Says federal debt doubled during the Bush administration.
Former Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler answered adebatequestion June 26, 2012, with a call to stop expanding government programs until the federal debt is under control.Squaring off in Dallas with retired teacher Grady Yarbrough, his opponent in the July 31, 2012, runoff for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sadler said, Until we get our financial house in order, we cannot continue to spend money. We just cant.The U.S. has never seen national debt like this, Sadler said. It doubled during the Bush administration.We decided to see if Sadlers claim about debt under President George W. Bush holds up.Sadler sent us an email with several presidents names linked to numbers, such as Bill Clinton 1.4, and told us the numbers sources were the U.S. Treasury, Financial Management Service, Bureau of the Public Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Office of Management and Budget.The same figures and sources, listed in the same order, appear on a July 28, 2011,New York Timeschartillustrating how much of the federal debt accumulated under each president since 1981.According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion --  an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. TheTimesascribed the increase in debt to tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007.Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bushs presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into theTreasurys online calculatorgives debt figures that tally with theTimesgraphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bushs presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway.Gross federal debt, though, is only one measure of how much the government owes. Because Sadlers numbers match theTimeschart, we started with that statistic, which includes money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to public debt.Public debt itself is another commonly used measure. Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government, in the form of Treasury notes and other securities.Which to use? We consulted Oregon State University political scientist Robert Sahr, who studies U.S. debt, policy, presidents and inflation.Sahr suggested we use public debt, and emailed us part of atextbooks explanation of why net public debt, rather than gross debt, is seen as a better measure of how much government is borrowing: We returned to the Treasury calculator and found that during Bushs fiscal years, public debt rose from $3.3 trillion to $7.6 trillion -- up 130 percent, clearly more than double.Also, we asked Sahr whether he agreed that debt doubled under Bush.Adjusted for inflation, he said, public debt did not double, though it came close.Sahr produced aspreadsheetfor us withfiscal year-end debt numbersfrom the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent.Returning to gross federal debt, which was Sadlers basis: Sahrs spreadsheet showed the same 105-percent increase in non-inflation-adjusted dollars as theNew York Timeschart. In 2011 dollars, though, the increase was 70 percent.Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bushs first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent. The calculator didnt have an amount for public debt January 20, 2001, but says the non-adjusted figure was $6.3 trillion January 20, 2009.When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation. The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation.Sahr said later: Sure, youre paying in current dollars. But if youre looking at the change in debt over eight years, part of the change is the change in the value of the dollar over those years.A final note: Such accounting and tallies can be read as blaming Bush alone for the increases. As PolitiFact has noted numerous times, such assumptions are overly sweeping. Many factors are at play, including Congress, which votes on many spending decisions affecting the debt.Our rulingWe see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bushs presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. Thats not quite doubling.We rate Sadlers claim Mostly True.
On 15 January 2016, Lisa and John Robinson stepped forward as buyers of oneof the $1.6 billion Powerball lottery's three winning tickets: Powerball John Robinson and his wife Lisa bought four tickets at Naifeh's Food Mart, a grocery store one block from their home in Munford, Tennessee, at 6:56 p.m. on Wednesday night. Robinson, a father of two, said he bought the four tickets as he always does to represent the four members of their family, with the computer choosing the winning numbers of 04, 08, 19, 27, 34 and Powerball 10. Shortly after the identity of the winner was revealed, a fake message started circulating, which claimed that the Robinsonswere giving money away to random people on Facebook. As withprevious messages featuring Mark Zuckerbergand Eminem, these Facebook messages are a hoax. John and Lisa Robinson are not giving away money to people who like, share, or comment on a Facebook post. Mark Zuckerberg Eminem It appears that the message originated on the fake news web siteDaily Media Buzz. In addition to creating the fake message,DMBalso created fake Facebook comments to make it seem like some random people had received money for John and Lisa:   A fake web site, johnandlisagiveback.com,was also started in an attempt to legitimize this hoax. These "something for nothing" hoaxesare common on Facebook. While they employ different methods in an attempt to spread on social media (some request likes, some request comments, some even display fake countdowns to give the hoax a sense of urgency), they all have one thing in common: They are potentially opening up the social media user to malware or advertising scams (as this particular one increasingly appears to be) and they don't result in cash windfalls. Facebook one In December 2019, readers asked us about reports that claimed the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had proposed changes to the way Social Security disability payments are made, which could cause thousands, even hundreds of thousands, to lose their benefits.  On Dec. 12, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Tribune posted an article with the headline "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients." The article reported that: Inquirer Tribune "The Trump administration is proposing changes to Social Security that could terminate disability payments to hundreds of thousands of Americans, particularly older people and children. The new rule would change aspects of disability reviews  the methods by which the Social Security Administration determines whether a person continues to qualify for benefits. Few recipients are aware of the proposal, which is open for public comment through January." The left-leaning website Common Dreams published an article with the headline "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands.'" That story reported: article "Activists are working to raise public awareness and outrage over a little-noticed Trump administration proposal that could strip life-saving disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of people by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who is eligible for payments." On the face of it, the changes proposed by the Trump administration would not, in fact, directly or immediately strip disability benefits from thousands of would-be recipients, rather the changes would introduce more (and more frequent) eligibility reviews for those who wish to receive them. However, some critics have argued that those increased bureaucratic requirements would over-burden some would-be recipients, in particular especially vulnerable recipients, and would ultimately (albeit indirectly) result in thousands losing disability benefits.  The Social Security Administration distributes disability benefits in two principle ways: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their previous Social Security tax contributions and history of work, and is paid out of the Social Security insurance fund; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which typically provides benefits to people based on their disability status and inability to work, and is paid out of general tax coffers.  ways In order to prevent potential abuse and waste in the system, the Social Security Administration conducts "continuing disability reviews," essentially investigating whether each recipient still has a disabling condition, and if so, which kind. Those reviews take place more or less frequently, depending on the nature of each individual's disability, broken into three "medical diary categories," as follows: reviews In November, the Social Security Administration published its proposals to make several changes to the review system. The most significant proposal was to add a fourth medical diary category, "Medical Improvement Likely." Recipients placed in that category would undergo a review every two years. proposals According to a document accompanying the proposals, the decision to introduce the fourth category was made, in part, because the administration saw a pattern whereby some in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category were being prematurely subjected to re-evaluation, after six-18 months, before a medical improvement had the chance to take hold, and some in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category had successfully treated their impairment comfortably within the three-year review interval. The introduction of the new category would therefore mean the bureaucratic burden on some recipients would actually be lessened, since they would be subject to review less frequently, though clearly it would also mean others would be subject to more frequent reviews. On the whole, the administration has estimated that, between 2020 and 2029, the new category would tend towards requiring more frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Possible" category, rather than less frequent reviews for those currently in the "Medical Improvement Expected" category:   The administration expects the introduction of the "Medical Improvement Likely" category to lead to an 18 percent increase in the total number of reviews undertaken over the next decade. This would therefore lead to an increased up-front cost in administering the disability benefits programs, and an increased aggregate bureaucratic burden to recipients (even if some individual recipients would actually undergo reviews less frequently).  