Did Donald Trump Say 'Never Blame Yourself'?
On March 13, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump said during a press conference that he "didn't take responsibility at all" for the government's lagging behind other countries in terms of testing for new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease after it was first detected in the United States (see video here). said during a press conference here This led to some renewed interest in an old quote ostensibly uttered by Trump and supposedly published in a 2005 issue of The Sun:   The alleged quote reads: "You never blame yourself. You have to blame something else. If you do something bad, never, ever blame yourself." We have been unable to verify the authenticity of this quote, nor have we been able to confirm that this image shows a genuine copy of The Sun from Sept. 12, 2005. We reached out to The Sun for comment and will update this article if more information becomes available.  We did find an instance of this quote in a 2004 article from the celebrity news agency WENN that was published on Contact Music. This 2004 story, however, is very light on details and provides no information about where, when, or in what context Trump made the comment. Contact Music The fact that this quote has been online since at least 2004 lends some credence to the idea that it is a genuine comment from Trump. Many of the fake quotes we encounter, for instance, are modern inventions that are only presented, perhaps in a fake newspaper clip, as if they were years old. However, we have been unable to find any other sources for this quote or any verifiable information about when and where it was said. As such, we've rated the truth of this claim as "Unproven."  modern inventions presented newspaper clip Trump has made other statements regarding blame. In October 2017, for instance, Trump was speaking about how his administration wasn't following through on its agenda before he shifted the blame to Congress: shifted the blame "We're not getting the job done ... And I'm not going to blame myself. I'll be honest: They are not getting the job done." Before taking office, Trump expressed a different opinion about "where the buck stops." In November 2013, he posted the following message on Twitter: message   Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible.   Blake, Aaron.  "Trumps Hypocritical Quote on Taking Blame Just About Says it All."
  The Washington Post.  16 October 2017. Smith, David.  "'I Don't Take Responsibility': Trump Shakes Hands and Spreads Blame Over Coronavirus."
  The Guardian.  13 March 2020.
A video purportedly showing Chelsea, Bill, and Hillary Clinton prematurely celebrating a presidential election victory was widely shared on the internet in the wake of the Democratic nominee's loss on 8 November 2016: While this video was distributed by several web sites along with the assertion that it showed the Clintons prematurely celebrating a victory on election night that proved to be unrealized, little evidence was provided to back up this claim. The video contains no audio, is only a few seconds long, and as of this writing the sourceis still unknown. The earliest version we could uncover was published by LiveLeak on 16 November 2016, but that video was also lacking context. The Gateway Pundit attempted to prove to their readers (or possibly to mislead them into believing) that the video was takenon election night by providing a photograph ofBill, Chelsea, and Hillary Clinton in similar clothing at an 8 November 2016 campaign event: Although that photograph was taken on Election Day 2016, there were some obvious differences between the clothes the Clintons were wearing in that image and the ones they are seen wearing in the video. Mainly, Chelsea Clinton was garbed a sort of aqua sleeveless dress in the still photograph, but she sports a dark blue long-sleeved dress in the video:  photograph  Perhaps more telling is the change in Bill Clinton's attire. Photographs from Election Day 2016 show that Bill Clinton was wearing a light blue shirt with a dark blue and white tie, but in the video he is seen clothed in a white shirt with a salmon-colored tie:  In addition to the optical discrepancies, the narrative behind the claim doesn't quite add up. Clinton was likely confident heading into the election since most polls showed her with a large advantage, so it's hard to fathom a moment which would have elicited such an act of jubilation in the course of an election night in which she lost. So when was this video taken? Bill, Hillaryand Chelsea Clinton were wearing outfits that match those shown in the video at the first presidential debate of 2016 at Hofsfra University:   Embed from Getty Images   It's plausible that the Clintons would have engaged a short but jubilant celebration after this event, as many observed felt that Clinton had won the debate. won The "premature celebration" video is frequently shared in close proximity to a similar claim holding that Clinton threw a tantrum following her election night loss. This rumor, too, is largelyunfounded. unfounded The Economist.  "A Win for Hillary Clinton: The First Presidential Debate."
