Strip in U.S. Banknote
Claim:  The plastic strip embedded in U.S. bank notes enable the Feds to tell how much money you have on you.  Examples:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] This past weekend, a friend visiting our house told us that the anti-counterfeiting strip put in newly printed paper money can be used to determine how much cash you are carrying.  She said that the ever-present "they" at the airport have a machine that can determine how much cash you have on your person or in your luggage, and if you are carrying a sufficiently large amount of cash, you will be detained by the police and interrogated until you confess your guilt as a drug smuggler.  [Collected on the Internet, 2003] I did not get this in an e-mail but my bank teller in Kirksville, MO told me this one.  Evidently there is an urban legend floating around that the new "security strip" in the new $20's can be read by satellites with the implication being the Govt. can beam a satellite on you and eventually, when all the bills in circ. will have these, be able to tell how much $ you are carrying around.  This teller told me that she has had customers come in requesting "no new $20s" for this reason! We had a good laugh about it and we both agreed that the Govt. is going to be sorely disappointed if they turned this hypothetical satellite on us! Origins:  The ongoing effort to stay one step ahead of the counterfeiters has led to the inclusion of a number of security features in U.S. currency. One countermeasure in particular has come to be the focus of a widely-believed bit lore: the embedded inscribed security thread. According to scuttlebutt, the purpose of the thread isn't really to make it more difficult for the ill-intentioned to introduce   worthless currency into circulation by fooling its recipients into thinking it genuine, but instead to allow the government to know exactly how much money anyone is carrying at any particular moment. With the use of special scanners, or possibly a beam from a distant satellite, the Feds can quickly count the value of all bank notes being carried on or about one's person and thus track how much money is entering or leaving the country, and with whom. This knowledge, says the behind-the-hand whisperings, is used to finger drug dealers and smugglers. The rumor is bunk. The strip's sole purpose is the foiling of counterfeiters. It, along with a number of other security features worked into the nation's bank notes, make it far harder on the criminal element to produce phony bills that will be mistaken for the real thing. Other features include the microprinting of "The United States of America" within the rim surrounding the portraits on bills, a watermark displayed elsewhere on the bill of the figure in the portrait, and optically variable ink (OVI) which changes from green to black in the number in the lower right-hand corner of the bill when viewed from different angles. As for the suspect strip, it is made of polyester and is inscribed with the denomination of the bill. Nothing about the composition of these strips renders them detectable by scanner or satellite. In 2004, the false belief attaching to this security feature was enhanced by the claim of these bands containing RFID tags. As technology advanced, so did the rumor, leading many to microwave their $20 bills into ashen submission by falling for the canard that nuking their currency would disable these  RFID tags transmitters. Yet the belief about governmental detection of concealed sums via a subterfuge worked into the currency even predates the polyester security threads. In the 1980s, those similarly worried about being tracked by Big Brother fretted over the ink with which bank notes were printed, muttering to themselves that the "magnetic ink" they believed to have been used rendered the bills somehow magnetic and thus detectable by machine. Back then, the concern was more that this magnetic money would serve to pinpoint the location of the person carrying it rather than it give away how much of it was being ported, but it is another form of the same belief. One confirmation that nothing in and of itself is detectable about the polyester strips embedded in bank notes arises out of the news about security technologies now used at some U.S. airports, including Chicago's O'Hare. Were caches of greenbacks already being ferreted out via their embedded threads, descriptions of the BodySearch scanner, a device that uses special "backscatter" X-rays to produce images of items that might be concealed under passengers' clothing, would not always impart the glad tidings that this gizmo reveals the presence of currency as well as narcotics, plastic explosives, and plastic weapons.  While in the main, the "sneakily embedded technology allows for the surreptitious tracking of people or their assets" rumor attaches to currency and blames the government for the supposed spying, the belief also carries to other items and points fingers at other parties.  [Kamradt, 2003] Some students have not picked up their new ID cards through the re-carding project, which ends today, because of a rumor that there is a locator chip inside the IDs so Purdue can track their whereabouts. "To dispel the transponder rumors, I was closely involved in developing the requirements for production of the ID cards and I can ensure students that no secret electronic devices were embedded in these cards," said Terry Schroeder, project manager for the Purdue ID Re-carding Project. "From my understanding, most of the group that met to discuss this issue (as a result of distributed flyers) were wearing aluminum foil beanies."  [Mulkins, 2000] I heard that a person carrying a large number of $100 bills, going through the PikePass readers, could be detected and the exact amount of money determined. The authorities are using PikePass to detect drug dealers and then confiscating the money, even confiscating the money of innocent persons. (PikePass is a prepaid toll device containing a battery and a radio-frequency modulator placed on the windshield of a vehicle.  As a car bearing one travels under a transmitter overhanging a turnpike lane, the device intercepts the signal being broadcast and returns a signal exclusive to that particular PikePass customer. The signal is read, and the toll is subtracted from the customer's account.) PikePass Whereas student ID cards and prepaid toll signalers do at least have a whiff of the enigmatic to their technology, which works to encourage belief that some of that incomprehensibility might be of nefarious intent (we mistrust what we don't understand, after all), this next expression of the rumor is even farther afield: [Collected on the Internet, 1999] I recently received an email telling me that I need to take the labels off my canned good and mark the bare cans with a marker, or at least black out the UPCs. Why? Well, it seems the government has helicopters equipped with scanners that can read the UPCs of the food you have stored. Ostensibly, the government is doing this so they can confiscate food for redistribution in the up coming Y2K breakdown of society. When asked to verify, the poster informed me she was told this by a 'family friend" who flies one of these scanner-equipped helicopters. Of course he doesn't want to be named for his own safety, but he risked telling his dear friends because he loves them. While most folks will laugh off the thought of their soup cans spying on them, the same cannot be said of the belief that their long green is being counted by surveillance satellites sent into orbit by a government intent upon keeping tabs on its citizens  a great many appear to believe that.  Barbara "watch your money, don't worry about your money watching you" Mikkelson Sightings:  In a first-season episode of television's The X Files ("E.B.E.," original air date 18 February 1994), a member of a group that believes the government is up to any number of monstrous conspiracies takes a $20 bill from Agent Scully, holds it up to the light, rips the left side off, and pulls out its security strip, saying, "They use this magnetic strip to track you. Whenever you go through a metal detector at an airport, they know exactly how much you're carrying." Additional information:        Inscribed Security Thread   (Secret Service)        Money Design Features   (Secret Service)        The Redesigned $20 Note   (Bureau of Engraving)   Last updated:  19 May 2011   Garber, Andrew.  "New Airport Gadgets Strip, Sniff, Scan."  The Seattle Times.  23 October 2001  (p. A1).   Kamradt, Kori.  "Officials Dismiss Rumors About New IDs."  The [Purdue University] Exponent .  14 November 2003.   Mulkins, Phil.  "PikePass Can't Count Dope Dealers' Money."  Tulsa World.  28 July 2000.   Webb, Tom.  "U.S. Currency to Get Makeover."  The Denver Post.  14 July 1994  (p. A4).   Zane, Maitland.  "Counterfeit-Proof Cash Makes Its Debut."  The San Francisco Chronicle.  26 July 1991  (p. A1).   The Associated Press.  "O'Hare Officials Install Scanner, Hoping to Replace Body Searches."  St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  23 November 1999  (p. B2).
