Legislation on Immigration Offering Complimentary Vehicles
Claim:  A 2013 immigration reform bill provides young people with free cars to transport them to their jobs.   Example:  [Collected via e-mail, June 2013] BREAKING: Immigration bill now includes free cars (at tax payer expense) for young people to help them get to work! LIKE if you agree: The Senate should vote no on this Gang of 8 immigration bill! Call and let them know what you think! (888) 978-3134  Fox News reported that the riders made to the 2013 Immigration bill now in the Senate that Bernie Sanders has added a provision for free cars, motorcycles or scooters for "young people to use as transportation" to jobs.  This was reported by  Laura Ingraham on Fox and Friends on June 25, 2013.  Is there any truth to this report.  I can not find a copy of the 1,190 page 2013 immigration bill to read it my self  S.744 Hoeven-Corker Amendment "The Hoeven-Corker amendment takes big and important steps on the immigration issue that matters most: border security," Senator Lamar Alexander said. "It would double the number of agents on the southwest border, construct 700 miles of new or upgraded fencing and spend $3.2 billion on new security technology that was perfected in Iraq and Afghanistan." The Hoeven-Corker amendment would add 20,000 border patrol agents, enough to allow putting one agent every 1,000 feet along the U.S. southwest border. The border patrol agents, fencing and security technology plan would have to be in place before anyone under the immigration legislation's "Registered Provisional Immigrant" program would be allowed to apply for legal permanent residency, otherwise known as a green card. Democratic-affiliated Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has been outspokenly critical of the potential economic effects of S.744, arguing that the bill would "allow college students from around the world to take jobs that young Americans would otherwise perform."  In response, he drafted a  Youth Jobs Plan that would "provide $1.5 billion over two years for states and local communities to help find jobs for more than 400,000 16- to 24-year-olds who were hard hit by the Wall Street-caused recession."  That job plan was incorporated into the Hoeven-Corker Amendment under a heading of "TITLE V  JOBS FOR YOUTH." Youth Jobs Plan TITLE V The claim that the immigration bill includes a provision granting "free cars, motorcycles or scooters for young people" stems from a very broad, speculative interpretation of one sentence in the jobs plan portion of the Hoeven-Corker Amendment which generally directs how the job plan funds should be used: IN GENERAL. The funds made available under this section shall be used  (A) to provide summer employment opportunities for low-income youth, with direct linkages to academic and occupational learning, and may be used to provide supportive services, such as transportation or child care, that is necessary to enable the participation of such youth in the opportunities; and  (B) to provide year-round employment opportunities, which may be combined with other activities authorized under section 129 of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (29 U.S.C. 17 2854), to low-income youth. As stated, the bill does not contain a specific provision to provide "free cars for young people to help them get to work."  It includes a clause allowing that youth job program funds may be used to "provide supportive services, such as transportation" to low-income youth taking part in summer employment opportunities.  Whether and how that provision would be applied in practice is purely speculative at this point and could vary widely from place to place, potentially ranging anywhere from arranging carpools and subsidizing bus fare to buying, leasing, or renting motor vehicles to be temporarily utilized in ferrying job program participants to work.  But the government isn't going to be buying up cars and turning ownership of them over to young people engaged in summer job programs.       Last updated:  26 June 2013
Scam:  Card-skimming thieves can make fraudulent purchases with information read from RFID-enabled credit cards carried in pockets and purses.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, December 2010] Just received an email concerning "Credit Card Pickpocketing". It was broadcast from Memphis WREG TV.  [Collected via e-mail, October 2012] PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO I read this about a couple weeks ago, and then checked my cards for the little "WiFi Signal Icon" on each one.  I found none w/that signal on them, but I was determined to watch for it when my cards came in on renewals. Well, yesterday I got my CHASE SLATE card AND THERE IT WAS!  My first time to see it. I'll not activate that card after seeing this.  I guess I'll go to the bank and see if I can replace it w/a non wi fi (Radio Frequency Card)....? Thought all my contacts ought to see this if you've not already seen this demo....wow!  Origins:  In December 2010, Memphis television station WREG aired an "Electronic Pickpocketing" piece on the potential risks posed by "contactless" credit/debit/ATM cards containing embedded RFID (radio frequency identification technology) chips.  Such chips encode basic information (e.g., account numbers, expiration dates) that can be picked up by point-of-sale RFID readers, eliminating the need for cards to be physically handled or swiped.  