Was 'How To Hit a Woman So No One Knows' Googled 163M Times in 2020?
In late April 2021, social media posts, like the one displayed below, Google users allegedly asked the search engine "how to a hit a woman so now one knows" more often during the first phase of lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 than during the same time frame the previous year. COVID-19   The claim originated from media sources including Blavity (a Los Angeles-based platform serving Black millennials), UNILAD (a British media outlet), and MSNBC (an American cable network owned by NBC Universal). Blavity UNILAD We obtained an archived version of an April 26 opinion column by the latter outlet, a piece of commentary that cited peer-reviewed research analyzing Google searches from the beginning of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020 to the end of August that year. The MSNBC article said: archived version [Millions] of men appear to be doing some very specific research about how to assault the women around them. Published in The Journal of General Psychology, the study was led by Katerina Standish, the deputy director and senior lecturer at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. 'How to hit a woman so no one knows' was typed into Google 163 million times, a 31 percent increase compared to 2019. In other words, Google users purportedly searched "how to hit a woman so no one knows" 163 million times between March and August 2020, and that number was 31 percent higher than the amount of same searches during those months the previous year. However, that was not true. One day after the MSNBC column published, onlookers identified flaws in the research's methodology, and its author confirmed the findings were inaccurate. As a result, the news outlet removed the above-transcribed section from its article citing the research. (That updated version of the story remained live online as of this writing.) updated version We looked at Google search data ourselves. By searching the phrase "how to hit a woman so no one knows," the platform produces billions of returns  or websites or posts that contain those keywords. That is not the same as the number of times users searched the question (we explain how to find that quantity below), and it appeared to grow significantly after the MSNBC article and other media coverage. appeared   By using the separate Google Trends search engine -- a tool that compiles data for Google search queries worldwide -- we learned that relatively no one used the website to look for information on "how to hit a woman so no one knows," including during the time window referenced in the study (March to August 2020).   Next, to fully explore the issue, we reached out to Standish (the author of the study called, "COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase") to learn about her research process and its shortcomings. COVID-19, suicide, and femicide: Rapid Research using Google search phrase She responded to us via email, saying she indeed mistook the amount of search returns for the number of times Google users entered the phrase looking for answers. After the revelation, she said she alerted The Journal of General Psychology of the error and requested an assessment of the entire study. "The results are meaningless ... all I have done is demonstrate a rise in web pages over the year. Not at all what I thought I was doing," Standish said. "[The] goal of the study was to look for people who were hurting to elevate what they are going through and to help." Additionally, Standish apologized for the research's flaws on Twitter:    "The first time I googled these terms my heart skipped...I was shocked," she continued in a tweet thread. "I sincerely apologise and will make amends." In sum, we rate this claim "false"  millions of people, presumably men, did not turn to Google for help to seemingly conceal physical abuse against their female partners during the early months of the pandemic. If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse from an intimate partner, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or text LOVEIS to 22522 for anonymous, confidential help. Natio nal  Domestic Violence Hotline This report was updated with comments from the researcher to Snopes.
Claim:  Former football coach Lou Holtz penned an essay about 'Two Americas." INCORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, December 2014]  Did Lou Holtz really say this or is it yet another hoax? See the text below. I tried to search for it on your site and can not find it.  The Democrats are right, there are two Americas. The America that works and the America that doesn't. The America that contributes and the America that doesn't. It's not the haves and the have nots, it's the dos and the dont's. Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society and others don't. That's the divide in America. It's not about income inequality, it's about civic irresponsibility. It's about a political party that preaches hatred, greed, and victimization in order to win elective office. It's about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That's not invective, that's truth, and it's about time someone said it. The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting "income inequality." He noted that some people make more than other people, and that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that's not just. That is the rationale of thievery.  It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America. It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal. The Democrats have not empowered their followers; they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope. The president's premise  that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful  seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices, because, by and large, income variations in society are a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibly have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income. You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college  and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education. You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course. Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take. My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our lives also have had an in equality of effort. While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine. Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes. It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away; it is freedom, the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure. The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy. Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy made a lifetime's worth of asinine and short sighted decisions. Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort. The simple Law of the Harvest  as ye sow, so shall ye reap  is sometimes applied as, "The harder you work, the more you get." Obama would turn that upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society. Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity. He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes; it is divided by the differences in our efforts. It is a false philosophy to say one man's success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man's victimization. What Obama offered was not a solution, but separatism. He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political benefit. That's what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow. Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln's maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand. [Click here to expand text]. [Click here to expand text] Origins:  Shortly after President Obama gave a speech about income inequality in December 2013, writer Bob Lonsberry published an  speech essay on his web site titled "Two Americas" about the "The America that works, and the America that doesnt." essay The article didn't initially gain too much attention, but that situation changed when the text of Lonsberry's essay started circulating via e-mail with former football coach Lou Holtz's name featured prominently at the top in ways that inaccurately suggested he was the article's author, such as "Lou Holtz Nails It!", "Told As Only a Coach, An Old Coach Can," "Lou Holtz on America Today," and "Lou Holtz's Viewpoint."  As Bob Lonsberry has confirmed, however, the "Two Americas" essay was not penned by a famous former football coach. It was written and originally published by Lonsberry on his own web site on 9 December 2013.   Last updated:  30 December 2014 U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking in Austin, bemoaned widening income differences between the countrys very rich and the rest of us. And in his remarks at aSouth Austin union hall, the Vermont independentmulling a runfor the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination also warned about American failures to save money. Heres something not talked about, something that can make us all very, very nervous, Sanders said. Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account. And you know what that means and you know why people are so stressed out? If you have less than $10,000, he said, that means an automobile accident, a divorce, a serious illness, a crisis of one kind or another can drive you into bankruptcy and financial disaster. Is he right that half of us have less than $10K in savings? Sanders backup To our inquiry, a Sanders spokesman, Jeff Franks, said by email that Sanders relied on an April 2014USA Todaynews storyquoting a survey indicating 52 percent of U.S. workers had said they had less than $10,000 in total savings and investments, such as a 401(k) or IRA, that could be used for retirement. It did not include their homes or defined benefit plans, such as traditional pensions that could be used for retirement Specifically, the story said, 36 percent of workers said they had less than $1,000 in such savings and investments with another 16 percent of workers reporting $1,000 to $9,999 in such savings and investments. Those results came from a telephone survey of 1,000 workers and 501 retirees by the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald and Associates. Next, we spotted a chart on the institutes website drawn from the same 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey. The 52 percent of workers reporting less than $10,000 in savings and investments in 2014 is up from 39 percent in 2009, the chart shows. Of course, workers isnt all of us. We called the Washington, D.C.-based institute,which saysit was founded in 1978 to deliver unbiased information on employee benefit plans so that decisions affecting the system may be made based on verifiable facts. By phone, researcher Craig Copeland told us that overall, 51 percent of survey respondents, meaning retirees and others, had less than $10,000 in financial savings. Also by phone, Ruth Helman of Greenwald and Associates, which helped do the survey, paused at the senators wording. Strictly speaking, their savings account isnt correct. Its total savings wherever it may be, under the mattress or wherever, Helman said. Federal Reserve Bank We wondered if there were other ways of looking at savings. Several experts urged us to contact the Federal Reserve Bank, which conducts a survey focused on consumer finances every three years.Its latest survey, drawing on data collected in 2013, resulted in a chart pointed out by Copeland indicating that the median value of financial savings outside of a pension or home reported by the nearly 95 percent of families who had bank accounts or stocks, bonds and other financial assets that year was $21,200, down from $23,000 in the boards 2010 survey. SOURCE:Report,Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, September 2014 Copeland said that given that more than 5 percent of families reported no such financial assets, its reasonable to speculate that families overall had median financial savings of less than $20,000. We also asked reserve board officials to analyze the senators savings accounts statement. By phone, William Emmons and Bryan Noeth, both employed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, raised questions. For instance, why not count a familys home or pension as part of its savings? Reminder: The institute, with its focus on savings for retirement, set aside these asset categories. Emmons said: People do count on their housing equity, not only in retirement, but before that. Beyond that, the pair said, its not always meaningful to focus on money held in savings accounts, which are a single wealth indicator. A savings account isnt where everybody holds their money, Noeth said. The two said a potentially superior way to gauge how Americans are faring, savings-wise, would be to consider net worth meaning family assets compared to debts. An agency manager, Adriene Dempsey, emailed usa spreadsheetshowing that according to the boards 2013 survey, 26 percent of U.S. families had less than $10,000 in net