Greater scrutiny of individual cases, and enhanced enforcement of eligibility criteria, results in some recipients no longer being deemed eligible, and no longer receiving either SSDI or SSI, which saves money for the Social Security insurance fund and the Treasury, respectively. For the 2015 fiscal year, for example, the Social Security Administration calculated a 19.9:1 return on investment rate for disability benefits enforcement  meaning that for every $1 spent on performing reviews, the government would save $19.90 on disability benefits that would otherwise have been paid, over the course of a lifetime, to recipients who are now deemed ineligible. To be specific, the administration estimated that the $717 million spent on reviews in 2015 would ultimately save $14.3 billion in lifetime disability benefit payments.  calculated So the introduction of the Trump administration's proposals is highly likely to ultimately lead to thousands of disability benefits recipients no longer receiving those benefits  both because some will be overburdened by the bureaucratic demands of more frequent reviews, and because some recipients whose medical status no longer meets the eligibility criteria will have that ineligibility discovered sooner. A considerable measure of truth, therefore, exists in the reports published by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Common Dreams. However, those articles failed to mention an important component to the administration's proposals: They would not change how a recipient's eligibility is determined, only how often that determination takes place. As the proposal stated: "We are not changing the Medical Improvement Review Standard that we use to determine whether a person continues to meet the disability requirements of the Act." This means that, while the proposed increase in the number and frequency of reviews was highly likely to ultimately cause thousands to lose their benefits, that loss of benefits would not be arbitrary, or based on an application of a new and different standard for determining whether someone's health has improved. The standards and criteria for assessing whether an improvement has taken place would be the same as currently exist, and only the frequency of those reviews would change. In other words, some recipients would be subject to more frequent reviews, but if those more frequent reviews result in a finding that the recipient still has a qualifying disability or impairment  based on the same criteria as currently apply  the recipient would continue to receive disability benefits.  It could be that, as some critics have argued, the proposal represents an elegant way for the administration to save money by removing thousands from the recipient rolls without having to change eligibility criteria  the latter a move that would be more likely to cause public outrage or political opposition. However, on its face at least, the proposal involves enhanced enforcement of existing eligibility standards and criteria. That's an important distinction, and a significant omission from news articles that reported, with some justification, that the Trump administration had proposed changes to Social Security disability benefits that would cause thousands to be stripped of those benefits.  argued Lubrano, Alfred. "Trump Administration Proposes Social Security Rule Changes That Could Cut Off Thousands of Disabled Recipients."
 The Philadelphia Inquirer/The Chicago Tribune. 12 December 2019. Johnson, Jake. "'A National Disgrace': Trump Proposes Social Security Change That Could End Disability Benefits for Hundreds of Thousands."
 Common Dreams. 16 December 2019. Social Security Administration. "Proposed Rule -- Rules Regarding the Frequency and Notice of Continuing Disability Reviews."
 Federal Register. 18 November 2019. In the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, right-wing conspiracy theorists and internet users began to share a letter, supposedly written by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Ted Wheeler, mayor of Portland, Oregon. The letter appeared to encourage Wheeler to "stick to the proven Democratic play book" and "blame Trump" for civil unrest in the city in August 2020. share unrest   The letter was dated Aug. 27, 2020, and read as follows: Dear Mr. Wheeler,  I have seen your response to the riots in your city and I am urging you to stick to the proven Democratic Play book. I would like to review this with you now.1. Deny there is a Problem. (Press will support this)2. Refer to everything as peaceful and calm. (Press will help here also)3. When all hell breaks loose, go on camera and show your support for anybody breaking the law. (Press will praise you for this, you will be a new hero, trust me).4. When you can no longer keep any order "BLAME TRUMP!" (I cannot over emphasize #4, This has worked every time we have used it and again the Press has told me they will support and fact check any claim we make!! THIS IS POLITICAL GOLD!!)5. Go on Television and Condemn TRUMP and refuse any assistance! We CANNOT give TRUMP any victory before the election!!!!! Many of those who shared the letter claimed additionally that it had been obtained from a laptop stolen from Pelosi during the riots. One widely shared screenshot indicated that the letter had also been shared on the social media website Parler by the controversial pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood. claimed additionally obtained indicated controversial pro-Trump On Jan. 10, Google and Apple removed Parler from their app stores, and Amazon removed the site from its online platform, meaning we could not access Wood's Parler posts at the time of this writing, so we can't verify whether he did share the Pelosi letter. removed However, we do know the letter was fake. First of all, it bore several prima-facie hallmarks of being inauthentic: the informal style and tone ("stick to the proven Democratic Play book"); the scattered use of all caps ("THIS IS POLITICAL GOLD!!"); frequent deployment of exclamation marks; inappropriate capitalization ("Play book" and "Problem") and inappropriate lack of capitalization ("best wishes"). Those traits immediately marked the letter as being more akin to a hyper-partisan Facebook post than formal written correspondence between the speaker of the U.S. House and the mayor of a major American city. On Jan. 6, Capitol rioters did steal a laptop from a conference room used by the speaker of the House. However, Pelosi's Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hamill quickly clarified on Twitter that the laptop was used only for giving presentations. In an email sent to Snopes, Hamill explained that not only was the letter fake, but the laptop in question would not have allowed anyone access to Pelosi's personal, private correspondence in the first place. clarified Furthermore, a spokesperson for Wheeler confirmed for Snopes that the Portland mayor had never received any letter from Pelosi that matched the content of the one shared widely in January 2021.  Those dual attestations, combined with the unavailability of evidence to authenticate the letter, and the existence of convincing indications that it was not written by Pelosi, mean we are issuing a rating of False. One of the lessons of the personal computer revolution that began in the 1970s was that tremendous business success was no longer entirely the province of staid, conservatively-dressed, mature adult males with expensive business school educations.  As Microsoft, Apple Computer, and hundreds of other technology-driven companies demonstrated, plenty of young, sartorially-questionable, self-taught young people of both sexes could achieve business success on a par with some of the world's oldest and biggest corporations.   A photograph of Microsoft staff members in 1978 has been circulated online for many years bearing titles such as "Would you have invested?"  It reflects the notion that, back in 1978, not many people might have predicted that a small group of casually-dressed, long-haired youngsters was creating a corporation that would, four decades later, reach an estimated market value of $330 billion, themselves  becoming millionaires (and a few even billionaires) in the process. market value In December 1978, Microsoft had just completed its first million-dollar sales year, and the decision was made to decamp from the company's Albuquerque, New Mexico, headquarters and relocate to bigger and better digs in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington.  The formal studio photograph displayed above was taken on 7 December 1978, shortly before that move, and captured all but a couple of the current Microsoft staff: To suitably immortalize the Albuquerque years, Bob Greenberg cut a deal with a photo studio for a group portrait on December 7. Pearl Harbor Day in Albuquerque featured a snowstorm, but only Miriam Lubow, who was stranded at home with her kids, and Ric Weiland [Microsoft's second employee], out of town on business, failed to make the sitting.  