Barvetta Singletary
FACT CHECK:Did a Special Assistant to President Obama, Barvetta Singletary shot at a police officer in an incident of gun violence ignored by the media?  Claim: A Special Assistant to President Obama, Barvetta Singletary, shot at a police officer in an incident of gun violence ignored by the media.    WHAT'S  White House staffer Barvetta Singletary was arrested and charged with assault after discharging a gun during a domestic dispute with her boyfriend (a Capitol police officer) in August 2015. WHAT'S /UNPROVEN:  Singletary shot at a police officer because he was a cop, was trying to kill the victim, reported directly to President Obama, and her arrest was ignored by large media outlets. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail and Twitter, October 2015]  Assistant to president Obama shoots at boyfriend. Barvetta and her bad ass Beretta!  Kicking ass ghetto style! Don't hold your breath waiting to read about this in the mainstream media. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wondering if it is true that an Obama assistant resigned after firing a gun a police. Her name is Barvetta Singletary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A special assistant to the president the president who recently lamented that an inability to pass gun control was one of the great failures of his administration was arrested after she allegedly fired a pistol at her boyfriend during a domestic dispute. Barvetta Singletary, 37, didn't help advance her boss' crusade against gun violence when she invited her boyfriend, a Capitol Hill police officer, over to her house for sex. Afterwards, she accused him of seeing another woman and demanded to see the texts on his cellphones. When he refused, Singletary reached into her boyfriend's bag, according to the arresting documents, and pulled out the two cellphones and his service weapon, a .40 caliber Glock 23. She demanded he tell her the passwords to the phones. He refused. "Your phone is more important than me holding the gun on you," she said, shooting the couch where he was sitting. Singletary is the Obama administration's House legislative affairs liaison and was paid $125,000 a year. Let's just say she wasn't a low-level staffer. Her purposeful gun crime while working for this gun-hostile administration is more important than the time Dick Cheney accidentally shot a friend  while Dove hunting. But which one received more news coverage? Obama Special Asst Barvetta Singletary Resigns, Charged Shooting At Cop | @bob_owens | #2A | https://t.co/edXK2l9Uks pic.twitter.com/9LPguvQO5j @bob_owens #2A https://t.co/edXK2l9Uks pic.twitter.com/9LPguvQO5j  Hank Quinlan (@Quinlan_Hank) September 5, 2015 September 5, 2015   Barvetta Singletary, a special assistant to the President and the House legislative affairs liaison, was arrested last Friday after the  Berwin Kleinstein (@hakylulamupe) September 5, 2015 September 5, 2015   Origins: In early August 2015, 37-year-old White House staffer Barvetta Singletary was arrested and charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and reckless endangerment following a domestic dispute with her boyfriend. As Washington television station WRC reported, during an 7 August 2015 domestic dispute Singletary allegedly fired one shot towards the sofa on which her boyfriend was sitting (hitting the floor) after he refused to disclose the passwords to his cell phones: reported According to charging documents, Barvetta Singletary sent her boyfriend a text, asking him to come to her Upper Marlboro home for sex. After they had sex, Singletary confronted her boyfriend about the other woman he was dating. Investigators say Singletary asked her boyfriend to step outside, and they both went to his car. Once inside the car, Singletary asked to see her boyfriend's cellphones, police said. When he refused, Singletary reached into his bag and retrieved two cellphones and the victim's .40-caliber Glock 23 service weapon, charging documents state. Singletary  pulled the gun out of its holster, pointed it at the victim and said, "You taught me how to use this. Don't think I won't use it," the arrest warrant said. Once inside, she demanded the passwords to his phones, yanking the Glock from its holster and pointing it at him when he didn't cooperate, the documents said. Your phone is more important than me holding this gun on you? she allegedly said to her boyfriend, who was glued to her sofa 10 feet away. When he still refused to give up his passwords, Singletary fired one round at him that hit the floor, sending the officer running, police said.   E-mails and social media rumors about Singletary that were circulated months after the fact commonly claimed the altercation had occurred "last Friday," an ambiguity that lent plausibility to the rumor's claim the "mainstream media" suppressed reporting of the arrest (since it hadn't appeared in recent news). However, the incident was covered at the time it occurred by major mainstream news outlets such as the Washington Post, USA Today, the Daily Mail, the Washington D.C. Sun Times, Fox News, and the New York  Daily News. Washington Post USA Today Daily Mail Sun Times Fox News Daily News The fact that the complainant was a police officer was incidental to the story; Singletary shot at him because he was a boyfriend with whom she was involved in a romantic dispute, not because he was a cop.  And given that various news reports stated that Singletary fired a single round in the direction of the couch where her boyfriend was sitting but hit the floor, it isn't clear whether she actually intended to harm him but missed, or whether she deliberately sent the round into the floor in order to scare her boyfriend (without injuring him). Rumors commonly referred to Singletary as a "Special Assistant to President Obama," a term which is technically correct but which caused many social media users to incorrectly infer that Singletary reported directly to the President and served him personally in some sort of secretarial or administrative capacity prior to her September 2015 resignation. Senior White House staffers are granted the title "Assistant to the President," second-tier staffers are called "Deputy Assistant to the President," and third-tier staffers (of which Singletary was one) are termed "Special Assistant to the President." According to the White House's most recent staffer salary disclosure  report, there are approximately 21 employees serving in the first-tier capacity, 19 in the second-tier of White House assistants, and 59 with the title "Special Assistant to the President." disclosure Singletary had served as a as deputy chief of staff in the House of Representatives before being named as a White House staffer in June 2014: named SINGLETARY GOES TO 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE: Barvetta Singletary is moving from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. Shes leaving Capitol Hill to join the White House legislative affairs team, an administration official confirms to PI. She comes to the White House from Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburns office, where she most recently served as deputy chief of staff and policy director. She has depth on a range of issues, including: transportation, appropriations, health care, energy, ag and budget issues. She is deeply respected by members and staff on both sides of the aisle for her policy knowledge and focused but even keeled nature. She is a team player in every sense, a senior White House official said. That official added: Fun fact: She also happens to have an amazing singing voice, which she puts to use at church and among friends, when she can be convinced. On 10 August 2015, a White House spokesperson released a statement regarding Singletary's arrest: We are aware of the matter and have temporarily placed the employee in question on unpaid leave and revoked her access to the complex until we have more information. We will take additional actions as needed. For further questions, I would refer you to the Prince Georges County Police Department. Singletary resigned her White House position the following month.   Last updated: 14 October 2015 Originally published: 14 October 2015