One possible drawback to this technology is unauthorized persons might use RFID readers of their own to surreptitiously glean that same information, as demonstrated in WREG's report, which featured Walt Augustinowicz of Identity Stronghold using a card reader and a netbook computer to engage in card "skimming"  picking up account information off RFID-enabled cards carried in the pockets and purses of random passers-by on the street.  A few days after it broadcast the original "Electronic Pickpocketing" story, WREG reported the piece had gone  Electronic Pickpocketing  viral, racking up 1.2 million views in just three days. Despite all the publicity WREG's report garnered, the concept of RFID-enabled credit card theft was hardly a new one.  Various news, technical, and security  outlets have been reporting (and demonstrating) for several years the potential risk that information transmitted wirelessly by RFID-enabled cards might be picked up by eavesdropping thieves using relatively cheap equipment.  But although (as demonstrated in WREG's piece) it's certainly possible for interlopers to read pieces of information from some contactless cards under some circumstances, the extent to which this activity might be used to facilitate theft is currently difficult to gauge. reporting As the WREG report noted, representatives from the Identity Theft Resource Center said "they've never seen a case of RFID skimming used to steal information,"  but it's also the case that it would be difficult (if not impossible) for skimming victims to identify exactly how their card information had been stolen. Nonetheless, other analysts have offered reasons why they believe card skimming may not be nearly as much of a threat as some reports have made it sound:  The data streams emitted by contactless cards don't include such information as PINs and CVV (Card Verification Value) security codes  or, in newer cards,  customer names  and without those pieces of information a card skimmer should not be able to utilize the stolen card numbers to print up counterfeit cards or engage in Card Not Present (CNP) transactions: CNP None of the cards transmits the additional number on the front or back, known as the card validation code, that some businesses require for online purchases. [C]ompany representatives argued [that] the process of making purchases with the cards involves verification procedures based on powerful encryption that make each transaction unique. Most cards, they said, actually transmit a dummy number that does not match the number embossed on the card, and that number can be used only in connection with the verification "token," or a small bit of code, that is encrypted before being sent. "It's basically useless information," said David Bonalle, vice president and general manager for advanced payments at American Express. "You can't steal that data and just play it back and expect that transaction to work." However, some merchants are not assiduous about requiring extra levels of security information from their customers beyond credit card number and expiration date, and security providers contend that card skimmers can still find plenty of places to make purchases with nothing more than 16-digit account numbers and expiration dates.  Although some contactless cards can be read from as far as a few feet away, refinements to the RFID technology employed in newer cards limits their transmission range to a much smaller distance.   Although RFID-enabled cards may have originally transmitted their information in plain text, newer contactless cards are adding encryption to the data streams and thus cannot be read directly by ordinary card readers.  (Encryption requires additional processing time, however, so businesses that place a premium on speed may still eschew its use in their card processing systems.)  Card skimming generally works when the victim is carrying only a single contactless card; otherwise, the transmissions from multiple cards can create a jumbled, unintelligible stream. It remains the case that cardholders are not liable for the fraudulent use of their credit card information, but consumers who are extra cautious have the option of investing in secure sleeves that shield the RFID signals transmitted by their cards from electronic eavesdroppers. On 17 February 2016, an updated version of the rumor began making the rounds, this time accompanied by a photo of a man holding a Point of Sale (PoS) device: version   In theory, all that a thief would need to do would be to enter a price lower than 30, then tap the device against people's pockets and they would be charged. Almost all new bank cards and credit cards issued in the UK now offer the chips, which allow users to authorise small transactions without entering a PIN code. Facebook user R Jarvis claims he saw the alleged scammer at work, saying, "So this guy was spotted wandering round with a Point of Sale (POS) device. All he has to do is key in a price less than 30 and then touch the device on the pocket that contains your wallet." However, the photo that went along with this claim wasn't taken by Paul Jarvis. It appeared in an 8 February 2016 article about possible electronic pickpocketing in Russia. In any case, "electronic pickpocketing," with or without Point of Sale devices, remained rare as of 2016, but RFID sleeves for cards remained readily available for those with lingering concerns. claim article available Last updated:  17 February 2016     Sources:   Noll, Scott.  "Electronic Pickpocketing."   WREG-TV [Memphis].  3 December 2010.     Noll, Scott.  "Electronic Pickpocketing Goes Viral."   WREG-TV [Memphis].  