Kroger Free Coupon/Gift Card Scam
For years Facebook users have been seeing posts advertising giveaways for the Kroger grocery store chain such as "Get $55 in Free Groceries" coupon offers.  However, such posts are just versions of the common "free coupon" or "free gift card" scams that frequently plague social media. On more than one occasion the Kroger Company has taken to Facebook to warn customers that these coupon offers are not an authorized promotion and to advise them not to visit sites promoting them: Facebook  These fake coupon and gift card offers are typically scams that promise rewards to anyone who follows a simple three-step process: Share the message on Facebook, leave a comment, and like the message. These three steps ensure the scam message circulates to thousands of people on Facebook. @SocialNewsDaily That offer is a scam -- we are not affiliated w/ that website. Our Digital Coupons can be found at https://t.co/rvO3m1IXTf. @SocialNewsDaily https://t.co/rvO3m1IXTf  Kroger Support (@KrogerSupport) October 15, 2014 October 15, 2014  Previous versions of the scam, for example, featured a similar message that invaded Facebook promising a $250 gift card. The message redirected to a web page that was not affiliated with Kroger despite the fact that it was adorned with the company's logo:  This page instructed shoppers to follow "three simple steps" in order to get a free gift card. Once the steps were completed, however, users were not greeted with a coupon code. Instead, they were asked to fill out a brief survey and provide personal information such as home address, telephone number, e-mail address, and date of birth. Users were also required to sign up for credit cards or enroll in subscription programs in order to obtain their "free" gift cards. Kroger has repeatedly warned their customers not to fall victims to this form of scam:   These fraudulent surveys are quite popular on Facebook, and if you frequently use that social network there is a good chance that you'll run into one of these survey scams again. A July 2014 article from the Better Business Bureau lists key factors for identifying fraudulent Facebook posts: article Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Patterson, Emily.  "Customer Survey Scam Lures Victims with Gift Card."
  Better Business Bureau.  4 July 2014.
Claim:  Six outrageous-but-real lawsuits showcase the need for tort reform. Status:  False. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] This is what's wrong with the world:        1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000.00 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amuck inside a furniture store.  The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving tyke was Ms. Robertson's son. 2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000.00 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran his hand over with a Honda Accord.  Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal. 3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was exiting a house he finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, because the automatic door opener was malfunctioning.  He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, so Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food.  This upset Mr. Dickson, so he sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars and change. 4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas was awarded $14,500.00 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The award was less than sought after because the jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun. 5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500.00 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. 6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth.  This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000.00 and dental expenses. Origins:   This "and you wonder what's wrong with the world today?" whinge appeared on the Internet in May 2001. All of the entries in the list are fabrications: a search for news stories about each of these cases failed to turn up anything, as did a search for each law case.  The earliest version concluded with a seventh item that has since been snipped away, likely after someone noticed it was the venerable microwaved poodle legend. Its inclusion would have immediately called into question the truthfulness of the other six cases for any number of folks familiar with urban legends. The remaining six were still false, but they weren't as obviously false as the following poodle tale and thus wouldn't have set the alarm bells ringing: microwaved 7. And just so you know that cooler heads do occasionally prevail: Kenmore Inc., the makers of Dorothy Johnson's microwave, were found not liable for the death of Mrs. Johnson's poodle after she gave it a bath and attempted to dry it by putting the poor creature in her microwave for, "just a few minutes, on low,"  The case was quickly dismissed. A version of the list that began circulating in the spring of 2002 has yet another urban legend included as its final item, the venerable cruise control legend: cruise control In November 2000, Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he could not actually do this. He was awarded  $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago. Some versions bear the following footer, although many omit it: PLEASE ASSIST OUR LAW OFFICES IN A TORT REFORM PROGRAM.  WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO PUT A STOP TO THESE INSANE JURY AWARDS BY SENDING THIS E-MAIL OUT TO THE PUBLIC IN THE HOPES OF SWAYING PUBLIC OPINION.  