An entreaty to help save the life of a victimized child who had been raped by an AIDS-positive attacker began circulating as a cell phone text message in June 2010. At that time, the message being zinged from phone to phone represented the rapist being sought with a photograph of an African American male bearing gold teeth: This guy raped a five year old little girl. He ruined her life, she is alive & in the hospital can't move and can never have children, or a normal life. This guy goes by different names he is in hiding & has AIDS. The girl came out positive. Please help us catch this animal. Every time this message is fwd the Dell Hospital will donate $.15 to Maria's medication & treatment. Please don't hesitate to fwd this. It could've been you're daughter or sister. God bless. Thank you!. Forward this to as many people as possible. In October 2010, the hoax underwent a revival when it was circulated anew, that time accompanied by the photo of a Hispanic male sporting multiple tattoos. Since 2014, this Facebook post has been shared more than 77,000 times. A second post from 2016 has been shared more than 82,000 times with a different photograph: this Facebook post second post   There was no such child: the whole thing was a leg-pull, said Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas: said A false text message has been circulating that describes an incident involving a 5-year old girl. The message states that every time you forward it to someone, Dell Children's Medical Center will donate 15 cents to cover the child's healthcare expenses. This message is spam and is in no way affiliated with Dell Children's Medical Center or the Seton Family of Hospitals. If you receive this message, please delete it. As demonstrated so aptly by public efforts to provide relief to earthquake victims in Haiti, beneficences initiated by cell phone generally involve a tracking and billing mechanism that requires participants to text a specific short word or phrase to a particular (five-digit) number, not the willy-nilly forwarding of a explanatory narrative to as many people as possible. Haiti In 2009 we began to note that "Forward this message to help fund medical care for a sick or dying child" appeals were beginning to appear as cell phone text messages as well as being passed in e-mail. That trend continues into the present, with the "shot 14-year-old boy" just another iteration of the same basic hoax that falsely claims the American Cancer Society, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or some other large entity will donate a predetermined amount of money every time a particular message is forwarded. Such leg-pulls have been circulating via e-mail since 1997. hoax Typically, a large charity is named as the benefactor standing ready to direct monies towards the costs of medical care for the languishing child, but various corporations have also been fingered for this role in other iterations of the hoax, such as AOL and ZDNet in the Rachel Arlington leg pull (brain cancer sufferer in need of an operation) and McDonald's and Pizza Hut in the Justin Mallory prank (epileptic in need of long-term care). Rachel Arlington Justin Mallory Everyone wants to help sick children get better, and the thought of a little boy or girl suffering from some dread disease or infirmity because people couldn't be bothered to forward a message tugs straight at the heartstrings. Problem is, hoaxsters know that, and they play upon these very human drives for their personal amusement. Once again, that is the case here: Well-intentioned forwarding does nothing towards helping a sick child; it does, however, make the day of some prankster. If you want to make a difference in a sick child's life, the best way is still the old-fashioned one: donate your money or your time, don't passively share a worthless message.   KEYE-TV [Austin].  "Text Messages About Dell Children's Med Center Donations Are False."
  22 June 2010. Roser, Mary Ann.  "Seton Alerts Public That Text Message to Help 'Raped' Child Is Bogus."
  The [Austin] Statesman.  22 June 2010. This story was updated on June 4, 2019 to add a second viral Facebook post. Some fathers help their daughters by teaching them how to ride a bike. But if youre Dick Cheney, you do it by attacking her political rival on national television. The former vice president appeared on ABCsThis Weekon Oct. 27, 2013, to discuss national security issues, and was asked about the Republican primary battle in Wyoming between incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi and his daughter, Liz Cheney. ThoughLiz Cheney has previously said her father wouldnt be campaigning for her, he didnt pass on the opportunity to take a few shots at Enzi. He accused the three-term senator of getting about 84 percent of his campaign funds from Washington-based PACs, which Cheney said was more than any senator of either party. Enzi is far from the most prestigious, vocal or well-known lawmakers on the Hill. So we were surprised to hear that the three-term senator from Wyoming, of all places, is the upper chambers leader in percentage of donations from PACs. We decided totake a deeper look. Counting PAC money Off the bat, we ran into trouble with the term Washington-based PAC. The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign finance data, noted that most political action committees, but not all, are based in the nations capitol, and its difficult to separate which of Enzis donors are from D.C. What's probably safe to say is that the vast majority are not based in his home state, Viveca Novak at the center told PoltiFact (which is what Cheney was driving at anyway). According to data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, in the Senate campaign cycle beginning in 2009, Enzi raised $1.64 million, with $1.19 million, or 73 percent, coming from PACs. Thats not the 84 percent figure that Dick Cheney mentioned. Liz Cheneys campaign said they got to 84 percent by including a $74,463 transfer to the campaign from a joint fundraising committee, as well as $826,000 given to Enzis leadership PAC from other political groups. So the Cheney campaign counted those transfers as PAC money, while the center didnt. Using the centers data, Enzis percentage of PAC money is higher than any other senator -- by quite a bit actually. The next closest is Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who has received 66 percent of his donations from PACs in the last five years. The disparity is even larger over the course of Enzis entire career. Nearly 70 percent of the $6.55 million the Wyoming Republican has raised since 1991 comes from PACs. In second is Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, at a distant 52 percent. A large chunk of Enzis PAC money comes from congressional leadership groups who are backing the senior senator over Cheneys challenge. He gets quite a bit from health groups, as well -- which isnt surprising, since he has worked prominently on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for years. Its not that Enzi is taking more money from PACs than all of his colleagues, but a higher proportion of his money raised is from these outside groups Its worth noting that of the 10 senators who have relied the most on PACs this cycle, nearly all hail from states in the bottom third of the population rankings. Candidates from smaller states have a shallower pool of in-state donors to pull from, pushing them to rely on PACs in their increasingly expensive election fights. Cheney has proven to be a formidable fundraiser, pulling