Does This Pic Show a Real Animal Called a 'Carpet Shark'?
A photograph supposedly depicting the so-called carpet shark, also known as the tasseled wobbegong, has been shared on social media since at least November 2021. Though there is no evidence of digital editing, it does not genuinely depict a tasseled wobbegong  which is a real species of carpet shark  but rather an entirely different species of fish found along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. real species The Snopes newsroom came across the photograph in July 2022 when it was shared to Reddit's r/interestingasfuck subreddit. That post included a caption that framed the image as an underwater snapshot of the tasseled wobbegonging in the "shallow coral reefs off northern Australia, New Guinea, and adjacent islands." That post   But that caption was misleading. The photograph does not show a tasseled wobbegong. Rather, it depicts a goosefish, which is also known as a monkfish or American angler. While we were not able to verify the exact origins of the image in question, we do not doubt that the photograph is authentic, based on similar images showing the goosefish.  A quick reverse-image search showed that the photograph has been circulating on social media in various iterations since at least 2021. quick reverse-image  Tineye Since that time, several social media users pointed out that it was erroneous to call the photographed fish a tasseled wobbegong when it was really a goosefish. several pointed out  Sometimes called a monkfish or American angler, the goosefish (scientific name Lophius americanus) is found in the north and mid-Atlantic. The fish is described by NOAA as having mottled dark brown to olive-green skin on top and whitish skin underneath. Some say the goosefish has a tadpole-like appearance, characterized by a broad head and large mouth. described by NOAA  Goosefish are ambush predators. Though the seafloor-looking fish typically reach lengths of up to 4 feet, they can disappear into their surroundings and sit in camouflage along the ocean floor. The bottom-dwellers use their modified spines like fishing poles to lure prey  small fish including other goosefish  toward their mouths. In addition to fish, goosefish also eat crustaceans, mollusks, seabirds, and diving ducks, notes NOAA.  While the goosefish finds its home waters along the eastern coast of the U.S., the tasseled wobbegong lives in the waters of northern Australia and is a member of the carpet shark family, a predatory species named for its seafloor-dwelling habits.  tasseled wobbegong carpet shark Tasselled Wobbegong. Oceana, https://oceana.org/marine-life/tasselled-wobbegong/. Accessed 11 July 2022.Fisheries, NOAA. Monkfish | NOAA Fisheries. NOAA, 5 May 2022, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/monkfish.
Addressing supporters in an airport hangar in Addison, Perry said that on his watch, companies in Texas created almost one third of all new American jobs. And, he said,  in the last seven years of my tenure, Texas created 1.5 million new jobs. As a matter of fact, without Texas, America would have lost 400,000 jobs. Sounded familiar. In May 2013,we found Truea Perry claim about Texas accounting for 33 percent of the countrys net new jobs over the last 10 years. That conclusion was supported by comparing state-by-state job gain estimates and a separate calculation of net job gains nationally, both by the federal government. Later, in January 2015, werated Mostly TruePerrys statement that starting in December 2007, 1.4 million jobs were created in Texas. In that same period, the rest of the country lost 400,000 jobs. His figures mostly held up according to household surveys by the federal government looking into civilian employment including self-employment, though at the time positions not yet recovered outside Texas totaled closer to 350,000, according to the latest available data when Perry spoke to lawmakers Jan. 22, 2015. When we looked at the earlier Texas-nation comparison by Perry, his spokesman encouraged us to consultMark J. Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan campus in Flint. Professor Perry wrote in a November 2014online commentarythat from December 2007, the start of the national recession, through October 2014, Texas saw civilian employment balloon by 1.36 million jobs. In contrast, he wrote, civilian employment in the other 49 states without Texas is still 0.26% and more than 350,000 jobs below the December 2007 level  there were 134.9 million non-Texas jobs in October vs. 135.26 million in December 2007. To our query, the scholar emailed a chart showing that based on what the government calls total employment, covering all jobs including self-employed posts, Texas had 1,410,400 more jobs in November 2014 than it had in December 2007 while the rest of the country had 352,440 fewer jobs. Total employment, he said, serves as a comprehensive indicator and is used to calculate unemployment rates. A little more: The BLSsays the definition of employment in the federal household survey, which the governor relied on for his comparisons, comprises wage and salary workers (including domestics and other private household workers), self-employed persons and unpaid workers who worked 15 hours or more during the reference week in family-operated enterprises. Employment in both agricultural and nonagricultural industries is included. In contrast, the federal government's oft-quoted payroll survey of employers covers only wage and salary employees on the payrolls of nonfarm establishments. By this other metric, Cheryl Abbot, a regional economist for the bureau, told us, Texas netted 1.2 million additional jobs from December 2007 to December 2014. In the period, she said, 24 states had net decreases in total civilian employment. But again, those figures werent total employment, the indicator chosen by Perry. After Perry declared for president, we circled back to Abbot, who emailed us data indicating that