Claim:  The U.S. government unfairly excluded Hawker Beechcraft from bidding to supply military aircraft for Afghanistan. UNDETERMINED Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, December 2011] "Any president whose actions so consistently refute his own words must have deep contempt for the intelligence of the American public." The obama administration told U.S. owned Hawker Beechcraft earlier this week they are being excluded from bidding on the US Air Force contract for a light attack aircraft. That leaves Brazilian owned Embraer as the likely recipient of the lucrative deal. I found this one hard to believe so I did a little research. It was tough because this was completely ignored by the main stream media.  This is a double slap in the face of the United States. At a time when jobs, the economy, and security are the most critical priorities for our country, the Obama administration decides to send a defense contract to a foreign owned company. This has to be the stupidest thing this administration has done to date. This is not just a dumb decision, it is a perfect example of why this president is such a poor leader. He talks about wanting jobs. He says we need to force companies to repatriate billions of dollars that Americans keep overseas. He wants to raise taxes so he can spend billions on stimulus that does nothing to stimulate anything. And when it's time to act, he sends our tax dollars overseas at the expense of American jobs and income for an American company. This is nothing more than a Chicago-style political pay back; but this time it is at the expense of our national security. How much more damage will obama be allowed to do in the next 14 months? One of the lead stories in the media this week blasted congress for insider trading. If this contract goes to Embraer it will be a huge pay off to another George Soros company. When will the 4th estate do it's constitutionally protected job and expose the real obama to the American people?   Origins:   On 30 December 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it had awarded a $355 million contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) for 20 light air-support/single-engine turboprop aircraft that will serve as both trainers and ground-attack planes for Afghanistan's air force.  Wichita-based aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft (HBDC) had hoped that their AT-6 aircraft, an armed version of their T-6 trainer which is currently used by the U.S. military, would be chosen for the contract, but the U.S. Air Force (USAF) excluded the AT-6 from the running, leaving the A-29 Super Tucano built by Sierra Nevada Corp. in partnership with Brazil-based Embraer as the lone eligible supplier. Hawker Beechcraft Corp. has since filed suit against the U.S. government over the exclusion, maintaining that the Air Force had not provided them with sufficient detail about the reasons behind their exclusion and that Embraer had been unfairly favored: The suit alleges the exclusion was "arbitrary and capricious" and seeks to prevent the government from awarding a contract until Beechcraft can make its case in court. "This is yet another example of the Air Force's lack of transparency throughout this competition," said Bill Boisture, Hawker Beechcraft chairman and CEO, in a statement. "With this development, it now seems even clearer that the Air Force intended to award the contract to Embraer from early in this process." "We think we were wrongfully excluded from the competition," Boisture said. "We don't understand the basis for the exclusion, and frankly, we think we've got the best airplane. "So we're going to take every avenue available to us to make sure our product is fully evaluated and recognized for what it is. There are several issues here that just, frankly, don't make sense." The Air Force maintains that the process was fair, that Hawker Beechcraft was excluded because "multiple deficiencies and significant weaknesses found in HBDC's proposal make it technically unacceptable and results in unacceptable mission capability risk," and that the company failed to respond to its notice of exclusion in time to request a debriefing or file a protest: respond Lt. Col. Wesley Miller, an Air Force spokesman, said the contest "was conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations" and that the evaluation of the aircraft "was fair, open and transparent." In dismissing Hawker Beechcraft Corp from the competition, the Air Force found Hawker Beechcraft's bid "technically unacceptable," one that would result in an "unacceptable mission capability risk."  The Air Force said the company missed a three-day deadline to file a request for a debriefing and a 10-day deadline to file a protest. It is not possible at this point to definitively determine why the USAF excluded Hawker Beechcraft from the Light Aircraft Support (LAS) bidding, as ongoing litigation prevents the Air Force from releasing information regarding the competition, but according to industry observers the primary issue behind Hawker Beechcraft's disqualification was that the LAS contract called for a non-developmental, production-ready aircraft, and Hawker Beechcraft's AT-6 was still a developmental aircraft.   observers According to SNC's own statement on the issue: statement In its Request for Proposal, the Air Force specifically sought a non-developmental, in-production aircraft so that warfighters in-theater could have an advanced solution quickly and so that American taxpayers would not have to pay development costs. The plane proposed by SNC's competitor is a developmental aircraft that is not in production and has never been used for light air support or any other purpose. The AT-6 is a developmental aircraft.  With only two prototypes in existence, it has never been in production. In contrast, the aircraft selected by the Air Force and to be provided by SNC, Embraer's A-29 Super Tucano, is a light air support aircraft that is currently in use with six air forces around the world.   Unlike the AT-6, the A-29 Super Tucano has more than seven years of real-world combat and training experience behind it.  This means that its operational costs are known and that all costly development issues related to weapons load, maneuverability and operations have already been worked out.  Only the A-29 Super Tucano has actually flown in combat.  More significantly, only the A-29 was built from the ground up to perform counterinsurgency and light air support operations.  The A-29 is larger in size allowing it to make full use of the 1,600-hp engine without power limitations due to torque.  It sits higher off the ground and has a broader stance, increasing stability on unprepared airfields.  The A-29's longer tail section increases longitudinal stability and provides exceptional accuracy for the delivery of weapons.  Only the A-29 delivery system is specifically designed with the five NATO hard points for external stores, translating into maximum operational flexibility for the war fighters in the theater.  The AT-6 carries no munitions in its native configuration. This is a critical difference.  The A-29 also is munitions-certified with over 130 operational external load configurations.  