  27 September 2016. Claim:  African-Americans are entitled to a $5,000 slavery reparation tax credit.  Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] This goes out to all my friends, family, and everyone in the African American community. Once you receive this message please write down the number and then pass it along to every AfricanAmerican you know. As you my know, all African Americans living here in the United States are descendants of slavery,therefore our government has finally passed a bill to pay all descendants back. The way they are paying us back is through a refund called the, "Black Inheritance Tax Refund/40 Acres and a Mule". When you call this number you'll give them your name, address, and phone number and they'll send you out a packet, which includes further details and information on how to receive the refund. I was informed that it will take only two weeks to receive the packet and then two weeks to receive themoney. Now, if you know our government I bet they are not expecting a lot of people to call for this refund, and they may be right, because many of us will not be informed of this. Therefore, this is why I am taking it upon myself to pass on this information, so our community will soon be informed through word-of-mouth about what has been owed to our ancestors all these years. Black Inheritance Tax Refund 1-800-441-5629 press #3 to direct you to the appropriate line open betweenEast Coast: 8am and 12amWest Coast: 5am and 9pm Expect to wait anywhere from 5mins-25mins (There will not be any music to entertain you while you wait!) Ps: You must be 18 years or older and I'm assuming a legal residence of the United States. So, request an application for yourself, husband, wife, sister, brother, father, mother, etc, or just pass the number along. God Bless You All and please check this out!!!!!!!! Origins:  In 2000, bogus letters claiming certain senior citizens were eligible for slavery reparations or higher Social Security payments were circulating in black churches in the South and elsewhere. The letters claimed blacks born before 1928 were eligible for a $5,000 "Negro Inheritance Tax Refund" due to a "Slave Reparation Act," and folks born between 1911 and 1926 might be entitled to higher monthly Social Security payments.  This was but one of the many forms the "slavery reparation tax credit" misinformation has taken over the years.  An April 1993 Lena Sherrod commentary entitled "Forty Acres and a Mule" which appeared in Essence magazine dealt with the concept that reparations were owed to the descendants of African-Americans who were forced to work unpaid for 246 years, and that African-Americans were owed a tax rebate for years of legalized racial discrimination.  Sherrod wrote: The government also owes African-Americans a tax rebate for the 60 years of segregation and Jim Crow that followed slavery. Although we were consigned by law to second-class citizenship, we were still forced to pay first-class taxes . . . the delinquent tax rebate [is] now estimated . . . to be at $43,209 per household."  Since de facto racial discrimination continues to function as a hidden Black tax, it ought to be deductible. So when income-tax time rolls around, on line 59 of form 1040  which asks you to list 'other payments'  simply enter $43,209 in 'Black taxes' and compute accordingly. This commentary undoubtedly helped to foster the belief that a real income tax deduction was available as a form of reparation to the descendants of slaves. In 2002, people were being urged in e-mail to call an 800 number. Yet it's all the same  hoax. No matter whether you got the letter from your church or read about the give-back in a magazine, the "reparations credit" does not and never has existed. Those who claim the deduction because they are black can be subject to fines and penalties, so really, really think twice before trying to wring it out of Uncle Sam. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can fine a taxpayer $500 for filing a frivolous claim. Moreover, if the tax department fails to catch the erroneous deduction at the time of filing, it has an additional six years to right its error. Upon catching the error, the taxmen would not only strike off the deduction, but would calculate interest owed on the new balance of tax due, dating it to the year of the original return. (For example, if you claimed the credit in 1994, and the IRS caught it in 1998, your 1994 return would be re-computed to remove the effect of the bogus deduction. You'd now get a bill from the IRS for the re-computed difference between tax paid and tax due, plus all the interest that had piled up on it across those four years, and maybe even a $500 penalty for trying to pull the wool over the tax department's eyes.  Eeesh.) IRS offices across the nation have received thousands of requests daily for Form 2439, which some people have been mistakenly led to believe reimburses the descendants of slaves. Form 2439 is actually for shareholders trying to claim undistributed capital gains.  Form 2439 Though word of the phony benefits is most often spread by well-meaning individuals whose only motivation is ensuring those who are supposedly in line for the break hear about it, at times unscrupulous tax preparers have stepped in to turn what is already a heart-wrenching disappointment into an out-and-out fraud perpetrated on the unwary by charging fees of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to "help" people apply for these nonexistent benefits.  In a common version of this take-down, a con man promises his unwary clients that he can obtain up to $40,000 in "slave reparation" credits for them from the government and offers to file the necessary tax forms on their behalf in exchange for a percentage of their refunds.  He then loads up his clients' tax returns with all manner of deductions and credits they're not entitled to take and thereby scams the government into sending them refund checks.  When the IRS later goes over the returns more thoroughly and starts clamoring for their money back, the victims are left holding the bag. The $43,209 "Black tax refund" figure one sometimes hears bandied about is said to be based on the estimated value of "40 acres and a mule," a reparation supposedly laid out in an 1866 bill which lore claims was passed by Congress but was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. The truth is a bit more complicated than that. The origins of the belief that the U.S. government promised 40 acres of land and a mule to freed slaves after the Civil War are indefinite.  One possible source of this claim is Special Field Order No. 15, issued in January 1865 by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, which set aside a coastal strip of land from Charleston, South Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, for the exclusive use of freed slaves, with each freed-slave family receiving a 40-acre chunk of this holding. As Eric Foner noted in his history of Reconstruction: Special Field Order No. 15 Sherman was neither a humanitarian reformer nor a man with any particular concern for blacks. Instead of seeing Field Order 15 as a blueprint for the transformation of Southern society, he viewed it mainly as a way of relieving the immediate pressure caused by a large number of impoverished blacks following his army. The land grants, he later claimed, were intended only to make "temporary provisions for the freedmen and their families during the rest of the war," not to convey permanent possession. Understandably, however, the freedmen assumed that the land was to be theirs, especially after Gen. Rufus Saxton, assigned by Sherman to oversee the implementation of his order, informed a large gathering of blacks "that they were to be put in possession of lands, upon which they might locate their families and work out for themselves a living and respectability." Debate continues over whether Sherman acted solely on his own authority in issuing Special Field Order No. 15 or whether he had the approval of the War Department (or even President Lincoln himself), but the end result was that a new policy (known as Howard's Circular 15) issued by the White House in September 1865 ordered the restoration of land to pardoned owners and thereby took away from freedmen the land appropriated for them by Sherman under Special Field Order No. 15  (The order made no provisions for giving mules to freedmen, but Foner notes that after issuing it, "Sherman later provided that the army could assist [freedmen] with the loan of mules.") Another possible source of the "40 acres and a mule" belief is the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau (originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands), a federal agency established as a subsidiary of the War Department  in March 1865 (a month before the end of the Civil War) to deal with issues concerning refugees and freedmen within states under reconstruction, including the management of abandoned and confiscated property.  