PLEASE FORWARD IT TO EVERY EMAIL ADDRESS YOU KNOW.Mary R. Hogelmen, Esq.Law Offices of Hogelmen, Hogelmen, and ThomasDayton Ohio Mary R. Hogelmen, Esq.Law Offices of Hogelmen, Hogelmen, and ThomasDayton Ohio There is no law firm of Hogelmen, Hogelmen, and Thomas in Dayton, Ohio, as a call to directory assistance quickly confirmed. This detail was included to give the mailing credibility in the eyes of those who received it: if a law firm had pulled this list together to build grassroots support for its tort reform program, then it went without saying a pack of lawyers had properly researched each item and were guaranteeing the information provided. But of course this detail was as false as everything else in the e-mail. Speaking about implied credibility, we note that the "outrageous lawsuits" list has made it into the newspapers at times, which only works to add to the perception that the information given in it is reliable. In June 2002, the New York Daily News presented it solely as an e-mail it had received, making no statements as to its likeliness to be real or detailing any attempts that publication might have made to verify any of the entries. (Had such attempts been made, the Daily News would have quickly found the article you're now reading, which originally appeared on this site a full ten months prior to the Daily News piece.) Fake or not, a list of outrageous awards bestowed upon those whose actions  nay, misbehaviors  had brought them to grief would fall upon very receptive ears because current feeling is very much against large jury awards for frivolous claims. This e-mail preaches to the choir in that it "confirms" what is already deeply believed. Numerous states have enacted measures to reform their civil law systems in response to the problem of frivolous lawsuits and runaway jury awards. Tort reform usually amounts to placing a cap on punitive damage awards, making the state's joint-and-several liability law more equitable, and limiting judge and court shopping (which means cases are tried in front of whomever they've been assigned to rather than the judge the plaintiff figures will be most sympathetic). Though the cases described in the e-mail are fake, real lawsuits of equal silliness can be found in abundance. An equally impressive list could easily have been compiled by anyone with access to a news database and a few moments to spare. For instance:  In March 1995, a San Diego man unsuccessfully attempted to sue the city and Jack Murphy Stadium for $5.4 million over something that can only be described as a wee problem: Robert Glaser claimed the stadium's unisex bathroom policy at a Billy Joel and Elton John concert caused him embarrassment and emotional distress thanks to the sight of a woman using a urinal in front of him. He subsequently tried "six or seven" other bathrooms in the stadium only to find women in all of them. He asserted he "had to hold it in for four hours" because he was too embarrassed to share the public bathrooms with women.  A San Carlos, California, man sued the Escondido Public Library for $1.5 million. His dog, a 50-pound Labrador mix, was attacked November 2000 by the library's 12-pound feline mascot, L.C., (also known as Library Cat). The case was heard in January 2004, with the jury finding for the defendant. In a further case which was resolved in July 2004, the plaintiff in the previous suit was ordered to pay the city $29,362.50, which amounted to 75% of its legal fees associated with that case.  In 1994, a student at the University of Idaho unsuccessfully sued that institution over his fall from a third-floor dorm window. He'd been mooning other students when the window gave way. It was contended the University failed to provide a safe environment for students or to properly warn them of the dangers inherent to upper-story windows.  In 1993, McDonald's was unsuccessfully sued over a car accident in New Jersey. While driving, a man who had placed a milkshake between his legs, leaned over to reach into his bag of food and squeezed the milkshake container in the process. When the lid popped off and spilled half the drink in his lap, this driver became distracted and ran into another man's car. That man in turn tried to sue McDonald's for causing the accident, saying the restaurant should have cautioned the man who had hit him against eating while driving. Although the cases cited above were all eventually dismissed, they still managed to work their way at least partway through our court system. When we hear such stories, it's hard not to be rabidly in favor of tort reform  these kinds of cases make it appear that the idiots have taken over the asylum and only the rapid institution of some rules is going to bring things back into a semblance of sanity. Yet this solution is not all skittles and beer; many see such changes as potentially denying those in need of legal remedy their day in court and refusing them their right to be heard. The cap on jury awards is also viewed by some as unfair to the seriously injured, who may well require a large sum to afford the cost of living with whatever disability someone else's negligence or recklessness left them with. Capped awards are also scant deterrent to large corporations who could easily afford the judgments against them and therefore have little reason to mend their ways. Big Business is poised to benefit under tort reform in that it will no longer need to fear the courts. It can also be argued that the need for tort reform is overblown. Only rarely do ridiculous lawsuits result in windfalls for the plaintiff; these cases are almost always either thrown out or the judgment goes for the defendant. Some celebrated "outrageous" suits wherein judgment went for the plaintiff prove upon closer examination to be far less "outrageous" than originally presented in the media.  (For example, the "woman scalded by hot coffee" suit, which at first blush looked like the height of frivolity proved to be a perfectly legitimate action taken against a corporation that knew, thanks to a string of similar scaldings it had quietly been paying off, that its coffee was not just hot, but dangerously hot. The Consumer Attorneys of California provides a good description of this case). this case Tort reform thus has both its advocates and its adversaries. On the one hand, we bridle at the thought of the terminally clueless being rewarded for their folly  that strikes us as just plain wrong. We also fear for the continued wellbeing of the small- to mid-sized business which can ill afford to fend off one frivolous lawsuit after another and thus stands in danger of being litigated to death. Also, even when litigants do not prevail, costs associated with their suits rain down onto the average citizen through his taxes (some of which underwrite the judicial system) and through increased prices for goods produced by firms who had to mount legal defenses.  