Is the NRA a Tax-Exempt Nonprofit Organization?
The February 2018 shooting deaths of seventeen people at a high school in Parkland, Florida and a subsequent, charged town hall meeting about gun safety with some of the mass shooting's survivors and their families has put the National Rifle Association under intense scrutiny for its opposition to gun control. shooting deaths meeting Against this background, many were surprised to discover that the NRA, despite being well known for its political lobbying and ties to the gun industry, is in fact a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. On 22 February 2018, the "Really American" Facebook page posted a meme that showed President Donald Trump holding a replica flintlock rifle, along with this message: meme rifle The NRA has non-profit, tax-exempt status. Even though they transformed from an organization for gun owners to an organization for gun manufacturers, and donate millions of dollars to politicians to make sure they vote the "right way." Corruption in action.    The National Rifle Association is indeed a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. To be specific, it has 501(c)(4) status, meaning it is regarded as a "social welfare organization" by the Internal Revenue Service: 501(c)(4) status social welfare organization To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements.) A 501(c)(4) organization like the NRA is allowed to engage in political lobbying and advocacy, but this cannot be its main activity, and it must be related to the group's primary mission and the issue upon which its tax exemption is based, according to the IRS. Social welfare organizations may also get involved in political campaigns and elections, provided their involvement is related to the group's mission, and again, only if this does not constitute their primary activity.  IRS Critics of the NRA have claimed that the organization's tax exemption should be taken away, because, roughly speaking, the NRA spends less time and money providing a genuine service to the public at large than it does on political lobbying, and because the NRA's activities benefit the private gun industry. In its 2015 tax return, the NRA described its mission as "Firearms safety education and training and advocacy on behalf of safe and responsible gun owners." In April 2016, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence published a report on this very issue, labelling the NRA "a tax-exempt [organization] loaded with private interest." The authors  attorney Alexandra O'Neill and financial analyst Daniel O'Neill  wrote: tax return report ...The majority of the NRAs lobbying, education, training and publication activities operate to benefit a private interest: the firearms and ammunition industry. As a result, under the cases and rulings interpreting section 501(c)(4), the NRA does not primarily serve the community interest and should not qualify as a tax-exempt social welfare organization.  Instead, the NRA should operate as a political lobbying organization to be accountable for its key interests: the firearms and ammunition industry. A spokesperson for the NRA rejected this, telling us in an e-mail that the group's legislative lobbying was "textbook social welfare activity," and that any benefits that accrued to gun manufacturers from the NRA's activities were "incidental": The assertion that the NRA is not operated for tax-exempt purposes is false because legislative lobbying to protect the Second Amendment freedoms of Americans is social welfare activity. The defense of civil rights secured by law is textbook social welfare activity, regardless of the size and extent of such activity.... It was established in case law, the spokesperson argued, that "occasional" private financial benefits resulting incidentally from a nonprofit group's activities are allowed: Just as newspapers and other information sources incidentally benefit from the ACLUs advocacy about the First Amendment, gun manufacturers incidentally benefit from the NRAs advocacy about the Second.  Reilly, John Francis; Braig Allen, Barbara A. "Political Campaign and Lobbying Activities of IRC 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) Organizations."
 Internal Revenue Service. 2003 National Rifle Association of America. "Form 990  Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, 2015."
 ProPublica. 2016. O'Neill, Alexandra F.; O'Neill, Daniel P. "The NRA, a Tax-Exempt Loaded With Private Interest."
 The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. April 2016.
Amid talk of alternative facts and a post-truth world that dominated the news directly after the inauguration of President Donald Trump on 20 January 2017, a quote from astrophysicist and science communicator Carl Sagan emerged as a viral meme:  This is the excerpt from the passage containing that quote which was shared most frequently: excerpt Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my childrens or grandchildrens time  when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and whats true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. This excerpt was taken from Sagans 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. In a May 1997 review of that work, Smithsonian magazine described Sagan's motivation for writing it: "In The Demon-Haunted World, the late astronomer Carl Sagan writes in defense of science and reason in a world he sees as darkened by ignorance, superstition, pseudoscience, deceitful advertising and mindless television." review Sagan, for his part, described the book as "a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science." described The discussion of a loss of manufacturing jobs, an inability for public officials to grasp issues, and increasing distrust in science led many to assert that Sagan was predicting our current political and scientific climate  although, as Matt Novak articulated in a piece for Gizmodo, its often easy to view predictions of the future in a way that biases one's reading of the them: articulated Now, its important to remember that the accuracy of predictions is often a Rorschach test. An interpretation of a particular predictions accuracy usually says a lot about the people interpreting them and their own hopes or fears for the future. And honestly, some of Sagans concerns sound rather quaint. If you continue reading, the chapter goes on to talk about how the most popular videocassette rental was Dumb and Dumber, and how Beavis and Butthead was incredibly popular on TV. This, of course, was 1995, but theres not much new to this way of thinking  each generation thinks that the next generations media is toxic and vapid and worthless. Relevancy of the movie Dumb and Dumber notwithstanding, themes regarding the erosion of trust in favor of one's own deeply entrenched views appear repeatedly in the book. For example: One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If weve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. Were no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. Its simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that weve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Whether or not 2017 was the fulfillment of a Carl Sagan nightmare is a subjective matter, but the proffered description of that nightmare was authentic. Sagan, Carl.  The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
  Random House, 1995.  ISBN 0-345-40946-9. Trachtman, Paul.  Review of 'The Demon-Haunted World', 'Einstein, History, and Other Passions', 'The End of Science.
