Does This Photograph Show ICE Arresting Small Children?
An image circulated on Facebook shows small children in handcuffs being led into a law enforcement vehicle, along with claims that the pictured children were immigrants who had been taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of the Trump administration's controversial "zero tolerance" policy. Under that policy, migrant parents caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry were criminally charged and their children taken from them:   Although hundreds of immigrant children, including some infants, were taken from their parents, the image seen here is unrelated to that activity. The photograph has been online since 2009 and is associated with a Tea Party protest in West Palm Beach, Florida, during which parents brought their kids for a mock arrest to demonstrate how they are being saddled with debt from government spending. taken The alternate weekly newspaper Broward Palm Beach New Times featured the image in a 14 April 2014 story about the demonstration under the caption "Hopefully the cops won't mistake the protesters for real criminals." The New Times reported of the event that: story If you have children, and you'd like to exploit those children for your political gains, and if you have the money to rent those children prison uniforms, you should totally bring them to downtown West Palm Beach on Wednesday. That's when people protesting government spending will bring 20-30 children dressed in prison uniforms and put them in fake debtor jails. It's meant to show how children will have to pay for wasteful government spending of today. And it's also a great way to ensure continued work for psychologists of tomorrow. The event is part of a nationwide Tea Party demonstration put on by Libertarians, Republicans, and others who think economic stimulus bills are a good occasion to put our children into fake debtor jails. Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Republican Party of Palm Beach County and an organizer of the event, said the fake jails will be two dimensional, meaning the kids won't actually be held captive at any point. Except by the government's excessive debt. This same photograph was similarly used outside its original context as part of a meme in 2012, but that time it was employed to scare parents about the looming "police state" as behavioral issues in school were being treated as crimes: meme   Barton, Eric.  "Children with No Financial Future to Be Jailed."
  [Broward Palm Beach] New Times.  14 April 2009. Shapiro, Leslie and Manas Sharma.  "How Many Migrant Children Are Still Separated from Their Families?"
  The Washington Post.  8 August 2018. Ainsley, Julia and Jane C. Timm.   "1,995 Children Separated from Families at Border Under 'Zero Tolerance' Policy."
  NBC News.  15 June 2018.
Claim:  E-mail criticizes U.S. environmental regulations on the oil industry.  OF AND  INFORMATION Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2008] Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged with Conoco, Inc. in 2002 to form the current ConocoPhillips oil company. So, when Bill talks about oil and gas issues, I tend to listen - very closely. I think that you will find Bill's thoughts and facts very revealing, very compelling and very difficult to argue with. As you prepare to cast your crucial ballots this Fall, please think long and hard about the far-reaching, cumulative effects of the US political philosophies, policies and legislation that have contributed to the current and future US oil supply situation.  Did you know that the United States does NOT have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, ExxonMobil, a "small" oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge ExxonMobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up as the value of the American dollar goes down. They will eventually bleed this country into printing even more money and we will go into runway inflation once again as we did under the Carter Democratic reign. This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France  actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endlessbillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela to be used in propping up their economies. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democrat Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, off Cuba but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous oil-shale deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. In short, all Americans are paying a terrible price for the Democratic Party's perverse energy policies. I own some small interests in tiny, 4 barrel-per-day oil wells in Wyoming. We have 14 agencies that have iron-hand jurisdiction over us. If we drop any oil on the ground when the refinery truck comes to pick up oil from our holding tanks, we are fined. Yet down the road the state will spray thousands of gallons of used oil on a dirt road to control dirt. When it rains that oil runs into rivers and creeks. Yet a cup of oil on the ground at our wellhead is a $50,000 EPA fine plus additional fines from state regulating agencies. They treat oil as if it were plutonium that has the potential to leak into the environment. We are fined if our dirt burms are not high enough around a holding tank, yet the truck that picks up our oil runs down the road at 60 mph with no burm around it. People wonder why there is no more exploration in this country. It's because of the regulators; people who have lived their whole lives doing nothing but imposing fines on small operators like us for doing mostly nothing. So, America enjoy your $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Your dollar is now worth 0.62 Euro-Cents. The lack of American production of GNP, the massive trade deficit (as labor markets have moved overseas to fight insanely high union imposed labor costs in America) and the run away printing of money (backed by nothing of value here in America) has caused the dollar to become more worthless on the international market. And that's where our oil comes from. It's paid for with dollars that become more worthless everyday. If we had just kept par with the Euro we'd be paying $62 dollars per barrel for oil (42 gallons) or about $1.50 instead of $2.50 a gallon for crude oil. What the US government also does not tell you is that it is the leaseholder and royalty recipient of most oil production and receives 25% of the gross oil sales before we pay for electricity to lift the oil, propane to keep the oil-water separators from freezing in the winters. We pay a pumper to visit each well everyday plus we have equipment failures all the time. We pay for that out of our 75% of gross sales. The government does not share in any expenses to run any production well. So, if the Big Oil Companies are making record profits, then so is the federal government from it's 25% tax on every molecule of oil sold to a refinery in this country. Why isn't the government on the stand for "Record" profits? What you don't see is this 25% of the sales price of crude oil being siphoned away by the government. That money plus the road taxes, state taxes, etc. amounts to over $1 per gallon of gasoline you are buying while the governments only admit to about 50 cents per gallon. To all you Democrats, when you go vote for your candidate, a blazing liberal like Barrack Hussein Obama just keep in mind that their liberal spending habits will further decrease the value of the American dollar on the world market and your gasoline costs will hike even higher. As they introduce more give-away programs, raise taxes on everyone to pay people not to produce or work, your dollar will continue to dwindle on the world market and you will be paying $10.00 per gallon at the next election. Cheap hydrocarbon fuel is all over. Enjoy! Enjoy the fruits of your decision to elect these folks when you are there in that voting booth and you stab your pin through a Democrat's name. William "Bill" Phillips Origins:  Several readers (including members of the Phillips family) have maintained to us that there is no descendant of Frank Phillips matching the description of the putative author of this piece, which itself appears to be a rewritten/expanded version of an earlier article (one not originally attributed to William "Bill" Phillips).  Given the uncertain provenance of the "Phillips" authorship version, we'll address our analysis primarily to the wording of the (presumed) original: article I hadn't realized, until the hearings on energy that were held this week in House and Senate committees, that the United States doesn't have any big oil companies. It's true: the largest American oil company, Exxon Mobil, is only the 14th largest in the world, and is dwarfed by the really big oil companies  all owned by foreign governments or government-sponsored monopolies  that dominate the world's oil supply. With 94% of the world's oil supply locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States, the relatively puny American oil companies do not have access to enough crude oil to significantly affect the market and help bring prices down. Thus, Exxon Mobil, a small oil company, buys 90% of the crude oil that it refines for the U.S. market from the big players, i.e., mostly-hostile foreign governments. The price at the U.S. pump is rising because the price the big oil companies charge Exxon Mobil and the other small American companies for crude oil is going up. Ranking businesses according to "bigness" can be based on a variety of different metrics: geographic reach, scale of operations, market value, gross revenues, net profits, etc. Exxon Mobil is certainly one of the world's largest (in terms of gross revenues) and most profitable public companies.  (Many of the world's largest non-public companies are also in the oil business.)  The statement here about Exxon Mobil's being "only the 14th largest [oil company] in the world" refers to the amount of oil and gas reserves that company controls, and it is generally true that the major (public) oil companies have much less access to oil and gas resources than they did a few decades ago, most of which are now controlled by national oil companies: largest profitable non-public reserves Despite record crude prices, the major oil companies are struggling to access resources that are being jealously guarded by national companies with whom they are forced to establish partnerships. As paradoxical as it may seem, high oil prices do not mean a golden age for the likes of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Totalor BP. Of course, with a barrel of oil at more than 140 dollars, they are seeing major profits, but the future has never seemed so uncertain. The problem is access to reserves. The oil majors now control less than 10 percent of world resources of gas and oil, against 70 percent in the 1970s, according to figures released by the office of Ernst and Young at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. As a result they are being forced to explore in increasingly extreme conditions. The statement that "94% of the world's oil supply [is] locked up by foreign governments, most of which are hostile to the United States" might be a considered a bit misleading since many of those "hostile" countries have relatively small oil reserves, while the country with the second-largest oil reserves, Canada, is U.S.-friendly (and both Mexico and the United States are also among the countries with the largest oil reserves). reserves This is obviously a tough situation for the American consumer. The irony is that it doesn't have to be that way. The United States  unlike, say, France   actually has vast petroleum reserves. It would be possible for American oil companies to develop those reserves, play a far bigger role in international markets, and deliver gas at the pump to American consumers at a much lower price, while creating many thousands of jobs for Americans. This would be infinitely preferable to shipping endless billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela. So, why doesn't it happen? Because the Democratic Party  aided, sadly, by a handful of Republicans  deliberately keeps gas prices high and our domestic oil companies small by putting most of our reserves off limits to development. China is now drilling in the Caribbean, but our own companies are barred by law from developing large oil fields off the coasts of Florida and California. Enormous shale oil deposits in the Rocky Mountain states could go a long way toward supplying American consumers' needs, but the Democratic Congress won't allow those resources to be developed. ANWR contains vast petroleum reserves, but we don't know how vast, because Congress, not wanting the American people to know how badly its policies are hurting our economy, has made it illegal to explore and map those reserves, let alone develop them. Drilling for oil off of most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts has largely been barred due to a moratorium imposed by Congress in the early 1980s and by an executive order signed by President George H.W. Bush (a Republican) in 1990.  The congressional moratorium has to be renewed every year, and it has remained in place for nearly three decades through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike.  (On 14 July 2008, President George W. Bush lifted the executive order barring offshore drilling that had been signed by his father eighteen years earlier.)  The congressional moratorium is due to expire on 1 October 2008 unless Congress votes to extend it. Some analysts have claimed that if the oil industry could extract oil and gas from oil shale in a cost-effective manner, oil shale deposits in the U.S. (particularly on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, site of the world's largest such deposit) could produce viable oil reserves of about 800 billion barrels (three times the current proven reserves of Saudi Arabia).  However, the cost and effectiveness of oil shale development (and the resource use and environmental effects attendant to accomplishing it) remain a subject of considerable debate, and oil companies remain barred from undertaking commercial oil shale projects on federal land: At best production is years away, while unpredictable oil markets, growing water demand, sizable electricity needs and climate change all pose potentially huge hurdles. Democrats have barred the Bureau of Land Management from leasing any federal land for commercial-scale oil shale projects. Skeptic Randy Udall of nearby Carbondale, Colo., argues that oil shale is but a poor cousin to other fossil fuels, with an energy content per ton less than one-third that of cattle manure and only slightly better than the potato. Any oil shale project in this region would mean new water demands on the Colorado River and its tributaries, vital waterways for much of the western U.S. and northern Mexico. That potential demand for water worries rancher David Smith of nearby Meeker, Colo., who relies on water from the White River that he fears will be diverted to the oil shale operations. The oil companies, Smith said, could help ease concerns by sharing in the cost of a water storage project. "They have not offered to do that," Smith said. Besides water, Shell's oil shale project would require far more electricity than the existing power grid could supply. That likely means construction of a new power plant. In this part of the country, the most economical way to fire a power plant would be with coal. But in the next Congress, lawmakers are likely to pass legislation to limit greenhouse emissions, and coal-fired plants are huge emitters of carbon dioxide. That would add to cost, ever oil shale's nemesis. The subject of opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and development is another issue that has been pursued across the years through a succession of administrations and Congresses, both Democratic and Republican alike. The issue has been complicated by the uncertainty of many factors involved in the opening of ANWR to U.S. oil production, such as the total amount of oil underlying the area, the size of the oil fields that might be found in ANWR, the quality of the oil that might be found in ANWR, the potential production capacity of ANWR drilling operations, how long it would take before ANWR operations began providing significant amounts of oil for the U.S. market, what effects the oil extracted from ANWR would have on world oil supply and prices, and the environmental impacts of oil exploration and development in ANWR.  As of now, both major-party presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are opposed to opening ANWR to oil exploration. pursued factors Last updated:  14 July 2008    Dechaux, Delphine.   "Despite Rocketing Prices, Outlook Is Bleak for Oil Majors."   Agence France Presse.  6 July 2008.     Feller Ben.   "Bush Trumps Congress; Moves First on Drilling."   Associated Press.  14 July 2008.     Forbes, Steve.   "Will We Rid Ourselves of This Pollution?"   Forbes.  16 April 2007.     Guerrera, Francesco and Carola Hoyos.   "Hidden Value: How Unlisted Companies Are Eclipsing the Public Equity Market."   Financial Times.  15 December 2006.     Ivanovich, David.   "Despite 800 Billion Barrel Potential, Oil Shale a Hard Sell."   The Houston Chronicle.  12 July 2008.     Simon, Richard.   "Bush Lifts Presidential Ban on Offshore Drilling."   Los Angeles Times.  14 July 2008. Claim:  Macy's removed SodaStream products from its stores because the products are made in disputed territory in Israel. PROBABLY  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2014] Bowing to pressure from leftwing pro-Palestinian activists, Macy's has decided to scrub Israeli-made SodaStream products from their shelves  Origins:  In October 2014, a rumor began to circulate that retailer Macy's had "caved" to activist pressure and removed SodaStream products from its retail outlets and online storefront. Claims stated the removal of Sodastream products from Macy's stores came under pressure from activist groups who objected to the manufacture of the products in disputed territory in Israel. The rumor's first major appearance came on 7 October 2014 in a larger Wall Street Journal article about SodaStream's declining revenue. In the article, an analyst stated Macy's had stopped carrying SodaStream but did not cite a specific reason for the retailer's decision:  SodaStream released only its revenue expectations of $125 million and its projected operating income of $8.5 million. Those numbers shocked even the more bearish investors and analysts. Jim Charnier, an analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt, said he had been expecting a poor quarter because he learned early in September that Macy's Inc. had stopped carrying SodaStream and saw other negative figures from the market. Yet he said that the company's estimated revenue of $125 million and operating income of $8.5 million are still