Has Education Secretary Betsy DeVos officially listed her yacht in the Cayman Islands?
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been the subject of intense scrutiny since even before her appointment, both about her qualifications and positions on education policy and also about her (and her family's) financial connections, investments, and donations. qualifications connections donations That scrutiny continued in August 2018, when the investigative web site Capital & Main published a report detailing the registration and management of a yacht associated with the DeVos family: report When someone untied a yacht owned by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVoss family, Fox News portrayed the episode as an illustration of uncouth anti-Trump sentiment. The yachts foreign flag, though, was an illustration of how an allegedly America First administration is chock-full of moguls who have eagerly stashed their wealth offshore -- as long as doing so means avoiding taxes, regulations, transparency requirements and domestic employment laws. ... When her familys 164-foot yacht was untied from a Huron, Ohio dock, it was flying a flag of the Cayman Islands, where VesselTracker says the yacht is registered. According to federal records, the yacht is owned by RDV International Marine, which is an affiliate of the company that controls the DeVos familys fortune. ... When buying a vessel or cruising in U.S. waters, American yacht owners like the DeVoses could face state sales or use taxes. However, registering a yacht in a locale like the Caymans  under what has come to be known as a flag of convenience  allows those American yacht owners to effectively characterize themselves as foreigners for tax purposes, thereby avoiding the obligation of paying the standard sales and use levies, while enjoying police and Coast Guard services during times their vessels are untied. The report, which was also published by Newsweek, prompted several memes from left-wing and progressive social media accounts, such as the following Occupy Democrats post: Newsweek Occupy Democrats   "The Other 98%" posted a similar meme of their own: meme   On Facebook, the progressive "Americans for Tax Fairness" coalition posted a meme which claimed that the Cayman Islands registration applied to all the yachts owned by the DeVos family: meme   The yacht in question, Seaquest, is registered in the Cayman Islands, an arrangement that has potentially allowed its owner(s) to avoid paying taxes that they would otherwise face when travelling in the United States. However, it cannot be affirmed with certainty that this was the motivation behind the overseas registration. Furthermore, Betsy DeVos is not the owner of the vessel (although members of her family are), and a spokesperson for the DeVos family's main management company told us that neither she nor her husband Dick was responsible for the decision to register the yacht in the Cayman Islands. The yacht Seaquest is a 164-foot long (50-meter) yacht built by Westport and registered in George Town, the capital of the Cayman Islands. It is owned and managed by R.D.V. International Marine, according to the web site VesselTracker.com. The country's Shipping Registry confirmed to us that Seaquest's official Cayman Island's vessel number is 740641. VesselTracker.com R.D.V. International Marine is an entity of R.D.V. Corporation, the Michigan-registered management company which oversees the substantial financial investments and business interests of the DeVos family, headed by 92-year-old Richard DeVos, a multi-billionaire businessman and one of the co-founders of the "multi-level marketing" giant Amway. registered Dick DeVos (Richard DeVos Jr.), the husband of Betsy DeVos, is a director of R.D.V. Corporation, as is the couple's daughter Elisabeth ("Elissa") Lowery, Dick's sister Suzanne ("Cheri") DeVos, and his brothers Doug and Dan and their wives Maria and Pamella. Betsy DeVos was herself a company director until November 2016, according to her financial disclosure. director disclosure However, Chief Operating Officer of the Windquest Group, Greg McNeilly, told us that Dick and Betsy DeVos are not the owners of Seaquest. (The Windquest Group is a private investment firm founded by Dick DeVos, who is its president. Betsy DeVos was a director at Windquest until November 2016.) This was corroborated by Nick Wasmiller, a spokesperson for R.D.V. Corporation, who told us by email that Seaquest is owned (through R.D.V. International Marine) by Richard DeVos, who previously owned it in conjunction with his wife Helen prior to her death in October 2017: "Dick and Betsy DeVos do not own Seaquest and have never held ownership in the watercraft ... Dick and Betsy DeVos had no role in the registration of Seaquest nor the management of any subsequent efforts to maintain that registration." So the three memes referenced above (from Occupy Democrats, the Other 98% and Americans for Tax Fairness) are factually inaccurate in alleging that Betsy DeVos both owns Seaquest and registered it in the Cayman Islands, or that she registered "her family's fleet of 10 yachts" in the Cayman Islands. The yacht Seaquest is, and has always been, owned by Betsy DeVos' father-in-law, according to spokespersons for two DeVos family companies, and Betsy herself has never made any management or registration decisions about it, according to a spokesperson for R.D.V. Corporation. A 2017 investigation by the Wall Street Journal outlined how the extended DeVos family structures and manages their investments, business interests, and assets, which include nine vessels other than Seaquest: Blue Sky, Quantum Racing, Delta Victor, Reflection, Attitude, Sterling, Windquest, Zorro, and De Lus. investigation In response to our question, Wasmiller confirmed that these other nine vessels are "owned by various DeVos family entities" but said they are "registered in the United States." We checked the U.S. Coast Guard's Vessel Documentation Center database, and found that the nine DeVos family-related vessels listed by the Wall Street Journal are indeed all registered to ports in the United States, specifically in Michigan, Delaware, and Florida. database So the Americans for Tax Fairness meme is also false on the grounds that it claims Betsy DeVos registered "her family's fleet of 10 yachts in the Cayman Islands," but in reality