from December 2007 to December 2014, Texas saw an increase in total employment of 1,572,694; the nation as a whole had a surge of 1,169,000. Put another way, but for Texas, the nation would have experienced a total employment decrease of 403,694. When we looked into Perrys seven-year contrast before, analystDavid Cooperof the liberal Economic Policy Institute commented that the timeframe singled out by Perry may deliver a more glowing contrast for Texas than other periods. According to the governments payroll surveys, he said, the country had added 9.1 million jobs since June 2009, the acknowledged end of the national recession, with Texas accounting for 1.5 million of the additions. Significantly, he said, the rest of the country as a whole lost jobs from June 2009 until February 2010. Since then, he said, the U.S. had added more than 10 million jobs with Texas (again) accounting for more than 1 million of them. At the time, Professor Perry said that in his view, the best comparison of Texas to the rest of the nation starts in December 2007. His point: Texas never experienced significant job losses during the Great Recession, while the rest of the country did, he emailed. Therefore, comparing job gains since June 2009 or Feb. 2010 really wont make much sense. Of course the non-Texas US gained a lot of jobs since June 2009, and more than Texas, but thats because Texas never lost any (very many) jobs in 2008 and 2009 like the rest of the country. Texas is a great economic success story, and an anomaly vs. the rest of the country regarding job losses/gains, he wrote. Also at the time, Abbot said by email Perrys claim could have been precise by referring to total civilian employment rather than jobs. That said, as of November 2014, Abbot said, 24 other states had yet to reach pre-recession employment levels. On a statewide basis, Texas by far leads all states, with total civilian employment growth of 1,410,440. California is a distant second with civilian (household) employment growth of 452,763, Abbot wrote. Our ruling  Perry said: In the last seven years of my tenure, Texas created 1.5 million new jobs. As a matter of fact, without Texas, America would have lost 400,000 jobs. These figures hold up though Perry cherry-picked a time period arguably giving Texas more of a gloss than it might get with other periods. More generally, no governor determines job gains or losses in a state; outside factors tend to prevail. In Texas, the fracking boom comes to mind. Governors dont create oil and gas fields. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. CORRECTION, 12:40 p.m., June 18, 2015:This fact check was revised to correct our error in quoting an email from Cheryl Abbot of the BLS. This change, clarifying that 24 states had net decreases in civilian employment in the period singled out by Perry, did not affect our rating. While his critics decry his economic policies, President Barack Obama keeps insisting that hes had economic success. In a speech in Wilmington, Del., last week, Obama offered several pieces of evidence that, in his view, suggests that the country is rebounding from the recession. Unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2008, he noted; the auto industry is booming, America is making more oil than it imports, and the deficit has been cut in half, he added. All told, Obama said, weve recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth. That final claim got our attention, so we took a closer look. The evidence We asked the White House for evidence to back up Obamas claim, and they pointed us to theirannual economic reportto Congress. According to the report, the United States is one of only two of the 12 countries that experienced systemic financial crises in 2007 and 2008 but have seen real (gross domestic product) per working-age person return to pre-crisis levels. The 12 countries are France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. Germany is the only other country of these 12 in that category -- that is, that has seen its GDP per person age 16 to 64 return to its pre-recession level. Heres the summary chart from the White House report:    This provides evidence for Obamas claim, because, aside from Germany, all the other countries in this category havent yet returned to their pre-recession level at all. So, case closed? Not quite. There are many ways to measure the economy beyond real GDP per working age. And while the 12 countries studied in the report all experienced bank crises during the recession, Obamas statement was broader than that -- he said almost any other advanced country on Earth. (The list of the most advanced countries on Earth also usually doesnt include Ukraine.) So we ran this measurement past some experts. In general, they agreed with the tenor of Obamas claim, but said it wasnt as simple as relying on the chart the White House provided. The general sentiment is quite right, said Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard University. But to evaluate the statement in its sweeping form, one would have to look at more countries, and one should look at other possible measures of economic performance. Additional measurements On the experts recommendations, we looked at inflation-adjusted gross domestic product, as well as unemployment rates, in a wider selection of advanced countries. We used data from the International Monetary Fund, which considers 36 economies to be advanced. For each of these 36 countries, we calculated the growth between their worst point in GDP and unemployment to 2013, the last year for which full data is available. Positive growth in GDP is good, while negative growth in unemployment is desirable. Each value that is better than the United States (the last country on the list) is highlighted in bold-italic. (The raw data ishere.) Country GDP Unemploym. Country GDP Unemploym. Australia 13.01% 1.49% Korea 15.98% -16.11% Austria 5.93% 2.45% Latvia 15.36% -36.44% Belgium 4.25% 1.82% Luxembourg 