  Smithsonian.  May 1997. Novak, Matt.  Yes, The Eerie Carl Sagan Prediction That's Going Viral Is Real. 
  Paleofuture.  23 January 2017. In June 2019, a variety of news outlets published reports detailing the horrid conditions at immigrant detention centers along the United States' southern border. The Associated Press, for instance, quoted a lawyer named Warren Binford, who visited a facility in Texas and spoke to some of the immigrant children detained within, saying that the kids were living in "inhumane conditions." ABC News obtained a medical declaration that likened these detention centers to torture facilities. Associated Press ABC News As outrage from these reports grew online, actress Nancy Lee Grahn posted a set of photographs that supposedly documented these conditions and accused the Trump administration of forcing children to "sleep on cement floor with an aluminum blanket & lights on all night":  Nancy Lee Grahn   While the text of Grahn's tweet accurately reflects recent news reports, the photographs she used to illustrate her point were not taken during U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.  These photographs are actually still images from a surveillance camera at a Border Patrol holding facility in Tucson, Ariz., in August 2015. The images were released as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Immigration Council and the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection concerning the conditions at the agency's temporary holding facilities. lawsuit Here's an excerpt from an NPR report: NPR The holding cells were designed to be used for temporary holding  a period of hours. The American Immigration Council analyzed Border Patrol data and concluded that from September 2014 to August 2015, two-thirds of immigrants detained in Border Patrol facilities in the Southwest were held for more than 24 hours, and tens of thousands of people were held for more than three days. Photos of the cells show people crowded together in concrete cells. Several images show prisoners sitting or sleeping on bare floors with no mats available to them  even when there are unused mats in empty cells. While these photographs were taken during the Obama administration, the conditions described in Grahn's tweet still apply to the detention facilities operating under Trump. Physician Dolly Lucio Sevier was granted access to a detention center after a flu outbreak sent five infants to the neonatal intensive care unit. In a medical declaration obtained by ABC News, Sevier compared the conditions to a "torture facility" and wrote that minors were dealing with "extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food." ABC News Binford, a law professor, told NPR: "They are worse than actual prison conditions. It is inhumane. It's nothing that I ever imagined seeing in the United States of America." NPR The second part of Grahn's tweet mentions "Sarah Fabian" and claims that companies are making $750 day to detain immigrant children. Fabian is a Department of Justice lawyer who attempted to defend the conditions at detention centers during a June 2019 Court of Appeals hearing. According to the Washington Post:  defend The government went to federal court this week to argue that it shouldnt be required to give detained migrant children toothbrushes, soap, towels, showers or even half a nights sleep inside Border Patrol detention facilities. The position bewildered a panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday, who questioned whether government lawyers sincerely believed they could describe the temporary detention facilities as safe and sanitary if children werent provided adequate toiletries and sleeping conditions. One circuit judge said it struck him as inconceivable." [...] The government was in court to appeal a 2017 ruling finding that child migrants and their parents were detained in dirty, crowded, bitingly cold conditions inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities along the southern border. Migrants are first taken to those facilities after they are apprehended at the border. [...] U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee had found that migrants in Rio Grande Valley facilities were hungry, with some eating only sandwiches of two pieces of dry bread and one slice of ham. They were thirsty, with up to 20 migrants sharing the same cup to drink from the water cooler. They were embarrassed to use a toilet in front of 50 other people and they couldnt take a shower or brush their teeth or even wash their hands with soap and dry them with a towel, the judge found. At night, they couldnt sleep. The lights were left on, as they shivered beneath an aluminum blanket on the concrete floor, the judge found. Gee ruled in June 2017 that these Obama-era conditions violated a 1997 settlement agreement requiring that immigrant children in the governments custody be housed in safe and sanitary conditions, and that the government maintain concern for the particular vulnerability of minors. But the Trump administration protested. The 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, didnt say anything about providing a toothbrush, towels, dry clothing, soap, or even sleep, the administration has argued. Grahn's claim that companies make $750 "a kid a day to torture them" relates to the fact that some immigration detention centers are owned and operated by private for-profit companies.  Reuters reported in February 2019 that while it costs about $250 per day to hold a child at a permanent detention center, the cost can triple at temporary, privately owned, for-profit facilities such as the "Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children":  Reuters As the government seeks to rapidly expand the sites capacity, it has waived a federal requirement at Homestead meant to ensure children receive sufficient health care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which cares for the children, previously required Homestead to maintain a clinician-to-child ratio of 1 to 12 to provide mental health services, according to a November 2018 report. But that requirement has been relaxed to 1 to 20, a Homestead program director said on Wednesday. The facility sits on federal property, and unlike established childrens shelters, such as smaller group or foster homes that hold migrant children across the country, is not governed by state child welfare regulations designed to protect youngsters from harm. [...] About 35 miles south of Miami, the facility is run by Comprehensive Health Services, Inc., a private, for-profit company with a growing line of business in housing immigrant children. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, the firms parent company, Caliburn International Corp., noted President Donald Trumps immigration policies were driving significant growth. It costs approximately $250 per day to house a migrant child at a standard, permanent shelter, said Mark Weber, an HHS spokesman. But at an influx facility like Homestead, the cost is triple that - around $750 per day. It is covered by American taxpayers. To sum up: Viral photographs supposedly documenting the conditions at immigration detention facilities under the Trump administration were actually taken in 2015 during Obama's tenure. The poor conditions at these Obama-era centers have continued or worsened under Trump.  Flynn, Meagan.  "Detained Migrant Children Got No Toothbrush, No Soap, No Sleep. Its No Problem, Government Argues."