nine of those vessels are registered in the United States, and the one that is registered in the Cayman Islands is not managed or owned by Betsy DeVos. Use tax While Betsy DeVos does not personally own or manage Seaquest, it is possible that its registration in the Cayman Islands, as opposed to the United States, might have allowed its owner, Richard DeVos (via RDV International Marine) to avoid incurring certain taxes (though this is not certain), as Capital & Main reported: reported If the vessel were registered in, say, Grand Rapids, Michigan  the state where RDV is located and that has in the past made an effort to compel yacht owners to pay use taxes  the SeaQuest would likely be subject to Michigans six percent use tax. That would require the DeVos empire to cough up about $2.4 million ... The figure of $2.4 million represents six percent of $40 million, which is the estimated value given to Seaquest in several news reports, including Capital & Main's investigation. The source of that evaluation is not clear, with many articles describing the yacht as being "reportedly valued at $40 million," without providing any attribution for that number. We found one online broker selling a brand-new 164-foot Westport yacht (like Seaquest) for $42.5 million, and another 2013 listing for a similar vessel which presented a sale price of $34 million. Seaquest was built in 2008, so it's possible its purchase price was lower than $40 million.  yacht listing Furthermore, it's unclear whether Seaquest would actually incur a tax liability even if it were registered in Michigan.  What's in question here is a type of taxation called "use tax," which applies to tangible products and entities that are brought into and used or consumed in a particular jurisdiction (in this case the state of Michigan), in circumstances where sales tax does not apply. Section 205.93 of Michigan's Compiled Laws states that: states There is levied upon and there shall be collected from every person in this state a specific tax, including both the local community stabilization share and the state share, for the privilege of using, storing, or consuming tangible personal property in this state at a total combined rate equal to 6% of the price of the property or services ... So, in principle at least, if you own a yacht that is habitually docked or sailed in Michigan, that is likely to be regarded as storage or usage, and you would owe the state of Michigan use tax of six percent of the price of the yacht. However, certain exemptions from this use tax exist when the property is purchased outside Michigan, is "used solely for personal, nonbusiness purposes," and "the property is purchased by a person who is not a resident of this state at the time of purchase and is brought into this state more than 90 days after the date of purchase" or "the property is purchased by a person who is a resident of this state at the time of purchase and is brought into this state more than 360 days after the date of purchase." We don't know whether Richard DeVos was a resident of Michigan at the time he bought Seaquest in 2008, and we don't know how much time elapsed between his purchase of the yacht and its arrival in the state. Therefore, even if Seaquest were registered in Michigan and not the Cayman Islands, it's not certain that vessel would be subject to use tax, although this is certainly a possibility. Wasmiller, on behalf of R.D.V. Corporation, provided an alternative explanation for the decision to register Seaquest in the Cayman Islands: Non-commercial watercraft exceeding 100 feet, such as Seaquest, are commonly registered in the Cayman Islands. The countrys strict safety, manning and operation standards for non-commercial watercraft are widely recognized in international waters and closely align with requirements commonly encountered during global travel. As a result, registration in the Cayman Islands provides for the most efficient entrance and exit of various jurisdictions. In boating terms, its a widely recognized flag -- a significant benefit when traveling internationally, thus the registration of Seaquest there. Also of note, it is the policy of RDV International Marine that all employees aboard Seaquest are eligible to work in the United States, as the boat does periodically enter U.S. waterways. Conclusion The claims contained in the viral memes we listed are based on several assumptions, made without sufficient evidence, and contradicted by spokespersons for Dick and Betsy DeVos and Richard DeVos. First, RDV International Marine owns Seaquest, and RDV International Marine is an entity of RDV Corporation, the DeVos "family office" which oversees the family's substantial business interests, assets and investments. However, even though Betsy DeVos is a former director of RDV Corporation, and her family members are closely intertwined with the company, this does not mean that every asset owned by every entity of RDV Corporation is also owned (even in part) by every member of the DeVos family. It is a family company, but it is not a co-op. This logical and evidentiary leap is also directly contradicted by spokespersons for two DeVos-related companies, who stated on the record that Richard DeVos owns Seaquest, and that neither Betsy nor Dick DeVos have ever owned even part of it nor have ever made decisions about its management and registration. Second, there is a significant evidentiary leap from the fact that one DeVos-related yacht is registered in the Cayman Islands to the claim that 10 DeVos-related vessels are registered there. This is factually inaccurate. Nine of the vessels listed as DeVos assets in a Wall Street Journal article are registered in the United States. And finally, there is an assumption (albeit a more reasonable one) involved in the claim that registering Seaquest in the Cayman Islands allows its owner(s) to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Michigan state law allows for certain exemptions from the obligation to pay "use tax," and it cannot be said with certainty that Richard DeVos, the owner of Seaquest, did not meet the criteria for those exemptions. The claim that the tax obligation allegedly being avoided amounts to $2.4 million is also based on an assumption about the price of the yacht itself, which is not known for certain. Emery, David. "Meet Betsy DeVos, Trump's Secretary of Education Nominee."