far below his expectations, as it shows that revenue in the U.S. could have dropped by more than 50%. Macy's did not immediately return requests for comment. While the quote in context seems to imply poor sales influenced Macy's decision to sever its relationship with SodaStream, it was not backed by any comment from Macy's or SodaStream about why products made by the latter company were being discontinued by the retailer. SodaStream's CEO commented on tepid earnings reports and suggested in May 2014 a weak holiday sales season and excess inventory (not political sentiment) had adversely impacted the brand's revenues: CEO Daniel Birnbaum blamed the 28% drop in U.S. sales on a weak holiday season, creating excess retailer inventory. SodaStream's guidance for the year wasn't as bad as the company sees revenue growth of 15% for the year, but just a 3% improvement in net income. Both projections were better than analyst estimates but are reflective of SodaStream's growing pains. As of 24 October 2014, Macy's website still displays an active product page for SodaStream, but none of the categories are populated with products available for sale. However, skincare company Ahava has also been the target of boycotts and calls for action for similar reasons, and Macy's has not discontinued sale of that brand. SodaStream Ahava If Macy's dropped SodaStream to placate pro-Palestinian interests in a public relations move, it's highly unlikely the retailer would choose not to confirm its action. It is far more likely the overall weak market for home soda-making equipment influenced Macy's decision to temporarily or permanently discontinue sales of SodaStream products. Neither company has yet officially commented on the status of Macy's business relationship with SodaStream.  Last updated:  24 October 2014    Farrell, Maureen.  "SodaStream Losing a Lot of Its Pop."   The Wall Street Journal.  7 October 2014. On the morning of 1 September 2016 a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket carrying an Israeli satellite called Amos-6 exploded three minutes prior to a scheduled static fire test. SpaceX confirmed the event, stating that an anomaly had occurred in the upper stage of the oxygen tank as they were loading propellant into the rocket. The cause is still under review. anomaly Also lost during the explosion was the rockets payload: the Amos-6 satellite, which was built by Israel Aerospace Industries (an aerospace and defense contractor) and operated by the telecommunications company Spacecom. According to Spacecoms web site, the new satellite would provide expanded coverage and redundancy in case of other existing satellite malfunction: expanded coverage and redundancy AMOS-6 strengthens 4W orbital location with wider coverage and new services. AMOS-6 high power and large amount of Ku-band transponders offer Spacecoms existing and new customers a reliable growth-engine for their business. AMOS-6 enhances Spacecoms existing service offering by supporting a full range of services, including Direct-To-Home (DTH), video distribution, VSAT communications and broadband Internet. Facebook had also leased some of the communication equipment on this satellite to support their effort to provide free internet access to large swaths of Africa. After this loss of the satellite, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a statement: posted a statement As I'm here in Africa, I'm deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent. Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided. The most widely shared video of the explosion comes from USLaunchReport.com (an NGO that produces video reports of all things space"). This video appears to show a rapidly moving object cross above the rocket right before it explodes: USLaunchReport.com https://www.youtube.com/embed/_BgJEXQkjNQThe video does show an object that enters from the right of the screen and passes in a fairly straight line above the rocket (at least from the camera angle) as it explodes. This has led to accusations from some corners of the internet that someone or something of intentionally bringing the rocket down. The video Reddit, Sptember 2016Early this morning there was a test-fire for Elon Musk's Falcon-9 rocket, which is standard procedure before any launch (static fire test). They reported an anomalous explosion originating near the second stage oxygen tank. From footage posted by USLaunchReport.Com, (a non profit that brings Veterans to rocket launches  I don't question the footage on that note) there is a clearly identifiable-unidentifiable that passes by at incredible rate of speed as the explosion occurs. It destroyed the launch vehicle & the payload. Hypothesis: The AMOS-6 was destroyed by the passing UFO. (I know this is hard to accept for some, but others who are aware of certain things going on right now will appreciate this.) Some culprits discussed on the original Reddit thread include: aliens, a private aerospace competitor to SpaceX, a government worried about an Israeli spy satellite/weapons system, and/or Facebooks world domination plans. These claims have been amplified by the conspiracy focused website Neon Nettle and others. Reddit thread Neon Nettle What complicates this evidence is that there are a number of other objects, generally reported as birds or bugs, that make similar appearances before (and after) the explosion with far less fanfare. To successfully argue something scandalous, one has to prove that the object cant be a bird or a bug. Those in favor of an intentional sabotage conspiracy point to three arguments: Unfortunately, the fact that a massive telephoto lens captured the video adds to the challenge, if not outright impossibility of accurately assessing any of these questions scientifically. This camera, based on the time it took the noise of the explosion to reach it (~12 seconds) is easily over two miles away from the pad (assuming sound traveling at 0.2 miles per second). The further the zoom, the more of an effect the lens will have on an object's perceived distance and size. An object closer to the camera, additionally, would be required to travel at a much slower speed to make it from one side of the frame to the other compared to something two miles away. more of an effect Moreover, YouTube videos such as the uslaunchreport.com video are subjected to lossy compression, an effect resulting in loss of information as well as the introduction of potential artifacts. Per the FBIs Recommendations and Guidelines for the Use of Digital Image Processing in the Criminal Justice System: lossy compression Recommendations and Guidelines for the Use of Digital Image Processing in the Criminal Justice System Lossy compression achieves greater reduction in file size by removing both redundant and irrelevant information. Because the irrelevant information (as determined by the compression algorithm) cannot be replaced upon reconstruction of an image for display, lossy compression results in some loss of image content as well as the introduction of artifacts. This effect is minimal when you are not zooming in; but it becomes a bigger issue when you try to get a level of detail that has already been removed by a compression algorithm. compression algorithm An image treated in this way has been making the rounds as evidence that this object was clearly behind the left-most tower on the launch pad (these towers are used to protect the rocket from lightning strikes): image treated in this way Without more information, it is impossible to know what these pixels are telling us. If the object is in the foreground (and not in the background, as conspiracy theorists suggest) then the issues of the object's apparent larger-than-bird size and faster-than-bug speed can easily be attributed to that fact. The other argument in favor of the object being both distant and fast moving also comes from questionable handling of compressed images. According to some believers, there is a reflected glow off of the object when it passes over the explosion. These images, which also purport to show that the object doesnt look bird- or bug-like, have been enhanced, by methods that are not plainly documented: These images It is unclear what processes, outside of inverting the colors, went into the creation of these images; but zooming in on the object in each frame without any enhancement does not appear to reveal much about reflected light or shape: https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2016/09/Screen-Shot-2016-09-07-at-11.32.48-AM.pngA final flaw in the alien/government/evil corporation argument is that it does not explain how an object traveling above the rocket (without making any physical contact) would cause its explosion, nor does it touch on why this novel method might have been employed. Do we know for sure what this object is? No. But the prevalence of similar harmless objects prior to the explosion, the fact that the evidence is based on wishfully enhanced screengrabs of downsampled video, and the fact that rockets are super explosive on their own, make an outside agent low on the list of possible explanations. Updated [30 September 2017]: Added information about other websites sharing similar claims. In late December 2020, a misleading online advertisement appeared to announce that Monica Lewinsky was dead and that her net worth stunned her family. It read: "Monica Lewinsky's Net Worth Stuns Her Family At Age 47. Monica Lewinsky Leaves Behind A Net Worth That Will Boggle Your Mind." appeared   