worth--a tick worse than the 25 percent of families according to its 2010 study. In 2013, half of American families had about $81,500 in net wealth or more, according to the spreadsheet. Total assets for a family include financial assets, such as bank accounts, mutual funds and securities plus tangible assets, including real estate, vehicles and durable goods, according to aFebruary 2015 essayby the St. Louis Fed.Weve elaborated on this here. So by the net-worth metric, more families are better off than if one focused on financial savings alone. We ran this net worth angle past the institutes Coleman, who reminded by email that its survey (relied on by Sanders) took into account financial assets, not just savings accounts. Our ruling Sanders said: Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account. Some clarification went missing here: A 2014 survey indicated about half of American adults had less than $10,000 in savings and investments, such as a 401(k) or IRA, that could be used for retirement; those results encompassed more than savings accounts. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. In early October 2018, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a dire report stating that unprecedented efforts were needed in order to prevent destabilization of Earth's climate. The report reignited (at least briefly) interest in global warming and climate change and drew social media's attention toward an image comparison supposedly documenting the stark changes seen in photographs of the same spot in the Arctic taken 103 years apart: unprecedented efforts image   This image comparison was part of a 2003 series created by photographer Christian slund and Greenpeace, titled "Glacier comparison  Svalbard." The series, which featured seven such comparisons, used archival photographs from the Norwegian Polar Institute taken in the early 1900s and contemporary photographs shot in the same locations by slund. Glacier comparison  Svalbard The photographer talked briefly about this project in an interview with National Geographic in 2017: National Geographic Whats the most remarkable assignment youve done for Greenpeace? It's got to be the glacier comparison that we did [at Svalbard] because it's interesting on so many levelsour access to the archives there from the early 1900s, and then being able to trace where the photographers were, because we didn't know exactly where they shot from. We had to track down where the photos were taken, and then go on location and then sort of follow their footsteps. It's been quite a few years. I shot this in 2003. Knowledge of climate change wasn't as common, our attitudes towards climate change were different. Now more or less everyone knows it's a fact. It'd be interesting to go back and shoot from the exact same locations again. Here's another image from that series:   We came across a few comments underneath a posting of this viral photograph expressing skepticism that these pictures documented the results of climate change, rather than simply capturing ordinary seasonal changes. The top image, they posited, was taken in the winter, while the bottom image was snapped during the summer. We reached out to slund for more information about the viral comparison images, and he told us that both of the photographs were taken during the summer months: Both of the images are from the summer season. It was July [when] I took my image and should be around the same for the archive pic. You can see it on the lack of snow on the mountains, winters the peaks would be covered. Also, the lack of sea ice. It wouldnt be open water like that in the winter. Of course, these photographs alone don't "prove" climate change, but they are nonetheless visual records that document some significant differences seen in the Arctic landscape across the span of a century. Irfan, Umair.  "Report: We Have Just 12 Years to Limit Devastating Global Warming."
  Vox.  8 October 2018. Brown, Rachel.  "Pictures Show Climate Change's Dramatic Arctic Impact."
  National Geographic.  13 March 2017. President Joe Biden recently lauded once and possibly future Gov. Terry McAuliffes record as a job creator when he led Virginia from 2014 to 2018. Unemployment went down in every single county, including rural Virginia by nearly 50%,Biden saidduring a July 23 campaign speech for McAuliffe in Arlington County. Bidens statement has a familiar ring; McAuliffe has madesimilar claimsfor years. As we examine the presidents claim, keep in mind that McAuliffe was governor during a prosperous time. The United States had shaken the Great Recession and was well advanced into what became arecord 128-montheconomic expansion. Both the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed people dropped in all 95 Virginia counties and 38 cities during McAuliffes term, according todatafrom the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Virginia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was5%when McAuliffe took office in January 2014 and sank to3.6%during his last full month as governor in December 2017. During the same span, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped from6.7%to4.1%. Virginia had the13thlowest unemployment rate among states and the District of Columbia when McAuliffe took office. It ranked17thin the nation when he left. The number of unemployed Virginians fell from almost228,000to about144,000during McAuliffes term  a 37% decrease. The number of unemployed people in the U.S. dropped from almost10.2 millionto almost6.6 millionduring the same time  a 35%  decrease. To define rural areas in the state, we relied on amapposted by the Virginia Department Health that identifies rural counties and towns. Then we added BLS estimates for the number of unemployed people in each of those 50 localities. There were about 37,000 unemployed people in those rural areas when McAuliffe took office and 22,500 when he left. Thats a 39% decrease which, although sizable, seems a little below Bidens claim of almost 50%. We asked the White House for the evidence supporting Bidens statement and did not hear back. McAuliffes campaign tied the presidents remark to a 2018PolitiFact Virginia fact-checkon a similar claim by the former governor. McAuliffe said that when he had been governor, every single city and county in Virginia, their unemployment dropped, and in most of the rural communities, it dropped by over 50 percent. We rated McAuliffes statement Mostly True, taking slight issue with the part of his claim that most rural areas saw their