6.93% 17.72% Canada 9.96% -14.58% Malta 8.57% -6.14% Cyprus -6.66% 155.94% Netherlands 0.39% 54.15% Czech Republic 2.37% -4.48% New Zealand 9.18% -6.22% Denmark 2.55% -6.25% Norway 5.30% -2.26% Estonia 17.76% -48.36% Portugal -3.90% 50.52% Finland 3.76% -2.87% San Marino -15.98% 61.78% France 4.08% 11.14% Singapore 29.34% -37.19% Germany 8.93% -32.12% Slovak Republic 10.51% -2.20% Greece -16.92% 117.47% Slovenia -1.72% 39.40% Hong Kong 16.96% -40.30% Spain -2.79% 31.38% Iceland 7.10% -45.41% Sweden 12.39% -6.71% Ireland 1.98% -5.83% Switzerland 7.98% -14.67% Israel 19.48% -32.10% Taiwan 19.58% -28.55% Italy -2.09% 45.31% United Kingdom 4.86% -3.13% Japan 7.31% -20.30% United States 9.32% -23.64%  So the United States has clearly done better in expanding GDP and lowering unemployment than most of the economies deemed advanced by the IMF. Still, some countries have fared better, particularly in Asia. It is also worth nothing that some countries, like Estonia, have seen an improvement in GDP, yet their GDP has not yet returned to pre-recession levels. Among the countries beyond the United States that are doing well are Canada, Germany and Switzerland. Israel and some Asian countries, such as Korea and Singapore, have seen improvements as good or better than the United States' in recent years, but they were not as dramatically affected by the recession as North America and Europe. Austan Goolsbee, Obamas former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (which prepares the White Houses annual economic report), pointed to an IMF paper from April,World Economic Outlook: Recovery Strengthens, Remains Uneven. Overall, the report suggests that the United States forecast for economic growth is better than it is for many advanced European economies, with others roughly comparable. In general, the United States is expected to have the highest growth in the coming year -- a projected 2.75 percent. In fact, the report found that the United States economy accelerated faster than anticipated in 2013, while many advanced economies in Europe are still struggling with high unemployment, debt and other financial issues. Canada, too, has seen some growth, but sluggish exports and business investments have kept the growth fairly slow. The strengthening of the recovery from the Great Recession in the advanced economies is a welcome development, the report says. But growth is not evenly robust across the globe. In many advanced Asian economies, for instance, the recovery is steady due in large part to growing exports, domestic demand and strong labor markets. (Japan, which is undergoing structural reforms, is an exception.) Australia and New Zealand -- neither of which was included in the report the White House cited -- have growth classified as stable. Laurence Ball, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, said another factor to consider is thelong-term damagecaused by the recession. Ball looked at 23 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and compared how much they thought they could grow in 2007 to how much they think they can grow now, based on OECD estimates. Ball found that, on average, these countries sustained an 8.3 percent blow to their potential output for growth. While some countries, Australia and Switzerland, took a very small hit to their potential output, Greece, Hungary and Ireland absorbed blows of roughly 30 percent compared to their GDP prospects before the recession. For the United States, the figure is 5.3 percent -- lower than the rate for most advanced countries, but higher than Australia, Switzerland and Germany. This shows that even though the United States has recovered well compared to other countries, it has still lost potential output as a result of the recession, Ball said. Our ruling Obama said the United States has recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth since the end of the Great Recession. The White Houses supporting data is pretty narrow, but other measurements show that the United States has generally fared better since the recession than many -- though not all -- of its peers among the worlds advanced economies. On balance, we rate this statement Mostly True. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here In October 2020, a claim started to circulate social media positing that Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden said that he grew up in Section 8 housing:  This claim is based on something Biden said during an ABC News town hall on Oct. 15, 2020. But while Biden did mention Section 8 housing during this event  a reference to a section of the U.S. Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 that offered assistance to low-income Americans  he never said that he lived in Section 8 housing.   Section 8 housing What Biden did say was that he used to live in a building that "much later" became Section 8 housing. Here's a transcript of Biden's comment from ABC News: transcript Look, this is the way every other, how do most, like my dad, he lost his job up in Scranton and it took him three years to be able  he moved down to Delaware to Claymont (inaudible), a little steel town. And sent us home to our grandpop to live with him. We finally got back, we lived in apartments. Became Section 8 housing much later, it wasn't -- it was just normal apartments. But it took him five years to be able to buy a home. Biden made this comment while he was responding to a question about why the Black community should support his bid to win the presidency. This portion of the town hall begins at the 1:24:50 mark of the following video. Biden's comment about Section 8 housing can be seen at 1:30:45.  Biden did not say that he used to live in Section 8 housing. He said that he lived in a building that "much later" became Section 8 housing.  Semuels, Alana.  "How Housing Policy Is Failing America's Poor."
  The Atlantic.  24 June 2015. ABC News.  "Read the Full Transcript of Joe Biden's ABC News Town Hall."