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  Snopes.com.  11 July 2018. Sirota, David.  "Forget Old Glory -- Why Betsy DeVos's Family Yacht and Others Fly Foreign Flags."
  Capital & Main.  7 August 2018. DeVos, Elisabeth P.  "Executive Branch Personnel, Public Financial Disclosure Report."
  U.S. Office of Government Ethics.  19 January 2017. Das, Anupreeta, and Jean Eaglesham.  "Look Inside the DeVos Family Office."
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  Michigan Legislature.  Accessed 17 August 2018.
In an advertisement urging lawmakers to fund public education, the Texas Association of School Boards bullets a half dozen claims about the states public schools ranging from current student enrollment to a reminder that legislators cut education aid in 2011.One claim in the ad, whichappears onlineand also filled a page in the April 24, 2013,Austin American-Statesman, was especially familiar--and flawed.Now Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states, the ad said when we looked.A few days earlier, werated as Mostly Truea similar claim by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who like the school boards group depended on preliminary spending estimates calculated by the National Education Association, the nations largest teachers union. In February 2012, the association said that Texas schools are spending $8,400 per student this year on items such as salaries for school personnel, student transportation, school books and energy. Its breakdown suggests Texas per-student expenditures trailed such spending in every state but two.Those calculations place Texas 48th among the states in per-student spending.And how might someone conclude, like the school boards association, that Texas ranks 49th? The compiled figures, shown on Summary Table K in the associations report, downloadablehere, reflect spending within each state plus schools in the District of Columbia, which has current estimated expenditures of more than $14,000 per student. Consequently, the Texas spending level falls 49th among the 50 states plus D.C. By phone, Catherine Clark, associate executive director of the school boards association, confirmed that the group relied on the NEA calculations in declaring Texas as 49th in education spending among the states. If spending in the D.C. schools figures into that conclusion, Clark said, then were wrong.Our rulingThe group said Texas ranks 49th in per-pupil funding among the states.Texas ranks 48th among the states, according to preliminary figures, and 49th only if one also considers spending in the schools in Washington, D.C., which is not a state.This claim is close to accurate, but without the D.C. clarification, it rates as Mostly True. The late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., known for his eloquence and ability to mobilize the masses throughout the Civil Rights era, is often incorrectly credited for quotes that he never said. One of the most famous lines attributed to King is typically quoted as "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In January 2024, this quote was even posted on the official X (formerly Twitter) page of the State of Israel. "???????? ?????? ????? ??? ????????, ???? ????? ??? ?? ????. ???? ?????? ????? ??? ????, ???? ???? ??? ?? ????." - ?????? ?????? ???? ??. Today we mark Martin Luther King pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r pic.twitter.com/QJaIbnF42r  Israel  ?? (@Israel) January 15, 2024 January 15, 2024 These words were indeed written by King. However, for more than a decade now, there has been confusion as to the precise wording of the quote. In 2011, following the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, a version of the quote went viral on the internet. It stated: "I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Given that if followed the controversial killing of bin Laden, the quote spread across the internet at an impressive reach, especially for the time. Penn Jillette, a famous magician and outspoken libertarian, tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers, and it only continued to go viral from there. tweeted the quote to his 1.6 million Facebook followers Questions about whether the quote was presented accurately were picked up by The Atlantic, NPR, and other news outlets. They found the wording was correct except for the very first sentence, which was not found in King's speeches or writings: "I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." The Atlantic NPR As it turns out, however, Jillette was only a perpetuator  not the originator  of the erroneous version of the quote. Before Jillette shared it, Facebook user Jessica Dovey quoted the King passage correctly on her status, but prefaced it with a sentence expressing her own personal thoughts: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." She distinguished her own thoughts from King's via an opening quotation mark, which was dropped somewhere along the line as it picked up internet traction. on her status  (Image via The Atlantic) The complete quote by King, which can be found in his 1963 book "Strength to Love," read as follows: "Strength to Love," Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says Love your enemies, he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemiesor else? The chain reaction of evilhate begetting hate, wars producing more warsmust be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Commenters on Israel's X post quoting King were quick to point to a clarification provided by Bernice King, MLK's youngest daughter, on Oct. 31, 2023, in regard to her father's stance on Israel. ? Amy: Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israels bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released https://t.co/haahcqcuAf https://t.co/haahcqcuAf  Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 1, 2023 November 1, 2023 We've previously written on other rumors related to King, including whether the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself and whether King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth. rumors related to King the FBI sent a letter telling him to kill himself paid the hospital bill for actress Julia Robert's birth.  Grant, Drew. Penn Jillette Explains the Fake Martin Luther King Jr.: I Made a Mistake.Salon, 3 May 2011, https://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/fake_mlj_quote_osama_death/. Https://Twitter.Com/BerniceKing/Status/1719524029600612666.