in $1 million between July and September, for her contest against Enzi. Doug Weber at the Center for Responsive Politics had another explanation for Enzis reliance on PACs. Enzi hasn't really raised and spent much in the past, Weber said in an email. His 2002 and 1996 elections were the cheapest Senate victories of their cycle. So it may be a function of a modest fundraising effort -- raising from individuals involves a lot more work. (Republican House Speaker John) Boehner raised more from individuals just this year than Enzi has since 1989. And even though Enzi tops this list, hes far from the most prolific fundraiser in Washington. In the current Congress,hes 356th in money raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Enzis campaign didnt deny Cheneys claims. While spokeswoman Kristin Walker noted that two-thirds of Enzis individual donors in the last cycle were from Wyoming, she added he has always raised the money he needed to be competitive. Our ruling While Dick Cheney differed from our nonpartisan sources on the final number, the fact remains he was right: Enzi has received a higher proportion of his money from PACs than anyone in the Senate. Its more a product of circumstancesEnzis from a small state and hes facing a strong challengerthan evidence that Enzi has gone Washington, as Cheney was implying. We rate it Mostly True. In February 2016, a meme about the lack of business acumen and experience exhibited by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, began circulating online:  The criticisms offered in meme were a mixture of true, false, irrelevant, and misleading statements. To wit: Never owned a business Right off, this meme begins with a rather nebulous criticism. Although having owned a business is an experience many voters would like to see on the rsum of a potential chief executive, a literal application of that term isn't of much relevance. Technically, a person who once operated a roadside lemonade stand has "owned a business," while a person who has spent his career serving as the CEO of a public multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation has not -- even though everyone would agree the latter has vastly more business experience than the former. And certainly a number of highly-regarded U.S. presidents in the modern era (e.g., Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan) never owned their own businesses. Moreover, one might validly say that Sanders started and operated his own business (whether he "owned" it is somewhat arguable, as it was a non-profit), the American People's Historical Society, which was created in 1978 to produce educational film strips about the history of Vermont. The University of Vermont has archived several of the brochures produced by the American People's Historical Society, one of which includes a statement from Sanders outlining the purpose of his film strips: includes Director Bernard Sanders explained, "It is our belief that state and regional history has too long been neglected by the audio-visual industry, and we are happy to begin the process of rectifying that situation. We believe that students have the right to learn about the state and region in which they are living." While the financials of the American People's Historical Society are not available, Sanders wrote in his memoir Outsider in the House that the business was reasonably successful and "a lot of fun." A friend of Sanders' told Politico that the film strip business "wasn't just a way to make money ... He made filmstrips about people he admired and believed in. He just thought kids should know the truth of how things really were." Never invented anything Once again, this is a rather nebulous criticism. The concept of "inventing" something could range from simply thinking up a novel idea (but doing nothing more about it), to creating and building a device for personal use (but not marketing it), to actually obtaining a patent for a new product. Bernie Sanders is certainly no inventor and holds no patents, but it's hard to see how that fact is of any relevance, as the same is true of nearly every U.S. president. Thomas Jefferson might legitimately be considered an inventor for having conceptualized various devices (including a macaroni machine, a swivel chair, a spherical sundial, a moldboard plow, and a cipher wheel), although he held no patents because he believed them to be a form of monopoly. Abraham Lincoln was the only U.S. president who ever held a patent, having been issued Patent #6,469 for "A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals" on 22 May 1849. Beyond that, "inventing" has historically had nothing to do with the qualifications or success of candidates for the White House. Never had a 9 to 5 job This criticism is too vaguely worded to allow for much cogent analysis. What does holding a "9 to 5 job" mean? That one literally works from 9 AM to 5 PM (and not some other period of the day)? That one holds full-time employment? That one is paid on an hourly basis? That one toils at what is commonly referred to as a "blue collar" job? That one works for someone else rather than being self-employed? If we assume the most seemingly relevant application of the term  that it refers to holding steady, full-time employment  then one might fairly say it applies to Bernie Sanders. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Chicago in 1964, Sanders primarily worked a series of odd jobs while attempting to get his political career off the ground, and a Politico article observed that he "didn't collect his first steady paycheck until he was an elected official pushing 40 years old." However, that same article did list a variety of jobs Sanders held (even if they weren't steady or didn't provide a livable wage) before he finally reached public office upon being elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at age 39  working as an aide at a psychiatric hospital, as a Head Start preschool teacher, as a carpenter, and as a freelance writer for local publications: article Sanders rented a small brick duplex at 295 1/2 Maple Street that was filled with not much furniture and not much food in the fridge but stacks of checked-out library books and scribbled-on legal pads. "Pretty sparse," Gene Bergman, an old friend, said about the apartment. "Stark and dark," said Darcy Troville, a fellow Liberty Unionite who lived around the corner and shared with Sanders homemade jellies and jams. "The electricity was turned off a lot," Barnett said. "I remember him running an extension cord down to the basement. He couldn't pay his bills." He worked some as a carpenter, although "he was a shitty carpenter," [Liberty Union party member John] Bloch told me. "His carpentry," [Liberty Union member Danny] Morrisseau said, "was not going to support him, and didn't." He worked as a freelance writer, putting intermittent pieces in the low-budget Vermont Freeman, a Burlington alternative weekly called the Vanguard Press and a glossy, state-supported magazine called Vermont Life. His writing wasn't a living. The Vanguard paid as little as the rest. "It would've been not more than 50 bucks," said Greg Guma, a former editor. Vermont Life? "Our rate was 10 cents a word," said Brian Vachon, a former editor. "He was always poor," Sandy Baird, another old friend, told me in Burlington. "Virtually unemployed," said Nelson, the political science professor at the University of Vermont. "Just one step above hand to mouth," said Terry Bouricius, who was involved with Liberty Union, served at times as a de facto campaign manager for Sanders and at one point crashed for a couple months on his couch. Liberty Union "people found it difficult to support themselves while engaging in full-time political work," Michael Parenti, one of those people, wrote in the Massachusetts Review in the summer of 1975. "Some held jobs that allowed free time for