unemployment cut by more than half. If McAuliffe had said most rural localities had seen a 45 percent drop in their number of unemployed people, he would have been correct, we wrote. Bidens statement, however, is slightly different. He says unemployment went down across rural Virginia by nearly 50%. That requires different math than McAuliffes claim. PolitiFact usually puts a caveat on fact-checks about employment numbers. Although presidents, governors and mayors love to take credit for good numbers, economists generally say politicians have only a marginal effect on the numbers. The economy, they say, ebbs and flows with global trends over which politicians have little control. While Virginia unemployment significantly fell during McAuliffes years, the decreases were in step with national trends. Biden said that during McAuliffes term as governor, Unemployment went down in every single county, including rural Virginia by nearly 50%. Biden is right on the first part; each Virginia locality did see a drop in unemployment during McAuliffes term from 2014 to 2018. McAuliffe governed during boom years and unemployment rates fell in every state. The second part of Bidens statement, that unemployment decreased by almost 50 percent in rural Virginia, is slightly inflated. It fell by 39%. On the whole, we rate Bidens statement Mostly True. In mid-July 2018, outraged social media users shared a meme reporting that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump was forcing migrants to pay $800 in out-of-pocket costs to prove familial ties in order to regain custody of children taken from them under the government's "zero tolerance" immigration policy:   The text of the meme was based on a 10 July 2018 story originally reported by the Daily Beast, whose journalists spoke with Ruben Garcia, director of the El Paso immigrant shelter Annunciation House, and an immigration attorney, Iliana Holguin. In telephone interviews with Snopes.com, both of those individuals confirmed their accounting of the details in the Daily Beast's report: four adults (three mothers and one older sister) asserted that government social workers had told them they'd have to fork over $700 to $800 for DNA tests proving their relationship to separated children before they could get their kids back. story DNA tests Shortly after the story broke, however, both Garcia and Holguin reported to us that the government had abruptly changed course, with the former telling us: If you ask me the question, 'Do you know for a fact that any of those parent had to pay the money [for a DNA test]?' I do not. We had about five people who at that point said they were told they would probably have to pay for [the DNA tests]. Since that story came out, the whole scenery has changed because [the government] has now moved aggressively to reunite and release all of these kids. Holguin told us no formal request was ever made for the women to pay for the tests. She described the entirety of "zero tolerance" and its aftermath as "very chaotic" and said that conflicting information had been the norm throughout. "With the DNA test, I think someone at one point said it, someone repeated it  things were changing so quickly that it was just impossible to know at any given at any moment. The left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing." We reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency tasked with coordinating the care of unaccompanied immigrant children. An agency representative told us HHS, not immigrant families, pays for DNA testing. The federal government is rushing to meet a deadline set by a federal judge after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued for an injunction on family separations under "zero tolerance," a policy initiated by the Trump administration in April 2018. Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California gave federal agencies until 10 July 2018 to reunify children under five years of age with their respective adults, and until 26 July 2018 to reunify kids five through 17 years old. deadline policy According to a status report submitted to the court by HHS on 13 July 2018, not all families with children in the older age cohort will be subjected to DNA tests, as HHS has truncated its process for confirming family relationships to meet the looming deadline for reunification. In a statement, HHS spokesperson Evelyn Stauffer said: The department has been operating in good faith and earnestly trying to comply with court orders, including the rapidly approaching deadline for reunification. Our interpretation of the court's order is that HHS must make a determination of parentage, fitness, and safety before reunifying families, but that HHS need not undertake the fuller process of vetting for children's safety that HHS would ordinarily conduct in its operations. In the interests of transparency and cooperation, the department felt it necessary in our filings on Friday to share with the court our view that meeting the deadline would mean truncating the process we might have otherwise followed. Within the time the court allows, we will strive to implement the most comprehensive procedures possible to ensure child welfare. We look forward to continuing our close work with the court to accomplish the goals we share of safe, expeditious reunification. Under "zero tolerance," all immigrants caught crossing the southern border between ports of entry were charged with crimes  mostly misdemeanors. Adults accompanied by children were separated from them and, initially, the U.S. government appeared to have no plan to reunify families. no plan With court orders and pressure mounted by public outrage over the policy, the Trump administration has more or less reversed course. Garcia told us the federal government would begin reuniting the remainder of separated families at centralized locations in Arizona and Texas in the coming week in order to meet the court's 26 July 2018 deadline. Judge Sabraw also temporarily halted deportations of those families to give them time to decide whether to leave children behind in the United States in hopes they will win their asylum cases, or to be deported together. outrage Glawe, Justin, and Adam Rawnsley.  "Government Told Immigrant Parents to Pay for DNA Tests to Get Kids Back, Advocate Says."
  The Daily Beast.  10 July 2018. Hals, Tom.  "All Migrant Kids Under Five to Be Back With Parents by Thursday: U.S. Official."
  Reuters.  11 July 2018. Associated Press.  "Texas Shelter: US Flying Kids for Reunifications."