The AT-6 is not yet munitions-certified. In February 2012, the Air Force announced it was canceling the contract with Sierra Nevada Corp. pending an investigation of the award: General Donald Hoffman, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command, has started an investigation, Jennifer Cassidy, an Air Force Spokeswoman, said. She said she didn't know whether the contract would be re-opened for competition and didn't elaborate on the reason for the cancellation. "While we pursue perfection, we sometimes fall short, and when we do we will take corrective action," Michael B. Donley, the Air Force secretary, said in a statement. "Since the acquisition is still in litigation, I can only say that the Air Force Senior Acquisition Executive, David Van Buren, is not satisfied with the quality of the documentation supporting the award decision." The awarding of the Air Force contract to a partner of Brazil-based Embraer did not necessarily mean that all the jobs connected with the contract would be sent overseas, as Embraer said that its partner, Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp., would build the turboprops in Jacksonville, Florida, if it won the contract: The A-29 Super Tucano will be built in America.  Embraer will make the plane at a new production facility in Jacksonville, Fla.  Over 88 percent of the dollar value of the A-29 Super Tucano comes from components supplied by U.S. companies or countries that qualify under the Buy America Act. No new jobs are being created in Brazil as a result of this contract. Despite the claim made in the example text reproduced above that the subject of Hawker Beechcraft's exclusion was "completely ignored by the mainstream media," it has in fact received widespread news coverage in a variety of media sources, including at least five of the nine highest-circulation newspapers in the U.S. (The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, the New York Post, and the Chicago Tribune). widespread Also, we found no evidence to support the claim that "If this contract goes to Embraer it will be a huge pay off to another George Soros company,"  as we turned up no information indicating that George Soros holds an ownership stake in Embraer.  The closest connection we found between George Soros and Embraer seems to be that the former is one of the leading shareholders in China's Hainan Airlines Group (HNA), and HNA bought ERJ-145 jets from Harbin Embraer, a partnership between Embraer and the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation of Harbin, China. However, that connection makes Soros a customer of Embraer, not an owner, and therefore does not put him in a position to profit from the awarding of an Air Force contact to Embraer. shareholders Last updated:  5 March 2012    Hodge, Nathan.  "Hawker Beechcraft Sues Over Air Force Bidding."   The Wall Street Journal.  28 December 2011.    Hodge, Nathan.  "Embraer Hits Defense Barrier."   The Wall Street Journal.  11 January 2012.    Ivory, Danielle.  "Air Force Cancels Contract to Sierra After Hawker Protest."   San Francisco Chronicle.  1 March 2012.    McMillin, Molly.  "Hawker Requests GAO Review of Air Force Deal."   The Wichita Eagle.  22 November 2011.    McMillin, Molly.  "Hawker Beechcraft Files Suit Over Air Force Contract."   The Wichita Eagle.  28 December 2011.    Associated Press.  "Hawker Beechcraft Sues Over Air Force Contract."   28 December 2011.    Associated Press.  "Air Force Temporarily Halts Work After Hawker Beechcraft Lawsuit."   The Washington Post.  5 January 2012. A tax on feminine hygiene products (also known as a "tampon tax")was notnew by the time social media interest in the topic appeared inMay 2016, but ascreenshot published by the page "Women's Rights News" contributed the buzz: screenshot    The image originated with a 15 January 2016 interview between YouTube personality Ingrid Nilsen and President Barack Obama. The "I don't know anyone who has a period who thinks it's a luxury" comment was made by Nilsen, not the President: interview   The topic was already steadily popular.NYMag.compublished an article on 29 April 2016thatexplored social media interest in the tampon tax: article Pads and tampons have made political headlines in every single month of this year. In January, lawmakers in California, Utah, Virginia, and Michigan introduced anti-tampon-tax bills. They were mostly sponsored by women (shout out to Delegate Mark Keam in Virginia, though!). Notably, in each of those states, except California, the mostly Democratic sponsors are vastly outnumbered in their Republican-heavy legislatures. Also in January, the tampon tax made headlines when Obama learned about it while the camera was rolling, and declared he thought the tax was unfair. Then, in February, similar bills were introduced in Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York. In March, the city of Chicago dropped its tampon tax, and a class-action lawsuit brought by women in Ohio and New York state added pressure to stop taxing periods. In April, the New York Senate unanimously passed the tampon tax bill. This is an astounding amount of national legislative momentum for an issue that was long considered to be womens private, shameful burden. Its no coincidence that efforts to end the tampon tax have cropped up alongside viral art projects, new businesses, and digital campaigns to destigmatize menstruation. The tampon tax is the perfect of-the-moment issue for lawmakers who want to signal their support for women  and take a stance on inequality. Ending the tax, which promises practical benefits for low-income women, is low-hanging fruit for legislators in liberal states. A widely circulated June 2015 map created byFusion illustrated the tampon tax with color coding. Most statestaxed feminine hygiene products, excepta few that had either specific exemptions orno sales tax at all: map   Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland specifically did not tax[PDF] feminine hygiene products. Alaska, Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware do not have sales tax on any items (including tampons). The rest ofthe states maintained atax on such products.One outlier was the state of New York, which moved in April 2016 to abolish the tax: tax moved The Republican-led Senate on Monday unanimously passed a bill exempting feminine hygiene products from sales tax, two months after the debate over the so-called tampon tax reached Albany. The bill, sponsored by freshman Sen. Sue Serino, a Republican from Hyde Park, passed with 58 votes. The vote on the Senate floor took about one minute, just enough time for at least one period joke. It is a way of providing some tax relief to women everywhere, young girls in particular, Sen. Diane Savino said, thanking the bill sponsor. But on behalf of women of a certain age everywhere, I would love to offer a friendly amendment and ask for a rebate program, Senator Serino. But I know it would probably bankrupt the state.   Lawmakers in Michigan expressed interest in advancing a similar initiative, and the city of Chicago (but not the state of Illinois) axed the tax. On 12 April 2016, MarketWatch reported somemomentum both in and outside the U.S. to end the additional charges: Michigan Chicago reported The issue has made it onto the agenda in about 10 states, seven of which introduced the legislation, including New York (though Utahs never made it out of committee) and three, South Carolina, Tennessee and Illinois, that recently debated it. It has also gone international, with France cutting the sales tax in late 2015 and the European Union taking a stance on the issue this year. In May 2016, the majority of the 40 states with a tampon tax retained it (although New York was on its way to tax-free status for feminine hygiene products). By and large, social media tampon tax claims were accurate. To be clear, tampons weren't taxed at a special or higher rate than other taxable items  they simply were subject to sales tax in general.  Coughlin, Sarah.  "Chicago Removes Its Tampon Tax & The State Of New York Is On Its Way To Doing The Same."