campaign activities, while others lived off unemployment insurance." "His work was to be a politician," Guma said. "He put everything into what he was doing." We would also note by that by the standard used here, holding elective office (as Sanders has done for most of the last 35 years as a mayor, a U.S. representative, and a U.S. senator) is as much a "9 to 5" job as any other. Never proposed a bill that has passed This statement is not literally true, as during his tenure in Congress Sanders has sponsored three bills that were enacted, two of which were rather slight matters involving the naming of USPS facilities, and one of which was the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013 (which provided "for an increase in the rates of compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for the survivors of certain disabled veterans"). Although that might seem like slight achievement for someone who has spent 25 years as both a U.S. representative and a U.S. senator, we would note that only a scant handful of bills submitted in Congress (about 4 to 6 percent) are ever brought to a vote, and even fewer (about 2 to 4 percent) end up being enacted. We would also note that sponsoring original legislation is but one small part of Congress members' duties: they also co-sponsor legislation submitted by colleagues (which Sanders has done for more than 200 successful bills), muster support (or opposition) among colleagues and the public for proposed legislation, review and vote on proposed bills, serve on various committees (Sanders holds six Senate committee appointments), meet with constituents, participate in oversight and investigation of governmental affairs, etc., as detailed in "The Many Roles of a Member of Congress": handful committee detailed First and foremost, the Member is a decision-maker. Members are faced with hundreds of decisions in both recorded and unrecorded votes on matters major and minor. Many decisions must be made quickly. Each decision, whether spontaneous or studied, balances the conflicting perspectives received from private citizens, public officials, party leaders. Decisions are often second-guessed by constituents, campaign opponents, colleagues, lobbyists, and media critics. Meetings are continual, in committee rooms, in private offices, in corridors, and in gatherings on the floor. Daily, sacks of mail are delivered. Faxes flow in a steady stream. Electronic mail jams congressional computers. Correspondence must be written and press releases issued. Highly visible issues are debated on the House or Senate floor, fully televised, and the absence or presence of a Member is duly noted. Scandals require investigation. Programs require oversight. Requests for information, both basic and complex, are received daily. Journalists seek comment. Constituents seek assistance obtaining federal grants, government jobs, and help in overcoming bureaucratic obstacles. Over time, these daily tasks and the always-changing expectations of the electorate have come together to establish a multi-faceted job. Lived off welfare before elected to public office As noted above, various acquaintances who knew Sanders in the years before he achieved public office have reported that he was "always poor," and he likely received public assistance at some point during that time, although what form of (and how much) assistance he received is difficult to determine at this remove. A contemporaneous newspaper account from the Bennington Banner reported that in 1974, when Sanders ran for the U.S. Senate on the Liberty Union Party ticket, he was collecting unemployment benefits: Sanders, 32, cares little what 'image' he conveys  and that's part of his image of being a bit rumpled and unshorn. He's on unemployment compensation right now, having worked for the Bread & Law Task Force, as a free-lance writer, and as a carpenter in the Burlington area. But the thing he likes best, and excels at, is 'talking the issues,' and he doesn't mind repeating himself sometimes." 74 year old  personal net worth of $300,000 As 247 Wall St. reported, determining the precise net worth of candidates is difficult for a number of reasons: net worth [R]eporting exact values is not required. Instead, candidates may disclose their assets and income in a range. Further, candidates do not necessarily report all their assets. For instance, candidates do not need to disclose their personal real estate and property values. Jeb Bush opted to omit assets generated by several holding companies, for example. In addition, while some candidates choose to include their spouses in their disclosures, some do not. Carly Fiorinas net worth of $59 million, for example, includes that of her husband, Frank. Hillary Clinton's reported net worth, on the other hand, does not include assets jointly owned by her and former president Bill Clinton, who is worth by some estimates more than $50 million. 247 Wall St. attempted to determine each presidential candidate's net worth in an article published on 24 August 2015. They estimated that Sanders was one of the "poorest presidential candidates" running for office in 2016, with a likely net worth somewhere around $330,000: estimated Bernie Sanders> Net worth: $194,026-$741,030 In 2013, Bernie Sanders had an average estimated net worth of $330,507, well below other prospective presidential nominees and among the lowest compared with other members of Congress. As of late 2019, Open Secrets, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, estimated Sanders' net worth at between $729,000 and $1.8 million, making him neither the richest nor the poorest presidential hopeful in the 2020 field. estimated In any case, the meme's characterization of Sanders as a "loser" based on his net worth evinces a rather skewed perspective. Although many people view financial rewards as a tangible measure of one's success, it is far from the only factor by which accomplishment can be measured. (In fact, highly-regarded President Harry S. Truman had virtually no net worth even after leaving the White House in 1953 and afterwards was largely dependent upon Congress' finally establishing a pension for former presidents.) pension Bernie Sanders might equally be considered a "winner" for persevering at his goal of achieving a political career long after others might have given up, and for succeeding at that effort despite prolonged financial hardship. Unlike many others, Sanders might also be lauded for maintaining a rather plain life and not having enriched himself in public service (especially since candidates at the other end of the financial spectrum are frequently criticized for being "out of touch with the common man"). As 247 Wall St. wrote of Sanders: The Vermont senator, who is the longest-serving independent in U.S. history, is a self-identified socialist. He is seeking the Democratic nomination and is the most popular Democratic candidate after Hillary Clinton. In keeping with Sanders' stated intention of starting a grassroots movement, more than 90% of his campaign contributions have come from individual donors. Sanders' campaign speeches have drawn record numbers of attendants. Most recently, 19,000 people watched Sanders speak at an NBA arena in Portland, Oregon, the largest political event compared with all other candidates so far this election season. All in all, that sounds like quite an impressive career achievement for anyone  regardless of net worth. Kruse, Michael.  "Bernie Sanders Has a Secret."
  Politico.  9 July 2015. Frohlich, Thomas C. et al.  "The Net Worth of Each Presidential Candidate."
  24/7 Wall St.  24 August 2015. Delaney, Arthur.  "Bernie Sanders Ran for Office While on Unemployment."
  The Huffington Post.  29 May 2015. Murphy, Tim.  "How Bernie Sanders Learned to Be a Real Politician."
  Mother Jones.  26 May 2015. OpenSecrets.org.  "Net Worth of 2020 Presidential Candidates."