However, this was not true. She is alive, and despite what the ad claimed, there was no indication in the resulting story that her net worth shocked her family. The ad was sponsored by the Therapy Joker website and was hosted on the Yahoo! Gemini advertising service. Readers who clicked the ad were led to a 430-page story with the headline: "The Biggest Hollywood Celebrities & Their Incredible Net Worth  Can You Guess Who Has The Biggest Bank Account?" Lewinsky's net worth appeared on page 417. This meant that readers had to click "Next Page" 417 times to reach the page for Lewinsky: page 417 Monica Lewinsky: Activist and TV Personality - $500,000 Monica Samille Lewinsky is a lady of many skills. This popular American television personality is also a successful fashion designer, activist, and a former intern at the White House. The papparazi constantly followed her and she was a regular face in the media during her time at the White House. However, she made up her mind to leave all that behind and went on to pursue a different career. Besides that, she has also authored the book, Monica: Her Story which added to her fame. The London School of Economics and Political Science alumni [sic] is now 47 years old and is a popular television personality. She took a lavish apartment on rent and had quite a luxurious lifestyle. Her fleet of cars includes a Mini Cooper and a Cadillac. We hope she has a professional financial advisor is coming to her aid as far as her banking is concerned. Currently, the media personality, activist, and fashion designer has retained her fame and we hope Lewinsky does the same for the money shes accumulated over the years. The page mentioned nothing about Lewinsky's purported death, nor did it present any information about her family being stunned by her net worth. The misleading advertisement and exceptionally lengthy article reflect a strategy known in the advertising world as "arbitrage." The Therapy Joker website's goal was to make more money from ads displayed on each of the 430 pages than it cost to lure readers with the initial "Monica Lewinsky's Net Worth Stuns Her Family" ad in the first place. The business and technology blog Margins defined "arbitrage" as "leveraging an inefficient set of systems to make a riskless profit, usually by buying and selling the same asset." Margins also referred to it as "the mythical free lunch that economics tells us does not exist." defined Lewinsky was a White House intern in the mid-1990s who became famous after her affair with former U.S. President Bill Clinton became a public scandal. In December 1998, Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. However, the Senate did not vote to convict and remove him from office. He served the remainder of his second term in the White House. impeached We previously covered similar misleading net worth stories for Sean Connery, Jaleel White, Richard Gere, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, and Alex Trebek. Sean Connery Jaleel White Richard Gere Chuck Norris Clint Eastwood Alex Trebek Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us As so-called undocumented immigrants in the U.S. struggled to avoid deportation and risked their health during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, government agencies created potential new challenges for them. In July, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) department announced they would be offering a six-day Citizens Academy training starting in September in Chicago, which would allow civilians and ICE officers to engage with each other. struggled risked their health announced Snopes readers shared the following letter from ICE, reportedly sent to potential participants across Chicago, and asked us if it meant the agency would be training civilians to assist in the apprehension of undocumented people. The answer is complicated. letter   We found that this was an actual letter sent by ICE. Although they said they were planning to conduct trainings in September and would show civilians how they made arrests, the notion that this would lead to civilians actually apprehending undocumented people was disputed by the agency. Immigration advocates, however, were skeptical.  In order to understand the actual nature and likely outcome of these trainings, we reached out to ICE, as well as immigration advocates, and looked at past examples of such academies.  According to an ICE press release, the interactive program would occur once a week over six weeks. Participants would learn about ICE policies and procedures from ERO officers, while officers would hear participants perspectives and debunk myths about ICE. press release The curriculum will include, but is not limited to, classroom instruction, visiting an immigration detention center, learning more about the health care ICE provides to those in its custody, and examining ICEs role in ensuring dignity, respect and due process of an immigration case from start to finish. Many in Chicago received letters from ICE inviting them to apply. The letter said, attendees will participate in scenario-based training ... including, but not limited to defensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests. received Nicole Alberico, an ICE spokesperson, responded to Snopes' request for more information about the training (emphasis ours): ...the academy is not to train members of the public to do the work of trained, federal law enforcement officers. ICE ERO Citizens Academy is modeled after other law enforcement community outreach programs  including ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), FBI and local police departments  all with the goal of directly engaging and educating the public. Chicago ERO is looking for a diverse set of influential community leaders  regardless of their stance on ICE  to apply. The spokesperson said that they also had not determined whether media would be permitted to attend the training, as they were considering health precautions because of the pandemic and privacy concerns.  In sum, according to their own descriptions, ICE plans on showing civilians how they as an agency carry out arrests but will not be training civilians to do arrests themselves.  According to one report, such a Citizens Academy has already taken place in Los Angeles for years, with participants simulating drug busts, arrests, and stakeouts. According to one graduate, the course immersed people in what the agents do. While the Chicago program was to be run by ERO, the Los Angeles Academy was being run under ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department.  one report simulating The goal of such training appeared to be to get more people to understand ICEs perspective, see how they operate, and eventually construct a positive image of the agency in various communities. There is no available evidence that such trainings led to civilians participating in actual arrests.  Testimony from activists, human rights organizations, and reporting show ample proof of ICEs history of violating detainees rights, inhumane arrests of undocumented immigrants, separating children from their parents, and the lack of accountability surrounding their operations. ICE has also used civilian informants before. violating detainees rights arrests lack of accountability civilian informants The Citizens Academy announcement faced swift backlash from activists and government officials, including Chicago's alderman, Rossana Rodriguez, who labeled it a vigilante academy. In July, Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley put forward an amendment to the Homeland Security spending bill, barring agencies like ICE from using government funds to run Citizens Academy courses. vigilante academy forward Immigration activists said these classes were at best propaganda and at worst would train civilians to "snitch" on undocumented immigrants. Lam Nguyen Ho, executive director of Beyond Legal Aid, an organization that provides legal services to immigrants in Chicago, spoke to Snopes about the dangers of such academies:  said propaganda ... the best case scenario for this training is ICE doing a marketing campaign to justify continuing to deport undocumented immigrants indiscriminately and separating families inhumanely ... We have immigrants afraid of opening their doors and applying for immigration rights to which they are actually eligible due to the fears and violence they see ... I cant imagine the misinformation and fears that will be created when an agency of our government is basically sanctioning and coordinating neighbors surveilling, profiling, or worse against each other. (Update: The Chicago Citizen's Academy was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic, and a new date had not been announced. According to a statement from an ICE official, it will be tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2021.) In sum, ICE confirmed that the Citizens Academy course will take place, but denied they will train civilians to carry out arrests. Based on ICEs history of abuses against immigrant populations, the fears surrounding this particular training aren't unreasonable, but the exact nature and outcome of the training remains to be seen. Based on all of the above factors, we rate this claim a Mixture. Da Silva, Chantal.  "DHS Spending Bill Amended to Ban Funding for ICE's Citizen's Academy."
 Newsweek. 15 July 2020. Da Silva, Chantal.  "ICE Offering 'Citizens Academy' Course with Training on Arresting Immigrants."