One of the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Act directed that the bureau's commissioner should "have authority to set apart, for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen, such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise, and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land."  However, this act did not propose giving property to freed slaves (the land was to be leased to freedmen for three years, then made available for purchase by them), nor did it make any mention of mules.   Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau Act President Johnson did not veto the Freedmen's Bureau Act, which was passed by Congress in March 1865 and signed by President Lincoln.  (Johnson did not assume the presidency until Lincoln's assassination the following month.)   Two events occurred in February 1866, both of which have been misstated as overturning the "forty acres" provision of the Freedmen's Bureau Act:  An amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill (also known as the "Second Freedmen's Bureau Act") proposed by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, to add "forfeited estates of the enemy" to the land available to blacks, was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Representatives.  (At that time, the only group of slaveholders who were compelled to provide their former slaves with land were Indians who sided with the Confederacy.)  President Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Bill, which sought to extend the life of the bureau indefinitely (it had originally been chartered only for one year after the end of the Civil War) and to greatly increase its powers.  Congress passed the bill again (in modified form) over Johnson's veto in July 1866. The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 did in fact make land in five southern states available to freed blacks, but only public land, not plantations or other property confiscated from former slaveholders.  Unfortunately, most of the land still available in the South for homesteading was too swampy and too far away from transportation links to be of much good to freedmen, and even then the largest portion of this inferior land was claimed by whites (often for quick resale to lumber companies).   Although the notion of a "Black Inheritance Tax Refund" has long since been debunked and disclaimed, it nonetheless lives on and continues to cause headaches to the IRS and taxpayers alike.  In April 2002, the Washington Post reported that the IRS had received more than 100,000 tax returns seeking nonexistent slavery-tax credits and had mistakenly paid out more than $30 million in erroneous refunds in 2000 and 2001.  And in April 2005, the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office obtained a temporary restraining order enjoining a New York man from preparing income tax returns for others because he had "been including bogus tax credits such as reparations for African-American slavery and segregation." Barbara "taxing the imagination" Mikkelson Last updated:  27 May 2011    Brown, Timothy.  "Black Churches in the South Targeted in Mail Hoax."   The Associated Press.  31 August 2000.     Deibel, Mary.  "IRS Warns Black Taxpayers About Reparation-Claim Scam."   The Washington Times.  7 October 2000  (p. A2).     Fennell, Edward.  "Slavery Reparations Program Labeled Lie."   The [Charleston] Post and Courier.  24 September 2000  (p. B1).    Foner, Eric.  Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.  New York: Harper & Row, 1988.  ISBN 0-060-91453-X  (pp. 70-71, 245-246).     Foner, Eric and John Garraty.  The Reader's Companion to American History.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.  ISBN 0-395-51372-3  (pp. 987-988).      Josar, David.  "IRS Warns Against Trying to Get Refund for Reparations."   The Detroit News.  28 August 1996  (p. D1).     Kessler, Glenn.  "IRS Paid $30 Million in Credits for Slavery."   The Washington Post.  13 April 2002  (p. A1).     La Hay, Patricia.  "Slavery Reparations Tax Break Is Illegal."   The Arizona Republic.  9 August 1997  (p. A1).     McLeod, Ramon.  "Even Street Gangs Are Among Those Involved in Fraud."   The San Francisco Chronicle.  13 April 1996  (p. A17).     Moore, Linda.  "League Explains Nonrole in Slavery Reparations Hoax."   The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.  15 September 2000  (p. C2).     Oubre, Claude F.  Forty Acres and a Mule: The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Land Ownership.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.  ISBN 0-807-10298-9.     Sherrod, L.G.  "Forty Acres and a Mule."   Essence.  April 1993  (p. 124).     Stiehm, Jamie.  "IRS Official Warns of Tax Hoax Using Slave Reparations."   The Baltimore Sun.  12 February 2002.     The Associated Press.   "Blacks Targeted in Slavery Reparation Scam."   6 October 2000.     Chicago Sun-Times.  "Reparations Scam Preys on Ignorance."   17 July 1996  (p. 47).     Chicago Tribune.  "Tax Myths Don't Add Up at IRS."    23 February 1997  (p. C7).     Reuters.  "Man Barred from Making Slavery Tax Claims."    15 April 2005. In June 2019, the Chicago investment firm Chicago BDT Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the Texas-based restaurant chain Whataburger. The news was unsettling to some Texans who feared that their beloved burger joint would undergo some unwanted changes: acquired Ok, I say we all chip in and buy Whataburger back. Make honey butter chicken biscuits available all day, add kolaches to the menu and change nothing else. Especially not the ketchup. https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l https://t.co/HadutHXJ9l  JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 14, 2019 June 14, 2019  Shortly after this news broke, an image purportedly showing a screenshot of a message posted to Whataburger's Twitter account -- in which the restaurant chain announced that they were changing their colors from orange and white to blue, black, and white in honor of Chicago's baseball teams -- began to circulate on social media: circulate social media   This was not a genuine tweet from Whataburger: It does not appear anywhere on the company's Twitter timeline, and we were unable to locate any archived versions of this supposed message. timeline Furthermore, the Whataburger Twitter account has responded to several curious social media users to inform them that the above-displayed image is fake. In other words, Whataburger is not changing their signature orange color to blue, black, and white in honor of the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox:   The social media post announcing that Whataburger was changing their colors was fake, but the following social media post from Whataburger assuring fans that they will continue to make Texas proud is real: social media post   Fernandez, Manny.  "Whataburger Got Sold to Chicago. Texas Is Flipping Out."