  16 July 2018. Morrisey, Kate.  "Judge Temporarily Halts Deportations of Reunified Families."
  San Diego Union-Tribune.  16 July 2018. Claim:  Osama bin Laden owns Snapple.   . Origins:  Snapple, the popular beverage company begun in 1972, has been a target of spurious "owned by someone evil" rumors since 1992. Those earlier (and entirely baseless) rumors linked the company with the Ku Klux Klan, not an Arab terrorist. (The KKK-Snapple connection was but one of many similar slanders tying a number of innocent businesses to the KKK  that particularrumored association was far from unique to Snapple.) rumored association But   times change, and so do those whom society views as the evildoers of the hour. Though the KKK is as odious as ever, its particular brand of detestability has been eclipsed by that of the terrorists cowering in the mountains of Afghanistan. One of the many rumors born in the aftermath of the September 11 attack on America links Snapple with Osama bin Laden and calls for a grassroots boycott of this company's line of products. Although bombs seem the obvious way to go after those who perpetrated the terrorist attacks on America, the real key to their undoing may well be economic. But that's not nearly as visceral a solution as going into Afghanistan with a war cry and guns blazing, and it's not one which the average person can participate in or support in a tangible way, and so rumors like the one tying Snapple to Osama bin Laden help fill the void.  The typical American wants to experience the sense of vindication that comes from toppling this manifestation of evil, and so calls to boycott companies which are rumored to be filling the war chests of bin Laden and his cronies therefore fall on highly receptive ears  many want to feel they're part of the struggle, but the very nature of the battle denies them that opportunity. Becoming part of an economic boycott would restore at least a part of that yearning for participation. That type of rumor, though highly welcome, often outruns the facts. That is the case with the call to spurn Snapple: In a lengthy Snapple press release, CEO Michael Weinstein wrote: press release Snapple has never had  and does not now  have any direct or indirect relationship of any kind whatsoever with Osama bin Laden or any other terrorist group or supporter. That same press release contains the likely reason behind this particular blossoming of the "allied with evil" rumor: If the source of these rumors is over our terminated relationship with a Saudi Arabian food distributorship, let me clarify this once and for all. Some of our products  along with products from other respected American beverage and food companies  were distributed by a company that had an investment from The Saudi Binladin Group. Snapple has never had any reason to believe, nor do we now, that this company had any relationship of any kind with terrorists. Nonetheless, several weeks ago, we terminated our relationship with this distributorship. Those unfamiliar with the Binladin Group might conclude from its name that it is Osama bin Laden's corporate presence. In truth, the Binladin Group is one of the many corporate entities owned or participated in by any number of Osama bin Laden's relatives, many of whom spell their surnames as Binladin. The infamous terrorist hails from a family that is both very large and incredibly wealthy. Osama has 54 siblings, and untangling the web of the family's finances and business associations is nearly an impossible task. Though it cannot absolutely be ruled out some of the income flowing into any of these entities reaches Osama bin Laden, it is widely understood that he is the family's black sheep and that many members of this wide-reaching and far-flung assembly of relatives have utterly disowned him.  Osama's half-brother, 35-year-old Abdullah Mohammed Binladin, the only member of the family to speak publicly about their notorious relative since September 11, said: "I affirm that the Binladin family and the Saudi Binladin Group have no relationship whatsoever with Osama or any of his activities. He shares no legal or beneficial interests with them or their assets or properties, and he is not directly or indirectly funded by them."  As to who does own Snapple, it's now part of Cadbury Schweppes, a large UK corporation famous primarily for chocolate and carbonated beverages. Cadbury Schweppes is a publicly traded company on the London Exchange. It is therefore not owned by any one person, but by  thousands. Snapple originated as Unadulterated Food Corporation in 1972 and was little more than a hobby enterprise begun by Leonard Marsh, Hyman Golden, and Arnold Greenberg, who at the time were selling juices to health food stores. The first of its famed teas wasn't introduced until 1987, and the success of that line changed the company. The concern was acquired by Quaker [Oats] in 1994, sold to Triarc in 1997, and sold again to Cadbury Schweppes in 2000.  Untangling the web of who owns what will be one of the biggest tasks those charged with fighting terrorism on the economic front will face in the years to come. It is more than likely the effort will prove that at least some of the terrorists or those who provide their funding have holdings in a variety of American companies that are innocently unaware of the details of each of their minor shareholders' private lives. (The international world of finance being what it is, a diversified portfolio is a must, and that holds true for terrorists as well as for the law-abiding.) That will not mean that those companies whose shares turn up in the wrong hands support terrorism; merely that one of the nasties bought a bit of stock without their knowing who he really was. When such holdings come to light, there will be an outcry against those companies as those looking for someone to direct their anger towards will at least momentarily feel they've found someone deserving of their ire. They'll be wrong, but that will probably do little to stem the tide of criticism they'll unleash. Barbara "who let the dogs out?" Mikkelson Last updated:  21 April 2008    Sources:  Dobbs, Michael and John Ward Anderson.  "A Fugitive's Splintered Family Tree."  The Washington Post.  30 September 2001  (p. A1).   Dunley, Ruth.  "Osama's 'The Black Sheep,' Brother Says."  The Ottawa Citizen.  8 October 2001  (p. A6). Claim:  In June 2012, 79% of General Motors' sales were made to the U.S. federal government.