 Newsweek. 9 July 2020. Gonzalez, Christina."ICE Citizen Academy Causing Uproar in Chicago, Has Been Going on in Los Angeles - for Years."
 Fox11 Los Angeles. 11 July 2020. Human Rights Watch.  "US: Stop Using Untrained, Abusive Agencies at Protests."
 5 June 2020. Kaplan, Emily.  "What Isolation Does to Undocumented Immigrants."
  The Atlantic. 27 May 2020. Katz, Ryan. "Play to Stay."
 The Intercept. 24 September 2018. McFarling, Usha Lee. "Fearing Deportation, Many Immigrants at Higher Risk of Covid-19 Are Afraid to Seek Testing or Care."
  StatNews. 15 April 2020. Mejia, Brittny. "At Citizen Academies, Devoted Participants Get Their Law Enforcement Fix."
 Los Angeles Times. 3 December 2018. Tashman, Brian. "Congress Needs To Hold ICE Accountable for Abuses."
 ACLU. 2 February 2018. Torres, Adry. "ICE Is Offering a Six-week Course on How to Arrest Immigrants - Including 'Firearms and Defensive Training' - as Critics Warns They Are Using Private Citizens As Their Eyes and Ears."
 The Daily Mail.8 July 2020. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "ICE Offers First Citizens Academy for Public to Learn More About Agencys Mission in Chicago."
 13 July 2020. Zamudio, Maria Ines. "ICE Citizens Trainings May Be a 'Vigilante Academy,' Chicago Alderman Warns."
 NPR. 10 July 2020. Claim:  A badly behaved dog wreaks havoc while two fellows stand by silently, each thinking it's the other guy's pooch. LEGEND Examples:  [Brunvand, 1989] A woman is invited to call at the home of a woman who is wealthier than she is. From the moment she is invited, the caller is unsure about how to behave  how to sit, how to take tea, etc. And matters are made worse when the time of the visit arrives. A large, lively, dirty, beast of a dog is sitting in the front yard, and when the hostess welcomes the caller into the house, the dog follows her inside. While the caller tries to respect the social amenities, that darn dog does not. It tracks mud about the room, sniffs the cookies, and paws the furniture. The caller makes small talk, but the conversation becomes strained. Still, both parties keep a stiff upper lip, observing proper etiquette. Finally, the visit comes to an end. As the caller rises to leave, the hostess, with one eye on the wreckage, remarks icily, "And don't forget to take your dog!" "My dog?" the caller says. "I thought it was yours!"  [Regis, 1987] In January 1946 Bigelow came down to Princeton for an interview with Von Neumann. He was a couple of hours late . . . Julian Bigelow got out of the car and walked up to the house.  "Von Neumann lived in this elegant lodge house on Westcott Road in Princeton," Bigelow says. "As I parked my car and walked in, there was this very large Great Dane dog bouncing around on the front lawn. I knocked on the door and Von Neumann, who was a small, quiet, modest kind of a man came to the door and bowed to me and said, 'Bigelow, won't you come in,' and so forth, and this dog brushed between our legs and went into the living room. He proceeded to lie down on the rug in front of everybody, and we had the entire interview  whether I would come, what I knew, what the job was going to be like  and this lasted maybe forty minutes, with the dog wandering all around the house. Towards the end of it, von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann  being a diplomatic, middle European type person  he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end."  [Mahoney, 1983] In passing I must make mention of a funny situation in which I became involved while visiting Field Marshal Lord Alexander and his wife at their home near London.  I motored there to have luncheon with them, and as I emerged from my car, a huge dog appeared in the driveway.  Dogs always made a dead set for me, and I wasn't worried when it began jumping around and wagging its tail.  But I did feel some concern when it followed me to the doorway and walked in as if it owned the house. A family pet, I felt sure, as it settled down to a corner of the living room as Lord and Lady Alexander greeted me warmly.  At luncheon the dog settled down at my feet and the begging for food began.  Lady Alexander's attention became riveted upon me: "Mr. Mahoney," she said charmingly, "I wish you would send your dog outside." And not until then did it dawn upon me that they thought the stray dog was mine! Origins:  Though this story has often been told as an actual event in an important person's life, its first appearance came in a 1924 Lucy Maud Montgomery book, Emily Climbs. In Chapter   12, Emily's call on socially-superior Miss Janet Royal is interrupted by the antics of a very large muddy dog that follows her into the elegant parlor, where it proceeds to act up.  to the legend, only after the beast has made a shambles of things and Emily is about to leave does the subject of the dog's ownership arise, each girl thinking up until that time the horrid thing belonged to the other. From those early beginnings, the "Not my dog" anecdote has gone on to reach a succession of new audiences, as new storytellers emerge and claim it as their own. Burt Reynolds is rumored to have told this story (starring himself as the embarrassed visitor) to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in the 1980s. A common element in this story is unequal status between visitor and visited. The one who comes calling feels inferior for reasons relating to social standing, comparative wealth, or the celebrated householder's achievements. Whatever the cause, he comes hat in hand, filled with a determination to make a good impression  a certain recipe for social disaster! The story is one of horrific embarrassment; the faux pas being perceived as being that much more flamboyant because it plays out before someone looked up to. That matters are straightened out before the visit ends by the caller blurting out, "My dog? I thought he was yours!" doesn't change the  momentary flash of mortification experienced or the knowledge that the sought-after host had sat there for quite a while thinking decidedly evil thoughts about his guest. The story is also a poke at the strictures of etiquette. Neither host nor guest feels it would be proper to comment negatively on the dog's behavior, so both endure the worsening state of affairs in stoic silence. The legend underscores common misperceptions about etiquette, that the rules of polite behavior are often impractical and adherence to them results in ridiculous situations a more direct approach would head off at the pass. Those who resent the genteelly-voiced demands of Miss Manners and long for less structured, more direct forms of social interaction get to savor a moment of self-congratulation through this story because it proves right what they've been saying all along. As old as this story is (1924, remember?) it continues to pop up, and even at times changes in dramatic ways. We picked up the following non-canine version of the tale during our Internet travels, again proving that no story can't stand a little improving: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] The story goes along the lines of a young Indo-asian couple who after a non-arranged marriage, decide to get a house together. A few weeks after they move in, the husband returns from work to find an older woman in the living room of the house. Knowing they have broken with tradition by having a non-arranged marriage, the husband greets his mother-in-law, only to receive a hard silent stare. She is evidently not happy at their recent union. That evening the old woman joins the couple at the dinner table, and continues to join them for every meal for the next month, never uttering a word. Eventually the once-close couple become hostile to one another, unhappy that 'Mother' has been allowed to move in with them. They stop talking and avoid one another. A few days later the situation escalates into an argument about the old woman. The creepy truth is revealed as the wife exclaims "My mother? I thought she was yours!" Barbara "vinegar mother" Mikkelson Last updated:  2 August 2011 Curses! Broiled Again!   Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good To Be .  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.   ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 55-57). Too Good To Be    Mahoney, Patrick.  Barbed Wit & Malicious Humor.  New York: Citadel Press, 1956.  (p. 100).    Regis, Edward.  Who Got Einstein's Office?   Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1987  (p. 110).   Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill.  Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths.  London: Virgin Books, 1996.  ISBN 0-86369-969-3  (pp. 105-106). Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 39). The Big Book of Urban Legends Claim:  Oprah Winfrey said that restaurant customers need not tip their servers more than 10%..  