All eleven of the employees in the Albuquerque picture, along with Weiland, were about to make the trip to Seattle.  Only Miriam Lubow would stay behind  reluctantly.  Gates offered to pay for her and her family's move to Seattle, but Miriam's husband demurred: "He said, 'Why are we going to follow this kid to Seattle? It always rains in Seattle.'" On a Concorde flight to Europe, Gates wrote her a thank-you note for her service to Microsoft. As it turned out, she was merely postponing the inevitable. Three years later Miriam would move to the Seattle area and work again for Microsoft, this time focusing more narrowly on a skill she had developed in Albuquerque: getting customers to pay up. (Technically, Microsoft wasn't yet "Microsoft Corporation" at the time this photograph was taken  the company was founded as a partnership and officially became a  Washington State corporation on 1 July 1981.) As for the identities of the persons pictured, and their lives after Microsoft:  Bill Gates (front row, left):  William Gates III, the Harvard drop-out who at 18 co-founded (and later served as CEO and Chairman of the Board of) Microsoft, the world's largest software company, hardly needs any introduction.   He is regularly ranked as the one of the richest individuals in the world (with an estimated net worth in 2015 of $78 billion); in 2008 he  withdrew from Microsoft's day-to-day operations to focus his attention on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which combats diseases such as polio, malaria, and AIDS. richest withdrew Foundation  Andrea Lewis (front row, second from left):  Andrea Lewis was a former MITS technical writer and Computer Notes editor hired in 1978 to produce documentation for Microsoft products as the company's first technical writer.  She left her day-to-day job at Microsoft in 1983, has since worked as a freelance journalist and fiction writer, and helped create the Richard Hugo House, a literary center in Seattle.  She now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. MITS Richard Hugo House  Marla Wood (front row, second from right):  Marla Wood (wife of Steve Wood, also pictured above) worked as a bookkeeper and administrative assistant at Microsoft until 1980, when she and her husband left the company (becoming the first of the eleven staff members in the photograph to depart Microsoft), in large part due to a dispute regarding payment of overtime wages: Bill's letter confirming [a $50,000 offer to Steve Ballmer to become his assistant] became a personnel disaster when some disgruntled soul copied it and tacked it on the office bulletin board. Along with his salary, high for Microsoft, Ballmer was to get a 5 to 10 percent cut of the company based on a formula involving the year's revenue growth.  It sorely rankled loyalists who had been slaving for the company since the Albuquerque days without so much as a profit-sharing plan to show for it. When it came to clerical help, Gates had been tightfisted beyond the bounds of the law. Overtime had always been paid on a straight-time basis, and though the rules affecting programmers might be debatable, the rules affecting clerical workers were not. Marla Wood and other office staffers had checked into the labor regulations and discovered that they deserved time and a half for overtime  currently and retroactively. When Steve Wood approached Gates about it, he agreed to start paying time and a half but insisted that back pay was out of the question. If the secretaries wanted to file a complaint, well, let 'em. They did. When the state notified Gates that the back pay was due, it wasn't long before Marla Wood got the news:  Bill comes storming into my office saying he just had a phone call from these people, just livid. This was the one time I was really on the receiving end of one of his rages  I mean, just screaming about this and how it was going to ruin his reputation ... This would be on his reports forever and ever ... I was saved by an overseas phone call which he proceeded to take at my desk, whereupon I ran out, went down to Steve's office and said, "I'm quitting. I can't stand it here any more." And he said, "That's all right; I'm seeing a headhunter tomorrow anyway." But before she and her husband departed Microsoft, Marla saw to it that the issue was settled. Although it amounted to only $100 or so for her and as little as $20 for the others, "It was just a matter of principle."  Paul Allen (front row, right):  Paul Allen, a childhood friend of Bill Gates, co-founded Microsoft with Gates in 1975 and resigned his day-to-day position in 1983 after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease (for which he was successfully treated), although he remained on Microsoft's board of directors until 2000.  A variety of post-Microsoft investments, in technology companies and other areas of business (including ownership of the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team) have helped bring him an estimated net worth of $17 billion. Like Bill Gates, he engages in philanthropic efforts through his chairmanship of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. net worth Foundation  Bob O'Rear (second row, left):  In 1978 programmer Bob O'Rear was, at age 35, the oldest of the Microsoft staff members pictured above, and, as a native Texan, one of only two staffers who did not come from the Pacific Northwest area.  He was also one of the best-educated employees, a NASA engineer who held degrees in mathematics and physics.  He left the company in 1993 and now runs a cattle ranch in Texas in addition to serving on the boards of a variety of high-tech firms.  Bob Greenberg  (second row, second from left):  Bob Greenberg, who arranged the deal for the studio photograph displayed above, was a programmer Bill Gates knew from his Harvard days, hired in 1977 to help Microsoft create a new version of the BASIC programming language for a new Texas Instruments computer.  Greenberg proved invaluable for more than just his technical expertise, lending the fledgling company $7,000 during a financial crunch in mid-1977; although he left Microsoft in 1981, he went from one business juggernaut to another, helping the family business, Coleco, launch the Cabbage Patch Kids marketing craze of the 1980s. He now reportedly develops software for golf courses. Coleco  Marc McDonald (second row, second from right):  Marc McDonald is generally identified as Microsoft's (then "Micro-Soft") first employee, hired in 1976 to adapt BASIC for the new NCR 7200 machine.  (Although a couple of other people had worked for Microsoft on a contract basis, McDonald was the first hiree to draw a regular salary.)  Marc left Microsoft in 1984, reportedly disenchanted with the changes wrought by the company's burgeoning growth, and went to work for fellow ex-Microsoft staffer Paul Allen's new company, Asymetrix.  In an amusing coincidence, McDonald eventually ended up back at Microsoft when it acquired Design Intelligence, the Seattle-based software company for which he was then working. NCR 7200 acquired  Gordon Letwin (second row, right):  The initial 1978 meeting between Gordon Letwin and his future employer, Bill Gates, was somewhat contentious, according to the biography Gates: Befitting its role as a haven for soldering-iron types, Heath[kit] was now marketing its own computers, including a Z-80 machine with a homegrown edition of BASIC instead of the Microsoft version. As Bill Gates was attempting to correct this egregious error, he was introduced to a black-haired gnome by the name of Gordon Letwin, who proceeded to chew him out in front of a group of about fifteen people. Letwin, the author of Heath's BASIC, felt his turf was being violated  and by the purveyor of an inferior product to boot. Bill Gates nonetheless prevailed, selling Heath his BASIC and FORTRAN for H-DOS, a proprietary operating system Letwin had developed for Heath. But Letwin had instinctively understood how to win the favor of William Henry Gates: Stand up to the guy. By the end of the year Gordon Letwin would come to work for Microsoft and begin work on a BASIC compiler. Among other projects, Gordon served as Microsoft's chief architect for the development of the infamous OS/2 operating system and stayed with the company longer than any of the other staffers pictured above (with the exception of Bill Gates himself), finally leaving in 1993 to escape the day-to-day tech bustle and enjoy life.  He has reportedly contributed a substantial portion of the money he acquired during his tenure at Microsoft to various environmental causes.  Steve Wood (top row, left): Steve Wood was Microsoft's first married employee, a Stanford graduate with a master's degree who was hired in 1976 to help create a Microsoft version of FORTRAN.  Later, when Steve was serving as Microsoft's office manager, his wife Marla joined the company as a clerical worker, eventually taking over all of Microsoft's bookkeeping chores after Miriam Lubow stayed behind when the firm relocated from New Mexico to Washington.  Steve and Marla both left Microsoft in 1980 (as detailed above); in 1996, Steve Wood founded Wireless Services Corp. (now SinglePoint), a mobile messaging company. SinglePoint  Bob Wallace (top row, center):  Bob Wallace joined Microsoft in 1978 after responding to a photocopied ad that Paul Allen had left in the Seattle computer store where he worked.  