Refinery29.  13 April 2016. Court, Emma.  "New York Is The Latest State To Scrap Tampon Tax."
MarketWatch.  12 April 2016. Friedman, Ann.  "How Ending The Tampon Tax Became Viral Legislation."
NYMag The Cut.  29 April 2016. Hillin, Taryn.  "These Are The U.S. States That Tax Women For Having Periods."
Fusion.  3 June 2015. Larimer, Sarah.  "The 'Tampon tax,' Explained."
Washington Post.  8 January 2016. Miller, Faith.  "Why Two Senators Want To Get Rid Of Michigan's 'Tampon Tax.'"
WILX.  14 April 2016. Velasquez, Josefa.  "Senate Unanimously Passes Bill Eliminating 'Tampon Tax.'"
Politico New York.  11 April 2016. Democrats searching for the right combination of punches to drive Scott Walker from office have focused on joblessness, schools, tax fairness and leadership style.One of the jabs they throw repeatedly centers on cuts Walkers 2011-13 budget made in state aid to local school districts.Kathleen Falk, the best-known Democrat so far in the likely 2012 gubernatorial recall election, tried to land a roundhouse right as she becamethe first announced candidate.The former Dane County executive told a Feb. 8, 2012 audience in La Crosse that Walker has divided us instead of united us.He's done it with the wrong choices,Falk said, according to a WXOW-TV online story. He gave big tax breaks for a few and then made the biggest cuts to education in our state's history.The states history covers a long time.Are Walkers cuts truly the largest ever?We have already looked at several statements about Walkers education budget.We gave state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, aMostly Falsefor saying Walkers property tax freeze would cost schools $1.6 billion in revenue. It was about half that, according to the most common accounting.We labeledMostly Falsea claim from Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller that Wisconsin enacted the most drastic cuts to K-12 public schools of any state in the nation. At the time, the study he cited looked at only 24 states, not all 50.Now we have Falks claim.It is bold, but it actually is narrowly drawn, referring specifically to cuts in state aid -- a number easy to track and measure.Asked for backup, Falks campaign said she was referring not just to state aid to local schools, but cuts in state funding to the university system and technical colleges. And she meant the biggest cut ever in raw dollars, according to campaign spokesman Scot Ross.To be sure, Walker made two other moves that affected school budgets: A virtual freeze on schools ability to increase property taxes to make up for lost aid, and collective bargaining limits that allowed many districts to cut costs by imposing larger contributions from workers towards health insurance and pensions.But Falks statement was not about net impact, just the state funding side of the equation.Falks campaign did not provide a total of the education cuts, nor provide any history of funding cuts other than to say they had found none bigger.We did the math and found $792 million in aid cuts to school districts, $250 million in reduced aid to the university system and $71.6 million from the tech colleges.Total: $1.11 billion.Looking at it in terms of raw dollars limits the usefulness of any comparison, given inflation. That said, lets look back.Local schoolsWalkers budget was not the first to cut education aid, though any cut is rare.Facing a massive projected shortfall, lawmakers and then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, approved cutting $284 million from aid to school districts in the 2009-11 budget.The cut under Doyle was the first ever, according to Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonpartisan research group that tracks the history of aid changes.We couldnt confirm that, but went back to the mid 1980s and found no evidence of a cut. If there was one earlier than that, it couldnt rival Walkers -- unless a previous governor cut 100 percent of the school aid budget, which was much smaller then.Walkers $792 million cut was much larger in raw dollars than the $284 million cut in 2009, and as a percentage -- 7.4 percent vs. 2.6 percent.In the first year under Walkers budget, nearly all districts lost aid, and the median decrease was 9.9 percent, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.University systemDoyle and Walker cut identical amounts -- $250 million -- from the base budget of the UW system. The cut under Doyle was in 2003-05.The cut under Doyle was a bigger percentage cut than Walkers because the university systems biennial budget from state taxes grew from about $2 billion to $2.3 billion between 2003 to 2011.On the other hand, Walkers cut was deeper if you factor all the budget adjustments to the state-tax-supported portion of UWs budget, according to Dave Loppnow, an education funding expert at the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.For instance, UW got more state funding for things like rising fuel and utility costs, offsetting some of the $250 million funding cut. By this measure, it was about an 8 percent reduction by Doyle, and 9 percent under Walker.Loppnow said the $250 million base-budget cuts under both governors were the largest ever in raw dollars.Tech schoolsWalker proposed, and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed, a 30 percent cut in general aid to the states technical college system. That amounted to $71.6 million over two years.The tech college system found records dating to 1991 that showed only one other general aid cut  -- a 0.5 percent trim in 2007.As we noted in arecent item, that general aid is only 12 percent of the tech systems funding, which relies heavily on property taxes.So, in the big picture, there have been very few instances of cuts to education, with all of them coming in recent years as deficits mounted.What makes the Walker cuts stand out is the combination -- in the same budget -- of reductions across the three levels of education: kindergarten-12th grade; tech colleges; and the universities.In 2003-05, when the UW took a hit, Doyle and lawmakers boosted the K-12 budget by 1 percent, or $115 million. And the tech colleges general state aid was not reduced.As we noted, there were many other changes in the budget.Notably, Walker sharply curtailed collective bargaining rights for public employees, including university and local school employees.That allowed local school districts to save at least $200 million in pension costs because most districts put in place a pension change made possible by the budget, according toLegislative Fiscal Bureau estimates, school officials and our calculations.The savings to districts from changes to health insurance premiums were significant in some cases, but vary widely by district; no statewide cost savings estimate is available.But some districts, due to existing union contracts and other reasons, were not able to benefit from the health insurance changes. That underlines an element essential aspect of Falks statement: The state controls its aid, but not what is done at the local level.Our conclusionFalk claimed Walkers cuts in state support to local schools, tech colleges and public universities amount to the largest in state history.We found previous cuts in those areas, but not in all three in the same year, and not nearly as deep when you roll them all together as has Falk.We rate her statement True. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, is urging lawmakers to make Medicaid more flexible, effective and cheaper for states to run.Under the Medicaid system the rules are set in Washington, but much of the bills are paid in our state capitals, he said during his Feb. 5 Make Life Workspeechat a conservative think tank in Washington  Collectively states are spending more on Medicaid than they do on K-12 education.We looked into the claim that states are paying more for Medicaid than public education. Cantors staff told us the information came from areport, published by the National Association of State Budget Officers last fall, that tallied where states get and spend their money.The study found that states planned to spend a total $1.7 trillion in fiscal 2012. Of the sum, 39.8 percent would come from general fund moneys that are collected through statewide taxes, 31.2 percent from federal grants and the remaining 29 percent from other state funds and bonds.Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, was expected to be the most expensive item in the collective state budgets. States were projected to spend $406 billion on the service, or 23.9 percent of their total budgets. Elementary and secondary education came in second, drawing $336 billion, or 19.8 percent of total expenses.But theres a catch to these figures: The federal government provides states with about 56 percent of what they spend on Medicaid, according to NASBO report. So Cantor is including as state expenses about $228 billion that Uncle Sam sends to the states for Medicaid.The picture changes if we simply examine the portions of Medicaid and public education that states pay out of their general funds. Public schools rise to the top of the expense list, drawing an expected $235 billion last fiscal year, or 34.7 percent of all general fund spending. Medicaid falls to a distant No. 2, receiving an estimated $133 billion, or 19.6 percent of general fund outlays.Experts we spoke to didnt express a preference for one accounting method or the other.We include both methods in our report, said Stacy Mazer, senior staff associate at NASBO. One reason weve been using total funds is that some states define their funds differently. And one of the other issues is that even though its not all your money, youre still administering it.Tracy Gordon, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said most health care industry analysts use a total figure cited by Cantor, but note that it includes federal dollars.Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said his organization tracks states general fund spending and considers K-12 education to be the greatest recipient of state money.Our rulingCantor said states are spending more on Medicaid than on education. His statement is correct, although it should be noted that a substantial portion of the dollars states are spending on Medicaid come from the federal government.We rate Cantors statement True. With control of the U.S. House at stake, Republicans and Democrats are waging fierce election campaigns across the country. In Ohio, at least four seats are considered in play, including the 16th Congressional District seat held by freshman Democratic Rep. John Boccieri of Alliance, a former state legislator who faces a well-financed Republican challenge from businessman Jim Renacci, a former Wadsworth mayor.The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union has joined the fight, attacking Renacci in two television advertisements. We recently looked into astatementin the first ad, which accused Renacci of backing a massive tax increase, and found it to be Half True.The second ad levels an even harsher accusation that Renacci cheated on his income taxes and labels him a deadbeat citizen.Renacci hasfiled a defamationlawsuitin Stark County Common Pleas Court over the ad, which says he hid more than $13 million, and was forced to pay $1.4 million in back taxes and penalties. We wanted to see if AFSCME got closer to the truth the second time around.The basis of the attack is a dispute between Renacci and the Ohio Department of Taxation. Renacci has built a fortune from business interests that include nursing homes, real estate investments, auto and motorcycle dealerships, a bar and grill, an arena football team and a minor-league baseball team.The tax department assessed Renacci about $1.4 million in back taxes, interest and penalties for misreporting his income in 2000. Renacci and his wife, Tina, filed a state tax return for that year that claimed they had a loss of $247,336, but an audit found they actually made $13,730,440. The couple filed a tax appeal when the state dinged them for $954,650 in back taxes, $146,938 in interest and $293,876 in penalties.At issue was Renaccis trust income from an S corporation that had not been subject to state taxes for several years before Ohios tax commissioner issued an information release in January 2000 that changed the states policy and directed taxpayers to add such trust income to their federal adjusted gross income. S corporations permit income to be taxed at an individual rate for federal tax purposes and avoid double taxation on corporate income.The tax department followed up with another information release in 2002 warning that it was launching audits and would impose fraud penalties on taxpayers who did not file amended returns reflecting the trust income and pay the taxes due.Renacci was among a group of taxpayers who fought the state decision. He contended that the trust income should have been tax-free and that he had reasonable cause to exclude it on his tax return, according to tax department and court documents.Others dropped their appeals, but Renacci continued to fight, despite an Ohio Supreme Court ruling in 2006 in a similar case in which the court said the trust income was subject to taxation. In that case, the taxpayers reported their S corporation income on their 2000 tax return and then unsuccessfully asked for a refund.Court records show the Renaccis eventually settled the tax dispute and sent the state the full amount due.He was proud of his fight, and to have fought till the end, along with many other Ohioans for tax fairness, Renaccis campaign spokesman Jim Slepian said in an interview for a Plain Dealer story in April.The AFSCME ad cites as its source an Associated Press story from April that said Renacci fought vigorously but eventually paid the back taxes and other assessments.Websters New World Dictionary defines cheat as a person who defrauds, deceives, or tricks others; swindler. And it defines deadbeat as a person who tries to evade paying debts.It seems legitimate to raise questions about Renaccis failure to properly report his income. Some facts are not in dispute. But in the end, after taking his dispute to court and working within the system to resolve it, he did ultimately pay the state the full amount due and he wasnt ever charged with tax fraud.We rate AFSCMEs statement as Mostly True. Comment on this item. A viral tweet posted on Jan. 23, 2022, claimed to show "the last photo taken of Genepil, the last Queen of Mongolia, moments before she was executed as part of the Stalinist repressions in Mongolia in 1938." In our research, we soon found that this caption was inaccurate. tweet The picture in question showed two men pointing guns at a woman in a field:  The tweet was shared tens of thousands of times.  