  The New York Times.  20 June 2019. In late July 2023, readers pointed us to several posts that had been made inside of Facebook groups. The users who made these posts, whose profiles all indicated they may have been from Bangladesh, claimed to be offering Walmart gift cards to anyone who could find a special number in an image. For example, one post read, "So Far No One Has Found Another Number Apart From 86, No Winners Yet (Walmart Gift Card). We Still Have 24 More Wins." post  The only other number visible in the above image was 96. Users who commented with "96" were replied to by the post's creator with a link that eventually led to a survey scam website. Survey scam websites usually promise cash prizes, pricey electronics, and other interesting purported "rewards," all supposedly if the user takes a few minutes to answer some questions. However, as we've reported for the last two decades or so, survey scam websites have historically proven to be a waste of time. They often ask users to provide personal and financial information on various websites, as well as to sign up for trials of unfamiliar streaming services. All of this appeared to be an attempt at receiving affiliate-marketing commission based on the amount of information given away when providing personal and financial data to these websites. historically proven Sometimes, these kinds of scammers might instead provide a link sending users to hidden subscription scams that supposedly offer "free" prizes. However, such scams hide monthly fees in the fine print, much like a Cash App scam we once reported about. Cash App scam These sorts of scammers might also sometimes direct users to phishing websites that claim a gift card or other prize could be ordered for "free," only with a small shipping and handling charge. Of course, there would be no real gift card or other prize. This simply would be an attempt to obtain a victim's financial information for criminal activities, such as a credit card number or PayPal login. This kind of a scam was similar to another one we previously reported about concerning the U.S. Postal Service. previously reported about If readers are looking for legitimate promotions for Walmart gift cards, we recommend our previous reporting that found the company truly does give away $80,000 in prizes every three months. Such promotions are offered by the company in official email correspondence and on receipts handed out in its brick-and-mortar stores. truly does give away $80,000 in prizes every three months Liles, Jordan. "Lowe's Email Scam Promises 'Exclusive Reward.'" Snopes, 7 Feb. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lowes-survey-exclusive-reward/. ---. "This Cash App Email Scam About a Fake Deposit Could Cost You Thousands on Your Credit Card." Snopes, 19 May 2023, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cash-app-scam-email-fake-deposit/. ---. "UPS Email Scam Promises 'Exclusive Reward.'" Snopes, 4 Feb. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ups-email-exclusive-reward/. ---. "'USPS' Text Message Scam Claims Delivery Problem, Asks for Personal Financial Info." Snopes, 31 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/usps-text-message-scam/. ---. "Was Walmart Giving Away $1,000 Gift Cards by Email?" Snopes, 7 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmart-1000-gift-cards/. FACT CHECK: Does avideo show a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner?  Claim:  Avideo shows a drone airplane clipping the wing of an airliner.   Origins:  On 23 June 2015, a video purportedly showing a drone airpline clipping the wing of a passenger plane and shearing off the wingtip was uploaded to the web siteLiveleak:  Some idiot's drone crossed our take-off path.I'm still alive! The plane wing shown in the above-displayed video has the same colors as Southwest Airlines, but a closer look reveals that the company's namehas been replaced with the URL for visual effects artist Bruce Branit's website, Branit.com: Branit.com Shortly after the above-displayed video went viral, Branit publisheda blog post explaining that it was fake: blog post Lately, I've beenlooking for little videos to make with no budget, an iPhone and some CGI. After shooting this footage of NYC as we were climbing out of Laguardia (thanks FAA for finally letting us keep our phones in airplane mode during take-off), I thought it might be a challenge to make something go by or even strike the wing. This is the same air corridor that Captain "Skully" ditched his Airbus A320in the Hudson after a double bird strike, saving all on-board. But I chose to make a drone zip past instead of a birdand tear off a section of the winglet. Branit also published another video showing how he created the "drone hits plane" viral video:  Last updated: 24 June 2015 In July 2021, as the pandemic-delayed 2020 Olympic games approached, an interesting tidbit about basketball, Lithuania, and the 1960s psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead started to circulate on social media. A viral Reddit post claimed that "after the breakup of the USSR, the Lithuanian basketball team couldn't afford to participate in the 1992 Olympics, so the Grateful Dead funded the team's expenses and sent a box of tie-dyed outfits in Lithuania's national colours. They went on to win bronze."  claimed This post is generally accurate. The Grateful Dead really did sponsor Lithuania's men's basketball team, and they did provide the team with tie-dyed shirts bearing the country's national colors (yellow, green, and red), and a "Skullman" logo designed by Greg Speirs, which can be seen above. Our one quibble with this claim is that the band was not the team's sole source of funding. While the Grateful Dead did provide the team some financial support (one report states that the band wrote a $5,000 check), the band's main contribution was that it allowed the team to sell special Grateful Dead merchandise, which proved massively popular with fans at the 1992 Olympic Games.  "Skullman" logo Greg Speirs Here's a newspaper clipping from 1992 about the popularity of these shirts. According to Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally, some 20,000 shirts sold in the first week. A third of the money raised went to the Lithuanian Olympic Committee, and the band got "nothing more than a good time."  28 Aug 1992, Fri The Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) Newspapers.com  28 Aug 1992, Fri The Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) Newspapers.com The Grateful Dead's connection with the Lithuanian basketball team started in 1992 when Sarunas Marciulionis, the team's star guard, and scout Donnie Nelson showed up at a garage in San Francisco to hear the band play. The team, which would be competing in its first Olympic games since the country declared independence from the Soviet Union a few years earlier, was seeking sponsors to fund their trip to Barcelona.  Here's an excerpt from an article published on NBCOlympics.com in 2012 (archived here): NBCOlympics.com On a cold and windy Bay Area winter day 20 years ago, Sarunas Marciulionis and Donnie Nelson, a starting guard and a scout, respectively, for the Golden State Warriors, knocked uncertainly on the door of a nondescript garage in San Francisco. The Grateful Dead is in here? Nelson thought to himself. Somebody said to enter, and so they did, metaphorical hats in hand, taking in the sights and, more vividly, the smells. "Well, there was a little pot going on," Nelson recalls today. "The Dead were trying out Beatles covers, doing stuff like 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'Hey Jude,' but they were just kind of working through things and sounding kind of nasally. Sarunas pulls me aside and says, 'Donnie, no way these guys are famous. They're terrible.'" Nelson shakes his head and smiles. "I always think back and wonder what it would be like if someone caught that scene today -- Sarunas in the Dead pot garage." The Dead had heard about the Marciulionis-Nelson crusade to raise money to enable Lithuania, Marciulionis's native land, to try to qualify for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. "You're all about liberty and freedom and, man, we're all about that, too, so we dig what you guys are doing," said Jerry Garcia, the Dead's leader. That's a paraphrase but, if you've ever heard Jerry (who died in 1995), it's pretty close. NBC reported that the band ended up writing the team a check for $5,000. More importantly, the band gave the team a license to use and sell special Olympics-Grateful Dead merchandise. These items were a major hit and helped the team raise funds that were then used to fund their participation in the 1996 Olympics.  Strong anti-Soviet reaction from the West helped force a treaty, but by the time Marciulionis decided that he wanted to field a team, the nation was nearly bankrupt. He donated some of the money from his $1.28 million Golden State contract, and, with the help of Nelson, whom he had tapped to be Lithuania's assistant coach, set out to raise the rest. Getting the Dead was a major coup. The band wrote a check for $5,000 but more importantly granted Lithuania the rights to sell a Dead t-shirt, a stoned-out psychedelic masterpiece splashed with Lithuania's national colors of green, red, and yellow and anchored by the Dead's skeleton symbol. Purely from a fund-raising perspective, sales of the t-shirt had more to do with the 1996 Olympics; it financed most of Lithuania's participation in the Atlanta Games. But the t-shirt became the hit of the '92 Games, more treasured than any of the merchandise bearing the likeness of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the stalwarts of the United States Dream Team. The shirt kept Lithuania in the news, told the story of its heroic struggle for freedom, its battle to get to Barcelona (it earned a spot through the European Olympic qualifier) and its quest for a medal. For many American basketball fans, the 1992 Olympics are probably remembered for the dominant play of the "Dream Team," the American Olympic team that featured superstars such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. But the Lithuanian team made its mark as well. In 2012, a documentary was released entitled "The Other Dream Team," which followed Arvydas Sabonis and arnas Mariulionis on their somewhat psychedelic journey to a bronze medal.   Updated [1 September 2021]: Updated to credit designer of Skullman logo. In November 2019, we received multiple inquiries about the accuracy of claims that U.S. President Donald Trump had been fined $2 million by a New York court because he was found to have "stolen" charitable donations intended for military veterans.  For example, former Democratic Virginia State Senate candidate Qasim Rashid tweeted on several occasions in November 2019 that Trump had "stolen" $2.8 million in charitable donations from veterans, and that he had admitted as much in court: tweeted several occasions The President stole $2.8M in charity from Veterans & spent it on himself & admits to his crime in court documents. As you speak of honor & serviceWhere is your accountability of a President who trampled on both? Why are you silent Rep @RobWittman?#VeteransDay https://t.co/rGi9fT0AsP @RobWittman #VeteransDay https://t.co/rGi9fT0AsP  Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) November 11, 2019 November 11, 2019   One of Rashid's tweets was later reposted in the form of a meme by the Facebook page Act.tv. (The meme was later deleted): tweets meme   Another widely shared meme claimed, "It is a fact that draft dodger Trump stole charitable cash donations that were meant for our veterans":   These social media posts and memes grossly misrepresented the facts surrounding a November 2019 settlement agreement between the New York Attorney General, on one hand, and the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Trump himself, and his children Ivanka and Eric, on the other hand.  Trump did not "steal" charitable donations intended for veterans, nor did he admit as much in court. All the donations intended for veterans charities ended up going to veterans charities. However, Trump's 2016 presidential campaign did direct and benefit from the manner in which many of those donations were distributed to the charities.  