  15 October 2020. Reuters.  "Fact Check: Biden Did Not Say He Lived in Section 8 Housing."
  19 October 2020. During a June 6, 2010, appearance on ABC'sThis Week, Sen. John Kerry -- who is sponsoring a comprehensive energy bill -- discussed the nation's energy future against the backdrop of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.During an interview with host Jake Tapper, Kerry said, Here's what's important -- not to be throwing the blame around, but to put America on the course to true energy independence and self-reliance and to begin to wean ourselves from our addiction to oil. ... The United States is losing a major economic transformational moment. Until we begin to do something -- you know, since 9/11, we now actually import more oil than we did before 9/11. It's insulting to common sense.We decided to check whether Kerry was correct about whether the United States imports more oil today than it did before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.The answer is complicated, because there are at least three possible ways to measure it.The number of barrels of crude oil imported. The U.S. imported 3.32 billion barrels of crude oil in 2000 and 3.40 billion barrels in 2001. Both figures were higher than the number imported in 2009 -- 3.31 billion barrels.By this measure, Kerry is incorrect, although just slightly. Imported crude oil compared to domestic production. We wondered whether imported crude oil was still increasing as a percentage of all oil in the U.S., even as it dropped in absolute amounts. In fact, that's exactly what happened.In 2000, oil imports accounted for 61 percent of the total of imports and domestic production, and in 2001, imports accounted for 62 percent. In 2009, the percentage of imports was 63 percent -- slightly higher than it was in either of those years. The underlying cause was that domestic oil production declined between the start of the decade and the end.By this measure, Kerry is correct, though once again, the difference is modest.Imported crude oil plus imported unfinished oils. William Brown, who analyzes energy data for the federal government's Energy Information Administration, told PolitiFact that in recent years, there's been a rise in imports of unfinished oils, which are partially refined, taking the place of pure crude oil imports. So he sent us data that combined those two sets of imports.In 2000, the combination of crude oil and unfinished oils accounted for 9.54 million barrels per day, and in 2001, they accounted for 9.71 million barrels per day. In 2009, that figure was 9.86 million barrels per day.Adding in unfinished oils to the previous measure of crude oil turns an incorrect statement into a correct one.Bottom line: There are three ways to analyze the question, and with two of them, Kerry is right that imports have grown. Using the other statistic, he's wrong -- imports have declined. So we rate Kerry's statement Mostly True. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here Facing Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris for a debate in October 2020, Vice President Mike Pence attempted to give credit to his boss, President Donald Trump, for developing policies that rebounded the economy after unprecedented losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic In particular, Pence said the U.S. workforce added millions of jobs since the early days of the outbreak because of Trump's fiscal and regulatory policies. He said: We're going through a pandemic that lost 22 million jobs at the height, we've already added back 11.6 million jobs, because we had a president who cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade. [...] We literally have spared no expense to help the American people and the American worker through this. In other words, he claimed the Trump administration spearheaded a variety of initiatives that added 11.6 million jobs in summer and fall 2020, regaining nearly half the roughly 22 million jobs lost at the start of the pandemic. The comment echoed multiple statements by Trump in which he, too, attempted to praise the administration's successful balance of public health and economic interests. "Our strategy to kill the China virus has focused on protecting those at greatest risk while allowing younger and healthy Americans to safety return to work and safely return to school," he said in August. "We added 1.8 million new jobs in July, exceeding predictions for the third month in a row, and adding a total of over 9.3 million jobs since May." said To determine the legitimacy of such assertions, we referred to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) "seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll," which is the standard measurement for determining how U.S. wage and salary jobs change over time. The payroll data are compiled monthly via a survey of about 145,000 businesses and government agencies across the country, excluding people who are self-employed, or work for farms or private households. compiled When a news story stated that, for instance, the economy added "661,000 new workers," that number was typically a reference to the month-to-month change in nonfarm payrolls  661,000 more jobs were added in September compared to August 2020. 661,000 new workers We obtained monthly nonfarm payroll data, which showed:   According to our analysis of the month-by-month statistics, the economy tallied almost 1.4 million less jobs in March compared to February. Then, the recession deepened, and April recorded 20.8 million less jobs than the month prior  the steepest decline since the Great Depression. since While Pence did not provide an explanation for his labor statistics at the debate, we assumed he was referencing the sum of job losses in March and April, showing employers cut about 22 million jobs during those two months, per the BLS data. Then, after that, the country started a slow, steady recovery. The data show the following increases in job totals, all approximations, on a month-by-month basis: (We should note here: The monthly employment figures for August and September 2020 were both preliminary and subject to revision, as of this writing.) Looking at the data, yes, about 11.4 millions jobs were added to the U.S. economy between May and September  and the Trump administration's comments about the economy showing significant job growth since the early weeks of the pandemic were true at face value. However, that upward trend had little to do with the White House and everything to do with how businesses on a grand scale adapted to new rules on social distancing to curb the spread of the deadly virus. In March, for instance, California issued the first statewide "stay at home order" and New York City closed all non-essential businesses  both decisions that contributed to April's historic job loss. March Then, over the weeks, employers developed plans for operating under public health officials' recommendations to curb the spread of COVID-19 and, as a result, were able to bring back workers who had been furloughed or reopen after a temporary shut down. Those trends significantly impacted job growth in the U.S.  not Trump.  Additionally, a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan  which was developed by Congress, not the White House, via the March Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act  helped some small businesses bring back lost positions or keep workers who would otherwise have been laid off. That stimulus packages direct payments to Americans who earned 75,000 annually or less (or families that made up to $150,000 annually) may have also driven spending in the summer months and, consequently, kept some employers afloat after initial shock to their profits earlier in the year. Paycheck Protection Program Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act stimulus package All of that said, no evidence showed that the Trump administration enacted policies  whether related to taxes or trade  that "added back" the jobs but rather economic trends shifted from the early days of the outbreak, during mass furloughs and business closures. Here's the bottom line: Presidential administrations often exaggerate their influence on the economy  especially when employment is showing somewhat positive signs  no matter if they're leading the country during a crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak or comparatively normal times. As Neil Irwin wrote for The New York Times in January 2017, just days before Trumps inauguration: wrote The reality is that presidents have far less control over the economy than you might imagine. Presidential economic records are highly dependent on the dumb luck of where the nation is in the economic cycle. And the White House has no control over the demographic and technological forces that influence the economy.  Additionally, the White House had little influence on how businesses quickly adapted recommendations by public health officials to safely operate during the pandemic.  For those reasons, we rate this claim a "Mixture" of truth and falsehoods. It was true that the country added back about half of the jobs lost during the early months of the pandemic, though it was a false misinterpretation of economic conditions to tie that job growth to Trump policies  or that he "cut taxes, rolled back regulation and unleashed American energy, fought for free and fair trade," like Pence alleged, and that those moves directly added jobs.  Here's video footage of Pence making the claim on the vice presidential debate stage, courtesy of C-SPAN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4913299/user-clip-vp-pence-jobs-claim   Factba.se. "Press Conference: Donald Trump Holds A Coronavirus Pandemic Briefing In Bedminster - August 7, 2020."