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1719524029600612666. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Https://Twitter.Com/Israel/Status/1746912379667890196.X (Formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/Israel/status/1746912379667890196. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. Jr, Martin Luther King.Strength to Love. Beacon Press, 2019. Loving Your Enemies, Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024. McArdle, Megan. Anatomy of a Fake Quotation.The Atlantic, 3 May 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/. Peralta, Eyder. As The Bin Laden Story Raced Online, A Tale Of Two Misattributed Quotes.NPR, 3 May 2011.NPR, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/05/04/135965263/as-the-bin-laden-story-raced-online-a-tale-of-two-misattributed-quotes. 5 Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes People Think He Said but Actually Didnt.Yahoo News, 17 Jan. 2016, http://news.yahoo.com/5-martin-luther-king-jr-121303266.html. A new political mailer from the Committee to Protect Florida attacks State House District 45 candidate Kathryn Starkey of New Port Richey for her record on taxes, citing her role on a water district board and her support of the Penny for Pasco, a 2004 increase in the county sales tax.The committee is headed up by Rockie Pennington, a political consultant for Richard Corcoran, one of Starkeys two opponents in the Aug. 24 Republican primary. (Fabian Calvo is also on the ballot. )Taxin Kathryn, says the mailer sent in early August 2010. With Kathryn Starkeys record on taxes here at home, how can we trust her -- or afford her -- in Tallahassee?We wondered, can you trust the mailers claims? We looked at three claims, and this Truth-O-Meter item tackles her attendance at meetings. Other items arehereon her voting record for river board tax rates, andhereon her actions involving the Pasco sales tax.We looked at the claim that As a member of the Pinellas-Anclote River Basin Board, Kathryn Starkey had the opportunity to fight for lower taxes in 14 separate budget meetings between 2002 and 2008. But ... She only attended half of those meetings!Pennington said he based that claim on minutes from the basin boards meetings. We took a look, too.We looked at two budget meetings each year: June, when the basin board typically sets its preliminary tax rate, and August, when it takes a final vote. (In 2007, the final vote was taken in July. )Starkey served on the board from June 2002 through April 2008, so we looked only at the 12 budget-related meetings that fell within that period. (Pennington, who put together his mailer a month ago, said he wasnt sure why we came up with different counts for the meetings. )Of 12 budget meetings she could have attended, Starkey attended seven (five of those seven were the final votes). That attendance record is more than half  by a hair.We rate this claim Mostly True. At several points in his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama noted the importance of manufacturing to the nations economy.Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing, Obama said. After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three. Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. After locating plants in other countries like China, Intel is opening its most advanced plant right here at home. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again.The claim about job numbers is an update of a line Obama included in his acceptance speech at the 2012 Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C. We checked that one and rated itTrue.The main difference between Obamas two versions was that the timeline in the most recent claim has been extended by six months.Because of the wording of his claim, we are examining whether the numbers are right, not whether Obama's policies were instrumental. To check the numbers, we turned to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal governments official source for employment numbers. We used seasonally adjusted statistics for manufacturing jobs.Shedding jobs for more than 10 yearsIts not news that manufacturing jobs have been in decline in the United States in recent years, though sometimes with ups and downs. Generally, the decline has been due to broad economic shifts both inside and outside the United States, as well as changes in technology. Manufacturings share of U.S. employment was 29 percent in 1960, but it fell to just 9 percent by 2011. Even the raw numbers of manufacturing jobs fell over that period -- from 15.7 million to 11.7 million -- despite a large expansion of the overall U.S. workforce.Between March and April 1998 and December 2009 -- the decade-plus that Obama appears to be referring to -- manufacturing employment fell from 17.6 million to 11.5 million, a decline of just over one-third. So Obamas correct that manufacturing jobs had been shedding jobs for more than 10 years by the time he took office.Added about 500,000 jobs over the past three yearsDuring the period Obama chose -- from January 2010 to January 2013 -- manufacturing jobs began to rise again, by 490,000. We think that qualifies as about 500,000, as Obama put it.Its worth noting that while the reversal has been striking, this rise has still replaced only a fraction of the manufacturing jobs lost during the decade of decline. The manufacturing jobs gained during the turnaround replaced less than 10 percent of the jobs lost during the decade of decline.Our rulingThe rise in manufacturing jobs that Obama is referring to is modest compared to the prior decades decline, but he has described the numbers carefully. We rate his statement True. Claim:  Barack Obama filed a lawsuit to require banks to "make loans to poor people." false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] In 1994, a class-action lawsuit was filed against CitiBank, demanding that loans be made to poor people, and others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back. The basis of the lawsuit was the 14th Amendment, which requires 'fair and equal' treatment for all citizens. The legal theory was that failing to loan money to poor/indigent/unemployed people was, on it's face, a discriminatory act by lending institutions. Thousands of loans were processed, and of course many went into default, in part explaining why we're in the financial mess we're in. Now, it's easy for some people to point the finger of blame at Pres. Geo. Bush for this crisis, because he's sitting in the hot seat. What many people don't know is the suit was filed during the Clinton Administration. The lawyer filing the suit was none other than: Barak Hussein Obama. Origins:  This item seeks to dump much of the blame for America's current economic woes on Barack Obama by claiming that as a young lawyer, Obama filed a lawsuit requiring financial institutions to lend money to"poor people" and "others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back."  