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2012] I just received the following & while it seems phony, I sure would liketo know.  "79% of GM's sales last month were government purchased" Remember how obama keeps telling us how he saved GM, and how our economy is getting better, it seems the car company he bought is being saved by Govt employees using our tax money to buy new cars. 79% of GMs sales last month was government purchased.  Origins:  In July 2012 the above-referenced item began circulating (based on information propagated by web sites such as this one), claiming that a whopping 79% of automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) sales in June 2012 came from purchases of vehicles by the (federal) government and suggesting that the Obama administration had engineered such purchases in order to make GM "appear financially strong" just in time for its upcoming quarterly report  all to justify the President's 2009 decision to provide billions of dollars in federal aid to allow GM and Chrysler to restructure after government-backed bankruptcies. this one However, a closer reading the source material on which the claim was based reveals that it is not true that "79% of GM's sales [in June 2012] were government purchased."  The 79% figure refers to the percentage by which GM's government fleet sales increased for the month, not to the proportion of GM's overall sales that came from government purchases. Moreover, the phrase "government purchases" doesn't refer only to the federal government: state, county, and municipal governments  whose purchasing decisions are not directed by the White House  are also large automotive fleet sales customers. source material fleet sales A General Motors spokesman maintained in a response that the percentage of GM's overall June 2012 sales attributable to government purchases was rather low and the bulk of those purchases were from non-federal government agencies: GM sales spokesman, Jim Cain, points out that total government sales for GM in June were still below 5% of total sales and [the] majority of government sales increases were attributed to state and local governments. Bloomberg news reported that all fleet sales (including purchases by rental car companies, typically the largest fleet customers) made up only 32% of GM's overall sales in June 2012.  This number was comparable to that reported by Ford, who said  fleet sales accounted for 35% of their deliveries that month. Last updated:  10 September 2012    Trudell, Craig.  "Auto Sales in June Provided Bright Spot for U.S. Economy."   Bloomberg.  3 July 2012.    Press Release.  "GM Reports June U.S. Sales Up 16 Percent."   General Motors.  3 July 2012. On 8 March 2018, the liberal Facebook page "The Other 98%" posted a meme reporting that 100,000 jobs at aerospace and airplane manufacturing giant Boeing will be lost  because President Donald Trump has reneged on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal:   The claim that 100,000 American manufacturing jobs would be lost likely came from a Marketwatch report, which states: report Boeing announced the largest of its deals with Iranian airlines in December 2016: 80 jets for Iran Air  including 50 of the 737 MAX 8 model. In April 2017, Iran Aseman Airlines signed an agreement to purchase 30 Boeing 737 MAX planes, with an option to buy 30 more. Boeing at the time said the Iran Air deal would support 100,000 U.S. jobs. Dan Curran, a spokesman for Boeing, told us in a statement that the company expects the effect on jobs from the policy reversal to be "minimal," if there's any at all: The production plan that we have put in place was not and is not dependent on the Iranian orders. Boeing has a robust sales backlog of more than 5,800 airplanes, which represents about 7 years of production. Iranian airlines were not included in our order backlog. And there has been no change to our backlog or production rates as a result of the Administrations announcement. At an event in Washington, D.C., Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company had planned for the possibility that the U.S. could back out of the agreement by not committing production slots for planes slated for Iran. event It's too early to know how blowback from the policy reversal will impact Boeing and the economy as a whole, as financial publication TheStreet.com points out: Bernstein's analysts said there may be as much of a chance for Boeing to profit on an Iran fallout as not. "For defense contractors with significant Middle Eastern exposure, heightened regional tensions could drive increased demand for missile defense, in particular, but potentially also aircraft, ships, missiles, and vehicles," Harned and company wrote. [...] Various analysts, including Seaport's Sullivan and Bernstein's Harned, Laughlin and Sheey, were not overly concerned with Boeing falling behind on that production rate. The company has said it did not model the Iranian order into its production rate forecast for the 777 and the order was not part of its firm backlog of those jets as of April, which totaled 94. Any loss to 737 deliveries due to the Iranian deal would also be immaterial given the company had a backlog of 4,622 of those jets as of April. French aircraft dealer Airbus will also lose roughly $20 billion in business as a result of Trump's decision, because although the company is based in Europe, parts used to manufacture the planes are made in the United States. Among other large companies that stand to lose as a result of the decision are General Electric, Volkswagen, and Total, as CNN Money reports: reports Total (TOT), the French oil and gas company, signed a $2 billion agreement to help develop Iran's giant South Pars gas field, together with Chinese state oil company CNPC. Now the company is worried the agreement could collapse in the face of new sanctions. General Electric (GE) received millions of dollars in orders from Iran in 2017, according to company filings, for its oil and gas business. This includes orders for machine parts and equipment used in gas plants. [...] And in 2017, Germany's Volkswagen (VLKAF) announced that it would sell cars in Iran for the first time in 17 years. Koning Beals, Rachel."Boeing Will Lose Out on $20 Billion in Iran Deals as Airbus, GE Impacted."
Marketwatch.8 May 2018. Terrarosa, Tom."Boeing's Gains From Rising War Fears Could Offset Lost Iran Jet Deal."
TheStreet.com.9 May 2018. Riley, Charles, and Horowitz, Julia."Iran Deal: Who Loses as US Sanctions Return."