 Accessed 9 October 2020. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "BLS Data Viewer."
 9 October 2020. Reuters staff. "Timeline: How the Global Coronavirus Pandemic Unfolded."
 Accessed 12 October 2020. One common tactic to smear politicians is to claim they are related to George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist who serves as a sort of right-wing boogeyman due to his large investments in "liberal" causes.  right-wing boogeyman For example, Chelsea Clinton is not married to Soros' nephew, Adam Schiff's sister is not married to Soros' son, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not Soros' niece. In April 2022, as Russia continued its assault on Ukraine, another version of this rumor was circulated on social media, this time falsely claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was Soros' cousin. Chelsea Clinton is not married to Soros' nephew, Adam Schiff's sister is not married to Soros' son, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not Soros' niece.  This false rumor was shared on social media along with a claim that this information came directly from the Pentagon: false rumor was shared   The Pentagon has released no such statement.  We searched the Pentagon's website and social media accounts and found no remarks about Soros and Zelenskyy being cousins. A spokesperson for the Pentagon told Lead Stories that no such statement was released, and a spokesperson for Soros' Open Society Foundation told Politifact that the rumor was "entirely false." Pentagon's website spokesperson for the Pentagon told Lead Stories Politifact that the rumor was "entirely false." The Pentagon did not release a statement identifying Zelenskyy and Soros as cousins, Soros' foundation has denied these rumors, and this claim mirrors a common smear tactic among far-right circles. Furthermore, Zelenskyy was once asked about a similarly baseless rumor, the claim that the Ukraine government was "installed" by Soros. In 2020, Zelenskky laughed at the notion, saying: "I am not familiar with a person named Soros. I have never met him. I'm definitely not one of that 'followers of Soros'. There are probably people who studied at the expense of various donor funds and worked for companies that were founded by such funds. And one of these funds is Soros Foundation. I understand that in fact they received money from the fund of this person for which they studied abroad. The question of the influence of Mr. Soros on Ukraine  I do not feel it. I think this is all an exaggeration." Fact Check: No Evidence Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Is Cousin To George Soros | Lead Stories. https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/04/fact-check-no-evidence-ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelenskyy-is-cousin-to-george-soros.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Fact Check-The Pentagon Did Not Say That Volodymyr Zelenskiy Is George Soros Cousin. Reuters, 7 Apr. 2022. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-zelenskiy-soros-idUSL2N2W51UM. Releases. U.S. Department of Defense, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. PolitiFact - No, Zelenskyy and Soros Are Not Cousins. @politifact, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/07/facebook-posts/no-zelenskyy-and-soros-are-not-cousins/. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. Zelensky: Power Is an Opportunity. I Have the Chance to Help. Interfax-Ukraine, https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/interview/640646.html. Accessed 11 Apr. 2022. During ongoing national debate over a novel policy of separating families at the border, a photograph circulated (originally from Joshua Feuerstein, a self-styled "American evangelist, Internet and social media personality" who last made headlines in 2015 when he manufactured a so-called "Christmas cup controversy") that purportedly depicted a room full of immigrant children that former President Barack Obama had supposedly removed from their parents' custody: novel policy a photograph circulated self-styled Christmas cup controversy immigrant children The attached text read:As you stare at this picture of innocent children being separated from their parents at the border and feel your hatred toward President Trump start to boil over from the bowels of your soul...I'd just like to point out it was taken in 2014 .. when Obama was President! #shareSome versions were shared with no accompanying text, inviting readers to project their own interpretation onto the image:Images of its type (dated to the Obama administration) were often described as having been ignored at the time they were originally taken. However, this image did appear in anti-immigration memes from 2014 and 2015, such as one framing the photograph as evidence the Obama administration (described here as a "cabal") was encouraging ("seducing") immigrant ("illegal alien") children to come to the United States:The meme's text read:INSIDE AN OBAMA APPROVED REFUGEE CAMP140,000 Illegal Alien Children Seduced into coming to America By the Obama Cabal. MORE COMING NEXT YEAR TOOHey Obama.. Why not use the FEMA CAMPS??Or are those being prepped for Patriot Resistance Fighters!!The first iteration we could find of that image was alongside a 5 June 2014 post published by Breitbart. Although Breitbart shared the photograph on Facebook on 21 June 2018, the outlet did not include a link to its earlier reporting. In its original article, the children were described as "unaccompanied," indicating that they came without their parents, not that they were separated from their families by American authorities:Breitbart Texas obtained internal federal government photos depicting the conditions of foreign children warehoused by authorities on U.S. soil on Wednesday night. Thousands of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas along the U.S./Mexico border. Unaccompanied minors, including young girls under the age of 12, are making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico, through cartel-controlled territories, and across the porous border onto U.S. soil.The photograph was subsequently disseminated by numerous web sites and news outlets. National Review's "Immigration Bedlam" said of the children in the photo:Some 6,775 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) crossed the U.S.Mexican border in 