Although there is a (very) vague element of fact underneath this politicking, the piece quoted above is woefully wrong in all its particulars. The 1994 case of Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank had nothing to do with requiring lenders to do business with people "who could not show proof that they could pay the money  Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank back."  The case was a class-action lawsuit against Citibank Federal Savings initiated by a black Chicago woman, Selma Buycks-Roberson, who claimed she was unfairly denied a mortgage based on her race.  The lawsuit sought to end the practice of redlining, a discriminatory practice by which banks, insurance companies, and other business institutions refuse or limit loans, mortgages, insurance, etc., based solely on the geographic area in which the applicant lives (a practice that commonly excludes minorities in inner-city neighborhoods, regardless of their income or ability to pay).  Specifically, the lawsuit charged that Citibank "rejected loan applications of minority applicants while approving loan applications filed by white applicants with similar financial characteristics and credit histories."  The case was eventually settled out of court, with some class members receiving cash payments and Citibank agreeing to help ease the way for low- and moderate-income people to apply for mortgages. redlining Although Barack Obama was involved with the Buycks-Roberson case, he did not file the lawsuit, nor was he the lead attorney in the matter.  He was a junior member of an eight-lawyer team that worked on the case: Obama admits he played a mostly behind-the-scenes role at his law firm, Miner Barnhill & Galland. He researched the law, drafted motions, prepared for depositions and did other less glamorous work during his three years full-time and eight years "of counsel" to the firm.  "He wrote lots of substantial memos, but he didn't try any cases," said Judson Miner, a partner in the firm who was Obama's boss. Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods. "I don't recall him ever standing up and giving an impassioned speech  it was a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff," said Fay Clayton, the lead lawyer on the case. "He was the very junior lawyer in that case," said attorney Robert Kriss. "He had just graduated from law school. I don't recall him being in court at any time I was there. I was the lead lawyer for Citibank and he was not very visible to me." Kriss, Clayton and every other co-counsel and opposing counsel interviewed for this story praised Obama's legal ability, temperament and everything about his courtroom demeanor, even though, they agree, he didn't say much in the courtroom.  On Feb. 23, 1995, Obama billed 2 hours and 50 minutes for an appearance before Judge Ruben Castillo on behalf of his client, and also for reviewing some documents in advance of a deposition. That cost Citibank  which ultimately had to pay the winning side's fees  $467 at Obama's hourly rate of $165. Miner commanded the higher rate of $285 an hour. During his appearance before the judge, Obama said he would need more time to file a response to a motion, and the judge agreed. That was all Obama said during the half-hour hearing. His final bill on the case was 138 hours, or $23,000. Last updated:  5 September 2012    Associated Press.  "Some Cases Obama Worked on in His Career as an Attorney."   20 February 2007. Revelations came to light in fall 2019 that U.S. President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate current Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and his son. In response, the presidents defenders have highlighted a May 4, 2018, letter signed by three Democratic senators to Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor general of Ukraine (a similar role to the U.S. attorney general), as evidence that claims of improper behavior are misplaced. The letter was notably described by Washington Post columnist Marc Theisen as betraying a double standard. have highlighted letter notably described This sentiment was amplified by several media outlets, as well as a viral tweet (retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.) from the Twitter account Comfortably Smug, which according to BuzzFeed News is run by a Republican political consultant and deliberate spreader of false information: retweeted run by   Several reasons exist why the above tweet and associated sentiment are incorrect and misleading. At the top of that list is the fact that the letter in question did not concern a request to investigate Trump, nor did it request the opening of any investigation. letter Instead, it requested information on why Ukrainian special prosecutor Serhiy Horbatyuk (who serves in a special prosecutor role charged with investigating corruption cases linked to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich) had been prohibited from issuing subpoenas for evidence or interviewing witnesses in four existing investigations into former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort. Manafort, prior to joining the Trump campaign, had worked as a political consultant for Yanukovich and his political party. The four investigations involved money that flowed either to Manafort for this consulting work or to a law firm working with Manafort and others to improve Yanukovichs image in the West. They did not involve Trump. consultant law firm The three Democratic senators  then-Foreign Affairs Committee members Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy  were responding to a May 2, 2018, New York Times report that the four Manafort investigations in Ukraine were specifically singled out from a docket of nearly 3,000 corruption cases in Horbatyuks portfolio to be blocked from issuing subpoenas and interviewing witnesses. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in his charge to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was investigating Manafort in part because of concerns that he owed substantial funds to Russian oligarchs as a result of this consulting work, potentially giving them leverage over him as he ran Trump's campaign. The reason Ukrainian officials impeded the investigation was no secret, according to the Times  it was to placate the Trump administration, which opposed the Mueller probe: report as a result according Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament who is an ally of [now former] President Petro O. Poroshenko, readily acknowledged that the intention in Kiev was to put investigations into Mr. Manaforts activities in the long-term box. In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials, Mr. Ariev said in an interview. We shouldnt spoil relations with the administration. These discussions came at a complicated time for Ukraine, a country that has been fighting Russian aggression and that had been in the process of securing arms from the United States. The decision to halt the investigations by an anti-corruption prosecutor was handed down as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins, the Times reported. reported Far from requesting an investigation, the senators requested answers to three specific questions from a specific Ukrainian government official: specific questions Manafort broadly admitted to involvement in activities related to those four Ukrainian probes via a September 2018 guilty plea. admitted Even ignoring the allegedly implied quid pro quo in the Trump-Zelensky call, a comparison between the senators request for information from the chief Ukrainian law enforcement official and Trumps requests of Zelensky is problematic. As senators on the Committee on Foreign Relations, which not only provides oversight for arms deals but also general oversight of Americas relationships with its allies, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy were acting within their constitutional rights and obligations as official representatives of the U.S. government with oversight responsibility over the executive branch. for arms deals constitutional rights Conversely, in his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump explicitly requested that the Ukrainian president meet with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani  an unelected private citizen without a security clearance or oversight from anyone but Trump  to initiate investigations into a disparate set of claims whose sole unifying feature is that they concern Trumps political rivals: the Democratic National Committee and the Biden family. disparate set of claims Because the letter at issue did not actually demand an investigation into Trump or even compel initiation of any investigation, we rank the claim that Democrats asked Ukraine to investigate Trump in 2018 as false. DailyWire.com.  Double Standard: Senate Democrats Asked Ukraine To Help Them Investigate Trump.
  25 September 2019. Pollack, Joel B.  Democrats Wrote to Ukraine in May 2018, Demanding It Investigate Trump.
  Breitbart News. &nbsp 24 September 2019. foreign.senate.gov.  Letter to Yuriy Lutsenko.
  4 May 2018. Thiessen, Marc A.  Democrats Double Standard on Ukraine.
  The Washington Post. 24 September 2019. Stuef, Jack.  The Man Behind @ComfortablySmug, Hurricane Sandy's Worst Twitter Villain.
  BuzzFeed News.  30 October 2012. Kramer, Andrew E.  Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation With Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 2 May 2018. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  1:17:cr-00201-ABJ #423 Statement of the Offenses and Other Acts.
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  Updated 14 August 2019. Graham, David, A..  Trumps Incriminating Conversation With the Ukrainian President.
  The Atlantic.  25 September 2019. Vogel, Kenneth and Matthew Goldstein.  How Skadden, the Giant Law Firm, Got Entangled in the Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 24 February 2019. Claim: A real-life tour guide for inner city children compiled their humorous observations for a blog called Ghetto Hikes.  Origins: In March 2015, social media sharing sites including the Meta Picture and DumpADay published articles curating content from an older blog called Ghetto Hikes, which was a set of social media accounts that was briefly popular in 2012 before its creators suddenly stopped updating it. published articles  Ghetto Hikes was initially described as a blog inspired by the comments of inner city children during trips to the country. The site's creator, who identified himself as "Cory," described the children as "urban" and explained: I'm 28. I have a full time job leading urban kids on nature hikes. I simply write down shit they say. email: ghettohikes@gmail.com The description was later updated to include the modifier "of all races" following "urban kids" after readers opined that "urban" was a code word for black. A Twitter account for Ghetto Hikes was last updated on 22 February 2012 and its final tweets were representative of humor many readers likened to a minstrel show: account "E.J. back there havin' a starin' contest with da sun, slowin' down the whole pack ... homeboy shoulda gone to Space Camp." "Mr. Cody, I ain't no snitch or nuffin' but Denny back there shovin' colored rocks in his pockets. Homie lootin' the forest!" "Is rabbits eatable? Or you just s'posed to cuddle the fuck outta them?" "Yo Mr. Cody, how many these mushrooms I gotta eat fo' I Super Mario da fuck outta dis place?" "I thought Lamar done snuck his puppy Jason on da trip ... turns out that crazy ass just makin' shadow puppets." Ghetto Hikes was briefly popular in the online world throughout January and February of 2012, but readers quickly became suspicious about the veracity of its content. Several critics observed that the premise of Ghetto Hikes (i.e., inner city youth outreach) created a convenient excuse for readers to laugh at thinly-veiled racist jokes that would otherwise be deemed offensive or unacceptable. observed The sudden interest generated by Ghetto Hikes brought with it scrutiny of who was behind the briefly popular social media phenomenon. The cessation of those accounts on or around 22 February 2012 coincided with at least two articles