The first picture on the left side of the tweet was not in question. According to various sources, the close-up photograph was believed to perhaps show Genepil posing in Mongolia in the 1920s. (We also found references to the notion that her appearance inspired the costume design for the character Queen Amidala in "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.") various sources references notion Two days after the viral tweet, a Reddit user posted the same photograph of the men with pointed guns and claimed it showed "The last photo of the last queen of Mongolia, just before she was killed in 1938": posted same photograph  The Reddit thread was upvoted nearly 50,000 times in the first few hours after it was posted.  One Reddit user asked in a comment: "Do you have a source for this photo that you could share? I don't think I've ever seen this photo of Genepil. Very interesting." comment Twitter and Reddit users mentioned a Wikipedia entry for Genepil as their source. The Wikipedia page cited two sources for the line that mentioned her death. They were watson.ch (German) and ugluu.mn (Mongolian). Neither of these two sources mentioned the picture of the two men pointing guns at a woman who was said to be Genepil. Wikipedia entry for Genepil watson.ch ugluu.mn Buried deep in the replies to the viral tweet was a clue. "Sources claim it's from a movie called '  ,'" @pacific_blues tweeted. After we did a little digging, we found that the tweet was correct. tweeted  Without this tip, we may not have found the answer to debunk the claim from Reddit and Twitter.  We found the full version of the Mongolian-language film on Facebook. According to the closing credits, it was released in the year 2000 and appeared to have been shot in Mongolia. The title, "  ," was roughly translated to mean, "The Last Queen of the King." The picture that was said to be "the last photo of the last queen of Mongolia" was simply a screenshot from the 1:55:24 mark in the movie: on Facebook  This scene takes place at the end of "  ." The three characters continue walking into the direction of the sun before the movie fades to black. The character is not shot onscreen.  According to a synopsis on mongol-kino.mn, the story was indeed about Genepil. Roughly translated into English, it reads: "A historical tragedy about the last emperor of Mongolia, Genenpil, the queen of the 8th Jebtsundamba. The last emperor, Eight Bogd Tseenpil, was renamed the Great Fairy and renamed Genenpil." (Several references described her as a former queen consort, which may have been more accurate.) mongol-kino.mn Jet Set Times previously published that Genepil was believed to have been "shot and killed at the age of 33 when she was five months pregnant" after being "charged with conspiring with the Japanese." She and her father were executed, according to the reporting. (We were unable to definitively confirm various details about her life, as her name didn't appear to show up in many history books.) published In sum, no, a viral picture did not show the last photograph before the last queen of Mongolia was executed in 1938. While records do show that Genepil was killed in 1938, the photograph in question was a screenshot from a movie that was released in the year 2000. On the eve of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's conviction on murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of George Floyd, a Black man whose death sparked a global reckoning over racism, cities around the U.S. braced for the potential fallout of the trial outcome. On April 19, 2021, one day before the verdict was reached, Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland, Oregon -- which had been a hotbed of racial justice protests for over a year -- declared a state of emergency. The declaration was widely reported by national news outlets as the world awaited the verdict reading in the Chauvin trial. In a 45-minute news conference, Wheeler was joined by other city leaders to respond to violence that had already erupted in Portland in anticipation of the verdict. Wheeler called the event a high-intensity moment and said that the city needed to be ready as possible for anything. widely reported national news outlets As the mayor, Ive declared a state of emergency to allow city bureaus to facilitate peaceful first amendment activity and respond to any violence if necessary, said Wheeler, adding that the state of emergency would be activated for 24 hours and could be extended if necessary. In response, Oregon Governor Kate Brown had made available the state police and select members of the national guard should the city need the resources. The mayor also acknowledged a coordinated plan to combat anarchist posters and a group of 100 or so largely white, self-described anarchists who engage in the criminal destruction of Portlands economy and confidence. Lets be clear, anarchist flyers call for what they describe as quote direct action which are code words for breaking windows, ransacking businesses, arson and intimidation. They call for attacks on public employees, said Wheeler. They use crime and violence to intimidate those who dont share their political views. These people are not protestors. They are criminals.  A tweet shared by conservative journalist Andy Ngo (archived here) appeared accurately described Wheelers emergency declaration but claimed that Antifa had put out flyers calling for violence regardless of the trial outcome. Ngo is also the editor-at-large of The Post Millennial, a Canadian conservative news website, that has been accused of pamphleteering. (Ngo did not respond to our request for comment.) tweet here pamphleteering   A tweet that was shared on the afternoon of April 20, 2021 (archived here) furthered Ngo's sentiment, implying that the state of emergency was in part due to antifa and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, who were both supposedly behind the poster that told rioters to rage in Portland no matter what the verdict is. tweet here   As of this writing, Snopes has not been able to determine if the flyer in question was actually posted around Portland. Furthermore, the text did not specifically mention antifa or BLM, though it did imply that Dont Shoot Portland, a social justice nonprofit, was supporting the protest. In an email to Snopes, the organization said that they were not involved with the posters in any capacity. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for people to use our name for their own agendas. Our marches center [on] children and nonviolence, a spokesperson told Snopes. A reverse image search did not return any results, and Snopes contacted both BLM and Wheeler's office but did not receive a response in time for publication. reverse image search While it is true that Wheeler issued a state of emergency in advance of the Chauvin verdict and mentioned "anarchist posters," there is not enough evidence to confirm whether Wheeler was speaking of the flyer above, or what group(s) were behind this flyer, if it was real. We will update this article if and when more information becomes available. Update [April 21, 2021]: This article was updated to include statements from Dont Shoot Portland. At a Texas Capitol rally, an anti-abortion advocate suggested Texas has hit a record pace in funding womens health. Videoof the July 2015 rally showsJoe Pojmanof the Texas Alliance for Life initially saluting Republican leaders for launching investigations in reaction to stealth videos showing Planned Parenthood employees talking rather casually about donations of fetal tissue. The videos had been circulated by the California-based Center for Medical Progress,which describes itselfas a group of