He served as a production manager and software designer until 1983, when he became (like Marc McDonald would the following year) disenchanted with the changes in the company's culture brought about by Microsoft's success and growth: [Paul] Allen's illness and departure coalesced uneasiness within the ranks of the remaining Albuquerquians  the core group that had helped establish Microsoft early, had followed their leader to Bellevue, had stuck with the company through some tumultuous years, and now found themselves being middle-managed into oblivion. In March 1983 Bob Wallace, in the best Microsoft tradition, got into a heated dispute with his supervisor over a technical point. The supervisor told him, "there's nothing you can do about it, and you can't talk to Bill about it ... I'm the only one who can talk to Bill." For Wallace, being barred from talking with Bill was not just a shock but an insult. He told his supervisor as much, half expecting Gates to intercede. When it didn't happen, he resigned. In 1983 Bob Wallace started his own company, Quicksoft, which marketed the text-processing program PC-Write, generally touted as being the first (widely-used) shareware program.  He sold Quicksoft in 1991, moved to northern California a few years later, and  long interested in psychedelic drugs  started Mind Books (a bookstore offering literature about psychoactive plants and compounds) and the Promind Foundation (an organization dedicated to supporting scientific research and public education about psychedelics).   In 2002, Bob Wallace became the first (and so far the only) one of the eleven Microsoft staffers pictured above to pass away, succumbing to pneumonia at age 53.  Jim Lane (top row, right):  Jim Lane, who got his start with microcomputers at the Denver-based Digital Group, was hired by Microsoft in late 1978 (shortly before this picture was taken).  As a Microsoft project manager, he was a key figure in forging the partnership between Microsoft software and Intel's microprocessors (a relationship symbolized by the development of the term "Wintel").  He left Microsoft in 1985 (reportedly stating that the company had "beat the enthusiasm out of me") to run his own software/consultancy business. Digital Group Wintel Nearly thirty years later, just before Bill Gates stepped down from being involved in the day-to-day operations of Microsoft, the eleven staffers pictured above reunited for another photograph, with office manager Miriam Lubow (who missed the original sitting) taking the place of Bob Wallace (who died in 2002): 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 September 2020, social media users began circulating a text meme charting the decrease in abortion rates in the U.S. during previous presidential administrations, attributing the greater drop in those rates during Democratic administrations to a difference in approach (i.e., making it illegal vs. making it unnecessary):     As we noted in an earlier article on a similar topic, following the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that protected a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction, the abortion rate rose immediately afterward until it peaked in the 1980s, and it has fairly consistently declined since that peak through presidential administrations of both parties: article Following nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the total number, rate (number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 1544 years), and ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) of reported abortions increased rapidly, reaching the highest levels in the 1980s before decreasing at a slow yet steady pace.     Although it is true that the abortion rate has experienced greater declines during Democratic administrations than Republican ones, we can't draw any definitive conclusion that, as the meme tries to suggest, this difference is primarily due to varying approaches by the two main political parties. The simple idea presented by the meme has a number of flaws, chief among them that political factors that might influence the abortion rate (e.g., policies, legislation, judicial appointments and rulings) do not neatly conform to presidential terms of office -- what takes place during one administration generally continues to have an effect throughout subsequent administrations. As well, events occurring at state and local levels (not necessarily directly tied to federal actions) can have a substantial impact on the availability and prevalence of abortions. More important, though, is that we cannot definitively determine to what extent political factors influence the abortion rate. As the Guttmacher Institute (a pro-abortion-rights research organization) observed, recent declines in the abortion rate appear to have been driven not primarily by abortion restrictions but by a broader decline in pregnancies: observed Abortion restrictions target either individuals ability to access the procedure (such as by imposing coercive waiting periods and counseling requirements) or providers ability to offer it (such as through unnecessary and intentionally burdensome regulations). Any one of these restrictions could result in some people being forced to continue pregnancies they were seeking to end; this could, in theory, lower the abortion rate. With the available evidence, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly which factors drove recent declines, and to what degree. However, previous Guttmacher analyses have documented that abortion restrictions, while incredibly harmful at an individual level, were not the main driver of national declines in the abortion rate ... Rather, the decline in abortions appears to be part of a broader decline in pregnancies, as evidenced by fewer births over the same period. What's driving that decline in pregnancies, then? We don't know that for sure, either, but likely a combination of social, cultural, economic, medical, and political factors: combination Experts say the decline isnt due to a single cause, but rather a combination of several factors, including changing economics, delays in childbirth by women pursuing jobs and education, the greater availability of contraception, and a decline in teen pregnancies. The trend seen in the United States is also seen in much of the developed world, including Western Europe, said Dr. John Rowe, a professor at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health. One important factor driving this is the changing roles of women in society, Rowe said. In general women are getting married later in life, he explained. They are leaving the home and launching their families later. [Dr. Helen Kim, an associate professor at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine] said the concept of the ideal family size may be changing. There are shifts where having smaller families is a trend, she added. I cant speak on this as a sociologist, but this is what Ive seen among my peers and colleagues. One of the biggest factors is the decline in teen pregnancies, Rowe said. Thats good news ... And that makes a huge difference to their lives. The Guttmacher Institute posited a similar mix of factors to explain the decline in the abortion rate: Because both abortions and births [have] declined, it is clear that there were fewer pregnancies overall in the United States ... The big question is why. One possible contributing factor is contraceptive access and use. Since 2011, contraception has become more accessible, as most private health insurance plans are now required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to cover contraceptives without out-of-pocket costs. In addition, thanks to expansions in Medicaid and private insurance coverage under the ACA, the proportion of women aged 1544 nationwide who were uninsured dropped more than 40% between 2013 and 2017. There is evidence that use of long-acting reversible contraceptive methods -- specifically IUDs and implants -- increased through at least 2014, especially among women in their early 20s, a population that accounts for a significant proportion of all abortions Another possible contributing factor might be a decline in sexual activity. Findings from one national survey suggest a long-term increase in the number of people in the United States -- mostly younger men -- reporting not having sex in the past year. Yet another possibility is that infertility is increasing in the United States, thereby reducing the chances of getting pregnant and subsequently seeking to obtain an abortion. More generally, there are a host of other potential factors that could be driving declines in pregnancy rates, from individuals evolving desires about whether and when to become parents to peoples changing economic and social circumstances. Finally, it is possible that ... there could have been an increase in self-managed abortions happening outside of medical facilities, which the census would be unable to capture. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also offered a combination of potential explanations for lower abortion rates: combination Multiple factors influence the incidence of abortion including the availability of abortion providers; state regulations, such as mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and legal restrictions on abortion providers; increasing acceptance of nonmarital childbearing; shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population; and changes in the economy and the resulting impact on fertility preferences and access to health care services, including contraception. As we stated four years ago, "causation between the presidency and abortion rates [is] difficult to demonstrate in any case, because it is hard to draw a straight line between federal government policy (let alone presidential policy) and abortion procurement." That observation remains true today. Carroll, Linda and Shamard Charles, M.D.  "Americans Aren't Making Enough Babies to Replace Ourselves."
