagpole because they're afraid politically to mention the word flag and the American flag and take it down. And I'll say it's probably one of the most popular things I've ever done because we've had hundreds and hundreds of letters and thousands of requests for everything supporting the flag. Everybody wants it. Everybody wants it up. But the town wants me to take down the American flag, and I told them I'm not doing that. This is probably the wealthiest town  it is the wealthiest town in America, in the United States, and frankly it's a town that wants me to take down a flag and they shouldn't be asking for that. So it's been a very, very problematic situation. I'll be responding to them very shortly. And you know, I'm a big  I'm a very patriotic guy. I'm very proud of the country, and I don't want to take down the American flag. And I don't believe you need permits to put up the American flag."  Long-time Palm Beach Post correspondent Frank Cerabino opined that the Palm Beach flag brouhaha had little or nothing to do with patriotism, but rather was part of a pattern of Trump's using lawsuits to bend local authorities to his will  dredging up excuses to sue them for exorbitant amounts of money, then offering to drop the suits in exchange for agreements that provide him with significant business advantages: Oh, he knew what he was doing. Trump, after all, had been fighting with the town poohbahs from the very moment he'd crashed into the complacent, clubby world of Palm Beach to buy Mar-a-Lago, which turned out to be one of those great deals he couldn't afford. Trump knew from experience that Palm Beach was a stickler for adherence to its ordinances. He had once paid a $5,000 fine to the town for replacing a section of dead hedges with replacements that weren't quite tall enough. But Trump had bigger changes in mind than merely out-flagging his neighbors. He was plainly inviting a lawsuit. The town council took the bait, citing the oversized pole and flag as violations of the town code, and fining Trump $250 a day for every day they remained on the estate. Tucked into his patriotic posturing was a completely unrelated legal matter that he made part of his multi-million lawsuit: a complaint about the town code that requires large commercial enterprises to be "town serving." The town requires proof from local businesses that at least 50 percent of their business comes from town residents. So, for example, when Neiman Marcus opened on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, it was allowed to do so by promising that it would only advertise in the town's newspaper, and not in publications that circulated to shoppers who don't live on the island. For Trump, eliminating the "town serving" requirement would mean that he could offer more memberships to his Mar-a-Lago social club to people who had no connection to Palm Beach, making it easier for him to keep his club full. Softening up the town on the flag issue to pursue some other angle was a classic Trump move. Though he has yet to get this particular exemption waived, Palm Beach has learned from experience that Trump's lawsuits are never settled, just dormant. One of his Palm Beach lawyers said recently that the "town serving" issue is still unresolved and ripe for more litigation. Trump [initially] couldn't afford [to maintain] Mar-a-Lago as a single family home. His proposed solution was to chop his National Historic Landmark into something he called Mansions of Mar-a-Lago, a development that would put a public road through the middle of the estate, which would lead to the 10 mini-mansions he would build on the property, including one on the front lawn. The Palm Beach Town Council shot down all of Trump's proposed changes to the property, even when he reduced his mini-mansion plans from 10 to seven. Instead, they encouraged him to find a buyer if he couldn't afford to keep the estate intact. When the town's government refused to bend to his demands, Trump sued. The lawsuit against the Town of Palm Beach, which would prove to be not his last, would eventually cause his neighbors to lawyer up against him. After his Mansions of Mar-a-Lago plan was rejected, Trump found another way to salvage his stake in Mar-a-Lago. He offered to drop his lawsuit if council members allowed him to convert his estate into a new private club on the island. The Mar-a-Lago Club. While Trump was playing defense against the town's constant attempt to rein him in, he went on the attack against the county and its airport. Airlines routinely used a flight path in and out of Palm Beach International Airport in nearby West Palm Beach that brought the planes directly over Mar-a-Lago. This didn't sit well with Trump, who argued that the noise and fumes were ruining his investment, and that the decent thing for the county to do was to move the airport farther west. Trump had been arguing this for years, to no avail, while