 Accessed 18 October 2019. In July 2016, news raced through social media that Jaden Smith, actor and son of Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, had committed suicide:  The news was not true, and didn't come from a legitimate source. In fact, users who clicked the above-displayed message were greeted with a popup message requesting permission from a Facebook app to post on their behalf, making the article appear less like a hoax and more like an outright scam:   Messages about Jaden Smith's alleged suicide were shared from various sites, and led to a variety of dodgy-sounding Facebook apps, including "Smart Mobiles," "Gadgy Land," "Pakiza," "Top Feeds" and several others.  Intrepid internet users who clicked the link and gave the app permission were eventually greeted with one of several "news" story claiming that Jaden Smith had committed suicide. The web sites responsible for this hoax have published dozens of fake news stories and graphics with this false claim:  Users who granted these apps permission to post to Facebook on their behalf quickly found this death hoax posted to their own Facebook feeds, thereby replicating itself across social media. Jaden Smith himself has been active on his social media accounts, seemingly unaware that he's supposed to be dead. He posted a photograph of himself on 27 July 2016: posted  Clickbait stories such as celebrity death hoaxes are common ways for dubious web sites and apps to spread malware. Even if the sites don't spread invasive software outright, your computer or social media accounts can still be easily hijacked so that unscrupulous companies can profit from a seemingly large social media presence. malware If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services atsuicidepreventionlifeline.orgto connect to a trained crisis counselor.  suicidepreventionlifeline.org On June 24, 2021,John McAfee, an eccentric security software pioneer, was found dead in his prison cell hours after Spain approved his extradition to the United States to face tax evasion charges. While officials from the Catalan government said in a statement that "everything points to death by suicide," social media users started sharing the hashtag #McAfeedidntkillhimself and pointed to a 2019 tweet in which Mcafee showed a "$WHACKD" tattoo as evidence. found dead in his prison cell    This is a genuine tweet from McAfee. The security software pioneer truly had the "$WHACKD" tattooed on his arm (you can see another image of the tattoo here) and he truly did write "If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd" in a tweet.  tattoo here However, this message from November 2019 was more than a year before McAfee was facing the very real possibility that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. While McAfee's November 2019 tweet may have summed up his mentality at the time, it does not necessarily provide any insight into his state of mind at the time of his death.  November 2019 It should also be noted that McAfee did not get this tattoo solely to signal that he was not suicidal. This tattoo also promoted a cryptocurrency token on the now defunct website McAfeedex.com. McAfee promoted this cryptocurrency token on his site by connecting it to another death, that of Jeffrey Epstein, which many have claimed (with little evidence) was an assassination disguised as a suicide.  cryptocurrency token Jeffrey Epstein McAfee, 75, was arrested in Spain in October 2020 as he was about to board a plane to Turkey. McAfee was wanted in the United States for various tax evasion charges. The BBC reported: BBC reported In October 2020, John McAfee was arrested in Spain when he was about to board a plane to Turkey, and accused of failing to file tax returns for four years, despite earning millions from consulting work, speaking engagements, crypto-currencies and selling the rights to his life story. The US justice department alleged that McAfee evaded tax liability by having his income paid into bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchange accounts in the names of nominees. He was also accused of concealing assets, including a yacht and real estate property, also in other people's names. McAfee was being held in a jail near Barcelona while he awaited extradition. On June 24, 2021, a Spanish court approved his extradition to the United States where he would face charges. If convicted, McAfee could have been sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison.  could have been sentenced Hours after McAfee's extradition was approved, however, the software pioneer was found dead in his prison cell. The Justice Department for the government of Catalonia said that an autopsy would be conducted before officially determining a cause of death. At the moment, however, the Spanish government says that "everything points to death by suicide." autopsy McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, also told Reuters that McAfee died by suicide.  Reuters British-born U.S. technology entrepreneur John McAfee died on Wednesday by suicide in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish high court authorized his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters. McAfee's lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the anti-virus software pioneer died by hanging as his nine months in prison brought him to despair. Announced in April 2021, U.S. President Joe Bidens American Families Plan is an ambitious proposal that aims to expand Americans' access to childcare and education and increase the number of women in the workforce. The plan is to fund all of this through more taxes on higher-income earners and increased reporting requirements of banks that could potentially yield more tax revenue. These reporting requirements have caught the ire of a number of banks that took issue with this less widely known section of the plan. Announced reporting A Facebook post by FNB Community Bank claimed: The Biden administration has proposed requiring all community banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS on all deposits and withdrawals through business and personal accounts worth more than $600 regardless of tax liability. This indiscriminate, comprehensive bank account reporting to the [Internal Revenue Service (IRS)] can soon be enacted in Congress and will create an unacceptable invasion of privacy for our customers. Facebook post   Another screenshot shared by our readers expressed similar concerns:   The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) even began a campaign, calling on communities to send a letter to Biden to prevent this so-called intrusive proposal": began a campaign, Tell Congress: Don't Let IRS Invade My Privacy The Biden administration is proposing requiring financial institutions report to the IRS all transactions of all business and personal accounts worth more than $600. This is an unprecedented invasion of privacy. In order to knock down this intrusive proposal, please send this letter to your representative and senators immediately. We looked up the proposal itself, and it does require more robust reporting of transactions across business and personal accounts. The proposal, which aims to go into effect after Dec. 31, 2022, states: proposal This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600. We begin by explaining some of the more technical terms in this proposal. A "de minimis threshold" is broadly defined as the amount of a transaction that has such a small value that accounting for it would be unreasonable. We spoke to Visiting Assistant Professor of Tax Law at New York University, Nyamagaga Gondwe, who explained, "It is the amount below which the [IRS] would argue isn't worth investigating. It's the difference between your company giving you a $5 card to Subway, versus traveling on a private jet on your company's dime. [The latter] is worth reporting." In this case, "gross flow" refers to the aggregate inflows and outflows of cash from bank accounts. In sum, the current proposal stipulates that an aggregate amount of less than $600 worth of cash flowing into and out of accounts is not worth reporting.  defined gross flow The "fair market value" refers to the amount people are willing to pay for an asset in the open market. In this case, Gondwe argued, the use of the term could possibly refer to the changing market value of transactions more than $600 that may occur in foreign currency transactions.  refers to The ICBA claims that the proposal will make banks report "all transactions" above the limit, but this is misleading. While it is true that the IRS will have more information on cashflows above $600, that doesnt mean they will have all the information pertaining to all transactions. The Center for American Progress (CAP) points out that banks will only be providing aggregate numbers to the IRS after each year  gross inflow and gross outflow  and not individualized transaction information. This reporting requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services like Venmo, but wouldnt require people to report any additional information to the government. According to The Wall Street Journal, financial institutions must already report interest, dividends, and investment incomes to the IRS, and the IRS can get other information through audits. Center for American Progress extend Wall Street Journal audits According to Marie Sapirie of Tax Notes, a publication focused on tax news, a parenthetical to the proposal indicates that there is some flexibility on raising the minimum account balance/inflow/outflow above $600. Tax Notes parenthetical The Tax Notes report also states that the treasury department estimated this form of reporting would raise $463 billion over the 10-year budget window, making it the third largest revenue raiser proposed in the budget. The aim is to target businesses outside of large corporations that carry out gross underreporting of their income in the amount of $166 billion per year. According to the proposal: Requiring comprehensive information reporting on the inflows and outflows of financial accounts will increase the visibility of gross receipts and deductible expenses to the IRS. Increased visibility of business income will enhance the effectiveness of IRS enforcement measures and encourage voluntary