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] Did Oprah Winfrey state that, in this economy, tipping 10% is acceptable? Origins:  Leaving a relatively substantial monetary tip for the waitstaff at the conclusion of a restaurant meal is the custom in some countries, including the U.S. and Canada. A gratuity amounting to 15% to 20% of the bill is now considered the standard or minimum tip, with even more left in recognition of superlative service. It is therefore little cause for surprise that any cultural icon's public voicing of an opinion that folks should leave no more than a 10% tip would raise the hackles of many in the service industry.  And so it was with the belief that Oprah Winfrey, beloved television talk show host, had instructed members of her audience to not leave more than a 10% tip when dining in restaurants, with such rumor often coupled with a further assertion that this advice was offered in recognition of the recession's having hit everyone hard. Such belief that Oprah had said it fit  well with a widely-held stereotype that African American customers tip less than do other restaurant patrons. In September 2009 a page on the social networking site Facebook raised the false "Oprah said not to tip more than 10%" claim. Titled "1 Million Servers Strong Against Oprah's Comments," the group stated as its purpose:  Against Oprah Winfrey has recently stated on her TV show that it is acceptable to tip servers 10% in our current economy. This group is being put together to show Oprah that her comments have a crippling affect on servers all over the world. As of 4 November 2009, "1 Million Servers Strong Against Oprah's Comments" has 37,228 members. Yet the claim that has inflamed so many is false. There is no evidence in support of the assertion that Oprah Winfrey recommended her audience tip waitstaff 10%, in response to economic recession or otherwise, on her television show or in her magazine. No one has yet to turn up a video clip from her show of her supposed  tipping advice or produce a copy of an article from  O, The Oprah Magazine in which such counsel was allegedly given.  Instead, material from both those venues state that restaurant goers should tip at least 15%. While we've yet to locate a video clip or news report of Oprah herself instructing the audience to pony up with 15% or better, there are examples of invited guests on her show or columnists in her magazine saying exactly that. In the "Ending Rudeness" segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show (which aired on 9 September 2008), Steven Dublanica, author of Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip  Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, sat beside Oprah and, with her nodding in agreement, offered this bit of advice for restaurant goers: Rudeness Don't tip less than 15 percent Waiters are paid wages well below the minimum wage  as little as $2.15 an hour in some states  with the expectation that they will earn the majority of their income through tips. In addition, some restaurants require waiters to pay around 20 to 30 percent of their tips to food runners, hostesses and bartenders.  "If you don't tip, then that person doesn't get paid," Steven says. "Literally." Of the "10 Do's and Don'ts of Restaurant Etiquette" proffered by The Oprah Winfrey Show via oprah.com, its official web site, the first is "Tip 15 percent or more." first Likewise, the "Guide to Tipping" published in the December 2002 issue of  O, The Oprah Magazine says:  Guide to Tipping Normally, 15 to 20 percent of the total bill  20 percent for a first-class place. Note that people tip more in urban areas. According to the Zagat Survey, the average gratuity in city restaurants across the United States is about 18 percent. In response to the rumor, HarpoBear (moderator of oprah.com's message board) posted a clarificationon 8 June 2009 (and repeated periodically since then) that said: posted We'd like to respond to the concerns raised about Oprah's thoughts on tipping. The truth is that Oprah has never said that people should tip less during the recession. She believes in generously compensating waiters and waitresses. While a November 2009 Facebook page marked a resurgence of the Oprah rumor, it wasn't the first time the claim had been bruited on that venue: In December 2008 a now defunct Facebook group titled "No, Oprah, it's not OK to tip 10%" repeated the gossip. The rumor comes in two forms: that Oprah herself directed her audience never to tip more than 10% or (far less frequently) that one of her guests did. One name that has been mentioned as the identity of the guest who gave such advice is financial guru Suze Orman, as in this 19 September 2009 blog entry:  Suze Orman blog entry It has been brought to my attention that Suze Orman went onto the Oprah Winfrey show some time ago to give some sound financial advice to all the Oprah-ites who bow down to the feet of the great and powerful O. [...] She said that when it comes time to tip you should just leave 10% instead of 15%. Barbara "the ten percent dissolution" Mikkelson Last updated:  11 November 2009    Day Owen, Sarah.  "Servers at Restaurants See Dropoff in Gratuities."   Augusta Chronicle.  19 December 2008.    Ellen, Daryn.  "Guide to Tipping."   O, The Oprah Magazine.  December 2002. Claim:  Aspiring work-at-homers promised big bucks for acting as intermediaries for international transactions wherein they cash checks for other parties have been defrauded by con artists.  REAL FRAUD WHICH COSTS ITS VICTIMS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Good day, my name is Evaldas Vytautas. I'm Sales Manager of Lionder Web Design Agency. We are situated in Vilnius, Lithuania. Lionder Web Design Agency is pleased to offer you the position of Exchange Manager for our organization. We are excited about the potential that you bring to our company. We work with corporate clients and some of them prefer to do wire transfers, however we cannot receive international wire transfers because of heavy taxes. Tax for international wire transfer is 25% In Lithuania. There is no sense for us to work in such a way, however we don't want to lose our clients. You need to have Paypal/bank account. System is completely automated. You will work only 1-2 hours a day, receive, process payments from our clients through your Paypal/bank account. Report about all new payments, act only within the limits of law  earn minimum $1500-$2000 per month. Your salary will be 5-15% from every processed amount (you begin from 5%). To join the minimum requirements include : -MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (Skills, Knowledge, Ability, etc.)-The minimum qualifications are diploma or equivalent.-Must be able to multi-task and have good communication skills.-Knowledge of MS Word and other basic computer programs.-This being a new field there is NO experience needed. HOW TO APPLY: If you would like to pursue this opportunity simply send Your Resume (CV) to resume@lionder.net OR Download Job Application Form  (www.lionder.net/Job_Application_Form.doc), fill it in and send us to resume@lionder.net (No phone calls please. Callers will not be considered for the position). We will respond promptly. Please don't feel shy to contact our Online Support and ask any questions you will have: Contact Name: Julie JakulyteICQ- 257235542,AOL IM Screen Name- Jakulyte,Yahoo! ID: JJakulyte,MSN- Jakulyte@hotmail.com. No agencies, please. Lionder Web Design Agency is an equal opportunity/affirmative actionemployer. For more information about who we are and what we do, please visit our webiste  www.lionder.net It is necessary that we know your decision by November 20, 2004, so that we can plan accordingly. Regards, Evaldas VytautasLionder Web Design Agency Origins:  In   2004 we began noticing a new scam targeting those searching for part-time paid duties that could be performed from home. This new con uses the promise of high-paying work to lure eager job seekers into being defrauded themselves or used to steal from others. Those so led down the garden path are pulled in by advertisements for jobs involving the forwarding of monies or goods collected in the U.S. to business entities in other countries. Supposedly, the successful applicants will make thousands of dollars through working from home for a few hours a week, with no special skills or training required. Sometimes international wire transfers are specifically mentioned in these solicitations, and the terms "import/export specialist," "marketing manager," and "financial manager" often turn up in their wording. The reputations of the venues where the ads are found proves no protection to those looking for such opportunities, in that this work-at-home scam has been touted thousands of times on popular job web sites including Monster, Careerbuilder, Careers.com, and Yahoo! Hotjobs. This con operates in one of two of ways, both of which leaves hopeful job seekers in a mess of trouble:  In its more usual incarnation, successful job applicants are tasked with