The claims were related to a lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney General's office in June 2018 against the Trump Foundation, the president, and Ivanka and Eric Trump, in their capacity as board directors of the charity. We've written about the case in detail in a previous fact check. fact check In her June 2018 petition to the state's Supreme Court, then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood wrote: wrote "For more than a decade, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law governing New York State charities. This pattern of illegal conduct by the Foundation and its board members includes improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations or to implement even elementary corporate formalities required by law. One of the examples of "improper political activity" cited in the lawsuit related to a January 2016 fundraiser that the Trump Foundation and Trump's presidential election campaign jointly operated.  In January 2016, days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump complained of unfair treatment by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and announced he would be boycotting the next Republican primary debate and instead host a fundraiser for veterans' charities in Iowa.  announced The event raised around $5.6 million, with roughly half going to the Trump Foundation, and half going directly to specific veterans charities. The Trump campaign directed the distribution of funds to recipient charities, and Trump himself repeatedly presented checks at campaign rallies and more broadly used the distribution of funds to boost his presidential campaign.  On the basis of those allegations, Underwood requested several outcomes, including asking the court to "dissolve the Foundation for its persistently illegal conduct, enjoin its board members from future service as a director of any not-for-profit authorized by New York law, to obtain restitution and penalties, and to direct the Foundation to cooperate with the Attorney General in the lawful distribution of its remaining assets to qualified charitable entities. The parties to the lawsuit spent around a year negotiating a settlement. In December 2018, for example, all sides agreed that the Foundation would be dissolved and its assets distributed to a list of mutually agreed charities.  agreed In November 2019, the New York Supreme Court published the final settlement. As part of that settlement between the parties, Trump, his children and the Foundation stipulated to (agreed upon) a set of facts, among them the following section related to the Iowa veterans fundraiser: settlement The website for the Iowa Fundraiser, DonaldTrumpForVets.com, was developed by campaign personnel and, with the agreement of the Foundation, featured the name of the Foundation at the top of the home page and informed visitors that "the Donald J. Trump Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization"; The campaign planned, organized and paid for the Iowa Fundraiser, with administrative assistance from the Foundation; and the campaign directed the timing, amounts and recipients of the Foundation's grants to charitable organizations supporting military veterans; The Iowa Fundraiser raised approximately $5.6 million in donations for veterans groups, of which $2.823 million was contributed to the Foundation; the balance was contributed by donors directly to various veterans' groups. At Campaign events in Iowa on January 30, January 31, and February 1, 2016, Mr. Trump personally displayed presentation copies of Foundation checks to Iowa veterans' groups. On May 31, 2016, at a Campaign press conference, Mr. Trump announced the grants the Foundation made to veterans' groups with the proceeds of the Iowa Fundraiser and, on or about the same day, the Campaign posted on its website a chart identifying the grant recipients. The New York Attorney General's office objected to the way in which the Trump Foundation had been used to advance the interests of the Trump campaign, and especially the way in which the campaign dictated how more than half of the funds were to be distributed, with Trump at times personally handing out checks at campaign rallies. The Attorney General's Office did not object on the grounds that Trump, his children, or his foundation, had stolen or kept the money.  Indeed, in an order accompanying the November 2019 settlement, New York Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla wrote that: wrote The Attorney General has argued that I should award damages for waste of the entire $2,823,000 that was donated directly to the Foundation at the Fundraiser. In opposition, Mr. Trump notes that the Foundation ultimately disbursed all of the Funds to charitable organizations and that he has sought to resolve consensually this proceeding. As stated above, I find that the $2,823,000 raised at the Fundraiser was used for Mr. Trumps political campaign and disbursed by Mr. Trumps campaign staff, rather than by the Foundation, in violation of [New York law]. However, taking into consideration that the Funds did ultimately reach their intended destinations, i.e., charitable organizations supporting veterans, I award damages on the breach of fiduciary duty/waste claim against Mr. Trump in the amount of $2,000,000, without interest, rather than the entire $2,823,000 sought by the Attorney General. [Emphasis added]. Trump was ordered to pay $2 million to a list of agreed-upon charities as damages for the waste incurred by the fact that his political campaign orchestrated and benefited from distributing around $2.8 million in donations to veterans groups. (That $2 million in damages was separate from the roughly $1.7 million the Trump Foundation had already agreed to distribute to various charities, as part of the resolution dissolving the Foundation.) Neither Trump, nor his children, nor his charity, were found to have "stolen" or kept the funds, and so none "admitted" to such actions (as Rashid falsely claimed in his tweets). The New York Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged that all the funds raised from the January 2016 Iowa event did ultimately end up with veterans groups.  The irony in those claims was that it was, in fact, the manner in which the Trump Foundation and Trump campaign colluded in distributing the donations to veterans charities that landed the president in hot water, not his having "stolen" the donations.  Mac Guill, Dan. "Did New York Reprimand Trump Family for 'Stealing From a Children's Cancer Charity'?"