CNN Money.9 May 2018. DiChristopher, Tom."Trump's Iran Nuclear Deal Exit May Spark a Sanctions Battle With Europe That Uncle Sam Already Lost Once."
CNBC.9 May 2018. Tankersley, Jim, andKitroeff, Natalie. "Boeing C.E.O. Downplays Loss of $20 Billion Contract With Iran."
The New York Times.9 May 2018. Activists participating inOccupy Wall Street, a movement that protests greed, corporate influence and unemployment, began camping out in New Yorks financial district in September 2011 and have spawnedsimilardemonstrationsaround the country.Supporters include the left-leaning political advocacy groupMoveOn.organdRuss Feingold, the former Democratic U.S. senator from Wisconsin, whosaidaccountability for corporate greed is long overdue.As part of what is being billed as aninternational protest, local offshoots of the Occupy Wall Streetplanto demonstrate in Milwaukee, Madison and Appleton on Oct. 15, 2011.On Oct. 4, 2011, Wisconsin Public Radio hostJoyCardindiscussedthe demonstrations withMatthew Rothschild, editor and publisher of The Progressive. The 102-year-old Madison magazinecallsitselfone of the leading voices for peace and social justice in this country.When Cardin asked Rothschild why younger people are leading the demonstrations, he said: The unemployment rate for people between the ages of 16 and 24 in this country is 18.4 percent, which is a 60-year high.Is the rate for younger workers that high?Unemployment has been a major issue since the start of the recession in December 2007 -- and not just for people in their late teens and early 20s.The U.S. Department of Laborreported, for example, that in December 2009, unemployment reached a record 7.2 percent among people ages 55 and over and that people in that age group spent an average of 35 weeks out of work -- considerably more than the average of 23 weeks for unemployed people ages 16 to 24.In making his claim about younger workers, Rothschild told us he was quoting an April 2011reportfrom theEconomic Policy Institute.It said: In 2010, the unemployment rate for workers age 16-24 was 18.4 percent  the worst on record in the 60 years that this data has been tracked.So, although Rothschild said the current rate of unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 is at a 60-year high, he was referring to the annual rate for 2010.The Economic Policy Institute is a liberal-leaning Washington, D.C. think tank thatsaysit seeks to broaden discussions about economic policy to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers.Its report -- which urges substantial additional stimulus spending by the federal government to create jobs for younger workers -- says the unemployment statistics came from theU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau is the federal governments statistics keeper on unemployment.We queried the Bureau of Labor Statistics database to create achartshowing the monthly and annual unemployment rates for people ages 16 to 24 from 1948 through August 2011.We found that the Economic Policy Institute report was correct: Unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 was 18.4 percent in 2010; and that rate is higher than any annual rate dating back to when statistics were first kept in 1948. Thats more than 60 years.The next-highest annual rates, each exceeding 17 percent, were posted in 1982, 1983 and 2009.In each of the first eight months of 2011, however, the rate has been below the 2010 mark of 18.4 percent.Unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 was 17.7 percent in August 2011, the most recent month for which statistics are available. And the year-to-date average is 17.6 percent.So, the rate is lower today than it was for 2010 as a whole, though only eight months of 2011 are accounted for. We dont know, of course, how the year will end up.Our conclusionRothschild said unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 is 18.4 percent, which is a 60-year high. The 18.4 percent is correct as the average rate for 2010, and that average annual rate is the highest in more than 60 years. More recent figures, however, show the unemployment rate among people ages 16 to 24 has dipped below 18 percent in 2011, at least through August.We rate Rothschilds statement Mostly True. One of the arguments made by the Trump administration for lowering the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States is that the costs of refugee resettlement outweigh its benefits. lowering Estimates vary on the total annual cost of processing and resettling refugees in the U.S., but a rough breakdown by the National Conference of State Legislatures put the total expenditures for accepting approximately 70,000 refugees in 2014 at $582 million.These cost estimates rarely attempt to take into account any economic benefits refugees might provide to the countries that take them in. According to a Facebook meme making the rounds since mid-2018, just such an analysis was undertaken by the Trump administration, but the results were suppressed because they undercut the official position:A recently leaked federal study found that refugees to America brought in $63 billion in government revenues than they cost in the last 10 years. Trump chief policy adviser Stephen Miller banned the release of the study, because it contradicts his claim that refugees are too costly. Pass it on!A leaked document fitting that description was indeed published by the New York Times in September 2017. It was an early draft of a report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing, at the president's request, the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program. The Times noted that:The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.All in all, the report said, the net fiscal impact of refugees over the 10-year period was positive, not negative, to the tune of $63 billion at all levels of government:The study concluded that refugees on average had a net fiscal impact "comparable" to that of the general population:The per capita annual net fiscal benefit was $2,205 for refugees and $1,848 for the general U.S. population, a difference not likely to be significant given margins of error and other limitations of this study. Expenditures for the general U.S. population were on average higher than expenditures for refugees, while revenues were more comparable.However, none of this information was contained in the final report delivered to the President, the Times reported, noting that some of the refugee program's proponents believed the results of the study were "suppressed" internally. Administration officials characterized those results as illegitimate:This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data, said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. The