  Washington Post.  21 June 2019. Torbati, Yeganeh; Cooke, Kristina.  "First Stop for Migrant Kids: For-Profit Detention Center."
  Reuters.  14 February 2019. Domonoske, Camila.  "Surveillance Stills From Border Patrol Facilities Show Crowded, Trash-Filled Cells."
  NPR.  19 August 2016. Gonzales, Richard.  "Obama Immigrant Detention Policies Under Fire."
  NPR.  12 June 2015. Marhsall, Serena; Zak, Lana; Metz, Jennifer.  "Doctor Compares Conditions for Unaccompanied Children at Immigrant Holding Centers to 'Torture Facilities.'"
  ABC News.  23 June 2019. PBS News Hour.  "A Firsthand Report of 'Inhumane Conditions' at a Migrant Childrens Detention Facility."
  21 June 2019. PBS News Hour.  "A Firsthand Report of 'Inhumane Conditions' at a Migrant Childrens Detention Facility."
  21 June 2019. On 24 September 2016, the Associated Media Coverage fake news site, which has now rebranded itself as the Boston Tribune,  published an article reporting that a woman with a concealed carry permit had saved multiple lives by stopping a department store shooter: article 37-year old Lisa Harris saved the lives of multiple people after using her concealed carry pistol to take down a department store shooter in Virginia. According to witness statements, the shooter, who has since been identified by police as 41-year old Randall Pierce, entered Bradfords department store Saturday evening at approximately 5:10 PM. According information provided by Chief of Police Matthew Collingsworth during a press-conference, the security footage provided to investigating officers by the Bradfords loss prevention department shows an agitated Randall Pierce walking briskly throughout the department store for approximately 6-minutes prior to retrieving a .223 caliber AR-15 assault style rifle concealed under his long-jacket. There was no truth to this report. Associated Media Coverage is a well-known purveyor of fake news that has been shamelessly exploiting recent occurrences of gun violence by publishing fabricated clickbait stories reporting similar incidents (in this case playing on the 23 September 2016 shooting deaths of five people at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Washington). purveyor deaths Although many readers may now be familiar with Associated Media Coverage's reputation, the site has recently started publishing articles under the banners of fictitious newspapers such as The Boston Tribune and The Baltimore Gazette:  While Associated Media Coverage may be changing their name to The Boston Tribune, their content is still nothing more than fake news. Claim:  The U.S. dollar will officially collapse after 1 July 2014 due to the implementation of H.R. 2847. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2014] On this date, U.S. House of Representatives Bill "H.R. 2847" goes into effect. It will usher in the true collapse of the U.S. dollar, and will make millions of Americans poorer, overnight. You now have just several months to prepare ... Origins:  This item about the passage of H.R. 2847 causing the U.S. dollar to collapse as of 1 July 2014 is another example financial scarelore put out in conjunction with an investment come-on, in this case an ominous sales pitch put out by the folks at Stansberry & Associates Investment Research LLC. come-on This latest panic piece is offered in a Stansberry & Associates presentation featuring a number of scary-sounding statements about how we in the U.S. are soon to experience a "near-complete shutdown of the American economy," will see "the savings of millions wiped out," will be living under the imposition of martial law by the federal government, and will be struggling in the aftermath of a number of other apocalyptic financial scenarios. presentation And according to Stansberry & Associates, this remarkable, radical collapse of the United States monetary system and "our normal way of life" is going into effect in a mere matter of months (just like a similar recent conspiracy scare about the federal government's plan to eliminate 16 states from the U.S. in the very near future). 16 states But wait ... all one needs in order to avoid suffering from this devastating national calamity, one that will collapse our entire monetary system and spell doom for the American way of life, is a little information. Information that can be yours if you'll just shell out $149 for a one-year subscription to Stansberry's Investment Advisory newsletter. Or, as one wry commentator put it: subscription In other words, if a financial company spews a bunch of stuff that sounds sufficiently alarming, and then promotes its product as something that will help protect people against this horribly scary thing, it might be able to lure gullible folks into believing that a "fairly easy and inexpensive to protect themselves" against losing their money is for them to send their money to that company instead. And, unfortunately, such schemes work often enough to keep these types of schemers in business. So what is this all really about? H.R. 2847, also known as the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (or HIRE), was a Congressional bill passed into law in March 2010 that sought to provide payroll tax breaks and incentives for businesses to hire unemployed workers. A section of that bill, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (known as FATCA), sought to eliminate the non-compliance of U.S. taxpayers who hold foreign accounts by requiring those taxpayers (including those living outside the U.S.) to report certain foreign accounts and offshore assets to the government, and by requiring foreign financial institutions to report information about the ownership of overseas assets held by U.S. taxpayers to the government: HIRE FATCA   The problem originates in U.S. government efforts to prevent future offshore-banking tax scams like the UBS one in 2009. To keep better track of the flow of assets owned by U.S. citizens, Fatca requires bankers in other countries to send the IRS information about transactions by any of their customers who are Americans. Similarly, U.S. banks have to report to the IRS info on their non-U.S.