depositing checks for varying amounts (anywhere from a few thousand dollars all the way into the six-figure range) into their personal bank accounts and relaying to their new employers 95% of the amount banked, keeping 5% as their commission. The explanation given by the employers for that which necessitates their having someone cash checks on their behalf varies from come-on to come-on, but the need to believe in 'something for nothing' (in this case a high steady income in return for a few hours' work per week) blinds the about-to-be-defrauded to the glaring implausibilities inherent to these tall tales of strange government-imposed restrictions, exorbitant tax rates in the homeland, the need to fly under a competitor's radar, and the like. The checks the unsuspecting dupes are given to deposit are worthless, but this detail is not discovered by them or their banks until weeks after the fact, which is long after 95% of the face value of said financial instruments has been wired to the thieves. As is the case in the 'cashier check' scam (sellers are duped into accepting cashier checks in excess of the amounts they seek for their goods on the understanding they are to forward the additional monies to third parties), the scam works because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) requires banks to make money from cashier's, certified, or teller's checks available in one to five days. Consequently, funds from checks that might not be good are often released into payees' accounts long before the checks themselves have been honored by their issuing banks. High quality forgeries can be bounced back and forth between banks for weeks before anyone catches on to their being worthless. cashier check In this form of the scheme, those who'd thought they were about to pack up and move to Easy Street thanks to their new jobs as international relayers instead find themselves on the hook for the amounts they wired to others. That the original checks were worthless does not absolve those who deposited them from financial responsibility for the funds they subsequently instructed their banks to pay out  the two transactions (the deposit and the disbursement) are regarded as separate. Therefore, if a hypothetical erstwhile wire transfer facilitator handled a bogus check for $10,000, instead of netting $500 (his 5% fee), he would be out $9,500 (the amount he had his bank wire to those who'd conned him).  The mayhem doesn't necessarily end there. There is a further danger that, now armed with the dupe's banking information from the wire transfer, these same thieves can use those numbers to create a demand draft to  withdraw funds without confirmation from the hapless job seeker's bank account until there's nothing left in it but dust. demand draft  In another version of the con, those who land these coveted 'jobs' are tasked with collecting payments from their new employers' clients in the U.S. and wiring these funds back to the home office, retaining a specified portion of the recouped accounts as their fees. Only after the fact does it come to light that the deposited checks were for non-existent merchandise vended through online auction sites, usually about the time that the police come a'knocking on the door. This form of the wire transfer scam mirrors a type of the CNP fraud in which job-seeking dupes are hired to repackage and ship to Nigeria goods purchased on stolen credit cards. As with the wire transfer come-on, the promise of  easy, high-paying part-time work blinds those who unwittingly become part of an international theft ring thanks to their desire to believe in the job fairy. In both cases, they're the ones left holding the bag when the police turn up to ask questions about the monies or goods others have been duped out of. CNP daydream about earning livable incomes from the comfort of their dens rather than having to make the trek to their offices each day, they do not as a general rule of thumb search for such job openings with the same fervor as do the elderly, the physically afflicted, or the parents committed to remaining at home with their preschool children. Members of those groups hunt for work-at-home opportunities because laboring in more traditional job settings is impossible for them. Because genuine offers of work of this nature are few and far between, with the need to secure a steady income becoming more of a pressing issue with each passing non-employed day, those folks are at far greater risk of being victimized by such schemes  their desperation leads them to be gulled by pie-in-the-sky promises and mollified by the wild backstories that go with them whereas the financially better off are more likely to remain convinced something is very wrong with the offer of mucho bucks in exchange for only a few hours' labor performed from home each week by folks possessed of no special training or skills. Barbara "reshipboard romance" Mikkelson How To Avoid Falling Victim To Reshipper Scams: Avoid job listings that use these descriptions: "package forwarding," "reshipping," "money transfers," "wiring funds" and "foreign agent agreements." These and similar phrases should raise a red flag.   Do not be fooled by official-sounding corporate names. Some scam artists operate under names that sound like those of long-standing, reputable firms.   Never forward or transfer money from any of your personal accounts on behalf of your employer. Also, be suspicious if you are asked to "wire" money to an employer. If a legitimate job requires you to make money transfers, the money should be withdrawn from the employers business account, not yours.   Do not give out your personal financial information. A potential legitimate employer will not request your bank account, credit card or Paypal account number. Provide your banking information only if you are hired by a legitimate company and you choose to have your paycheck direct deposited.   Do not fax copies of your ID or Social Security number to someone you have never met. Credit checks and fake IDs can be obtained with this information. Give these documents to your employer only when you are physically at the place of employment.   If you have questions about the legitimacy of a job listing, contact your Better Business Bureau, your state or local consumer agency, or the Federal Trade Commission.   Stop believing in the chimera of "something for nothing."  Additional Information:      Work-at-Home Schemes   (Federal Trade Commission)       Work-at-Home Schemes   (Better Business Bureau)   Last updated:  11 July 2011 <!-- As the economic collapse began to threaten homeowners, presidential candidate Barack Obama vowed to come to their aid.We must help the millions of homeowners facing foreclosure, he said on the campaign trail in June 2008. His plan called for changes in bankruptcy laws, a crackdown on predatory and fraudulent lenders and a $10 billion fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.With Obama seeking re-election in 2012, his record on the foreclosure crisis is under attack. The Republican group Crossroads GPS said in a recent television ad that Obama broke his promise to help struggling homeowners.The adshows Obama saying he would help them and then stamps BROKEN on the screen.PolitiFact examined the Crossroads claim and found that, indeed, Obama has had limited success with his plans to ease the mortgage crisis.I don't think there's much doubt, even within the administration, that the (foreclosure assistance) programs overpromised and underperformed -- embarrassingly so, said Ken Harney, who writes a weekly syndicated real estate column. 'They wimped out'During the 2008 campaign and his first few months in office, Obama promised a lot:  $10 billion foreclosure prevention fund to help struggling homeowners Change in bankruptcy law to allow judges to modify mortgage loan terms Tax credits for struggling homeowners A crackdown on predatory and fraudulent lenders Better disclosure about mortgages to home-buyers A moratorium on foreclosuresThe results, experts say, have been mixed at best. Obama himself says the housing crisis is the most stubborn issue he has faced.If we were not a capitalist economy, it would be very easy, said Ken Thomas, an independent bank analyst and economist in Miami. Were a market-regulated economy, were not a government-regulated economy. That makes it very hard for the government to do anything.The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, which Obama signed in 2009, makes it a federal crime to make a materially false statement on a mortgage application or to willfully overvalue a property to influence any action by a mortgage lending business. PolitiFact's Obameter gave that aPromise Kept. And new standards for helping people understand their mortgage were included in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul passed in 2010,another Promise Kept.But he's had limited success with the promises that would have provided