Yet on the other hand, we don't want to see those who have legitimate cause denied their right to sue (or in the case of the seriously injured, their right to sue for an appropriate amount). We also don't want to see corporations run unchecked, free to turn out whatever dangerous product they like because the combination of capped awards and their deep pockets render them bulletproof. It's a complicated issue, one not made any easier to make sense of by lists of fake cases of horrendous miscarriages of justice. One has to wonder why someone is so busy trying to stir up outrage and who or what that outrage would ultimately benefit. Additional information:  George W. Bush's first act upon becoming the Governor of Texas was to reform that state's civil justice system. In January 1995, just after being sworn in, he convened a session of the Legislature to tackle tort reform. Within weeks he signed bills to limit punitive damages to $750,000, cut down on "venue shopping" for favorable judges and juries, and made it easier for judges to impose sanctions on plaintiffs who file frivolous suits.  Sightings:  The "woman in a store trips over a toddler, then sues the store" fiction was incorporated into an episode of the television drama Boston Legal ("Tabloid Nation," original air date 8 April 2008). Last updated:  11 April 2008    Sources:   Associated Press.  "Men's Room Invasion Prompts Suit."   The Fresno Bee.  1 April 1995  (p. F8).     Coile, Zachary.  "Bush's Formula to Win Over Business."   The San Francisco Examiner.  2 October 2000  (p. A1).     Elias, Paul.  "So What's a Little Litigation Between Friends?"   The Recorder.  14 December 1999  (Court Watch; p. 4).     Heller, Jonathan.  "Man Seeks $1.5 Million from City; Says Library Cat Attacked His Dog."   The San Diego Union-Tribune.  5 May 2001  (p. B2).     Littlefield, Dana.  "Suit Over Library Cat's Attack Bites Back at disabled Dog Owner."   The San Diego Union-Tribune.  31 July 2004  (p. NC3).     Perkins, Joseph.  "We All Pay When Others File Frivolous Lawsuits."   The San Diego Union-Tribune.  18 May 2001  (p. B7).     Perry, Tony.  "A One-Man Campaign for More Women's Restrooms."   Los Angeles Times.  18 August 1995  (p. A3).     Riffel, James.  "Jury Rejects Claims of Disabled Man Against City for Cat Attack."   City News Service.  30 January 2004.     Vogt, Andrea.  "Ludicrous Lawsuit Against University of Idaho Rears Its Ugly Head."   Lewiston Morning Tribune.  2 August 1994  (p. A1).     New Jersey Lawyer.  "Moral of a Burger Suit: Don't Eat and Drive."   15 November 1993  (p. 3).     [New York] Daily News.  "Mighty Quinn."   25 June 2002  (Sports, p. 63). Rep. Bob Gibbs is a big proponent of water transportation.As chair of the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment (part of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure) he recently held a hearing on the soundness of the countrys inland waterway system, which includes the Ohio River.Gibbs, a Republican from Holmes County, finds the system lacking. Deferred maintenance resulting from budget constraints on the U.S. Corps of Engineers increases the likelihood of a calamity befalling the system, he said at the April 18 hearing.If improvements arent made, it could doom the countrys inland water system, he said, and that would be a costly bit of negligence because water transportation is a vital cog in our economy.Water transportation is the most fuel efficient, least polluting, safest, and least expensive means of moving cargo,  he said.Thats a pretty definitive statement. PolitiFact Ohio decided to check it out.First of all, Gibbs was referring to inland waterways and their barge traffic that runs north and south along major navigable rivers, such as the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio.River barges usually carry large volumes of low-value commodities, such as grain and coal. They compete to varying degrees with railroads and trucks, but more often than not they work in tandem. Ninety percent of all barge traffic depends on a connection with either rail or truck, said Chris Dager, research economist at the University of Tennessee.Trillions of dollars of freight moves each year over the countrys transportation network, which includes 4 million miles of highways and roads, 140,000 miles of rail and 25,000 of commercially navigable waterways.The problem with a blanket statement that any form of transportation is the cheapest or safest is that it can vary depending on the circumstances.A commodities broker shipping corn from Iowa to New Orleans, for example, would send it by barge down the Mississippi, not by rail or truck. It will take longer to ship  the down river speed is about 9 mph  but cost far less. But if time is of the essence, or if a river with loading terminals isnt handy, rail or truck may be the only feasible options.Over-the-road delivery has a cost advantage at times because a trucker can drop off a load hundreds of miles away and usually find something to haul back on his return trip. Thats known as back-hauling and while it occurs usually 90 percent of the time with long-haul trucks, the rate is only 45 to 50 percent for barges, said Larry Bray, a research economist at University of Tennessee.Railroads, on the other hand, usually return with empty cars, except for containers and boxcars.And some areas of a river are more efficient than others. On the lower Mississippi River, barges move along unimpeded, but on the upper reaches they move more slowly because of multiple dams and locks.And when it comes to delays, some rail and highway locations are legendary for their congestion.With all that in mind, lets consider some numbers.As of 