2011, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement reports. (The first bar in the ORRs chart, above, should read 20032011.) ORR expects 60,000 UACs this year. This number could reach 130,000 in 2015. Detaining them for $252 each, per day, will cost taxpayers $453.6 million per month this year and could cost $982.8 million per month next year.The image and events around it were widely reported for several months, appearing in the Houston Chronicle, Splinter News, the Los Angeles Times, Mashable, and Reuters, among others.Stories during that time specifically reiterated that the photographs showed unaccompanied minor children in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection and temporarily housed at a Texas Air Force base:The photos have a timestamp of May 27, 2014.A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency has not officially released any photos at this time in order to protect the rights and privacy of unaccompanied minors in our care.... A temporary shelter at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland has housed and provided services to 1,820 unaccompanied minors from Central America since May 18, San Antonio Express-News reporter Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje reported. The immigration is part of a surge of children said to be fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, she reported.Although the photograph is real, it does not show children separated from their parents by the Obama administration. In June 2014, the image was published as part of numerous news stories (and occasionally alongside editorial pieces objecting to the presence of the unaccompanied minor children.) The image did not develop a different backstory until June 2018, during a controversy that specifically involved family separation at the behest of the Trump administration.  The attached text read: As you stare at this picture of innocent children being separated from their parents at the border and feel your hatred toward President Trump start to boil over from the bowels of your soul...I'd just like to point out it was taken in 2014 .. when Obama was President! #share Some versions were shared with no accompanying text, inviting readers to project their own interpretation onto the image: Images of its type (dated to the Obama administration) were often described as having been ignored at the time they were originally taken. However, this image did appear in anti-immigration memes from 2014 and 2015, such as one framing the photograph as evidence the Obama administration (described here as a "cabal") was encouraging ("seducing") immigrant ("illegal alien") children to come to the United States: described   The meme's text read: INSIDE AN OBAMA APPROVED REFUGEE CAMP 140,000 Illegal Alien Children Seduced into coming to America By the Obama Cabal. MORE COMING NEXT YEAR TOO Hey Obama.. Why not use the FEMA CAMPS??Or are those being prepped for Patriot Resistance Fighters!! The first iteration we could find of that image was alongside a 5 June 2014 post published by Breitbart. Although Breitbart shared the photograph on Facebook on 21 June 2018, the outlet did not include a link to its earlier reporting. In its original article, the children were described as "unaccompanied," indicating that they came without their parents, not that they were separated from their families by American authorities: published Breitbart Breitbart unaccompanied Breitbart Texas obtained internal federal government photos depicting the conditions of foreign children warehoused by authorities on U.S. soil on Wednesday night. Thousands of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas along the U.S./Mexico border. Unaccompanied minors, including young girls under the age of 12, are making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico, through cartel-controlled territories, and across the porous border onto U.S. soil. The photograph was subsequently disseminated by numerous web sites and news outlets. National Review's "Immigration Bedlam" said of the children in the photo: National Review Immigration Bedlam Some 6,775 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) crossed the U.S.Mexican border in 2011, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement reports. (The first bar in the ORRs chart, above, should read 20032011.) ORR expects 60,000 UACs this year. This number could reach 130,000 in 2015. Detaining them for $252 each, per day, will cost taxpayers $453.6 million per month this year and could cost $982.8 million per month next year. The image and events around it were widely reported for several months, appearing in the Houston Chronicle, Splinter News, the Los Angeles Times, Mashable, and Reuters, among others. widely reported Houston Chronicle Splinter News Los Angeles Times Mashable Reuters Stories during that time specifically reiterated that the photographs showed unaccompanied minor children in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection and temporarily housed at a Texas Air Force base: The photos have a timestamp of May 27, 2014. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency has not officially released any photos at this time in order to protect the rights and privacy of unaccompanied minors in our care. ... A temporary shelter at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland has housed and provided services to 1,820 unaccompanied minors from Central America since May 18, San Antonio Express-News reporter Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje reported. The immigration is part of a surge of children said to be fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries, she reported. Although the photograph is real, it does not show children separated from their parents by the Obama administration. In June 2014, the image was published as part of numerous news stories (and occasionally alongside editorial pieces objecting to the presence of the unaccompanied minor children.) The image did not develop a different backstory until June 2018, during a controversy that specifically involved family separation at the behest of the Trump administration. family separation DeRuy, Emily and Jorge Rivas.  "Disturbing Photos Allegedly Show Texas Border Patrol Facility Packed With Immigrant Children."
  Splinter.  6 June 2014. Darby, Brandon.  "Leaked Images Reveal Children Warehoused In Crowded U.S. Cells, Border Patrol Overwhelmed."