that revealed its connection to other humor sites, Lamebook and MensHumor, as explained by the Daily Dot: @HumorForMens tweeted a screenshot of the domain-name registration for MensHumor.com, an apparently related site. The man behind the account? Jonathan Standefer. According to the domain search conducted by @HumorForMens, Standefer registered the MensHumor.com domain name and most likely tweets from the corresponding Twitter account. We used the Whois search tool on InterNIC's domain-name registry also, but it now comes up as private. But the date Standefer registered the website is the same in the screenshot: Aug. 15, 2011. He also registered GhettoHikes.com, which has a Twitter account of the same name. @GhettoHikes is an offensive, racist account from "Cody" who leads hikes for "urban kids." The tweets are essentially the 21st century version of the racist "blackface" films produced during the Jim Crow era. Some screenshots of the purported domain registration were circulated before it was amended in order to conceal information about the site's registrant to new queries. Ghetto Hikes hasn't been updated since those details came to light in early 2012, but the site's content has been intermittently revived on Twitter and Facebook by users newly discovering it. screenshots Despite its continued circulation, Ghetto Hikes was just a hoax consisting of fabricated quotes based upon things that some people believed inner city children might say.    Last updated:  3 February 2016   Valinsky, Jordan.  "The Hater: Exposing the Man Behind @MensHumor"   Daily Dot.  22 February 2012. In late October 2021, a misleading copypasta meme spread on Facebook that attributed port bottlenecks and shipping delays to "California's liberal trucking laws." The meme circulated on various platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Here is a version of the meme that was posted to Facebook:   The meme above reads, in part: So ships are piling up at Long Beach waiting to get unloaded. The port is jammed full of containers with no place to stack more. The liberal media is blaming it on the trucking industry while the nation's store shelves are becoming bare ... Well there's more to the story. Could Gavin Newsom and California's liberal trucking laws be the blame ? ? The NEWS says the California port situation is caused by a driver shortage. Not so fast: It is in part caused by a California Truck Ban which says all trucks must be 2011 or newer and a law called AB 5 which prohibits Owner Operators. The two state laws mentioned are AB5, a 2019 law intended to prevent employers from wrongly classifying workers as contractors, and something called "California Truck Ban." The meme also mentions a September 2020 executive order by California Gov. Gavin Newsom that seeks to phase out fuel-burning vehicle engines by 2035 in an effort to combat global warming. AB5 executive order The meme is referencing congestion at the ports in San Pedro Bay in Southern California and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which collectively handle an estimated 40 percent of the nation's imports. The back-up is resulting in something of a crisis in shipping delays right before the 2021 winter holidays. congestion 40 percent crisis The meme above attempts to lay the blame for the crisis at the feet of Newsom, along with California labor and environmental laws. But from a broad perspective, the disruption in the supply chain is a global phenomenon sparked by a confluence of major calamities in 2020 and 2021, including labor shortages, facility closures, and an increased e-commerce demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather, and a massive container ship that had become lodged in the Suez Canal for nearly a week. global phenomenon Here we will look at whether the two laws and executive order mentioned in the meme are to blame for the slowdown at the Southern California ports. There is no law called the "California Truck Ban." But from the description above  that "all trucks must be 2011 or newer"  it appears the post is referencing the California Truck and Bus Regulation. That regulation doesn't currently block registration of vehicles from the year 2010 and older, however. Regulation The Truck and Bus Regulation requires trucks serving the ports to have engines from 2010 or newer as of Jan. 1, 2023. If they don't, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) would deny registrations to non-compliant vehicles. But the rule, which was adopted in 2008, has taken effect gradually over several years. It's not new, whereas the situation at the L.A. and Long Beach ports in the fall of 2021 is acute. requires In an email, Stanley Young, spokesperson for the California Air Resource Board, told Snopes, "As of 2021 only trucks with engines older than 2005 would have their registration denied." Young added that 96 percent of the trucks currently serving the major ports in California are already compliant with the regulation. "Despite what you may have heard or read, there is simply no evidence to support any claims that the current congestion at our ports has any connection to the states efforts to clean up Californias trucks," Young stated. "Since trucks at major California ports have been required to have 2007 or newer engines since 2014, and since these engines are legal until at least 2023, its impossible that any shortage of vehicles at ports is the result of CARB regulations." Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) is a California law that went into effect in January 2020, although it has faced an onslaught of legal challenges preventing it from being implemented. The law is intended to prevent companies like Uber and Instacart from misclassifying so-called gig workers as independent contractors, rather than employees.  