  NBC News.  13 January 2019. Nash, Elizabeth and Joerg Dreweke.  "The U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Drop: Once Again, State Abortion Restrictions Are Not the Main Driver."
  Guttmacher Institute.  18 September 2019. Kasprak, Alex.  "Abortion Rates Fall During Democratic Administrations and Rise During Republican Ones."
  Snopes.com.  11 November 2016. On 9 January 2014,  the Lightly Braised Turnip web site published an article (complete with photo) positing that a gigantic mutant squid grown to the size of 160 feet due to radioactivity had been discovered on the California coast near Santa Monica: article For the second time in recent months, a giant sea creature has washed ashore in California.  First it was a rare oarfish that had grown to a freakish 100-foot length.  This time it was a giant squid measuring a whopping 160 feet from head to tentacle tip.  These giants look different but experts believe they share one important commonality: they both come from the waters near the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Futaba District of Japan. Scientists believe that following the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant an unknown number of sea creatures suffered genetic mutations that triggered uncontrolled growth  or "radioactive gigantism." Unfortunately, this cadre of mutant giants seems to be drifting towards the continental U.S.  Local officials in Santa Monica, CA  where the creature drifted ashore  tried to calm residents. By later that day, links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.  However, that article was just a bit of fictional humor (a follow-up to an earlier fictional item about a giant oarfish supposedly discovered off the California coast) spoofing recent alarmist reports about dangerous radioactivity reaching the U.S. from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The photo was a fabrication that melded a picture depicting a dead whale found in Chile back in 2011 with a picture of a giant squid that washed up on a Spanish beach in 2013: item Fukushima dead whale giant squid   The Santa Monica area of California is just outside our home base here at snopes.com, and a quick drive along the coastline provided no view of a gigantic squid on the beach, nor did any of the many local news outlets cover any such topic.  Disappointed, we headed elsewhere for our calamari lunch.   Last updated:  9 January 2014 Since November 2020, an identically worded bit of text alleging that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "is a private nonprofit corporation" has been shared across multiple social media platforms. The claim has its origins on the website Armstrong Economics  which sells a variety of self-published conspiracy books by the titular Martin Armstrong  and would become a well-shared bit of copy-and-paste "copypasta," reproduced in part below: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention its origins well-shared Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation? [...] The CDC is quasi-government under the Department of Health and Human Services which strangely has sources of funding that are predicated on the fact that it also has a private 501(c)(3) public charity, like the Clinton Foundation. The CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, NGOs and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is NOT a government-funded organization. It is not exclusively a government-funded [sic]  very curious. Natural News, which boasts a massive audience of conspiracy theorists, republished it in December 2020. At the time of this writing, versions of this copypasta still creep up on various social media platforms. On May 3, 2021, a Facebook account named The Daily Callout published it along with a picture of purported CDC funding sources. Commenters to that post were evidently confused: republished published   The allegations leveled against the CDC are not all that coherent in these posts. The copypasta suggests the CDC is both a non-profit and a "quasi-government" agency. Further, those issues are tangled up in the separate issue of corporate donations to the CDC. The title of the post, however, provides Snopes with a clearly stated contention: "Did you know the CDC is a private nonprofit corporation?" You most likely did not know this, because it is, in fact, not true. The CDC is a federal agency housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The confusion stems from the fact that, in 1992, Congress mandated the creation of a non-profit foundation  the CDC Foundation  that would "not be an agency or instrumentality of the Federal Government" and whose purpose would be "to support and carry out activities for the prevention and control of diseases, disorders, injuries, and disabilities, and for promotion of public health." As part of that goal, the foundation has an endowment and accepts charitable gifts from a variety of entities, including corporations, which are forwarded to the CDC to support specific initiatives.  housed in in 1992 mandated the creation CDC Foundation "The government has unique capacities as well as limitations. The same is true for the private and philanthropic sectors," the CDC Foundation argues on its website. "We believe that people, groups and organizations have greater positive impact and can accomplish more collectively than individually." Funds raised by the CDC foundation are donated to various programs and initiatives within the CDC. its website The CDC Foundation is one of two ways corporations can legally provide funds to the CDC. Donations to the CDC foundation are an indirect route as, by law, "officers, employees, and members of the board of the Foundation shall not be officers or employees of the Federal Government." Direct gifts by corporations to the CDC are also allowed under a portion of the U.S. Code that authorizes the secretary of HHS "to accept on behalf of the United States gifts made ... for the benefit of the Service or for the carrying out of any of its functions." by law a portion For both direct gifts to the CDC and gifts made via the CDC Foundation, conditional funding is allowed so long as those requirements are not, as outlined in CDC policy documents: policy documents The acceptance of corporate donations earmarked for specific causes  both to the CDC Foundation and to the CDC itself  have caused apparent conflicts of interest. In 2015, the medical journal BMJ published an editorial outlining several examples of potential conflicts, including these examples: an editorial In 2010, the CDC, in conjunction with the CDC Foundation, formed the Viral Hepatitis Action Coalition, which supports research and promotes expanded testing and treatment of hepatitis C in the United States and globally. Industry has donated over $26m to the coalition through the CDC Foundation since 2010. Corporate members of the coalition include Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, OraSure Technologies, Quest Diagnostics, and Siemenseach of which produces products to test for or treat hepatitis C infection. [...] In 2012, [a company named] Genentech earmarked $600,000 in donations to the CDC Foundation for CDCs efforts to promote expanded testing and treatment of viral hepatitis. Genentech and its parent company, Roche, manufacture test kits and treatments for hepatitis C. The CDC argues that it has policies in place to prevent such conflicts. Its website states that "when we engage with the private sector  we maintain our scientific integrity by participating in a gift review process that is rigorous and transparent. CDCs gift acceptance policy requires a comprehensive gift review prior to accepting a gift. This includes CDC Foundation (CDCF) gifts and gifts given directly to [the] CDC, whether they are monetary or non-monetary." These processes have been refined and standardized several times since 2014. has policies since 2014 While the issue of potential corporate influence over public health policy merits scrutiny, it is also important to consider the scale of private funding compared to the overall congressionally appropriated budget of the CDC. In the 2020 fiscal year, the CDC received $13 million in conditional gifts from the CDC Foundation and $10 million in conditional and unconditional direct contributions from the private sector. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $8 billion in funding the CDC receives from Congress: 2020 fiscal year compared to   Even from a rhetorical standpoint it would be a stretch to argue the CDC proportionally is awash in corporate funding. Narrowly speaking, however, the assertion that the CDC is a non-profit, non-government organization is incorrect because that claim conflates the CDC (a federal agency) and the CDC Foundation (a 501(c)(3) charity). As such, the claim is Claim:  The magnitude of the 17 January 1994 Northridge earthquake was deliberately under-reported in order to spare the government from having to pay out emergency relief funds.  