2010, a river barge could transport an average of 640 tons of cargo per mile on a gallon of diesel, Dager said, thanks to recent improvements that include barges with deeper drafts and computer systems that provide up-to-the-minute profiles of a river bottom.Railroads have made their own improvements, including larger railcars, better engines, and improved business modeling. They can now carry an average of 490 ton-miles of cargo per gallon of diesel, according to Dager.Trucks are the least fuel efficient, with an average of 75-to-150 ton-miles per gallon of diesel, depending on how far they travel.In addition, some social costs arent passed along to the consumer that need to be acknowledged. These include government subsidies for infrastructure (something trucks benefit from greatly, waterborne vessels to a much less extent, and railroads the least), congestion, and the effects on health and safety.Those costs in the aggregate are highest for trucks, followed by rail and then water transportation, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office called Surface Freight Transportation: A Comparison of the costs of Road, Rail, and Waterways Freight Shipments That Are Not Passed on to Consumers.And then theres this statement from Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York Universitys Wagner Graduate School of Public Service: Water transportation is one of the most economical ways to move cargo, especially bulk cargo.While there are comparative advantages to each mode of transportation, Moss said, on average water is the least expensive and most fuel efficient.So, it appears that Gibbs was correct when he said water transportation is the most fuel efficient way to move cargo, as well as the least expensive. He also said water transportation was the cleanest and safest way to move cargo. Those specific factors also are addressed in the GAO report.The report states that trucks generate 238 pounds of particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less per million ton-miles of freight delivered. That compares to 36 pounds for rail locomotives and 23 pounds for waterborne vessels.Trucks also generate more than 6,000 pounds tons of nitrogen oxide per million ton-miles, compared with nearly 1,350 pounds for locomotives and about 938 pounds for waterborne vessels.And when it comes to greenhouse gases, barges spew forth the least amount.Finally, water transportation accounts for fewer accidents and injuries per ton-mile of delivered freight than trucks and rail, according to the GAO.Gibbs said that water transportation is the cheapest, safest, cleanest and most fuel efficient way to move cargo. Clearly, its the most fuel efficient on average. Its also safer and cleaner.As for the expense, because barge traffic is so dependent on rail and trucking, those two modes of transportation could have an impact. But that said, the experts we talked to were persuasive that on average, water transportation is least expensive.On the Truth-O-Meter, Gibbs statement rates True. On March 19, 1995, an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Lisa's Wedding" took a futuristic view of Springfield's favorite family after Homer's daughter visited a fortuneteller's booth. At one point in the episode, Lisa's future husband, Hugh Parkfield, voiced by actor Mandy Patinkin, bent over and spoke into a strange-looking device on his wrist: a half flip phone, half wristwatch that most modern viewers would liken to a smartwatch. This animated gadget can be glimpsed at the 2:58 mark of this video about similar Simpsons "predictions." (You can read our coverage on "Simpsons" predictions here.) video "Simpsons" predictions here This is a genuine clip from a 1995 episode of "The Simpsons." It is also true that this episode aired more than 20 years before the "Year of the Smartwatch" in 2014, when these devices became relatively common. However, "The Simpsons" shouldn't get credit for "predicting" the smartwatch for two reasons: Year of the Smartwatch It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first smartwatch was produced, because it depends on the criteria you use to classify one. The first digital watches were produced in the 1970s. In 1983, the Seiko Data-2000 featured a built-in keyboard for data input. A few years later, Sinclair made a watch with an FM radio, and in 1994 Seiko unveiled a watch that doubled as a pager. The Timex Datalink, which was also introduced in 1994, is a good contender for the first "modern" smartwatch because it had the ability to transfer data by linking to a computer.  smartwatch produced The point is that the road to the modern smartwatch has been a long and winding one that predated this episode of "The Simpsons."  In addition to these early entries into the smartwatch market, the idea of a smartwatch can be traced back even further. Special agent James Bond, for instance, has a long history of using watch gadgets to aid his spy craft. In 1973's "Live and Let Die," Bond's watch was equipped with a circular saw and a magnet. In 1977's "The Spy Who Loved Me," Bond used his watch to print out tiny messages. In 1995's "Golden Eye," Bond's watch was equipped with a laser.  James Bond And Bond wasn't the only fictional character to use a dual-purpose watch. Fred Flintstone once communicated via a radio watch, as did members of "The Jetsons." Detective Dick Tracy also used a radio watch in a 1946 comic strip, and who could forget Penny's watch in "Inspector Gadget?" fictional character 1946 comic strip   In sum, "The Simpsons" didn't predict the smartwatch. While this episode of "The Simpsons" is real and truly predated the "Year of the Smartwatch" in 2014, this was not the first time a smartwatch appeared in a movie, comic strip, or television show. Furthermore, the evolution of the smartwatch was well underway by the time this episode aired in 1994.  You can read more about The Simpsons alleged predictions in the Snopes collection The Simpsons Didnt Predict That. The Simpsons Didnt Predict That Blakemore, Erin.  "How Dick Tracy Invented the Smartwatch."