 Snopes.com. 31 October 2019. Underwood, Barbara D. "New York vs. Trump et al -- Verified Petition."
 New York Supreme Court, County of New York. 14 June 2018. Shane III, Leo. "Donald Trump to Skip GOP Debate, Hold Fundraiser for Wounded Troops Instead."
 Military Times. 26 January 2016. New York Supreme Court, County of New York. "New York vs. Trump et al -- So-Ordered Stipulation Concerning the Dissolution of the Donald J. Trump Foundation."
  19 December 2018. New York Supreme Court, County of New York. "New York vs. Trump et al -- So-Ordered Stipulation of Final Settlement."
  7 November 2019. Scarpulla, Saliann. "New York vs. Trump et al -- Decision and Order On Petition."
 New York Supreme Court, County of New York. 7 November 2019. A set of images supposedly documenting the impact of socialism on the lives of people residing in some unidentified locale(s) is frequently circulated on social media as a warning about the alleged deleterious effects of that system: circulated   The "Your City on Socialism" meme has been circulated online since at least February 2017, when it was posted to the Facebook page of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA along with the caption "Socialism Never Works. Never Has, Never Will." Turning Point USA Turning Point USA's point would be more effective, of course, if they used images that accurately reflected the impact of socialism. The first image ("Your City on Socialism") was not taken in any socialist country but rather in the United States. It's an Associated Press file photo shot by Paul Sancya in July 2011 that captured a row of abandoned stores in Detroit, Michigan: Associated Press In this July 27, 2011 file photo, a section of vacant stores is shown in Detroit. Michigan is getting $100 million in federal aid to demolish abandoned buildings to fight blight in Detroit and four other cities, Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday. Snyder said the U.S. Treasury Department has approved the aid. Detroit is getting $52.3 million, Flint $20.1 million and Saginaw 11.2 million. Pontiac is getting $3.7 million and Grand Rapids $2.5 million, while $10.2 million goes to a reserve fund for additional demolition, Snyder said. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, file) The second image ("Your Hospital on Socialism") is the lone photograph in this meme that was actually taken in a socialist country. It was included in a 2016 New York Times article about the health care crisis in Venezuela: New York Times The economic crisis in this country has exploded into a public health emergency, claiming the lives of untold numbers of Venezuelans. It is just part of a larger unraveling here that has become so severe it has prompted President Nicols Maduro to impose a state of emergency and has raised fears of a government collapse. The economic crisis in Venezuela is frequently brought up by those arguing against the merits of socialism. While Venezuela is a socialist country, that aspect is far from the only factor that has led to the country's severe economic turmoil. As we noted in a previous article on the topic, news outlets ranging from Bloomberg, the New York Times, to Fox News have noted that plunging oil prices, government corruption, and political unrest have also contributed to the crisis. article Bloomberg New York Times Fox News Furthermore, a single photograph of a run-down hospital is not representative of socialized medicine as a whole. The following image, for instance, was taken at a hospital in Switzerland, a country with universal health care:   The third image ("Your Grocer Story on Socialism") does not document a grocery store that ran out of food due to a failed socialist economy. It actually captures a Walmart outlet in Texas that ran out of food items and other supplies as it was thronged by customers stocking up ahead of the approach of Hurricane Rita in 2005. The picture was taken by Jay Jenner for the Austin-American Statesman, and the  original caption described it as follows: "Preparing for Hurricane Rita, Maria Chavez of Austin looks for a loaf of bread Thursday in the empty shelves of a Wal-Mart at Interstate 35 and Slaughter Lane. The store was sold out." original caption Turning Point USA isn't the only conservative group to use this image to push an anti-socialism narrative. In 2015, the National Review published a doctored version of this image in an article critical of Bernie Sanders. National Review doctored version The final photograph ("Your Politician on Socialism") does not show the home of a politician in a socialist country. Again, this image was taken in the U.S. and pictures a hotel in Glen Cove, New York, called The Mansion. hotel The Mansion Rather than accurately depicting the impacts of socialism, this meme is perhaps a better example of how images can be taken out of context, re-captioned, and repackaged in order to spread a political agenda. Llorente, Elizabeth.  "Caracas, Once a Thriving Metropolis, Is Struggling as Country Plunges Further Into Chaos."
  Fox News.  4 April 2019. Malkin, Michelle.  "Ask Venezuelans How Sanders-Style Socialism Is Working Out for Them."
  National Review.  27 May 2015. Novak, Matt.  "5 More Viral Photos That Are Totally Fake"
  Gizmodo.  2 June 2015. Little Green Footballs.  "Busted! National Review Crops and 'Dirties' Photo from Austin Walmart, Claims It Shows 'Venezuela.'"