Status:  False. Examples:  [Harvey, 1994] Urban Myth No. 5,212: It's linked to the earthquake, of course  what isn't these days? The [Los Angeles] Times has heard from several callers who claim there's a conspiracy to hide the fact that the quake's magnitude was really 8.0. One caller quoted an unnamed structural engineer who said that only an 8.0 temblor could have inflicted the damage of the Northridge quake. And why the conspiracy? The unfounded rumor that FEMA is obligated to give outright grants, rather than loans, to damaged houses and businesses after quakes of 8.0 or more.  [Collected on the Internet, 2000] Right after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, word was going around that the State of California coerced CalTech to declare the magnitude of the earthquake under 7.0. This was due to a hidden clause in the state laws saying state income tax in California is suspended that year for affected areas when there is a major earthquake over 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Origins:  On 17 January 1994, Los Angeles area residents were shaken awake at 4:31 A.M. by the seismic event that would come to be known as the Northridge quake. In the usual way of earthquakes, those few seconds of violent shaking took a terrible toll.  The quake killed 57 people, injured another 9,000, and caused property damage in the $13-$15 billion range. It closed seven freeway sites and two hospitals, and left 150,000 people without water, 40,000 without natural gas, and 25,000 without homes.  It was devastatingly awful. Folks were shocked when the quake was reported to have registered a mere 6.7 on the Richter scale. They were thus prepared to believe almost anything that would confirm the quake's intensity to have been much higher. After the Northridge quake, a bogus fax on fake Caltech letterhead (misstated as "Cal Tech") was circulated throughout the Los Angeles area. It purportedly assigned an "intensity scale" to different Los Angeles ZIP codes, with the strength  of the quake measured in one ZIP code area listed as a whopping 9.5. The numbers quoted in the fax were, in fact, estimates of the intensity of the shaking around the Los Angeles basin based on the modified Mercalli scale, which uses the Roman numbers I through XII. (The Mercalli scale is a measurement derived from observable earthquake damage; the Richter scale is based on seismometer readings.  The Mercalli scale is thus largely a subjective measurement, while the Richter scale is generally considered to be more objective and scientifically accurate.)  Parts of Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley experienced Mercalli IX-level intensity, which was misconstrued on the fax as a 9-level Richter scale measurement (instead of  the officially reported 6.7).  Caltech (actually the U.S. Geological Survey at Caltech) had not under-reported the figure  the Northridge quake was a 6.7 no matter who measured it. Earthquake data is almost instantaneously shared among a number of organizations worldwide, and one group's under-reporting the magnitude would have been quickly picked up by the others. Even if Caltech had wanted to suppress the real numbers, it would have been unable to do so without the cooperation of a number of other scientific organizations. The scary fax played into what people wanted to believe.  Those who'd lived through the quake swore it had to have been much stronger than the 6.7 that was being reported. From this belief was the legend born: if Caltech was fudging the magnitude of the event, there had to be a reason. Inventive sorts that humans are, it wasn't long before someone advanced the plausible-sounding explanation that the amount and type of aid provided to disaster victims by the government was predicated upon the severity of the event; by convincing Caltech to under-report, the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) slipped off the hook. According to this rumor, since the quake's intensity was under 7.0, FEMA only had to provide loans to earthquake victims rather than outright grants, which saved the agency billions of dollars. The rumor, of course, was false. FEMA never gives loans to those disadvantaged by disaster; its assistance comes in the form of grants to those affected. That agency works with the Small Business Administration (SBA), which provides low-interest loans.    Also, FEMA bases its aid on need, not upon a standardized chart that determines how much can be allocated according to what scientists measure.  Likewise, insurance companies base their earthquake policy liability on damage estimates, not on magnitude scales. This makes sense  under a system like the one hinted at in the legend, survivors of a large earthquake in a relatively unpopulated zone would be eligible for free aid while those trying cope with the aftermath of a lesser disaster in a far more densely populated area would be saddled with repaying government loan debts (or would receive no financial assistance at all). An extreme hypothetical example could see millions of free dollars directed towards the rebuilding of one house in Alaska while 200,000 uninsured and homeless Californians had do without, all because Alaska was hit by an 8.2 while California had to cope with only a 6.7.  The legend took off the way it did for reasons other than just the usual mistrust of government and science that marks such whispers. Getting up close and personal with the unthinkable heightens the experience, which explains in part why this legend was so widely believed by Los Angeleans: they'd been shaken out of bed and back to reality by this earthquake, whereas they had experienced other large quakes that had taken place in other lands merely as words on a page or images on a television screen. In a world where the ruin of the 6.9 Kobe quake (17 January 1995) was dispassionately presented by the nightly news and barely given a second thought here in California, what the authorities were telling skeptical Los Angeleans was a 6.7 felt like it was more because it had been experienced with all our senses, not just the television-dulled ones.  There was yet another reason for this legend's running rampant: its location. The quake's epicenter was in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, a heavily-populated area, and so felt stronger to many people because those who experienced the sensation were right on top of the worst of it.  Additionally, we humans have a desire to star ourselves in the drama of the moment. A 6.7 didn't sound worthy of the harrowing experience endured by those resident on 17 January 1994, and those who'd been through the shake and looked to regale others with their horrific accounts were especially receptive to any suggestion that the figure was far too low. On a final note, one further rumor attached to FEMA in California: that illegal immigrants who surfaced to apply for disaster relief would be rounded up, handed over to INS, and deported. That rumor did not begin with the Northridge quake, however; it was recorded in the aftermath of the 17 October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco area. While FEMA's aid is now available only to U.S. citizens, legal residents of the U.S., and the resident parents of U.S. citizens (that is, children born in the USA), at the time of the Loma Prieta quake, the assistance it directed was available to citizens and non-citizens alike. As for alerting the INS to potential illegals, FEMA pointed out at that time that it didn't ask about the citizenship status of aid applicants, with  questions about citizenship status not even being presented on any of its forms. (That has since changed  FEMA Form 90-69 is specifically for that purpose.) Barbara "not a milked shake" Mikkelson Additional information:        Federal Emergency Management Agency   (FEMA)        Earthquake Myths   (U.S. Geological Survey)   Last updated:  18 July 2007    Sources:   Harvey, Steve.  "Only in L.A."    Los Angeles Times.  2 March 1994  (p. B2).    Jackson, Robert and Miles Corwin.  "Aid Centers Open But No Money Yet."    Los Angeles Times.  23 October 1989  (p. A1).    Mitchell, Sean.  "Warning: The Following L.A. Stories Are Not True."    Los Angeles Times.  24 November 1996  (Magazine, p. 32). Amid intensifying debate around the prospect of U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment after it was revealed he had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated rumors about former Vice President Joe Biden's dealings with that country, Republicans and Trump supporters hit back by attempting to tie several high-profile Democrats and their families to Ukraine. Right-leaning websites scrutinized the purported business activities of Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and attempted to draw a meaningful connection between Ukraine and the Clintons. Pelosi attempted On Oct. 6, the Twitter account @RealJack posted a widely-shared tweet which claimed that the sons of Biden and Pelosi, as well as those of former Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), had worked for "energy companies doing business in Ukraine": Biden's sonPelosi's sonRomney's sonKerrys son All are on the board of directors for energy companies doing business in Ukraine... Coincidence? No.  