  Smithsonian Magazine.  9 March 2015. Osborn, Jacob.  "A Complete List of All James Bond 007 Watches."
  Man of Many.  18 October 2019. Lamkin, Paul.  "Smartwatch Timeline: The Devices That Paved the Way for the Apple Watch."
  Wareable.  10 March 2015. Thompson, Joe.  "A Concise History of the Smartwatch."
  Bloomberg.  8 January 2018. Hamblen, Matt.  "Is 2014 the Year of the Smartwatch?"
  PC World.  28 December 2013. King, Rachel.  "Before They Were Stars: Smartwatches in Pop Culture."
  ZDnet.  6 March 2015. On 16 February 2017, the web site FocusNews.info published a story based in part on the myth that First Lady Michelle Obama employed an absurdly extravagant staff. The first paragraph gives a quick indication as to its slant: story Michelle Obama will go down in history as the First Lady who spent more money than any other. In addition to her 214 personal assistants, 32 gardeners, 11 dog walkers and her own mother on the government payroll as a day care provider, Moochelle also purchased $11 million worth of new furniture, an airplane, four yachts and two limousines with taxpayer money. The story goes on to promote the claim that President Donald Trump ordered that Obama be billed for $11 billion, not only for the "new furniture" and other extravagances, but $10 billion for "vacations and the balance in food, clothing, liquor and cigarettes that should have been paid for out of their own pockets." Far from having "214 personal assistants," Obama had a staff of about two dozenpeople working for her during her tenure as First Lady. The allegation that her mother, Marian Robinson, would receive a $160,000 pension has also been debunked. staff debunked. Another site, LastLineOfDefense.org, published a similar "report" stating that Trump instead billed Obama's husband, former President Barack Obama, for a $2.1 billion "vacation scam" that would have paid for his family and staff to indulge in free trips until the year 2036. published Much like LastLineOfDefense.org, FocusNews.info does have a disclaimer regarding its content stating that the site "does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information," as seen below:   The disclaimer appears as a small pop-up, as well as its own separate section on the website. section Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here On Sept. 27, 2020, The New York Times published a report after obtaining several years of U.S. President Donald Trump's tax returns. published a report As news broke that Trump had paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017  no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years  in addition to the fact that he took an approximate $70,000 deduction for hairstyling during "The Apprentice," and that he has more than $300 million worth of loans coming due, a rumor started to circulate on social media that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner had quietly deleted all of his tweets from his Twitter account: no federal income taxes   This rumor is false. Kushner didn't delete all of his tweets following the NYT article about Trump's taxes.  The above-displayed tweet contains a genuine screenshot of the @JaredKushner Twitter account. This account has been online since 2009, but it has been used sparingly by its owner. Archived pages show that this account posted three messages back in March 2011  none of which was related to taxes  but was then inactive for at least three years. The few messages that were posted to this account were deleted sometime between 2014 and 2016, and no new messages have been posted since then.  JaredKushner March 2011 at least three years In other words, Kushner didn't wipe his Twitter account clean on the evening of Sept. 27 after the NYT published a story about his father-in-law's taxes. This account rarely posts tweets, and the three tweets that were shared to the account in 2011 (again, none of which were related to taxes) were deleted years ago.  This isn't the first time that someone has stumbled across Kushner's Twitter account in the aftermath of a controversy, noticed that it was barren, and then incorrectly assumed that Kushner had recently scrubbed it clean. In October 2017, shortly after Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III revealed charges against former Trump presidential campaign chair Paul Manafort and two other campaign officials, social media users noted then that Kushner's Twitter account was suspiciously void of content, and falsely claimed that he had recently deleted all of his tweets. falsely claimed A few months later, when it was reported that Mueller may have interviewed Kushner in the course of his investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, this false rumor again was circulated on social media:  reported   The @JaredKushner account has been devoid of content since at least 2016. Claims that he recently deleted his tweets in the wake of breaking news stories are false.  Apuzzo, Matt.  "Muellers Prosecutors Are Said to Have Interviewed Jared Kushner on Russia Meeting."
  The New York Times.  29 November 2017. Buettner, Russ; Craig, Susanne; McIntire, Mike.  "Long-Concealed Records Show Trump's Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance."