  Breitbart.  5 June 2014. Hennessy-Fiske, Molly.  "Hundreds Of Migrant Youths Held At Texas Military Base."
  Los Angeles Times.  5 June 2014. Murdock, Deroy.  "Immigration Bedlam."
  National Review.   13 June 2014. Parker, Kolten.  "Leaked Photos Show Immigrant Children Packed In Crowded Texas Border Facilities."
  Houston Chronicle.  6 June 2014. Roug, Louise.  "How The U.S. Border Became A Humanitarian Crisis."
  Mashable.  8 July 2014. Reuters.  "U.S. To Open Third Military Base To Illegal Child Immigrants."
  9 June 2014 On April 7, 2021, the real estate gossip website Dirt reported that Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors had purchased a home in Topanga, an eccentric neighborhood located in the western portion of Los Angeles, for $1.4 million. Dirt reported eccentric Categorized under real estate purchases by "politicians," Dirt's headline reported, "Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Lands Topanga Canyon Compound." (Cullors is a political activist, but she isn't a "politician" in the sense that she holds public office.) The story sparked a tsunami of spinoff articles and commentary with the aggregate effect of creating a cloud of doubt over the finances of the nonprofit organization associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, the peak of which was a claim in a meme that baselessly accused Cullors of using donations to Black Lives Matter to purchase the house:   But Dirt's article, which is the source that all of the stories and posts about the Topanga home purchase are based on, didn't report that Cullors purchased the home with BLM donations. It said the home was sold "to a corporate entity that public records show is controlled" by Cullors, but didn't name the corporation. Cullors is a fairly high-profile public figure. Aside from being an activist and organizer, she makes frequent media appearances. She is the co-author of a best-selling book, "When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir." She also signed a deal with Warner Brothers in late 2020 to create programming for the network's various platforms. book deal We sent Dirt an email asking if they would disclose the name of the business entity the home was sold to, but didn't receive a response in time for publication. We haven't been able to independently verify Dirt's report that Cullors purchased the home in Topanga. Her name didn't come up in our own public records search. In an April 2022 investigative report by New York Magazine's Intelligencer outlining a $6 million home purchase by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGN), however, movement leaders appeared to indirectly acknowledge that Cullors had indeed purchased properties, although it doesn't give specifics. In a statement sent to Snopes by email, BLMGNF directly denied the allegation that Cullors had used donation money to buy the Topanga Canyon home, or any other personal property: To be abundantly clear, as a registered 501c3, BLMGNF cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer. Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false. Since the organization's inception in 2013, the Foundation said Cullors received compensation totaling $120,000 for work that included serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education. Since 2019, Cullors' role with the Foundation has been voluntary and unpaid. She currently serves as the executive director, per the Foundation's statement. The organization also characterized the narrative as a "right-wing offensive" against a high-profile Black activist that "not only puts Patrisse, her child and her loved ones in harms way, it also continues a tradition of terror by white supremacists against Black activists." We'll break down some of the dialogue and reporting around this story, but the important points are these: If it's true that Cullors purchased the Topanga home, no evidence has been presented that proves she did so with donation money. This claim is based on supposition. Important additional context is that while many stories about the home portray it as a lavish purchase, those portrayals are exaggerated. Compared with other properties listed on Dirt, the home reportedly purchased by Cullors is relatively modest. Other posts on the site detail multi-million dollar estates bought by the likes of pop music icon Madonna, tennis champion Serena Williams, and pop star Ariana Grande. Even if it's true that Cullors purchased a single family home in Los Angeles for $1.4 million, we note that because of overall home prices in L.A., that amount doesn't go as far as it would in other areas. Dirt reports that the home in Topanga has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a guest house and sits on just over a quarter of an acre-sized lot. It's not small but to call it a "mansion" as Fox News did in an April 13 headline is a stretch. headline Right-leaning Media Research Center tweeted, "The liberal media wont cover this: [Black Lives Matter] co-founder Patrisse Cullors bought a 1.4 MILLION dollar house near Beverly Hills." tweeted Everything in the city of Los Angeles could technically be described as being "near Beverly Hills" just as easily as it could be described as being "near Disneyland." The Topanga community is about 20 miles from Beverly Hills. Many of the reports touched on tensions among some activists within the Black Lives Matter movement itself by quoting comments given by Hawk Newsome, a BLM activist in New York, who told the New York Post he thought the nonprofit's finances should be investigated. New York Post Aside from getting record numbers of feet on the street in demonstrations across the country in the spring and summer of 2020, Black Lives Matter organizers told The Associated Press that it brought in $90 million in donations to the nonprofit organization associated with the movement, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. told The Post story published on April 10 also reported Cullors went on a "million dollar real estate buying binge" and claimed she spent $3.2 million "snagging four high-end homes." published When you read past the headline and leading language, the Post story really describes two modest home purchases, one in South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central) and the other in Inglewood. Both homes are in working class communities and were purchased for $590,000 and $510,000 respectively. Like most homes in Los Angeles, they have appreciated in value since their most recent purchase date. South Central The Post also reports Cullors' wife bought a home in rural Georgia and that the couple "eyed" luxury property in the Bahamas, without purchasing it. Was this a "buying binge"? We don't have enough information from the Post story to answer questions like: Were these homes consecutively purchased, lived in and sold? Were other parties involved in the reported purchases? Were they lived in by family members? Did any of the addresses crop up due to errors in