actual report pursuant to the presidential memorandum shows that refugees with few skills coming from war-torn countries take more government benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services than the average population, and are not a net benefit to the U.S. economy.John Graham, the acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the health department, said: We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents and that no report had been finalized. He noted that Mr. Trumps memorandum seeks an analysis related to the cost of refugee programs. Therefore, the only analysis in the scope of H.H.S.s response to the memo would be on refugee-related expenditures from data within H.H.S. programs.The three-page report the agency ultimately submitted, dated Sept. 5, does just that, using government data to compare the costs of refugees to Americans and making no mention of revenues contributed by refugees.The Times also said that according to White House sources, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who is reputed to be the chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, "personally intervened" to ensure that only the costs of admitting refugees, and not the fiscal benefits thereof, were enumerated in the final report. (According to the New Yorker, the White House denied that Miller was involved in producing the report.)The Facebook meme is largely accurate, then, although it somewhat mischaracterizes what became of the original draft report. It wasn't "banned" from release, in that it doesn't appear the report was ever intended to be made public. It was allegedly suppressed, however, in that it never reached President Trump's desk, and all discussion of the fiscal benefits of admitting refugees into the United States was excised from the final document.  Estimates vary on the total annual cost of processing and resettling refugees in the U.S., but a rough breakdown by the National Conference of State Legislatures put the total expenditures for accepting approximately 70,000 refugees in 2014 at $582 million. breakdown These cost estimates rarely attempt to take into account any economic benefits refugees might provide to the countries that take them in. According to a Facebook meme making the rounds since mid-2018, just such an analysis was undertaken by the Trump administration, but the results were suppressed because they undercut the official position: A recently leaked federal study found that refugees to America brought in $63 billion in government revenues than they cost in the last 10 years. Trump chief policy adviser Stephen Miller banned the release of the study, because it contradicts his claim that refugees are too costly. Pass it on!   A leaked document fitting that description was indeed published by the New York Times in September 2017. It was an early draft of a report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing, at the president's request, the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program. The Times noted that: document The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion. All in all, the report said, the net fiscal impact of refugees over the 10-year period was positive, not negative, to the tune of $63 billion at all levels of government:  The study concluded that refugees on average had a net fiscal impact "comparable" to that of the general population: The per capita annual net fiscal benefit was $2,205 for refugees and $1,848 for the general U.S. population, a difference not likely to be significant given margins of error and other limitations of this study. Expenditures for the general U.S. population were on average higher than expenditures for refugees, while revenues were more comparable. However, none of this information was contained in the final report delivered to the President, the Times reported, noting that some of the refugee program's proponents believed the results of the study were "suppressed" internally. Administration officials characterized those results as illegitimate: This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data, said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. The actual report pursuant to the presidential memorandum shows that refugees with few skills coming from war-torn countries take more government benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services than the average population, and are not a net benefit to the U.S. economy. John Graham, the acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the health department, said: We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents and that no report had been finalized. He noted that Mr. Trumps memorandum seeks an analysis related to the cost of refugee programs. Therefore, the only analysis in the scope of H.H.S.s response to the memo would be on refugee-related expenditures from data within H.H.S. programs. The three-page report the agency ultimately submitted, dated Sept. 5, does just that, using government data to compare the costs of refugees to Americans and making no mention of revenues contributed by refugees. The Times also said that according to White House sources, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who is reputed to be the chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, "personally intervened" to ensure that only the costs of admitting refugees, and not the fiscal benefits thereof, were enumerated in the final report. (According to the New Yorker, the White House denied that Miller was involved in producing the report.) denied The Facebook meme is largely accurate, then, although it somewhat mischaracterizes what became of the original draft report. It wasn't "banned" from release, in that it doesn't appear the report was ever intended to be made public. It was allegedly suppressed, however, in that it never reached President Trump's desk, and all discussion of the fiscal benefits of admitting refugees into the United States was excised from the final document. Blitzer, Jonathan.  "How Stephen Miller Single-Handedly Got the U.S. to Accept Fewer Refugees."
  The New Yorker.  13 October 2017. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld.  "Trump to Cap Refugees Allowed into U.S. at 30,000, a Record Low."
  The New York Times.  17 September 2018. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld and Somini Sengupta.  "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees."
  The New York Times.  18 September 2017. Phillips, Amber.  "Here's How Much the United States Spends on Refugees."
  The Washington Post.  20 November 2015. The New York Times.  "Rejected Report Shows Revenue Brought in by Refugees."
  19 September 2017.