-citizen customers, so the IRS can send it on to their home countries.   You can understand the motivation behind the rule. It's a big connected world economy, huge sums can be transferred anywhere in an instant, and much as INTERPOL or the World Health Organization have a legitimate interest in sharing data, so too might taxing authorities. In principle, everyone should pay his or her fair share, somewhere. As noted on the American Citizens Abroad web site: American Citizens Abroad   Starting July 1, 2014, FATCA will require FFIs to provide annual reports to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the name and address of each U.S. client, as well as the largest account balance in the year and total debits and credits of any account owned by a U.S. person.   If an institution does not comply, the U.S. will impose a 30% withholding tax on all its transactions concerning U.S. securities, including the proceeds of sale of securities.   In addition, FATCA requires any foreign company not listed on a stock exchange or any foreign partnership which has 10% U.S. ownership to report to the IRS the names and tax I.D. number (TIN) of any U.S. owner.   FATCA also requires U.S. citizens and green card holders who have foreign financial assets in excess of $50,000 (higher for those who are bona-fide residents abroad) to complete a new Form 8938 to be filed with the 1040 tax return, starting with fiscal year 2011. FATCA has been the subject of criticisms on a number of fronts (which the Treasury Department has attempted to counter in its own "Myth vs. FACTA" write-up), among them that the costs of implementing it may outstrip the additional revenues it will bring in, that it may prompt "capital flight" in the form of foreign financial institutions divesting themselves of U.S. assets, that foreign relations may be strained by the U.S. requiring foreign governments to gather and report (at their own expense) information on U.S. citizens, and that the law may make it difficult or impossible for U.S. citizens living and/or working abroad to open accounts in foreign banks: criticisms Myth vs. FACTA   But casting such a wide net is producing unintended consequences for some Americans who faithfully pay their taxes from afar.   Banks around the world are suddenly rejecting Americans as clients or customers, because they don't want the reporting and bureaucratic hassles, plus the potential exposure to draconian penalties. Non-Americans are pulling their assets out of U.S. banks. I get emails every day from American expats who say they are facing all kinds of problems bringing their long-standing foreign-based banking life into compliance with this new law. Some of them say they're getting ready to renounce their citizenship. Over the years I've had accounts with banks in England, Japan, Malaysia, China, and now Australia when living or working in those places, and I'm wondering what I have to worry about to make sure the remaining ones "comply."   "I have always filed my U.S. taxes just as I am supposed to," says Brian Dublin, 47, an American businessman now based in Zug, Switzerland, who has lived overseas for many years, including stints in Russia.   "However, as a result of FATCA, in the past year I have been kicked out of a Swiss bank that said, 'Hey, we love you, but we won't work with Americans.' I have also been kicked out of a Swiss pension fund. They told me they don't want any Americans in the fund. They don't want to work on behalf of the IRS," he says.   "And on top of that, I spend many hours and many dollars each year filing U.S. taxes when I sometimes turn out to have zero liability for that year because I have paid a lot of tax somewhere else," Dublin adds.   Dublin, a New York City native, says he will be eligible for Swiss nationality in the next few years and that if the situation has not dramatically changed he will give serious consideration to renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Writing in the New American, Alex Newman argued the more dire side of FATCA, speculating that it could potentially result in a large-scale movement by foreign investors to pull out of U.S. assets and markets:   Estimates suggest there is currently more than $21 trillion of foreign capital invested in American assets and markets, with about $10 trillion of that in the stock market. However, that could change as FATCA enforcement begins later this year  possibly quickly. The Japanese Bankers Association, the European Banking Federation, the Institute of International Bankers, and others, for example, have all openly warned in recent years that some of their members could decide to ditch U.S. assets and markets in response to FATCA.   Luxembourg Bankers' Association CEO Jean-Jacques Rommes, speaking to Democrats Abroad, warned that the best way for banks to lower compliance risks was simply to reduce the amount of American assets they hold. "In other words, divest from the US market, in general," he explained, as summarized by the Luxembourg Bankers' Association.   