public records databases? errors Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013 by three women: Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. It was originated as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed Black teenager Trayvon Martin. But the phrase and its underlying civil rights cause have been the rallying cry for a national racial justice movement in response to the killing of Black people by police, and racism embedded in the criminal justice system. killing The spring and summer of 2020 saw the movement's biggest demonstrations in its history, with millions of Americans braving the COVID-19 pandemic to take to the streets, touched off by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As the movement reached critical mass and thus scored social and political wins, which included major companies affirming their commitment to racial justice and the election of progressive leaders, Black Lives Matter has also been a regular target for right-wing media and commenters. target media commenters Cullors resigned from the foundation in May 2021, stating the move had been in the works for more than a year. She told the Associated Press she was resigning to further focus on a new book and the TV deal with Warner Bros. In late August 2021, Cullors was appointed to the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. told appointed Updated to include Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation statement. Updated to note Cullors left her post with the non-profit organization in May 2021 and was appointed to the L.A. County Arts Commission in August 2021. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Sept. 27, 2020, The New York Times published a report after obtaining several years of U.S. President Donald Trump's tax returns. published a report As news broke that Trump had paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017  no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years  in addition to the fact that he took an approximate $70,000 deduction for hairstyling during "The Apprentice," and that he has more than $300 million worth of loans coming due, a rumor started to circulate on social media that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner had quietly deleted all of his tweets from his Twitter account: no federal income taxes   This rumor is false. Kushner didn't delete all of his tweets following the NYT article about Trump's taxes.  The above-displayed tweet contains a genuine screenshot of the @JaredKushner Twitter account. This account has been online since 2009, but it has been used sparingly by its owner. Archived pages show that this account posted three messages back in March 2011  none of which was related to taxes  but was then inactive for at least three years. The few messages that were posted to this account were deleted sometime between 2014 and 2016, and no new messages have been posted since then.  JaredKushner March 2011 at least three years In other words, Kushner didn't wipe his Twitter account clean on the evening of Sept. 27 after the NYT published a story about his father-in-law's taxes. This account rarely posts tweets, and the three tweets that were shared to the account in 2011 (again, none of which were related to taxes) were deleted years ago.  This isn't the first time that someone has stumbled across Kushner's Twitter account in the aftermath of a controversy, noticed that it was barren, and then incorrectly assumed that Kushner had recently scrubbed it clean. In October 2017, shortly after Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III revealed charges against former Trump presidential campaign chair Paul Manafort and two other campaign officials, social media users noted then that Kushner's Twitter account was suspiciously void of content, and falsely claimed that he had recently deleted all of his tweets. falsely claimed A few months later, when it was reported that Mueller may have interviewed Kushner in the course of his investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, this false rumor again was circulated on social media:  reported   The @JaredKushner account has been devoid of content since at least 2016. Claims that he recently deleted his tweets in the wake of breaking news stories are false.  Apuzzo, Matt.  "Muellers Prosecutors Are Said to Have Interviewed Jared Kushner on Russia Meeting."
  The New York Times.  29 November 2017. Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne; McIntire, Mike.  "Long-Concealed Records Show Trump's Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance."
  The New York Times.  27 September 2020. Claim:  Ted Cruz said that veterans should start selling cookies in order to raise funds.  Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2015] There is a meme going around Facebook that Ted Cruz has said that veterans should pay for their care by selling cookies, like the Girl Scouts do. What is the truth?  Origins:  On 6 May 2015, the fake news site National Report published an article reporting that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz had suggested military veterans should start selling cookies in order to raise funds, the way Girl Scouts do: article During a campaign stop in Iowa on Wednesday, Texas Senator and 2016 GOP Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz made a suggestion that some military veterans may find controversial, if not outright offensive: he believes that the office of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon should sell cookies to raise funds, a concept he admittedly borrowed from the Girl Scouts of America. Ted Cruz spoke at a town hall event in Des Moines, Iowa Wednesday morning, answering questions from a crowd of approximately 200 to 250 likely voters. One of the attendees, an Iraq War veteran named Dan with a prosthetic leg, asked Senator Cruz what his administration would do to help veterans, while further asking how Cruzs proposed tax cuts would affect the Department of Veterans Affairs. "We need to be innovative if we want to help veterans. We need to be practical and pragmatic. But we also need to remain vigilant with our governments out-of-control spending, and find ways of mitigating expenses wherever possible," Cruz answered. "So we need a president whose willing to tackle the hard issues, and come up with innovative solutions to these problems, head-on." Although the article was initially published by the fake news site National Report, it was later republished on a spoofed web site designed to look like the real USA Today site. This led many people, including actor James Morrison, author John Scalzi, and reporter David Nelson, to believe that the article was real: USA Today James Morrison John Scalzi David Nelson    The National Report is one of many fake news web sites operating on the Internet. The site's disclaimer states that all articles published on  National Report "are fiction and presumably fake news." disclaimer   Last updated:  11 May 2015