  The New York Times.  27 September 2020. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called for more money to renovate the states aging public schools during hisState of the State addresson Feb. 25. Right now, four in 10 public schools in our state are at least 50 years old, Cooper said. That means theyre still using the schools you and I went to. We wondered whether the states public schools are actually that old, so we decided to check out Coopers numbers ourselves. As it turns out, the data is not so easy to come by. We started with Jamal Little, the governors spokesman, who told us that the information about the ages of public schools came from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, which collected that data in 2016 while compiling itsmost recent surveyon school facility needs. Little gave us a table that said 949 of 2,306 public schools that reported construction dates were at least 50 years old (325 schools did not report their dates). He said the table came from the Department of Public Instruction but was not publicly available online. According to the table, about 41 percent of the schools that reported construction dates are more than 50 years old. But Drew Elliot, communications director for the Department of Public Instruction, said he could not confirm the table came from his department. He said he believes his office could get those numbers or something very close to it but could not validate them without a weeks time. We have no reason to think that his numbers are off, he said. Nothing in there looks anomalous to what we know about the age of school buildings in North Carolina. We wanted more definitive evidence, so we asked Elliot for the data the state did have. He sent us a copy of thedepartments list of construction datesso we could crunch the numbers for ourselves. That wasnt easy. The list assigns multiple construction dates to each school, and its not immediately clear what each date refers to. But Elliot said the dates correspond to construction of separate structures and that the earliest date listed for each school would offer the best approximation of the schools age. So, we did our best to sort through the raw numbers. It turns out that the number of old schools may actually be larger than Cooper claimed. Out of 2,631 total schools, we counted 2,299 that had construction dates listed beside them. And judging by the earliest dates listed for each, 1,118 of those 2,299 schools were built during or before 1969, making them at least 50 years old. That means that, by our calculations, nearly half the public schools are greater than 50 years old. But because the dates on the list were not labeled, even our calculations may be imperfect. Also, the totals could change with more information about the schools that did not report their ages for the 2016 survey. And theres potentially a big caveat because some schools have been renovated since their original construction, making them newer than their age suggests. Cooper said, Right now, four in 10 public schools in our state are at least 50 years old. The raw numbers from the department  the best information available  put Coopers statement in the right ballpark and showed it may even be an underestimate. But there are some uncertainties. So we rate this statement Mostly True. This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. To offer ideas for fact checks, email[email protected]. 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. Claim:  List reproduces various "Marxist" statements made by Hillary Clinton.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2007] A little history lesson:   If you don't know the answer make your best guess  Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it? 1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." A.  Karl MarxB.  Adolph HitlerC.  Joseph StalinD.  None of the above 2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." A.  LeninB.  MussoliniC.  Idi AminD.  None of the Above 3) "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." A.  Nikita KhrushevB.  Josef GoebbelsC.  Boris YeltsinD.  None of the above 4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own ... in order to create this common ground." A.  Mao Tse DungB.  Hugo ChavezC.  Kim Jong IlD  None of the above 5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed." A.  Karl MarxB.  LeninC.  MolotovD.  None of the above 6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." A.  PinochetB.  MilosevicC.  Saddam HusseinD.  None of the above Answers: (1) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/29/2004(2) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  5/29/2007(3) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(4) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(5) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(6) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  9/2/2005 Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid and voteAnybody (woman) that would vote for her just because they think it's time for a female president has got to be out of their lunatic mind! Origins:  This list of purported "Marxist" quotes by former first lady, senator, presidential candidate, and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is (like many collections of utterances from various political figures) difficult to rate as strictly "true" or "false": She did make the statements reported above, but they have all been stripped of any explanatory context, and some of them had portions elided, creating potentially misleading impressions about the nature of those statements.  Below we verify the source and complete wording of each statement on this list and provide the context in which it was made.  (All of these entries  date from between 2004 and 2007, during which time Hillary Clinton represented the state of New York in the U.S. Senate.)  "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." This statement by Senator Hillary Clinton was not (as commonly assumed) addressed to the general public, but rather to a group of relatively well-to-do Democrats attending a June 2004 fundraiser for California senator Barbara Boxer.  Her statement specifically referred to a desire to repeal tax cuts that had recently been enacted by the Bush administration, cuts which many Democrats had criticized as favoring the wealthy: tax cuts Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters  some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend  to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress. "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."  "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few ... And to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." This entry is a pieced-together passage from a 29 May 2007 economic policy speech given by Senator Clinton on the subject of "Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity."   