Multiple reports have suggested that small and medium-sized firms, unable to bear the compliance costs or the crippling withholding taxes, would be especially likely to ditch American markets. "On the institutional side, the cost of becoming FATCA compliant may be prohibitive for some foreign institutions, and therefore they will divest from their American holdings," explained Douglas Goldstein, author of The Expatriate's Guide to Handling Money and Taxes and director of Profile Investment Services Ltd. Indeed, compliance costs borne by the private sector are expected to dwarf the amount of additional U.S. tax revenue  perhaps by hundreds of times.   Goldstein explained: "Faced with the choice between paying to implement the new rules or divesting from U.S.-based assets, smaller foreign banks that can't afford to shoulder these costs may choose the latter," Goldstein added. "After all, there are plenty of promising new markets in which to invest."   Needless to say, if foreign institutions started fleeing U.S. markets, the economic damage would be massive  potentially apocalyptic, especially considering U.S. trade deficits and Americas outsized reliance on foreign investment and outside credit just to function. The full implementation of FATCA may, as some critics have maintained, ultimately prove more harmful to U.S. business interests and U.S. citizens living and working abroad than its benefits will merit. But no credible source that isn't an investment firm trying to scare potential customers into forking over money for a newsletter subscription is seriously maintaining that a law passed five years ago will collapse the entire U.S. economic system, destroy the American way of life, and lead to the imposition of martial law. Last updated:  23 March 2015    Fallows, James.  "Fatca: The Menace You'll Hear About in 2012."   The Atlantic.  31 December 2011.   Graffy, Colleen.  "How to Lose Friends, Citizens and Influence."   The Wall Street Journal.  17 July 2013.   Hjelmgaard, Kim.  "Americans Abroad Find Citizenship Too Taxing to Keep."   USA Today.  8 March 2014.   Newman, Alex.  "The Dark Road: The Worst Tax Law You've Never Heard About."   The New American.  8 April 2014. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost a historic 1,175 points in a single day in February 2018, the left-wing Facebook page Occupy Democrats was keen to point out a trend. In a 6 February meme, the page listed what it called the "Biggest One-Day Drops in Dow Jones History," along with the name of the U.S. president in office at the time of each point drop. meme According to the meme, each of the largest drops occurred during the presidencies of Donald Trump and George W. Bush -- both Republicans. The meme concluded: "Share this for your friends who STILL think Republicans are GOOD for the economy!"    The meme correctly lists the seven biggest one-day points drops in Dow Jones history, which all took place during the tenure of two Republican presidents, though it leaves out the eighth, ninth and 10th, which occurred with Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the White House. The main problem with the meme, however, is that its conclusion (that the numbers show which president is good for the economy) overstates the influence of a president -- as opposed to macro-economic and geopolitical forces -- on stock market trends. In fact, one-day losses and gains can sometimes happen despite the policies and efforts of the person in the Oval Office. For example, many commentators attributed the 29 September 2008 points drop -- the second-biggest ever -- to the U.S. House of Representatives' failure to pass a $700 billion bank bailout bill, which President George W. Bush had pushed for.  many commentators attributed Even if one simply wanted to examine during which presidencies the Dow suffered largest single-day losses, looking at the largest point drops wouldn't be the way to do it. As the stock market has grown in value over the last century, large point drops have become more common, even if their impact on the overall market value isn't particularly great. To get a clearer picture of the impact of these drops, one would have to measure the drop in percentage terms, rather than points.  Biggest one-day percentage losses (Sources: Wall Street Journal's Market Data and Yahoo! Finance's downloadable Dow Jones data) Market Data data Five of these 10 events took place during the era of the Great Depression, and all but one occurred during the tenure of Republican presidents.  However, if one were to insist on linking the occupant of the White House to the performance of the stock market, a better way to do it would be to track the average performance of the Dow Jones over the entire course of a presidency, rather than looking at one-day outliers in isolation.  To illustrate this, we looked at the average performance of the Dow over the course of the last nine presidential terms. We used Yahoo! Finance data for this, which only goes back as far as 29 January 1985, so we're missing figures for the first week or so of Ronald Reagan's second administration.  Average one-day percentage change in Dow Jones Average Industrial Index, Last Nine Terms   So while Donald Trump's presidency did see the largest one-day points drop in Dow Jones history, it has also seen the biggest average one-day percentage growth since 1985. However, this is based on only 12 months of data, and the next three years could see that 0.09 percent growth rate drop.  The biggest average daily percentage growth over the course of a four-year presidency was 0.08 percent, during Bill Clinton's first administration between 1993 and 1997. Market Data Center. "U.S. Stocks -- Historical Index Data."
 Wall Street Journal. 30 December 2011. Yahoo! Finance. "Dow Jones Industrial Average -- Historical Data."
 Yahoo! Finance. 6 February 2018. CBS News/Associated Press. "Stocks Take Record Tumble, Down 777 Points."