Jack Murphy (@RealJack) October 6, 2019 October 6, 2019   @RealJack's claims were further promulgated when multiple Facebook accounts re-posted the wording of his tweet, including the group "Texas for Donald Trump 2020": multiple Facebook accounts On Oct. 8, the right-leaning, Trump-supporting Twitter account @Education4Libs attempted to draw all these strands together with a widely-shared, innuendo-laden tweet claiming that an unspecified conspiracy connected donations to the Clinton Foundation with the alleged business activities of the sons of prominent Democrats: "From 1999-2014, Ukraine donated more money to the Clinton Foundation than any other foreign country. Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, & Romney all have children working for Ukrainian gas companies. And all of the people I mentioned want Trump impeached. Are you connecting the dots yet?" From 1999-2014, Ukraine donated more money to the Clinton Foundation than any other foreign country. Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, & Romney all have children working for Ukrainian gas companies. And all of the people I mentioned want Trump impeached. Are you connecting the dots yet? ?  Educating Liberals (@Education4Libs) October 8, 2019 October 8, 2019 These tweets constituted a mixture of some accurate statements with false claims, as well as unsubstantiated suggestions of unspecified wrongdoing or corruption on the part of those involved. Clinton Foundation donations In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that between 1999 and 2014, Ukrainians had donated more than individuals of any other nationality to the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization founded by former President Bill Clinton. So @Education4Libs' claim that Ukraine as a country -- rather than individual Ukrainian nationals -- had topped the list of donations was not backed up by the Journal's research. reported Hillary Clinton stepped away from her seat on the board of directors of the Clinton Foundation when she became Secretary of State in 2009. According to the foundation's website, neither she nor Bill nor Chelsea Clinton has ever derived any personal income from their involvement in the charity. website The Bidens Hunter Biden, the former vice president's 49-year-old son, served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, from 2014 until April 2019, according to multiple reports. His decision to join the company's payroll caused some political discomfort at the time, since Burisma's owner had recently been embroiled in a money-laundering scandal and Biden's father, the vice president, was heading the Obama administration's efforts to discourage and crack down on corruption in Ukraine. multiple reports discomfort However, no evidence has yet emerged suggesting that either Biden engaged in any wrongdoing with regard to Burisma or Ukraine, despite President Trump's efforts to have both men investigated. It is accurate to say that Hunter Biden worked for and was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, but no evidence indicates any link between his work there and Ukrainian donations to the Clinton Foundation. no evidence Furthermore, @Education4Libs claimed in October that Biden is "working for" a Ukrainian gas company, but that's not correct since he stepped down from his place on the board in April 2019. The Pelosis Paul Pelosi Jr., son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was at one time on the board of a California-based oil-processing company called Viscoil, according to the account he gave in a video recorded in 2010. The link between Viscoil and Ukraine is either tenuous or non-existent and does not appear to involve Pelosi at all. oil-processing video Viscoil was linked to a somewhat shadowy figure going by the name "Ana Shell," who claims to be an investor and environmental entrepreneur, and claims to have provided funding to both Viscoil and another entity called NRG Lab. The purported Ukraine connection arose from a YouTube video posted by "NRG Lab Research Council" in 2013, whose caption stated "Mika Newton helped to secure the rights to build a plant for the production of SH-boxes in Ukraine." claims video That single line from the caption of an NRG Lab promotional video was cited by Patrick Howley, who writes for The Epoch Times, a website known for promulgating pro-Trump misinformation, in advancing a link between Pelosi and an energy company that "did business in Ukraine." However, the claim that Newton, a Ukrainian singer born Oksana Stefanivna Hrytsay, had any connection to NRG Lab or Viscoil, appears to be false. cited known We found a Facebook page labelled "Mika_Newton.official" which appears distinctly unofficial, has very little content apart from "Ana Shell" promotional imagery, and includes the following description: "Hi, my name's Mika Newton. This is my official page to support projects that NRGLab Singapore makes":   Neither Newton's actual official Facebook page nor her Instagram account (where she engages in prolific product promotion) contain any mention of NRG Lab, Viscoil, or "Ana Shell." The link between NRG Lab, Newton, and production rights in Ukraine appears to be bogus. page account In any event, Pelosi appears to have ended his involvement with Viscoil before the bogus Mika Newton connection was ever made. A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi told PolitiFact that: "The company [Viscoil] was based in Southern California and focused solely on U.S. business. The company later reorganized under a different name [NRG Lab], but Paul Pelosi Jr. played no role in the new entity." PolitiFact Pelosi Jr. did travel to Ukraine in 2017, but that trip related to his work for the Corporate Governance Initiative and had no discernible link to Viscoil, NRG Lab, or "Ana Shell." travel John Kerry This claim is riddled with errors. First off, former Secretary of State and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry doesn't have a biological son. The man in question is his stepson, Chris Heinz, who was born to Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and her first husband, John Heinz. Heinz appears to have been added to the list because of his former business partnership with Hunter Biden and their friend Devon Archer. The three men formed an investment firm called Rosemont Seneca, and both Archer and Biden later joined the board of Burisma. However, Heinz did not. In fact, according to reports by The Washington Post and the Washington Examiner, Heinz expressed his own reservations about Archer and Biden's decision at the time, which underlines just how inaccurate and wrongheaded the meme's inclusion of Heinz was. Post Examiner A spokesperson confirmed to Snopes that Heinz had never been involved in Burisma in any way, nor had he ever worked for or sat on the board of directors of any energy company, or even traveled to Ukraine. Mitt Romney Mitt and Ann Romney have five sons, and we found no evidence that any of them have ever had any involvement with either a "Ukrainian gas company" or an "energy company doing business in Ukraine." The couple's oldest son Tagg (49) has worked as a vice president at Reebok, chief marketing officer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, founded the investment firm Solamere Capital, and worked as an advisor and surrogate during his father's 2002 Massachussetts gubernatorial campaign as well as his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. officer founded Matt Romney was previously marketing director for the software company LavaStorm, worked as a real estate developer in California, and as a vice president for the real estate investment firm Excel Trust (which was acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone in 2015). marketing director developer Excel Trust acquired Josh Romney is president of the Romney Group, a Utah-based real estate and property investment firm, and chairman and owner of Intercap Lending, a mortgage lender. He previously worked as a real estate developer in Salt Lake City. Romney Group Intercap Lending developer Ben Romney is a radiologist in Utah and Idaho, and Craig Romney, the youngest son, has worked in music production for the advertising firm McGarry Bowen and later for the real estate investment firm Sundance Bay. radiologist Utah production McGarry Bowen Sundance Bay Contrary to @Education4Libs' claim, Romney had not called for President Trump's impeachment as of Oct. 8, undermining the putative basis for the Romney family's inclusion in the nonexistent conspiracy of wrongdoing to which the meme alluded. One America News Network.  "Son of House Speaker Pelosi Made Money in Ukraine, Used Her in Ads."