Truckers often operate under an "owner-operator" model, in which they own their own vehicles, which they then use to transport goods as contractors for trucking companies. Both the California Trucking Association (CTA) and freight transport company Cal Cartage Express filed legal challenges against AB 5. Cal Cartage lost its case but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether to hear a petition by CTA. Until it does, AB 5 remains in limbo for the trucking industry. Matt Schrap, CEO of the the Harbor Trucking Association (which represents drayage truck companies serving the ports of L.A. and Long Beach) said it's not a shortage of truckers that's driving the delays, and pointing the finger at AB 5 doesn't take reality into account. Instead, Schrap said that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns spurred an explosion of online buying that ramped up sharply during the pandemic lockdowns, and the ports of L.A. and Long Beach don't have the infrastructure to handle the sudden influx. explosion "Its like jamming ten lanes of freeway traffic into five lanes," Schrap said in a phone interview with Snopes. Currently, the bte noire for truckers and trucking companies at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach is an excess of empty shipping containers piling up at the ports, which often block truckers from picking up and dropping off cargo. "Were struggling with these empty containers," Schrap said. "That is really whats working us over." Schrap said he expects that the situation will start to improve, because with the sudden attention on the issue, officials are taking steps to help resolve it, like placing fees on cargo ship companies that leave behind empty containers, and potentially allowing empty container stacking on empty parcels of land at the ports. placing fees But these are just Bandaids on a larger problem, which is that the Southern California ports need investment in infrastructure to prevent crises like these, Schrap stressed. "Were in this problem because of the underinvestment in the infrastructure that supports the American consumers buying habits," Schrap said. "It's a temporary solution to a longstanding problem." Newsom issued an executive order in September 2020 seeking to phase out gas-burning vehicles by making all new vehicles sold as of 2035 and beyond zero-emission. But Newsom's order wouldn't make the current fuel-powered trucks illegal as of 2035. The executive order explicitly states that while California will require new vehicles sold as of 2035 and beyond to be zero-emission, older vehicles will not be illegal to own and operate, and can still be purchased and sold. executive order A news release from the governor's office announcing the order states, "The executive order will not prevent Californians from owning gasoline-powered cars or selling them on the used car market." FreightWaves. "CTAs Last Hope To Protect California Trucking From AB5: US Supreme Court," 10 August, 2021, https://www.yahoo.com/now/ctas-last-hope-protect-california-184730483.html.  Goodman, Peter S., and Erin Schaff. Its Not Sustainable: What Americas Port Crisis Looks Like Up Close. The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/business/supply-chain-crisis-savannah-port.html. Koetsier, John. COVID-19 Accelerated E-Commerce Growth 4 To 6 Years. Forbes, 12 June 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/06/12/covid-19-accelerated-e-commerce-growth-4-to-6-years/. No SCOTUS Review of California Laws Impact on Trucking Industry. Reuters, 5 Oct. 2021, https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/no-scotus-review-california-laws-impact-trucking-industry-2021-10-04/. Lynch, David J. Stubborn Supply Chain Woes Are Resisting Bidens Remedies. Washington Post, 26 October 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/26/supply-chain-ports-fees-biden/.  Swanson, Ana. Angling for a Merry Fishmas Despite Global Shipping Delays. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/business/economy/global-shipping-delays-shortages.html. Updated to note AB 5 remains in limbo for the trucking industry pending legal actions. On 15 January 2016, Lisa and John Robinson stepped forward as buyers of oneof the $1.6 billion Powerball lottery's three winning tickets: Powerball John Robinson and his wife Lisa bought four tickets at Naifeh's Food Mart, a grocery store one block from their home in Munford, Tennessee, at 6:56 p.m. on Wednesday night. Robinson, a father of two, said he bought the four tickets as he always does to represent the four members of their family, with the computer choosing the winning numbers of 04, 08, 19, 27, 34 and Powerball 10. Shortly after the identity of the winner was revealed, a fake message started circulating, which claimed that the Robinsonswere giving money away to random people on Facebook. As withprevious messages featuring Mark Zuckerbergand Eminem, these Facebook messages are a hoax. John and Lisa Robinson are not giving away money to people who like, share, or comment on a Facebook post. Mark Zuckerberg Eminem It appears that the message originated on the fake news web siteDaily Media Buzz. In addition to creating the fake message,DMBalso created fake Facebook comments to make it seem like some random people had received money for John and Lisa:   A fake web site, johnandlisagiveback.com,was also started in an attempt to legitimize this hoax. These "something for nothing" hoaxesare common on Facebook. While they employ different methods in an attempt to spread on social media (some request likes, some request comments, some even display fake countdowns to give the hoax a sense of urgency), they all have one thing in common: They are potentially opening up the social media user to malware or advertising scams (as this particular one increasingly appears to be) and they don't result in cash windfalls. Facebook one In June 2022, an image supposedly showing a particularly old, haggard, and "unwell" former President Donald Trump was circulated on social media:   This photograph was deceptively edited to make Trump look particularly old and haggard. It was created by altering a real photograph of Trump that was posted by Andrew Giuliani, the son of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to Twitter on June 15:  The genuine photo was subsequently digitally altered to create the viral version. For example, extra wrinkles were added to Trump's face, his hair was lightened, and the bags under his eyes were enlarged. Here's a comparison between the genuine photo (left) and the doctored one (right):   This isn't the first time that a subtly edited image of Trump has gained traction online. In December 2020, an image went viral that added a few digital inches to Trump's waist. Similar subtle edits were made to an image of Trump's sons Eric and Trump Jr. image went viral that added a few digital inches to Trump's waist image of Trump's sons Eric and Trump Jr. You may also find our full collection of Trump photo fakery of interest. Trump photo fakery