 CBS News/Associated Press. 29 September 2008. Twin, Alexandra. "Stocks Crushed."
 CNN Money. 29 September 2008. Bajaj, Vikas; Grynbaum, Michael M. "For Stocks, Worst Single-Day Drop in Two Decades."
 New York Times. 29 September 2008. Romans, Christine. "Remembering the Worst Day in Wall Street History."
 CNN Money. 19 October 2017. Does the stock market boom under Democratic presidents? Hillary Clinton said so during a town hall in Nashua, N.H., on July 28, 2015. You know the evidence is pretty clear that under Democratic presidents, going a ways back, people do better, Clinton said,at around 5:30 in this video. And not only working people, middle class people. Even the stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House. We wondered: Is it true that the stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House? We took a closer look. Scrutinizing the stock ticker There have been a couple studies addressing this question, and they all agree: For whatever reason, going back more than a century, the stock market has done better under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. A2012 report by CMC Markets, an international financial firm, found that since 1900, the United States stock markets have posted an average annual return of 15.31 percent under Democratic presidents, compared to just 5.43 percent under Republicans. Anotherstudyfrom 2012 by Adviser Perspectives newsletter, using somewhat different methodology, found that since 1900, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 8.7 percent annually under a Democratic president, compared to 5.7 percent under Republicans. AndcalculationsbyThe Economistfound that the Barclays U.S. equity index gained a cumulative 300 percent under Democratic presidents between 1929 and 2011, compared to about zero under Republican presidents. To bring the data up to date, we checked in with Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist at S&P Equity Research in New York. He hadpreviously founda big Democratic advantage in stock market gains through 2012. From 1901 through July 31, 2015, Stovall found, the stock market gained 8.7 percent under Democratic presidents, compared to 5.3 percent under Republican presidents. The same pattern held in Stovalls data since the end of World War II  in fact, it was even more pronounced. Since 1945, the markets gained 11.2 percent under Democratic presidents and 6.3 percent under Republican presidents. And it wasnt just the stock market that chalked up better performance under Democratic presidents, according toa July 2014 paperby Princeton University economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson. They found a performance gap between the parties that was startlingly large over a wide variety of economic metrics. The U.S. economy not only grows faster, according to real GDP and other measures, during Democratic versus Republican presidencies, it also produces more jobs, lowers the unemployment rate, generates higher corporate profits and investment, and turns in higher stock market returns,Blinder and Watson wrote. Indeed, it outperforms under almost all standard macroeconomic metrics. What does this mean? So, multiple studies show that Clintons claim is numerically correct. But what, if anything, can we conclude from it? Experts said its best not to go overboard in drawing conclusions about White House control and stock market performance. Here are some of the reasons why. A lot of this stems from luck and timing.Republicans are cursed by having Herbert Hoover on their presidential roster. The stock-market decline was so quick and deep under Hoover that it continues to hobble the partys stock-market performance all these decades later. Meanwhile, starting at such a low point was a huge help to his Democratic successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, if you remove Hoover from the GOP column, the average monthly return for Republicans improves significantly, from a 0.38 percent average monthly return to a 0.61 percent monthly return. The Hoover-free GOP number is within striking distance of the Democratic mark of 0.73 percent, said Lawrence J. White, a professor at New York Universitys Stern School of Business. White doesnt argue that its fairest to remove Hoover from the GOPs calculation. Rather, he said, its a reminder that relatively small changes due at least in part to unlucky timing can have big effects on the end result. Partisan labels are only somewhat helpful.What matters is the relationship of policy to the stock market, not partisan labels, said Dan Mitchell, an economist with the libertarian Cato Institute. Economic policy under Bill Clinton was far more market-oriented than it was under either Bush or Nixon. A good stock market is harder to define than one might think.For instance, a healthy year-over-year increase in the stock market may sound good, but if it comes with high volatility throughout the year, that can be a lot less pleasant for investors, said Tom Arnold, a professor of finance at the University of Richmond Robins School of Business. Meanwhile, down markets are buying opportunities and up markets are selling opportunities for the purpose of cashing in on profits, possibly from securities purchased in a down market, Arnold said. Better in one market is usually at the cost of another market. Market results dont align neatly with presidential terms.The stock market makes an anticipatory assessment of a president and his policies shortly after his election  or even before the election, White said. So the market's anticipation of what an incoming president will do occurs during the last few months of the incumbents presidency. He noted that this factor was even stronger prior to 1936, when the new president was inaugurated on March 4, leaving four months of stock market anticipation in the previous presidents column. A president is only one factor in determining stock market performance.Perhaps most important, experts urge caution in ascribing too much credit to a president for how the stock market performs on his watch. Often  including now, during a period of strong stock-market gains  Congress is held by the opposing party. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve, which plays a crucial role in the economy by directing the nations monetary policy, operates independently once appointments are made by the president and confirmed by Congress. And a host of other factors that a president cant control, including technological advances and international economic trends, play a role as well. In their paper, Blinder and Watson focus on two factors as most important in determining economic performance. One is the presence or absence of an energy price shock -- something that, unfortunately for the GOP, hit during the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, compared to just once under a Democrat, Jimmy Carter. The other factor they pointed to is what economists call total factor productivity,defined asthe portion of economic output not explained by the amount of inputs used in production. Think of it as the economys special sauce, or its extra bang for the buck. Although its unclear why, Democratic presidents have benefited from higher total factor productivity, most clearly during the technology boom under Bill Clinton, which produced significant productivity gains. Hillary Clintons campaign emphasized to PolitiFact that she didnt say that the president is the only factor that went into stock market results. Still, our experts agreed that while the numbers to back up her claim are clear, the meaning and significance of those numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. I wouldn't place much weight on it, one way or the other, White said. Our ruling Clinton said that the stock market does better when you have a Democratic president in the White House. The numbers back her up, but its worth noting that luck, timing and several other factors in the broader economy also play a role in determining stock market performance. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. On 17 April 2018, Dennis Kucinich, a former U.S. representative from Ohio who is seeking to become the Democratic nominee for the state's upcoming gubernatorial election, filed paperwork disclosing he had received thousands of dollars in speaking fees from an organization that supports Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is widely considered a war criminal. war criminal According to a supplemental disclosure filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission, Kucinich received $20,000 from the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees, a California-based non-profit organization that operates several projects including the Syria Solidarity Movement.  That organization describes itself as dedicated to "Syrian sovereignty" and opposes military intervention in the ongoing civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died. died The Ethics Commission sent us a copy of the disclosure, which was signed by Kucinich:   The Syria Solidarity Movement's web site contains a range of stories that promote the talking points of the Assad regime and its Russian allies, including stories that seek to raise doubts about a deadly 7 April 2018 attack on civilians in which it is widely suspected chemical weapons were used, and that cast unfounded suspicions upon the camera-toting rescue organization broadly known as the White Helmets, who regularly document war crimes in rebel-held regions. doubts suspicions White Helmets Articles about the payment spread on social media, prompting some readers to ask whether this blurb taken from the liberal news site Huffington Post and shared on Facebook alongside the story was true (it is): "The former congressman is seeking the Democratic nomination in Ohios gubernatorial race and recently revealed he accepted $20,000 from a pro-Assad group." Huffington Post In response, Kucinich's spokesman, Andy Juniewicz, told the Associated Press that the event at which Kucinich spoke was pro-peace, and that the former congressman, who has personally met Assad several times, has pressured the embattled Syrian president to admit he used chemical weapons on civilians and to abide by international law. told met The bloody Syrian civil war is now in its seventh year. On 13 April 2018, the U.S., France and the U.K. launched a missile strike against the Assad regime in response to their attack on Douma, where scores of people died and hundreds were injured. The aftermath shed light on an ongoing and disorienting disinformation campaign promulgated by so-called Western "anti-imperialists" who support the Assad regime and help spread propaganda to an English-speaking audience. launched disinformation anti-imperialists According to the Syria Solidarity Movement's "About" page, the organization has its roots in a 2012 email listserve started by Eva Bartlett, a Canadian blogger who regularly makes reality-challenged statements such as claiming that child war victims are actors being "recycled" in attacks staged by the White Helmets, and that Al Quds, a hospital in Aleppo which was bombed in 2016, was in fact never bombed  citing only false Russian government statements as proof. About reality-challenged bombed false Smyth, Julie Carr."Kucinich Was Paid $20K by Pro-Syrian Government Group."
  Associated Press.  17 April 2018. Schladen, Marty."Group That Gave Kucinich $20K Praises Putin, Accuses US of War Crimes."
  The Columbus Dispatch.  18 April 2018. Solon, Olivia."How Syria's White Helmets Became Victims of an Online Propaganda Machine."