  4 October 2019. DCWhispers.com.  "Bingo! Clinton Foundation Donor Amounts by Country -- Guess Who Was #1."
  27 September 2019. Grimaldi, James V. and Rebecca Ballhaus.  "Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends."
  The Wall Street Journal.  19 March 2015. Braun, Stephen and Lynn Berry.  "The Story Behind Biden's Son, Ukraine and Trump's Claims."
  Associated Press.  23 September 2019. Vogel, Kenneth P. and Iuliia Mendel.  "Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies."
  The New York Times.  1 May 2019. Sonne, Paul et al . "The Gas Tycoon and the Vice-President's Son: The Story of Hunter Biden's Foray Into Ukraine."
   The Washington Post.  28 September 2019. Wilkinson, Tracy and Sergei L. Loiko.  "Former Ukraine Prosecutor Says He Saw No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden."
  The Los Angeles Times.  29 September 2019. Goodman, Alana.  "John Kerry's Son Cut Business Ties with Hunter Biden Over Ukrainian Oil Deal."
  The Washington Examiner.  27 August 2019. Henson, Steve.  "Little Takes Laid-Back Approach to Dodgers."
  The Los Angeles Times.  2 December 2004. Mims, Bob.  "Genealogy Website Gets Swamped by Searchers."
  The Spokesman-Review.  29 May 1999. Luo, Michael.  "Romneys Invade Iowa."
  The New York Times/em>.  11 August 2007. Olson, Kyle.  "Nancy Pelosi's Son Appears in Ukraine -- To Talk Soccer?"
  The American Mirror.  25 July 2017. Claim:  Oprah Winfrey said that restaurant customers need not tip their servers more than 10%..  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] Did Oprah Winfrey state that, in this economy, tipping 10% is acceptable? Origins:  Leaving a relatively substantial monetary tip for the waitstaff at the conclusion of a restaurant meal is the custom in some countries, including the U.S. and Canada. A gratuity amounting to 15% to 20% of the bill is now considered the standard or minimum tip, with even more left in recognition of superlative service. It is therefore little cause for surprise that any cultural icon's public voicing of an opinion that folks should leave no more than a 10% tip would raise the hackles of many in the service industry.  And so it was with the belief that Oprah Winfrey, beloved television talk show host, had instructed members of her audience to not leave more than a 10% tip when dining in restaurants, with such rumor often coupled with a further assertion that this advice was offered in recognition of the recession's having hit everyone hard. Such belief that Oprah had said it fit  well with a widely-held stereotype that African American customers tip less than do other restaurant patrons. In September 2009 a page on the social networking site Facebook raised the false "Oprah said not to tip more than 10%" claim. Titled "1 Million Servers Strong Against Oprah's Comments," the group stated as its purpose:  Against Oprah Winfrey has recently stated on her TV show that it is acceptable to tip servers 10% in our current economy. This group is being put together to show Oprah that her comments have a crippling affect on servers all over the world. As of 4 November 2009, "1 Million Servers Strong Against Oprah's Comments" has 37,228 members. Yet the claim that has inflamed so many is false. There is no evidence in support of the assertion that Oprah Winfrey recommended her audience tip waitstaff 10%, in response to economic recession or otherwise, on her television show or in her magazine. No one has yet to turn up a video clip from her show of her supposed  tipping advice or produce a copy of an article from  O, The Oprah Magazine in which such counsel was allegedly given.  Instead, material from both those venues state that restaurant goers should tip at least 15%. While we've yet to locate a video clip or news report of Oprah herself instructing the audience to pony up with 15% or better, there are examples of invited guests on her show or columnists in her magazine saying exactly that. In the "Ending Rudeness" segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show (which aired on 9 September 2008), Steven Dublanica, author of Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip  Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, sat beside Oprah and, with her nodding in agreement, offered this bit of advice for restaurant goers: Rudeness Don't tip less than 15 percent Waiters are paid wages well below the minimum wage  as little as $2.15 an hour in some states  with the expectation that they will earn the majority of their income through tips. In addition, some restaurants require waiters to pay around 20 to 30 percent of their tips to food runners, hostesses and bartenders.  "If you don't tip, then that person doesn't get paid," Steven says. "Literally." Of the "10 Do's and Don'ts of Restaurant Etiquette" proffered by The Oprah Winfrey Show via oprah.com, its official web site, the first is "Tip 15 percent or more." first Likewise, the "Guide to Tipping" published in the December 2002 issue of  O, The Oprah Magazine says:  Guide to Tipping Normally, 15 to 20 percent of the total bill  20 percent for a first-class place. Note that people tip more in urban areas. According to the Zagat Survey, the average gratuity in city restaurants across the United States is about 18 percent. In response to the rumor, HarpoBear (moderator of oprah.com's message board) posted a clarificationon 8 June 2009 (and repeated periodically since then) that said: posted We'd like to respond to the concerns raised about Oprah's thoughts on tipping. The truth is that Oprah has never said that people should tip less during the recession. She believes in generously compensating waiters and waitresses. While a November 2009 Facebook page marked a resurgence of the Oprah rumor, it wasn't the first time the claim had been bruited on that venue: In December 2008 a now defunct Facebook group titled "No, Oprah, it's not OK to tip 10%" repeated the gossip. The rumor comes in two forms: that Oprah herself directed her audience never to tip more than 10% or (far less frequently) that one of her guests did. One name that has been mentioned as the identity of the guest who gave such advice is financial guru Suze Orman, as in this 19 September 2009 blog entry:  Suze Orman blog entry It has been brought to my attention that Suze Orman went onto the Oprah Winfrey show some time ago to give some sound financial advice to all the Oprah-ites who bow down to the feet of the great and powerful O. [...] She said that when it comes time to tip you should just leave 10% instead of 15%. Barbara "the ten percent dissolution" Mikkelson Last updated:  11 November 2009    Day Owen, Sarah.  "Servers at Restaurants See Dropoff in Gratuities."   Augusta Chronicle.  19 December 2008.    Ellen, Daryn.  "Guide to Tipping."   O, The Oprah Magazine.  December 2002.