compliance. Tax Notes aim Banks claim this would be an invasion of consumer privacy, with the ICBA saying it would allow the government to monitor account information. However, CAP analysts Seth Hanlon and Galen Hendricks argue, Only the prior years total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS monitors you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January. saying argue Another challenge not mentioned in the ICBAs consumer alert is the higher costs this reporting proposal may place on banks. In May 2021, a coalition of banking associations wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, arguing that they already give a lot of data to the IRS, and that this would impose additional costs on their systems: consumer alert wrote a letter The costs and other burdens imposed to collect and report account flow information would surpass the potential benefits from such a reporting scheme. New reporting would appear to require material development costs and process additions for financial institutions, as well as significant reconciliation and compliance burden on impacted taxpayers. For example, reporting total gross receipts and disbursements would require a new reporting paradigm for depository institutions, which necessitates system changes to collect the information. On the flipside, Sapirie wrote for Tax Notes, the benefits of such a reporting proposal may be difficult to come by: Tax Notes Increasing the amount of information flowing into the IRS would not in itself lead to increased enforcement, and it might come with added challenges. [Former IRS Commissioner Charles O.] Rossotti acknowledged that the IRS today cannot use all the information it already receives, and significant areas of noncompliance are barely addressed, so more reporting alone will not solve the problem. It would almost certainly have a deterrent effect for taxpayers contemplating evasion, but the extent of that effect is unclear, and it might be insufficient to justify the costs to financial institutions and the federal government of implementing such a large new reporting regime. But CAPs analysis argues that this will help prevent tax evasion, while also providing more funding to enhance data security for consumers: CAPs analysis Additional funding would go to enhancing data security. Even at present, the IRS data security is already much better than the financial industry, with only very rare and limited breaches compared to the exponentially bigger data breaches from financial institutions. Second, the reporting of information flows only from financial institutions to the IRS and not in the other direction, as some earlier proposals had called for.  [...] The Biden administrations bank reporting proposal is a critical element of the Build Back Better agenda. It gives the IRS some visibility into opaque forms of income that disproportionately accrue to high-income individuals. Despite fearmongering from bank lobbies, the proposal protects taxpayers privacy while simply requiring banks to provide basic, aggregated information about flows. That enables the IRS to select audits in a more efficient and equitable way so that the vast majority of taxpayers will be less likely to be audited. And by deterring and helping catch tax cheats, the proposal raises substantial revenue for the Build Back Better agenda, which provides critical investments to increase economic opportunities for American families and communities. On Oct. 12, 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended the proposal in response to a question from a reporter, who said, "[Banks] are concerned about the tracking of transactions that are greater than $600, Americans are starting to get worried about this. Do you think [this] is going to stay in the Reconciliation Bill?"  defended "With all due respect, the plural of anecdote is not data," Pelosi said. "Yes, there are concerns that some people have. But if people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure. I think $600  that's a negotiation that will go on as to what the amount is. But yes."     Whatever the impact of this proposal is, it does require additional reporting of certain bank transactions, just not in the way the above banks are portraying it. As such, we rate this claim a Mixture. A Scorecard for Reconciliation, Round 2. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/featured-analysis/scorecard-reconciliation-round-2/2021/09/10/783l0?highlight=biden. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Community Banks Must Engage Customers on New IRS Reporting Mandates. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/blogs/main-street-matters---advocacy/2021/08/19/community-banks-must-engage-customers-on-new-irs-reporting-mandates. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Consumer Alert from ICBA. ICBA, https://www.icba.org/bank-locally/consumer-alert-from-icba. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021.Digging Into the Bank Info Reporting Plan. Tax Analysts, https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-global/information-reporting/digging-bank-info-reporting-plan/2021/08/30/777dx. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Fair Market Value (FMV). Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. "General Explanations of the Administrations Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals." Department of the Treasury, May 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Gross Cash Flow Definition. Law Insider, https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/gross-cash-flow. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Hanlon, Seth, and Galen Hendricks. Bank Tax Reporting Is a Critical Component of Bidens Build Back Better Agenda. Center for American Progress, 14 Sept. 2021, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2021/09/14/503821/bank-tax-reporting-critical-component-bidens-build-back-better-agenda/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. ICBA Urges House Panel to Reject IRS Monitoring Plan. Default, https://www.icba.org/newsroom/news-and-articles/2021/09/09/icba-urges-house-panel-to-reject-irs-monitoring-plan. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Jagoda, Naomi. Pelosi Defends IRS Bank-Reporting Proposal, Says Specifics Open to Negotiation. The Hill, 12 Oct. 2021, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/576362-pelosi-defends-irs-bank-reporting-proposal. Joint Trades Statement for the Record: Senate Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Hearing Entitled: Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion." 10 May 2021, https://bpi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Joint-SfR-Senate-Finance-Subcommitte-Hearing-on-Closing-the-Tax-Gap-051021.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Rubin, Orla McCaffrey and Richard. Biden Tax Plan Leans on Banks to Help Find Unreported Income. Wall Street Journal, 29 Apr. 2021. www.wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-tax-plan-leans-on-banks-to-help-find-unreported-income-11619701380. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. Tankersley, Jim, and Dana Goldstein. Biden Details $1.8 Trillion Plan for Workers, Students and Families. The New York Times, 28 Apr. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/biden-american-families-plan.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2021. "When Is a Minimal Fringe Benefit Not So Minimal?" https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/when-is-a-minimal-fringe-benefit-not-so-minimal. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021. Oct. 14, 2021: Added Pelosi's comments on the proposal. 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 October 2020, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump tested positive for COVID-19, a rumor started circulating on social media that the White House gift shop was selling a "Trump Defeats COVID-19" commemorative coin:   WhiteHouseGiftShop.com is selling a "Trump Defeats COVID-19" commemorative coin. However, this website is not the official gift shop of the White House, the government does not dictate what this business sells, and the Trump administration does not make a profit from its sales.  WhiteHouseGiftShop.com This isn't the first time this misleadingly named gift shop has caused confusion online. In April 2020, a similar rumor went viral after social media users claimed that the United States government was selling "Coronavirus Task Force" coins at its gift shop. Again, while the coins were real, the website selling them was not officially affiliated with the government. The website's owner, Anthony Giannini, told us at the time that the White House Gift Shop "is not affiliated with The White House, nor is The White House involved in any of our decisions, products, or operations." While this website does not have any current ties to the government, it does have a long (and somewhat convoluted) history that can reportedly be traced back to the 1950s when U.S. President Truman set up a gift shop in the basement of the White House: While it traces its history to a 1950 authorization by President Harry Truman, the headquarters of the White House Gift Shop has been in Lititz since 2012. Its operated by Lititz (Pennsylvania) resident Anthony Giannini with his wife, Helen. Its very weird and very cool, Giannini says of the shops curious history and its current location. After a failed assassination attempt of Truman in 1950 left one member of White House Police dead, Truman authorized a fund to benefit the family of the slain officer and the others who were injured in the attack by two Puerto Rican nationalists. When the White House Police became the Secret Service, the Truman-authorized fund became the Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund. The fund was replenished from the sale of items from a gift shop originally set up in the basement of the White House but eventually relocated to the nearby executive mansion. While Giannini was granted a trademark to use the name "White House Gift Shop," this business has not been officially affiliated with the government since at least 2012.  Umble, Chad.  "From 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to Warwick Center: How the White House Gift Shop wound up in Lititz."