  The Guardian.  18 December 2017. On July 11, 2022,we received reader mail asking us about sponsored posts on Facebook Marketplace that advertised portable power generators at Costco Wholesale. The sponsored posts led to a page that, to some viewers, may have looked like an official website for Costco. However, that was not really the case. The page was designed by scammers to try to fool users into losing money. One of the sponsored posts on Facebook Marketplace read, "30-day money-back guarantee!" and led to expeditaeos.com. The real website for Costco is costco.com.  Facebook Marketplace costco.com That sponsored ad on Facebook looked like this:  Once users clicked the sponsored post on Facebook, they were directed to the look-alike website that featured the Costco logo and 22 different products, most of which were portable power generators. The brands for the generators included Honda, Generac, Ryobi, and Toro. Such generators can easily sell for well over $1,000. On the scam page, however, the generators were supposedly available for less than $100.  Costco scam  While scanning the products, we came across another red flag that this was a scam: The fake page attempted to convince onlookers that they could buy Honda generators from Costco, when, in reality, Honda generators are not sold at Costco stores, nor are they available on the companys website. Honda generators are not sold at Costco stores The scammers appeared to be targeting users Paypal accounts. While checking out, the website asked people for Paypal.com login information even when they wanted to pay with credit or debit cards. We previously reported on a similarly-run scam about a supposed giveaway of pricey items from Traeger Grills. That scam also targeted users' Paypal information. Paypal Paypal.com reported We strongly recommend against ordering any products that claim to be sold by Costco unless the address bar at the top of your web browser specifically says that you are visiting costco.com. The scam involving portable power generators was not the first fraudulent scheme we've seen on Facebook using Costco's name and logo. Less than a month prior, scammers created a Facebook page named "Costco Wholesale Fans" and falsely claimed that the company was giving away TVs for free. (Additionally, we previously reported on a similar scam about Walmart, not Costco, giving away televisions for free.) claimed reported Walmart  In sum, no, Costco was not advertising and selling deeply discounted power generators through Facebook Marketplace. We recommend caution when clicking on sponsored posts on Facebook that claim to provide steep price cuts on products that are normally pricey and quite useful. Facebook Claim:  Photographs show a high-rise construction site flooded by waters from a nearby marina. Status:  True. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, May 2007] Nearly 100 workers at the site of the Infinity Tower escaped as excavation work on the 80-floor building was nearing completion. The incident happened as the workers were assisting the project owners and the piling contractor with the foundation works on site 20 meters below ground level. The supervision team noticed a slight movement and cracks in the diaphragm wall adjacent to the Dubai Marina and alerted management, who ordered an immediate evacuation of the site. The diaphragm wall collapsed and crumbled within 2 minutes from being noticed as the workers were scrambling over safety ladders up to the ground level. The whole site was totally flooded within 4 minutes. The construction of the tower will continue to be suspended until the site can be totally dewatered. A special diving team has been brought in to assess the situation.            Origins:  Construction projects, both large and small, can be delayed or set back for any number of reasons  labor problems, material shortages, budget overruns, economicreversals, bad weather, faulty planning, etc.  But not often do we see construction delayed in as spectacular a fashion as happened with the Infinity Tower project, an 80-story, helix-shaped high-rise building currently being erected within the Dubai Marina district of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Infinity Tower Dubai Marina The pictures displayed above illustrate a February 2007 accident in which a wall holding back the waters of the Dubai Marina was breached, completely flooding the construction site.  As the Gulf News reported of the accident: Nearly 100 workers at the site of the 'tallest building with a twist' had a lucky escape as a wall holding back the Dubai Marina waters breached and flooded the foundation site.  Excavation work on the 80-floor Infinity Tower was nearing completion when there was a sharp and loud sound, said a worker.  "We then saw sand pouring down the sides," he said.  The workers were ordered to evacuate immediately, said the foreman.  According to a manager of Arabtec, the incident is under investigation. Additional post-accident photographs of the Infinity Tower site can be viewed at the Dubai News Online web site. photographs Last updated:  7 June 2007    Sources:   Gulf News.  "Lucky Escape for 100 Workers."   8 February 2007. Snopes is still fighting an infodemic of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and advice you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.  fighting Find out Read Submit Become a Founding Member CDC WHO In March 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump faced widespread scrutiny for various aspects of his administration's response to the economic and public health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other points of criticism was his repeated insistence on referring to the disease as the "Chinese virus," despite widely-accepted public health authority guidelines that warn against naming disease outbreaks after nations or regions of the world, due to the unfounded stigmatization such names can cause. scrutiny Chinese virus guidelines The president used that name again during a White House briefing on March 19. Afterwards, social media users shared a photograph purportedly taken at the event, which appeared to show that Trump was even ignoring the guidance of his aides in insisting on referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus." Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford tweeted the following: briefing tweeted   Those images were authentic. The original, official photograph was taken by Botsford himself and published by the Getty Images agency on March 19. The website described the image as follows: published "A close up of President Donald J. Trump's notes shows where Corona was crossed out 'Corona' and replaced with 'Chinese' Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Thursday, March 19, 2020 in Washington, DC."  Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images      Trump did call COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" in his March 19 remarks, although perhaps ironically, he referred to it simply as "the virus" in the place where "Corona" had been scratched out and replaced in handwriting by "Chinese" in his notes. As shown in the video below, he actually said at that point: "As you know, my administration is working every day to protect the American people and the American economy from the virus [...]":  It's not clear who made the handwritten edit in black marker on March 19, but the handwriting style certainly appeared consistent with that seen in notes which Trump famously held in his hand as he spoke to reporters in November 2019 at the height of Congressional hearings held in advance of his own impeachment trial: held  Left: Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Right: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images  Lucey, Catherine. "Trump's Message on Virus Draws Scrutiny."
 The Wall Street Journal. 5 March 2020. Rogers, Katie; Jakes, Lara. "Trump Defends Calling the Coronavirus the 'Chinese Virus.'"
 The New York Times. 18 March 2020. World Health Organization. "WHO Issues Best Practices for Naming New Human Infectious Diseases."
 8 May 2015. Palma, Bethania. "Did Trump Use Notes to Self in Sharpie Pen That Said 'I Want Nothing.'"
 Snopes. 22 November 2019.