citizen-journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics. Next, Pojman told the crowd, to cheers and applause: I just wanted to emphasize, the state of Texas is doing its part... The state of Texas is funding  womens health services at historically high levels; they just increased that level another $50 million for the next two years. Pojman noted that none of the $50 million would go to Planned Parenthood. Texas takes care of our people and Planned Parenthood is not part of that picture, he said. Legislative cuts and changes, 2011-2013 Pojmans declaration caught our attention in part because actions set in motion by the 2011 Legislature drove down family planning spending in the state budget by more than $70 million (from an existing two-year expenditure of $111 million) in 2012-13. Also in 2011, lawmakers voted to bar state family planning aid from going to health care providers affiliated with organizations that perform or promote abortions such as Planned Parenthood, whose clinics had been the Texas programs biggest provider of contraceptive care and cancer screening, serving more than 40,000 women a year. Two years later, the state's ruling Republicans passed into law a bar on most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation and mandated facilities providing abortions meet tougher health and safety standards, a move under court challenge that has caused providers to predict a substantial reduction in clinics statewide. After the 2011 actions, the federal government moved to cut off what had been a 9-to-1 match of federal to state dollars paying to provide contraceptive care for women who otherwise would qualify for Medicaid if they were to become pregnant. State health officials said the affected initiative, launched in 2005, had saved the state money$21.4 million in 2008, for instanceby reducing Medicaid-financed births. Federal aid accounted for $65 million of the money spent on the program in 2010-11. Reacting to the pending cutoff, then-Gov. Rick Perry announced state officials would assure such services were delivered through clinics not affiliated with abortion providers. The promised transition fully played out starting in 2013. So, given all this, could it be the state has set a record for expenditures on womens health? Pojmans backup cites state budgets We asked Pojman, executive director of the alliance, whichsaysit opposes the advocacy and practice of abortion (except to preserve the pregnant womans life), how he reached his historically high conclusion. By email, Pojman responded with achart, which he sourced to state budgets, indicating that nearly $285 million in state and federal funds budgeted by the 2015 Legislature for several womens health efforts in 2016-17 would exceed such spending in each of the nine previous two-year state budgets, dating to 1998-99with the previous record being $240.1 million for such programs in 2014-15. The previous low, per the chart, was $128.8 million in 2012-13. Pojmans chart attributed the touted $50 million in fresh spending to a provision in the 2016-17 budget stating the money should increase access to women's health and family planning services. In his email, Pojman told us that at the rally, he was referring to total legislatively appropriated state and federal funding, not per-person funding, on four programs providing family planning or female-specific health care such as breast and cervical cancer screenings. Conversely, he said, he wasnt including funding for perinatal care, including childbirth. Planned Parenthood, he said, provides virtually no services for pregnant women, certainly not support for childbirth, except elective abortion. Four state-overseen efforts In his email, Pojman said aFebruary 2014 Texas Health and Human Services Commission presentationamounted to a good summary of how the state spends money on womens health. From that, we pulled these thumbnails: The Texas Womens Health Program was put in place by the state starting in 2013 to provide services previously available through the defunct, federally supported Medicaid Womens Health Program. The successor program, serving women living at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, retains the same program objectives and client eligibility previously provided by WHP and has expanded program benefits to include treatment of certain sexually transmitted infections. Services offered in annual appointments include pelvic examinations and STD, diabetes, HIV, cholesterol, blood pressure and breast and cervical cancer screenings plus Pap tests, a clinical breast exam, contraceptives and family planning counseling. Family planning services, available to women of childbearing age and men living at 250 percent of the poverty level or less, offering the tests offered in the womens health program plus sterilizations. Expanded Primary Health Care, a new program, offered to women 18 and older living at or below 200 percent of the poverty level, covering the services offered in the other programs plus immunizations, mammograms, diagnostic services for women with abnormal breast or cervical cancer test results, cervical dysplasia treatment, individualized case management and option prenatal medical and dental services. Breast and Cervical Cancer Services, open to women living at or below 200 percent of the poverty level, with breast screenings for women aged 50 to 64 and cervical screenings for women aged 21 to 64. In addition to services covered by the Expanded Primary Health Care program, BCCS assists clients needing to apply to Medicaids Breast and Cervical Cancer program. In addition, a chart in the presentation included spending figures that mostly aligned with what Pojman had offered to us for fiscal 2010 through 2015--including the legislated decrease in 2012-13 and a rebound in spending budgeted for 2014-15 (which ran through August 2015):  SOURCE:Presentation to Senate Committee on Health and Human Services: Texas Womens Health and Family Planning Programs,Feb. 20, 2014 (received by email from Joe Pojman, Aug. 6, 2015) Other analyses support claim Next, we asked the commission and outside experts about Pojmans rally statement. The consensus was that spending budgeted by lawmakers for 2016-17 would set a record, though some advocates cautioned this didnt mean all needs would be met and others said that not all the described programs focus only on services typically provided by family planning clinics. To our inquiry, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission emailed amore detailed chartbasically lining up with Pojmans recap. From the commissions figures, it looked to us like the appropriated 2016-17 funds for womens health services exceeded previous two-year expenditures by $40 million or more. At the the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for programs serving low-income residents, analyst Stacey Pogue said Pojman was on solid ground, though its complicated. For instance, Pogue said, the 2015 Legislature called for three womens health programs to be reorganized in 2016 into two offerings overseen by the commission and precise spending results remain to be seen. By email, Pogue pointed out a two-pagesummary of the 2016-17 state budgetprepared by theTexas Womens Healthcare Coalition, which says it promotes access to preventive health care for all Texas women working toward the vision of a state where every woman has access to the preventive and preconception care that will help her stay healthy and prepare for healthy, planned