The supposedly "Marxist" nature of this statement is undercut when the sentences that immediately followed it (affirming support for a free market economy) are included for context: speech It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society. Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed.  When we get our priorities in order and make the smart investments we need, the markets work well.  "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground." "I certainly think the free-market has failed." The above three statements are all out-of-context passages taken from a 4 June 2007 CNN "Presidential Forum" conducted with three Democratic presidential hopefuls, senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.  The second statement was part of a straightforward expression of the need to for people to reach a consensus (through metaphorically giving up some of their political "turf," not literally giving up their possessions) on how to proceed in order to tackle an issue such as universal health insurance, while the first statement is another pieced-together quote that omits the contextual references to the issues of health care, dependence on foreign oil, and climate change:  Presidential Forum We can set the vision. We can even work to articulate the goal. But the pathway is extraordinarily complicated because of how we live today andhow we think of ourselves in relation to our fellow citizens. Take health care. I think we could get almost unanimous agreement that having more than 45 million uninsured people, nine million of whom are children, is a moral wrong in America. And I think we could reach that agreement, and then we would have to start doing the hard work of deciding what we were going to do to make sure that they were not uninsured, because an uninsured person who goes to the hospital is more likely to die than an insured person. I mean, that is a fact. So, what do we do? We have to build a political consensus. And that requires people giving up a little bit of their own turf, in order to create this common ground. The same with energy  you know, we can't keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to deal with global warming, and the challenge that it poses to our climate and to God's creation, and just let business as usual go on. And that means something has to be taken away from some people. The third statement was part of a passage in which Senator Clinton listed a number of entities (including churches, schools, and the government, as well as the free market) that she felt had failed in helping young people to make responsible decisions (particularly in reference to abortion): Q: Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common ground, with the goal ultimately in mind of reducing the decisions for abortion to zero? A: Yes. Yes. And that is what I have tried to both talk about and reach out about over the last many years, going back, really, at least 15 years, in talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. And, by rare, I mean rare. And it's been a challenge, because the pro-life and the pro-choice communities have not really been willing to find much common ground. And I think that is a great failing on all of our parts, because, for me there are many opportunities to assist young people to make responsible decisions. There is a tremendous educational and public outreach that could be done through churches, through schools, through so much else. But I think it has to be done with an understanding of reaching people where they are today. We have so many young people who are tremendously influenced by the media culture and by the celebrity culture, and who have a very difficult time trying to sort out the right decisions to make. And I personally believe that the adult society has failed those people. I mean, I think that we have failed them in our churches, our schools, our government. And I certainly think the, you know, free market has failed. We have all failed. We have left too many children to sort of fend for themselves morally.  "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." This passage was taken from a 2 September 2005 appearance by Senator Clinton in front of constituents in Elmira Heights, New York, where (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) she expressed her opinion about the need for federal regulatory oversight of the oil industry in order to curb high gasoline prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil: The anxiety and anger felt by motorists was evident at nearly every turn in her travels throughout the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. She made clear she shared the concern. "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in our entire economy that they're being watched," she said in explaining her call for an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission. "I think human nature left to itself is going to push the limit as far as possible, and that's what you need a government regulatory system for: to keep an eye on people to make the rules of the game fair, to make a level playing field and not give anybody some kind of undue advantage." Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country's long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. "We've had 30 years to do some things we haven't done," she said. "In fact we've gotten, we've gone backwards in many respects. "I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I'm tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies," Clinton said.   Last updated:  30 March 2015    Fouhy, Beth.  "San Francisco Rolls Out the Red Carpet for the Clintons."   Associated Press.  29 June 2004.    CNN.  "The Situation Room: Sojourners Presidential Forum."   4 June 2007. In July 2018, various websites reported that the social media hashtag #WalkAway represented a mass movement of people leaving (i.e., "walking away" from) the Democratic party. The #WalkAway movement was characterized as an answer to the "blue wave," a belief shared by liberals that Democrats were poised to make major electoral gains in November 2018 midterm elections. websites reported answer blue wave The campaign was launched by New York resident Brandon Straka, who in mid-June 2018 created a video replete with dramatic theme music in which he presented himself as a former liberal who was "walking away" because liberal politics no longer embodied his values of "unity, personal empowerment and love." The video was widely shared on social media, but as Abby Ohlheiser, who pens a blog about the Internet for the Washington Post noted, that following took place "almost exclusively on the right-wing Internet." video noted In late July 2018 however, the #WalkAway campaign was criticized for sharing memes utilizing photographs of liberals who were purportedly personally testifying to "walking away" from the Democratic Party, but those memes actually employed commercial images of anonymous people provided by the stock photography site Shutterstock: Shutterstock Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, shared