  31 May 2015. Casey, Nicholas.  "Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuelas Failing Hospitals."
  The New York Times.  15 May 2016. This story has been corrected to reflect that Glen Cove is in New York, not New Jersey. A viral video purporting to show a statue of Jesus Christ in Mexico miraculously opening and closing its eyes captured a fair amount of international media attention in early August 2016.  "SPOOKY footage has emerged of a statue of Jesus appearing to open its eyes, with many believers claiming the spectacle is a miracle," UK tabloid The Sun reported on 10 August. The coverage continued: reported Investigators have scoured over the vision which appears to show the figure quickly open its eyes at a church in Mexico. Social media users were quick to comment on the clip filmed in the Chapel of Saltillo, saying it was merely an optical illusion or Photoshop job. What a coincidence that there was someone there to record it, one person wrote. Paranormal investigator Ivan Escamilla of the web site Adimensional, where the video was first posted, was undaunted by the skeptical reaction, claiming the video had been examined "for weeks" by more than 20 specialists, including priests, who "found no proof it had been doctored," the Mirror reported. According to the Argentinian newspaper El Ancasti, officials of the Diocese of Saltillo, who were the first to receive the video, declined to even view it, much less issue a statement about its authenticity. Adimensional reported El Ancasti As an exercise in documenting paranormal activity, there is frankly very little to recommend the footage. It's dark, blurry, shaky and low-resolution. As has been pointed out, the serendipitous timing of the video is suspicious. One does see the statue apparently open and close its eyes, but the sequence is more apt to bring to mind the cheesy special effects in a low-budget horror film than the impression that a miracle has occurred. The most striking thing is how thoroughly creepy and terrifying Jesus Christ's eyes look when they're open. If it is a miracle, it's a very odd miracle indeed. The best clue to the fact that the video was doctored is the fact that alterations in other areas of the image occur at precisely the same moments the eyes open and close. For example, here, in sequence, are three frames showing the statue's eyes wide open, in the process of closing, and completely closed. Observe the changes in the shadows around the eyes and  not to be indelicate, but this is a giveaway  the change in the shape of Jesus' right nipple:       If the only thing happening in these relatively stable frames were the closing of the statue's eyes, no other changes ought to be visible. But changes are visible, especially when the footage is viewed at slow speed or frame-by-frame. For a much better demonstration of this than we can provide here, please give your attention to the video below uploaded by the Australian Phenomena YouTube channel. It seems the maker of this video, a UFO researcher named Dylan, had no trouble whatsoever finding the evidence of fakery that 20 previous experts (and priests) failed to detect. video What goes up must come down, the old saying goes. But, according to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., thats not the case for oil prices. As part of a round of appearances to tout a new Democratic economic-policy agenda, Schumertook a momenton ABCsThis Weekto promote his partys plan to curb mergers that arent in the interest of consumers. We're going to change the way companies can merge,Schumer said. We have these huge companies buying up other big companies. It hurts workers and it hurts prices. The old Adam Smith idea of competition, it's gone. So people hate it when their cable bills go up, their airline fees. They know that gas prices are sticky. You know  when the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. However, this broad statement clashes with the long-term data for gasoline and crude oil prices. There are long stretches over the past four decades wheninflation-adjusted gasoline priceshave gone down. Heres a chart from the Energy Information Administration, a federal office that tracks energy statistics. And heres theinflation-adjusted data for imported crude oil. The pattern is similar. Clearly, gasoline and crude oil prices arent simply on an eternal escalator to infinity, as one might think hearing Schumer. So whats going on? When we checked with Schumers office, they said he was referring to the rise like a rocket, fall like a feather theory of gas prices. Under this theory, gasoline prices tend to go up quickly if theres a market shock, then fall more slowly after supply and demand resolve themselves. Schumer sees that pattern as one example of how big companies can sometimes have too much power to control prices, regardless of market forces. But when we ran Schumers statement by Severin Borenstein, a University of California-Berkeley economist who wrote a seminalpaperon the rocket-feather theory in 1997, he said the senators formulation is off-base. He said that while it is true that retail gasoline prices decline more slowly than they rise, the time frame for these changes is fairly short -- two weeks to go up, and six weeks or more to go down. Schumers statement suggests an iron rule, not a pattern for short-term changes following a market shock. You don't have to be an economist or analyst of oil markets to know that the statement isn't correct, Borenstein told PolitiFact. Obviously, gasoline prices do go down when oil prices decline. The change in gasoline prices since the 2014 collapse in oil prices made that very clear. Meanwhile, Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, a private firm, said that Schumers targets -- monopoly-minded companies -- arent necessarily to blame. He pointed to a study of 420 gas stations in San Diego in 2000 and 2001 that looked at the psychology and behavior of consumers. If a consumer sees a relatively low price, the study found, they wont bother searching aggressively for a price thats lower still, even though such bargains may exist around the corner. When such behavior is multiplied across many drivers, gas stations feel less pressure to reduce prices further than they already have, slowing the fall of gas prices. And economist Philip K. Verleger, who runs the firm PKVerleger LLC, said Schumer may also have an outdated view of how the oil markets work. Theres a more competitive market today -- the futures market runs everything now, he said. The futures can predict your local gas prices, and the response is more symmetric (before and after a market shock) than it was. Schumer said, When the price for oil goes up on the markets, it goes right up, but it never goes down. This comment takes a well-known phenomenon and exaggerates it beyond recognition. While experts agree that prices tend to go up quickly after a market shock but usually come down more slowly once the shock is resolved, this phenomenon only occurs on a short-term basis -- a couple of weeks in most cases. Long-term data show long stretches since the mid 1970s when the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline and crude oil have fallen. We rate the statement False.