pregnancies. According to this June 2015 summary, $260.9 million in spending on womens health care budgeted by lawmakers for 2016-17 reflected an increase of $46.5 million, or 22 percent, from what was budgeted for 2014-15. We confirmed the latest figures inthe 2016-17 appropriations act approved by a Texas House-Senate conference committee; it shows $130,321,510 in budgeted spending on womens health services in the fiscal year beginning Sept. 1, 2015, and $130,548,682 for the subsequent year, totaling $260,870,192 in the biennium. As noted by Pojman, the act also says that each year, on approval of the budget board, the commission shall allocate $50 million providing primary health care services to women including but not limited to preventive health screenings such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension and STD-HIV screenings; family planning services including contraception; perinatal services; and dental services. Due to such spending, the act estimates that annually, 65,000 adults and adolescents would receive family planning services. Its that additional spending, the coalition summary indicates, that makes the budgeted spending higher despite legislated reductions in spending for family planning (a cut of $1.5 million, or nearly 4 percent) and the Texas Womens Health program (a cut of $2 million, or 3 percent). Alabama analyst Also to our inquiry, Heather Busby of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, whichsaysit focuses on guaranteeing Texans the right to make personal reproductive health decisions including contraception and safe abortions, suggested we queryKari White, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor and expert on womens health issues whos been part of aTexas-based teamstudying effects of the Texas decision barring aid to clinics affiliated with abortion providers. By phone and email, White agreed the state has allocated what looks like a record level of money to the efforts singled out by Pojman though she speculated by email the spending bump might be less dramatic than available figures suggest. The focus on funding allocated for the four programs on Pojmans list, White said, does not entirely capture how some of the womens health services historically have been paid for. For example, primary care services for women that are now covered by EPHC were previously paid for using other state-administered and federal programs (not included on Pojmans list). By not factoring these programs into funding totals in previous years, the recent increase may seem larger than it actually is. Spending per woman Also, White wrote, funding allocations do not reflect how effectively these programs are serving women. In other words, there may be more total dollars set aside for services, but since quite a bit of this new funding has been going to organizations that do not have a lot of experience with family planning, the state is spending more but not necessarily serving more women. White suggested we consider research by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes reproductive health and abortion rights. In 2013, more than 1.7 million Texas women were in need of publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies, according to a July 2015 institute reportthat started fromU.S. Census Bureau survey results. That year, the report said, publicly supported health centers provided contraceptive care to 281,170 women in Texas plus 47,390 teens. These totals amount to substantial proportionsbut not nearly allof the women in need of publicly supported contraception, the report said. For our part, we asked the commission for help estimating the number of Texas women eligible for the health services. Could it be that even with spending up, less money is available per potential beneficiary? By email, spokesman Bryan Black provided achart, drawing on U.S. Census Bureau surveys, estimating the number of female U.S. citizens aged 15-44 living in Texas at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level from 2010 through 2017--in other words, the women who most likely would qualify for the health services. Next, we calculated that some $109 per potential beneficiary was spent in 2010-11 and 2012-13; this was exceeded by the $205 per potential beneficiary appropriated by lawmakers for such programs in 2014-15 and the $236 per potential beneficiary appropriated for 2016-17. Our ruling Pojman said the state of Texas is funding  womens health services at historically high levels; they just increased their level another $50 million for the next two years. Texas lawmakers this year voted to appropriate more for womens health services than before--including the $50 million bump. This includes funding for general health services such as diabetes and cholesterol screenings. It also may be meaningful that programs are under reorganization. Too, lawmakers started putting more money on the table after their actions led the federal government to cut off tens of millions of dollars for reproductive services. We rate this claim True. TRUE The statement is accurate and theres nothing significant missing. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. In late September 2019, the anti-Muslim hate site Frontlines News published a bogus story reporting that "Muslims in Switzerland are demanding that the white cross be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it 'no longer corresponds to todays multicultural Switzerland.'" bogus story The story contains a thumbnail image of men holding up a flag and burning it.The image was not taken recently and it wasn't taken in Switzerland  in fact, the flag being burned is Danish, not Swiss. The photograph in question was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Rizwan Tabassum in February 2006 in Karachi, Pakistan. According to the picture's caption, it depicts men burning a flag in response to outrage over cartoons in European newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the central figure of Islam. Generally, depicting Muhammad in images and statues is forbidden for observant Muslims.  photograph forbidden Frontlines News quotes and links to a story that was originally published by the Gatestone Institute, an anti-Muslim, non-profit organization that, as NBC News reported in April 2018, "promoted misleading and false anti-Muslim news, some of which was amplified by a Russian troll factory" in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Gatestone Institute reported The Gatestone story cited by Frontlines News quotes only one source, Ivica Petrusic, who was the vice president of the Swiss social justice advocacy group Second@s Plus. Petrusic was quoted saying the cross should be removed from the flag to reflect a separation between church and state and the country's growing cultural diversity. Petrusic makes no mention of Muslim people making that demand. The only element of the story linking to Muslims is Gateway's unfounded assertion that Second@s "represents mostly Muslim second-generation foreigners in Switzerland." Because the image took place at a different time and in a different place than Frontlines News reported, and because the underlying story originated in 2011 from an already-unreliable source, we rate this claim "False. Przybyla, Heidi."John Bolton Presided Over Anti-Muslim Think Tank."
NBC News.23 April 2018. McManus, John."Have Pictures of Muhammad Always Been Forbidden?"
BBC.15 January 2015. 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