images of black people who had allegedly left the Democratic Party. They were actually models in royalty-free stock photos. pic.twitter.com/FjfpZzv8mN pic.twitter.com/FjfpZzv8mN  Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 23, 2018 July 23, 2018  Straka took to Twitter to say the memes were not authentic #WalkAway campaign material: These memes have nothing 2do w/ the #WalkAway Campaign. Theyre being circulated by the left as evidence that #WalkAway is paid actors. ???So, in a rare moment of agreement, I am on the same page as those on the left- this is fake. These r not from the #WalkAway Campaign. pic.twitter.com/nN3kNlBAsr #WalkAway #WalkAway #WalkAway pic.twitter.com/nN3kNlBAsr  Brandon Straka (The Unsilent Minority) (@usminority) July 24, 2018 July 24, 2018  In an email, Straka told us he didn't know who created the memes, but that any official material from the #WalkAway campaign would bear specific branding: I dont know who created the memes. I first saw them within the last week. Anything officially released by the #WalkAway Campaign will bear our branding and trademark. Many people are excited and energized about #WalkAway, and in this excitement have created their own materials which are not approved or condoned by the official #WalkAway Campaign. #WalkAway will exist beyond social media but currently does not. It is an LLC, and will exist soon as a non-profit, but currently we are building toward this. It's unclear who created the memes, or whether they were shared by people who consider themselves associated with the #WalkAway hashtag movement. But verifying what materials and persons might have any "official" connection with the movement is difficult since the campaign exists mostly on social media, with Straka self-identifying in his social media profile as "campaign founder" and in a group hosted by him on Facebook. self-identifying group #WalkAway memes employing stock photographic images have been shared by at least one prominent conservative figure  Ginni Thomas, an attorney who contributes to the conservative Daily Caller website and is married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: Daily Caller   Noting that live Twitter tracking tool Hamilton68 (operated by the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund) had recorded Russian bots and trolls helping to amplify the #WalkAway hashtag, some critics blamed Twitter for failing to quell the spread of Russian propaganda: Hamilton68 Walk Away is a scam created by Russian bots. In reality, I have never met a liberal who says, "You know what, I've decided I hate people and their basic human rights. I think I'll become a Republican." https://t.co/lb2VCeOVcm https://t.co/lb2VCeOVcm  James Kosur (@JamesKosur) July 5, 2018 July 5, 2018  Ohlheiser, Abby. "The #WalkAway Meme Is What Happens When Everything Is Viral and Nothing Matters."
  The Washington Post.  2 July 2018. Kapur, Sahil.  "Special House Election in Ohio Poses Latest Test of Blue Wave."
  Bloomberg.  23 July 2018. Kosur, James.  "Fake #WalkAway Ads Feature Images of People from Shutterstock."
  HillReporter.com.  23 July 2018. This article was updated to include comment from Straka. An item about a collection of U.S. tax increases which were supposedly enacted as of 1 January 2016 due to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare") was circulated widely at the beginning of 2016, but it was merely an updated version of identical claims circulated in previous years that set 2014 or 2015 as the imposition date for those tax increases:  Although the tax increases listed in this item did come to pass, they took effect at the beginning of 2013 (not 2014 or 2015 or 2016), were completely unrelated to the Affordable Care Act, applied only to very high-income earners, and have been overstated in this list.  These tax hikes were enacted through the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, a compromise bill pushed through Congress as a partial resolution to the then-looming "fiscal cliff" crisis.  Under the provisions of that bill: American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 fiscal cliff   The top marginal federal income tax rate increased from 35% to 39.6%  The top marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains increased from 15% to 20% (not 28%).  The top marginal tax rate on dividends increased from 15% to 20% (not 39.6%).  Estate taxes increased from 35% of an estate's value in excess of $5,120,000 (in 2012) to 40% of the value above $5,340,000 (in 2014). It's important to note that the increase in marginal tax rates for federal income tax, capital gains, and dividends affected only those persons with taxable incomes over a $400,000 (single)/$450,000 (married) threshold.  It's also important to note that the previous estate tax rate of 0% was a special rule that applied only to the estates of persons who died in 2010 (the estate tax has since been increased to 35% for those who died in 2011 and 40% for those who died in 2012 and thereafter), and even today an estate tax  filing is required only for estates with gross assets in excess of $5 million (indexed for inflation).   estate tax The tax rate for dividends has also not increased from 15% to 39.6%: it appears someone has confused qualified dividends with nonqualified dividends. Qualified dividend earnings are tax-free for those in the 10% and 15% brackets, taxed at a 15% rate for those in the 25% up to 35% tax brackets, and taxed at a 20% rate for higher income taxpayers whose income surpasses the 35% tax bracket.  Nonqualified dividends only are taxed as ordinary income.  (Theoretically, a taxpayer with nonqualified dividend earnings who reached the top marginal federal income tax rate would be paying 39.6% tax on those earnings, but that's a condition that only applies to persons earning over several hundred thousand dollars per year.) dividends The list's reference to an "income payroll tax" increase from 37.4% to 52.2% is something of a mystery, as this is not a standard term for any type of government income- or payroll-related tax.  The only adjustment to payroll-related taxes resulting from the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was that a two-year old cut to payroll taxes which had previously reduced the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% for 2011 and 2012 was not extended.  Additionally, this item's coda claiming that "not one Republican voted to do these taxes" is completely false.  The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 passed Congress by a margin of 89-8 in the Senate with 40 Republican votes in favor, and a margin of 257-167 in the House with 85 Republican votes in favor. (The original claim undoubtedly refers to the House or Representatives' voting in 2010 to pass the health-care reform bill without a single Republican vote in favor, but that association is moot because, as noted, the tax increases listed above had nothing to do with that bill.) 89-8 257-167 health-care reform bill