calling the airport director Bruce Pelly, among other things, a "moron" and "the worst airport director in the country." It turned out to be a useful gripe for Trump, one that he could turn into a new business opportunity, because just south of the airport was 214 acres of vacant scrub land owned by Palm Beach County, land he wanted. So Trump sued the county for $75 million over the airport noise, then negotiated to drop that lawsuit in exchange for the county giving him a 75-year lease on the nearby property for $438,000 a year. That land became the Trump International Golf Club, a $40 million, 18-hole, Jim Fazio-designed course that imported nearly 2 million cubic yards of dirt to transform the flat scrub land into hilly terrain with waterfalls, rock formations, and a clubhouse four stories above sea level.  This wasn't the only instance of flagpole bickering in Trump's past. He also reached a (non-court) settlement with local government in 2014 after having raised Old Glory on a 70-foot flagpole at the Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, without obtaining a permit first: Signaling a possible resolution to Donald Trump's running flag feud, the California Coastal Commission said the mogul's oversized Old Glory can stay  as long as Rancho Palos Verdes revises its municipal height rules. While not the victory city officials had hoped for, the decision allows for a way forward to legally allow the 70-foot-tall flagpole, which was hoisted without a permit nearly 10 years ago. Having gained the support of much of the coastal city  as well as two City Councils through the years  the flag now likely can get formal state approval provided the city amends its Local Coastal Program that currently limits structure heights to 26 feet. "I'm disappointed at the Trump Organization for putting up that flag without adhering to the rule of law," said Coastal Commissioner Wendy Mitchell. Commission staff members had recommended that the flagpole be reduced in height to 26 feet and moved closer to the clubhouse on the 240-acre Trump National Golf Course property.  Apgar, Sally.  "Trump Settles Dispute Over Flag."   [Palm Beach] Sun Sentinel.  24 April 2007. Cerabino, Frank.  "Trump's War with Palm Beach."   Politico.  5 September 2015. Gibson, John.  "Donald Trump's Flag Fight."   FoxNews.com.  2 November 2006. Littlejohn, Donna.  "Coastal Commission Lets Donald Trump's Giant Flagpole Stand."   The Daily Breeze.  9 July 2014. Associated Press.  "Donald Trump Files $10 Million Lawsuit Against Palm Beach."   FoxNews.com.  25 December 2006. Associated Press.  "City to Trump: You're Fined!"   CNN.com.  19 January 2007. Stempel, Jonathan and Jonathan Allen.  "New York Sues Trump and His Charity Over 'Self-Dealing.'   Reuters.  14 June 2018. In April 2021, an image went viral on social media platforms that was represented as follows:"This is not a painting. It is the most detailed image of a human cell to date, obtained via radiography, nuclear MRI, and cryoelectronic microscopy." As we'll explain below, that description is completely inaccurate. First, here's an example of the miscaptioned image as posted on Facebook in late 2022:  Contrary to what the caption claims, this is a painting of sorts -- a digital illustrationby an artist named Russell Kightley. It is not the most detailed image of a human cell to date -- in fact, it is, in Kightley's words, a "generalized animal cell," not specifically a human cell. Nor was the image obtained via radiography, nuclear MRI, or cryoelectronic microscopy. All of that was made up out of whole cloth. Kightley created the image with graphics software. digital illustration Russell Kightley As Kightley has written on his blog, the image has repeatedly gone viral since April 2021, almost never with an accurate description or proper credit to the artist (AFP fact-checked viral versions of the image in July 2021). Kightley wrote: has written on his blog AFP fact-checked The image was created twenty years ago for an educational poster for BioCam. It took six weeks of full-time work to create using Painter (Fractal Design's Painter as it was, now it's managed by Corel). Since then, it's appeared in lots of places, including Richard Dawkins's book, The Greatest Show on Earth (plates 12-13 c). It's available on prints and merchandise and for licensing (publication, academic use, etc.). If you want to print it out for your home or office you can buy the digital file here. If you want it for teaching, you can get the 700-pixel file here. BioCam prints and merchandise 700-pixel file Of the conception and design of the illustration, Kightley wrote: I wanted it to look like an opened jewelry box, for the glint and sense of wonder at the inner workings. The colors are arbitrary, but I've used greenish-blue for plasma membranes and red or purple for DNA for many years. It's a generalized animal (including human) cell, with no specializations and was designed as a basic biology teaching tool. I have spent many years creating cell and virus illustrations and animations, including pioneering work on animating the HIV life cycle back in 1990-1991, where I created internal cellular landscapes (using electronic paint on a Quantel Paintbox) and originated this style of illustration. You can learn more about the artist and view more of his work on RussellKightey.com. RussellKightey.com "Animal Cell on White by Russell Kightley." Russell Kightley - Website, https://russell-kightley.pixels.com/featured/animal-cell-on-white-russell-kightley.html. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. "Illustration of Animal Cell Misrepresented as 'Most Detailed Image of Human Cell.'" Fact Check, 27 July 2021, https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9GD4Z3-6. Kightley, Russell. "Animal Cell Goes Viral AGAIN." Russell Kightley, 25 July 2021, https://www.russellkightley.com/post/animal-cell-goes-viral-again. "Russelly." Russell Kightley, https://www.russellkightley.com/russelly. Accessed 12 Jan. 2023. Claim:  Photograph shows Detroit slums with downtown skyscrapers in the background. REAL PHOTOGRAPH; INACCURATE DESCRIPTION Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2009] Several website list this photograph as Detroit. The skyline looks likely, but the slum in front looks more like a composite of the edge of a Brazilian city with the modern Detroit skyline. Is this photo legitimate? Ive only been to Detroit once, and while I wanted to kill myself after driving through, I dont remember it being this bad.    Origins:  Just as the recent financial woes of the "Big Three" U.S. automobile manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) have been held up as exemplars of the decline of American industry, so has their home base  Detroit, Michigan  been offered as symbolic of the decay of the "rust belt" manufacturing-industrial cities of the northeastern United States. Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the U.S., a booming industrial metropolis that in 1950 boasted a population of 1.85 million.  By 2009 it was home to less than half as many people (770,000), the median household income of its remaining residents was $28,370 (about half the national average), and the median home price was a minuscule $7,100.  The news magazine The Week described Detroit's modern status thusly in October 2009: Outside the city's downtown core of office buildings, Detroit looks like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The collapse of the auto industry, political dysfunction, and epidemics of crime, drugs, and arson have battered Detroit like a slow-motion hurricane,  leveling entire neighborhoods and causing a major chunk of the population to flee. Nearly 30 percent of the city, an area almost the size of San Francisco, has been abandoned to "urban prairie"  vast depopulated stretches of high grass and shattered asphalt. An Asian plant species sometimes called "ghetto palm" sprouts from the remains of abandoned buildings, where wild pheasants are occasionally sighted. The torched skeletons of homes are commonplace. In the 1980s and '90s, demolition permits outnumbered building permits by more than 10-1. Nearly 30 percent of the city's remaining housing stock  more than 100,000 units  lies vacant. Although the above-displayed photograph of a shantytown juxtaposed against the background of a gleaming, skyscraper-filled downtown core might superficially match a description of modern Detroit, elements of the picture don't match that location.  (It's unlikely, for example, that either residents of the thin wood and tin-sheet shacks or palm trees could survive the harshly low wintertime temperatures common to that area.) This type of picture is one that, unfortunately, could have been snapped in any number of places around the world.  Specifically, it's a photograph of Makati, which is part of the greater metropolitan area of the Philippine capital city of Manila and is an international financial and commercial hub.  It's not uncommon for news stories to feature photographs of Makati as a way of illustrating growing economic disparities found within some rapidly developing countries and regions:   Shanty houses are cramped in the foreground while construction of new high rise buildings rise in the background at Manila's financial district of Makati. Asia is broadly on track to reduce extreme poverty by half by 2015, reflecting the positive impact of its dynamic economy in the lives of its nearly four billion people, according to a joint report released by the Asian Development Bank and the UN Development Programme in Manila. Another photograph of Makati taken from a similar vantage point can be seen in a 2006 BusinessWeek article about squatter cities. photograph article Last updated:  8 September 2013    The Week.  "Detroit: A City on the Brink."