the biggest help to homeowners, according to five experts we interviewed. A temporary foreclosure moratorium happened in early 2009 as banks halted their filings while they waited for the new administration to get its plan in place to address the crisis. Its not clear, though, that it ultimately kept many people out of foreclosure.Analysts say the change in bankruptcy law to allow judges to modify individual loans could have made a significant difference, butit died in Congress.That sort of took the wind out of the program, in a way. If it had passed, it would have put much more fire under the feet of the mortgage servicers, said Alex Schwartz, a professor of urban policy at the New School and author of the bookHousing Policy in the United States. Instead, he said, you were left with voluntary participation of servicers.The foreclosure prevention fund was the heart of his promise. He originally pledged $10 billion but ended up setting aside $75 billion, using TARP funds. He predicted the money would assist 9 million homeowners.But after three years, only about 2 million people have won permanent mortgage help, according to theDepartment of Housing and Urban Development.The two main programs were dubbed HAMP and HARP. Under the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, lenders were encouraged to restructure loans for borrowers who were struggling to pay. The banks received small payments from the government as incentive. The Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, aimed to help people refinance their loans at lower interest rates.Everything has fallen short of original expectations, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moodys.Other experts agree.Obamas program was overly complicated, it was voluntary, it was at a retail level, requiring people to call in and work with individual servicers. It was a mess, Schwartz said. (On our Obameter, we've rated the foreclosure fund aPromise Brokenbecause it fell far short of Obama's goal of helping 9 million homeowners. )Another shortcoming of the programs: The Obama administration did not require banks to include principal reduction in modifications. The programs allowed loan servicers to reduce loan balances, but it shocked no one when most banks opted not to.Making that a requirement would have gone a long way toward keeping people in their homes.Theres a real risk that when people are so severely underwater, they could walk away from their mortgages, Schwartz said. So you can make a strong case for principal reduction.Harney, the real estate columnist, also blamed the president for not flexing more political muscle with the banks.At a time when the administration could have pushed the big TARP-recipient banks much harder on modifications, short sales and principal reductions, they wimped out, Harney said. Whether the close connections between Wall Street and the new White House/Treasury staff got in the way of stronger designs, I don't know. The numbers speak for themselves.The landscape nowNumbers about the foreclosure crisis show things have improved only slightly.According toRealtyTrac, a website that collects and tracks foreclosure data, about 150,000 new foreclosure suits were filed nationwide in January 2009, the month Obama took office. They peaked at 203,948 in April 2009 and didnt dip below 100,000 in a single month until April 2011. And last month, another 97,000 new foreclosures were filed.Crossroads cites the high rate of underwater mortgages as evidence that Obamas programs failed. In early 2008, the number of underwater homes was estimated at 9 million. RealtyTrac says the current total is 12 million, or 28 percent of all mortgages.But that statistic, sobering as it is, offers a poor gauge of Obamas policies. Borrowers ended up in this situation because they took out high-priced mortgages and then their property values plummeted -- a market occurrence largely outside any presidents control.It mostly reflects bad policy leading up to the crash, said Schwartz. Policies that encouraged reckless mortgage underwriting, which inflated prices.Still, there are some signs of progress.Early this year, changes to HARP relaxed eligibility standards and extended the length of the program to the end of 2013. HAMP also was extended through next year. Schwartz said the programs were originally geared to subprime, high-risk mortgages. So as the recession worsened and people with more conventional mortgages lost jobs and income, the programs didnt accommodate them. The new standards attempt to reach a bigger pool of homeowners, including people deeper underwater and those still in good standing on their loans.The Treasury Department recently announced that the number of active permanent mortgage loan modifications agreed to by banks rose 12,139 to 794,748 during March, the most recent timeframe available. The Obama campaign cited HUD data showing that HAMP has trimmed a median of $535 off monthly payments of mortgages that have been modified as evidence of progress.I still think its meaningful and its helpful, Zandi said. Its just not as helpful as they had hoped for.Its also worth noting that there were forces working against Obama amid these efforts. The Republican-controlled House, for one.The Obama administration has been completely hamstrung by Congress, refusing to spend any money on stimulus, Schwartz said.The economy, for another.They (the foreclosure programs) havent been as effective as hoped and the reason is because a lot of the foreclosures were triggered by the 8 million-plus loss in jobs, said Norm Miller, an economist, financial analyst and professor at the University of San Diego.Our rulingThe Crossroads GPS ad said Obama has broken his promise to help millions of people facing foreclosure. Help is a vague notion, and theres certainly no doubt that the president has tried several avenues to stem the tide of home loan defaults. But theres also no doubt that his efforts have fallen far short of expectations -- and even the benchmarks he set for himself.Two primary programs aimed at helping people keep their homes -- HAMP and HARP -- have reached more households in recent months, but they are unlikely to ever help the 9 million homeowners Obama said he would assist. And its reasonable that he could have leaned harder on lenders to produce better results in the aftermath of multi-billion-dollar bank bailouts.Although Obamas efforts havent been the utter failure Crossroads suggests, there are still millions of struggling homeowners who need help in the ongoing foreclosure crisis. We rate the ads claim Mostly True. Update:This item has been updated to correct that Republicans control the House of Representatives rather than the entire Congress. A photograph purportedly showing Ronald Reagan meeting with the leaders of the Taliban (Sunni Islamic fundamentalist movement) at the White House has been shared online for many years, along with a purported laudatory quote from the 40th U.S. president, "These Gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's Founding Fathers":  This enduring memeis wrong on more than one account. The group pictured here are notTaliban leaders, the photograph was not taken in 1985, and Reagan did not compare the pictured group to America's Founding Fathers. (In this particular meme, even the name "Reagan" is misspelled.)  photograph According to the Ronald Reagan Library, the above-displayed photograph was taken in 1983, and it captures then-president Reagan meeting with Afghan rebel leadersto discuss the Soviet presencein Afghanistan. taken leaders Afghanistan While the Reagan administration did help fund and equip the Mujahideen in Afghanistan (and rebel groups elsewhere) so that they could fight against the Soviet occupation, it is inaccurateto say that the former president met with the Taliban, as at that point that group did not exist: fund Mujahideen Taliban This photograph is from 1983, when Reagan and the CIA were dancing around the idea of arming Mujahadin fighters in order to fight back against Soviet incursion in Afghanistan. The result was a well-armed, well-trained group of jihadis who resisted (some say defeated) the onslaught of superior Soviet weaponry. Once the Soviets retreated, the U.S. lost interest and pulled the funding. Osama bin Laden took interest, and filled the vacuum, later fathering the Taliban. The rest, as they say, is history. The quote frequently attached to this photographisaparaphrased version of something said by PresidentReagan, but he was not speaking about either the Taliban or Afghan opposition groups at the time. He made thecomment about contrarebels in Nicaragua duringa speechat theConservative Political Action Conference in 1985: contra speech Conference They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help. I've spoken recently of the freedom fighters of Nicaragua. You know the truth about them. You know who they're fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.