  Lancaster Online.  27 May 2019. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned about the financial crisis of the 2000s before it happened, she claimed during a CNN town hall where she pitched herself as the best option for president in the 2020 election. Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor, told an audience of college students that her whole lifes work has been about what's happening to working families. And starting in the early 2000s, the crisis was coming. I was waving my arms, ringing the bell, doing everything I could. I said families are getting cheated all over this country,Warren said April 22 in Manchester, N.H.It started when the mortgage companies targeted communities of color. They targeted seniors. They targeted Latinos. They came in and sold the worst possible mortgages and stripped wealth out of those communities, and then took those products across the nation. I went everywhere I could. I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. But nobody wanted to listen, Warren said, so the crisis hit in 2007, 2008, and just took us down. We confirmed that Warren did raise the alarm about the looming housing and financial crisis. She spoke about debt, financial lending practices and other factors affecting families and the economy years before the financial crisis peaked in 2008. Millions of peoplelost their jobs and homes during the recent Great Recession, generally regarded as happening from late 2007 to mid 2009. Experts say the financial crisis resulted from a number ofcolliding factors, including an unsustainable housing boom partly driven by an easy availability of mortgages, banks taking on too much risk, government policies and lax regulation. Subprime loans  loans at higher interest rates made to people perceived to be at greater risk for defaulting on loans (including families with low and moderate income and poor credit histories)  played a key role in the housing crisis. Warrens presidential campaigncitedseveralblogpostsand comments to media outlets in 2005 and 2006, and Warrens 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, as examples of Warren warning about subprime lending and an imminent housing crisis. Warren has represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 2013. Before going to Congress, she taught law at the university level for more than 30 years, most recently at Harvard, specializing in commercial law, contracts, and bankruptcy. Subprime lenders defended their business practices by saying they were helping more families own homes, Warrens book said, but thats little more than public relations hot air. In the overwhelming majority of cases, subprime lenders prey on families that already own their own homes, rather than expanding access to new homeowners. Fully 80 percent of subprime mortgages involve refinancing loans for families that already own their homes,Warren said in the book. For these families, subprime lending does nothing more than increase the family's housing costs, taking resources away from other investments and increasing the chances that the family will lose its home if anything goes wrong. In aJune 2004 interviewwith PBSs NOW host David Brancaccio, Warren spoke about growing household debt, against risky mortgage lending practices and what she regarded as bad advice to Americans by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Warren said Greenspan encouraged families to borrow against their house to pay for basic expenses. I think what the landscape shows is the middle class is under assault in a way that has not happened before in our history, Warren said. Stagnant wages, rising costs, wildly rising debt. It's in everyone's interest to turn that back around. Warrens campaign noted that The New York Times quoted Warren in an October 2005articlethat said homeowners in suburbs were taking on more and more home-equity debt to stay out of bankruptcy. The article said: Professor Warren of Harvard believes that disaster lurks as homeowners borrow against their homes to forestall bankruptcy. When the stock market tumbled five years ago, people in trouble could sell stocks to stay afloat, she said. But home equity doesn't work the same way. As she put it, You can't sell a part of your home like you could a stock in the stock market bubble. Warren told the newspaper that after a new bankruptcy law went into effect that month, filing for bankruptcy would become more difficult: And that means more families are set up to lose their homes. Warren was substantially correct in herassessmentthat home prices were going up rapidly relative to incomes (particularly for households with a one wage earner), said Ed Pinto, co-director of the Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. But Pinto disagrees with Warren about what caused the crisis. Warren blames banks and lenders, when in fact Congress andgovernment policiesaimed at making homes more affordable are the root cause, Pinto said. (Check out our2008 in-depth analysison the causes of the financial crisis and how that issue was debated in the 2008 presidential campaign. Then, both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama said they sounded warnings, and both blamed the other for helping cause the crisis.) Warren was also a vocal opponent of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, because she thought the law would hurt consumers, said Deborah Goldstein, an executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending, which advocates for consumer financial protections. Risingcredit card debthurt Americans already struggling with mortgage payments. I remember (Warren) talking about credit card abuses and how they were harming families, Goldstein said. People were using credit to manage basic daily expenses. Goldstein said that her group, also concerned about the imminent financial crisis, in the early 2000s communicated with Warren on what could be done about it. I'd give then-professor Warren the credit for banging the drum and ringing the bell early on unfair financial practices, said Ed Mierzwinski, senior director of the Federal Consumer Program at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Warren was the No. 1 go-to academic expert in the mid-to-late '90s and 2000s in the debate over changes to the bankruptcy code, he said. Warren in January 2007testifiedbefore the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, saying that the credit card market was broken and hurt consumers. Warren was chosen in 2008 to lead theCongressional Oversight Panel, established by Congress to review the state of the financial markets and the regulatory system. Warren also helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau emerged from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, designed to enforce federal consumer financial laws and protect consumers. In 2013 and 2014, Goldstein's groupcollaborated with the CFPBin drafting payday lending rules. Speaking of the financial crisis that gained traction in 2007, Warren said, I talked about it to anyone who would listen, a crisis is coming. There is documented evidence that Warren spoke against risky mortgage lending practices, rising debt and other factors that contributed to the financial and housing crisis years before it materialized. We rate Warren's claim True. Examples: [Hepburn, 2005] Stray dogs are being skewered on hooks and dragged behind boats as live shark bait. The cruel practice takes place on French-controlled Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, where Prince William spent two holidays. A six-month-old labrador pup was recently found ALIVE with a huge double hook through its snout  like the dog above  and another through a leg. The pup was found in a coastal creek and is thought to have somehow freed itself from a fishing line. But other dogs and kittens have been chomped up and swallowed by sharks. The RSPCA plans to petition the French government, demanding an end to the hideous torture.  [Collected on the Internet, September 2012] PETITION: Please help stop French Islander and Mexican fishermen using live dogs and kittens as shark bait To: The French and Mexican Governments We have to stop this PLEASE help! French Islanders using live puppies and kittens as shark bait?? Please stop this senseless abuse to innocent puppies and kittens. French Islander and Mexican fishermen are using LIVE puppies and kittens as shark bait!! No living being should have to undergo this torture and insurmountable fear! This is inhumane and must stop NOW. Together we can make a difference and let our voice be heard as ONE. Please sign this petition and please pass this along. Thank you for caring. Blessed be Currently the penalty is only 2 years and $36,000 that is far too little for such a heinous crime. We urge that you raise the penalty to 10 years in prison with NO parole and a fine of $100,000. This will hopefully act as a deterrent and will stop these horrendous acts against innocent animals. Please do the right thing and help us stop these people. Islanders on the French controlled Reunion Island have been using live dogs as shark bait. The Sun claims that a six-month-old labrador pup was recently found alive with a huge double hook through its snout  like the dog above  and another through a leg. It is also claimed that local fisherman have also been using kittens! Reunion Island is an overseas dpartements of France and an official region of France, giving it the same status as a province or state in other countries. The claim that live dogs (and cats) were being used as bait by shark fisherman on Runion Island (a French-controlled territory just off the coast of Southern Africa in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar) started hitting the world press in August 2005 and picked up steam in early October 2005, when it was reported by publications such as the UK's Sun (an excerpt from which is quoted at the head of this page) and Sweden's Aftonbladet, complete with a heart-rending picture of a purported "bait dog" with a large hook through its muzzle. Animal rights groups such as the RSPCA have taken up the cause of putting a stop to the horrible practice. Runion Island Sun Aftonbladet RSPCA Many observers remain skeptical of such claims, however, positing theories that range from media and animal rights groups having been taken in by a hoax to a deliberate disinformation campaign being waged by activists who seek to end the slaughter of sharks for their fins and cartilage by Indian Ocean fisherman. Arguments have flown back and forth over the practicality and plausibility (or lack thereof) of Runion Islanders fishing for sharks in the manner described. activists A 2006 Runion newspaper article acknowledged the practice and reported the recent prosecution of a deliveryman (and amateur fisherman) on that island over animal cruelty charges associated with the described activity, suggesting that although there may be some truth to the shark-fishing claim, the practice does not appear to be as widespread or horrific (or tolerated) as implied by news reports in the foreign press. Rather than describing hordes of shark fisherman impaling live dogs on hooks and dragging them behind boats as shark bait, the article noted that employing dogs in shark-fishing was largely the province of a small group of amateur fisherman rather than large numbers of professionals, that the dogs used were generally dead animals picked up from roadsides or culled from the island's large population of unwanted strays (estimated at 150,000), and that the no-longer-alive animals were attached to unattended buoyed "shark trap" platforms rather than dragged alive behind boats. article The French embassy in Washington, D.C., also maintained that although the practice was not unknown, its occurrence and acceptance was not nearly as prevalent as recent news reports had made it seem: Dear Sir/Madam,Thank you for writing to us with your concerns. We too denounce the barbaric practices you refer to. Such acts are obviously illegal and will not be tolerated on French territory. But while we share your revulsion, we would like to emphasize that the practice of using live dogs or cats as shark bait is in fact exceptional and isolated. It was never widespread nor traditional, but introduced by ruthless individuals, and has been strictly banned for decades now. TV reports that raised initial indignation when they were aired in France and abroad in 2005 were filmed locally in 2003 following the discovery of a mutilated dog. The last few months have seen two identical events which received heavy media coverage (one of these events was soon determined to be a false alarm). But can these vile occurrences lead us to conclude that there is an ongoing tradition of barbarism on Reunion Island? Reunion Island, a French territory and a European region, obeys the laws and regulations of the French Republic and the European Union. It respects the rule of law and does not practice inhumane ancestral practices. The facts that elicited your complaint are the act of a few isolated, irresponsible parties who are being sought by the police and will be brought to justice. The authorities on the island are closely monitoring the situation; one person is in custody and appeared in court on Friday September 30, 2005. All suspicions of such acts will be investigated, and animal protection organizations that have any specific information on these matters are strongly encouraged to inform French police authorities. The French minister for agriculture and fisheries, Dominique Bussereau, is fully aware of the media and public outcry regarding this issue, and has written to the French National Assembly to emphasize that several measures have been taken to strengthen already existing laws. Veterinarians have been directed to immediately report any suspicious wounds to authorities, and the police will increase their inspections of fishing and pleasure vessels. Meanwhile, a sterilization campaign, launched in 2001 to reduce the number of stray dogs and cats on the island, continues. Animal rights are an important issue in France: over half of French households have at least one pet, and France has some of the world's most stringent animal rights legislation. French law provides for the prosecution of those who are cruel to animals. Voluntary cruelty to animals is punishable by a sentence of two years in prison and a 30,000 euro fine (equivalent to about $36,000). Sincerely, Press Office.Cordialement / RegardsService de Presse et d'Information / Press & Information ServiceAmbassade de France / Embassy of FranceWashington, D.C. The photo displayed at the top of this page, which has adorned several news articles and humane society-related web pages on this topic, is a frame from a 2005 video produced by the 30 Million Friends Foundation. The video purportedly documents the case of a dog that had escaped from fishermen who planned to use it as shark bait; skeptics have questioned the authenticity of the video, maintaining that it merely shows the aftermath of an accidental entanglement that has been mistakenly or deceptively misused for publicity's sake. video A similar video purporting to document the practice using kittens as shark bait appears to be a hoax, intercutting shots of kittens' being dunked in water and dangled from wires with unrelated footage of ocean fishing activity:  Hepburn, Ian.  Dogs Used as Shark Bait.
 The Sun. 1 October 2005. Mott, Maryann.  Dogs Used as Shark Bait on French Island.
 National Geographic News. 19 October 2005. Aftonbladet. Valpen Skulle Bli Hajmat.
  2 October 2005. Clicanoo. Lhomme, Le Meilleur Ennemi du Chien.
  30 September 2005. In early September 2018, an image purportedly showing the Nike "swoosh" symbol on the tag of a "Make America Great Again" hat started spreading online:   The image was posted in the midst of a controversy over former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's involvement in a new advertising campaign for Nike, a sports apparel company. Kaepernick made headlines in 2016 by kneeling during pregame renditions of the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality. controversy 2016 The "take a knee" protests, which caught on with other NFL players and spread to athletes in other sports, were viewed by some (including President Trump) as unpatriotic and disrespectful to veterans. So when Kaepernick showed up in Nike's 0th anniversary "Just Do It" ad campaign, some disgruntled consumers took to social media to share photographs and videos of themselves destroying various pieces of Nike apparel to demonstrate their displeasure. destroying It appears that this image of a Nike-branded "Make America Great Again" cap was posted in an attempt to "troll" pro-Trump conservatives who were upset over Kaepernick's endorsement deal ("Make America Great Again," or "MAGA," is a well-known Trump slogan). When the image was shared by Twitter user @Nicoxw1, for example, it included a message facetiously noting that "133,291,000 Americans will have a stroke today." message The image is a hoax, merely a manipulated version of an older viral image showing a "Made in China" tag on a "Make America Great Again" hat. Here's a look at the original photograph, as well as a side-by-side comparison of the Nike MAGA hat image (right) and the original "Made in China" image (left):   It should be noted that while some third-party companies do produce "Make America Great Again" hats in China, the website DonaldJTrump.com, from which customers can purchase official MAGA merchandise, states that all their products are proudly made in U.S.A. third-party companies Sandritter, Mark.  "A Timeline of Colin Kaepernicks National Anthem Protest and the Athletes Who Joined Him."
  SB Nation.  25 September 2017. Abad-Santos, Alex.  "Why the Social Media Boycott Over Colin Kaepernick Is a Win for Nike."
  Vox.  6 September 2018.