6 December 2010.     Schwartz, John.  "Researchers See Privacy Pitfalls in No-Swipe Credit Cards."   The New York Times.  23 October 2006.     Vamosi, Robert.  "RFID-Enabled Credit Card Theft."   CNET.com.  27 October 2006.     KKCO-TV [Grand Junction, CO].  "Protecting Your Identity Against Credit Card Hackers."   15 May 2012. Claim:  The drawback of a laborer's illiteracy frees him to become a success in another field. LEGEND Example:  [Brunvand, 1993] My grandfather used to tell  about a country lad who went to the big city to seek his fortune, but had no luck finding a job.  One day, wandering through the red light district, he spotted a Help Wanted sign in a window. They were looking for a bookkeeper, but after the madam quizzed the boy about his education and discovered that he could neither read or write, she turned him away. Feeling sorry for him, she gave him two big red apples as he left.  A few blocks down the street, he placed the apples on top of a garbage can while tying his shoe, and a stranger came along and offered to buy them. The boy took the money to a produce market and bought a dozen more apples,which he sold quickly.  Eventually he parlayed his fruit sales into a grocery store, then a string of supermarkets.  Eventually he became the wealthiest man in the state. Finally he was named Man of the Year, and during an interview a journalist discovered that his subject could neither read or write. "Good Lord, Sir," he said.  "What do you suppose you would have become if you had ever learned to read and write?" "Well," he answered, "I guess I would have been a bookkeeper in a whorehouse."1 Origins:  According to folklorist Jan Brunvand, after writer Somerset Maugham was accused of stealing the plot of his 1929 short story "The Verger," he explained that he'd heard the tale from a friend and that it was a well known bit of Jewish folklore.  Maugham's claim is supported by this find, harvested from a 1923 joke book: Some fifteen years ago there landed in New York a friendless and almost penniless Russian immigrant who found lodgings on the East Side and at once, with racial perseverance and energy, set out to earn a living. He was of a likeable disposition, and speedily made acquaintances who sought to aid him in his ambition.  One of them sponsored him for the vacant post of janitor, or shammos, to use the common Hebraic word, of a little synagogue on a side street.  But when the officers of the congregation found out the applicant was  entirely illiterate they reluctantly denied him employment, inasmuch as a shammos must keep certain records.  The greenhorn quickly rallied from his disappointment.  He got a job somewhere.  He prospered.  Presently he became a dabbler in real estate. Within ten years he was one of the largest independent operators in East Side tenement-house property and popularly rated as a millionaire.  An occasion arose when he needed a large amount of money to swing what promised to be a profitable deal.  Finding himself for the moment short of cash, he went to the East Side branch of one of the large banks. It was the first time in his entire business career that he had found it necessary to borrow extensively.  He explained his position to the manager, who knew of his success, and asked for a loan of fifty thousand dollars. "I'll be very glad to accommodate you, Mr. Rabin," said the banker.  "Just sit down there at that desk and make out a note for the amount." The caller smiled an embarrassed smile.  "If you please," he said, "you should be so good as to make out the note and then I should sign it." "What's the idea?" inquired the bank manager, puzzled. "Vell, you see," he confessed, "I haf to tell you somethings: Myself, I cannot read and write.  My vife, she has taught me how to make my own name on paper, but otherwise, with me, reading and writing is nix." In amazement, the banker stared at him. "Well, well, well!" he murmured admiringly.  "And yet, handicapped as you've been, inside of a few years you have become a rich man!  I wonder what you'd have been by now if only you had been able to read and write?" "A shammos," said Mr. Rabin modestly.2 Some like to question the legend's basis on the grounds that if the work-seeker couldn't read, he couldn't have made out what the sign in the window said. "Illiterate" is often mistakenly interpreted as "incapable of making head or tail out of so much as one written word." In real life, any number of folks who cannot read and thus have no hope of making sense of a printed page have learned to recognize by sight a goodly number of key words and phrases, including "help wanted." The illiterate among us manage to catch the right buses, "read" road signs, and order off menus, all by way of having memorized what certain words look like. They exist in mainstream society undetected for years, sometimes fooling even their immediate families. A good story never goes out of style, as this example shows: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test  (Floors, sweeping and cleaning). After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report forwork on your first day. Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardlyexpect to be employed. Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb. flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly. After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pickup truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the internet from the very start!" After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!" Moral of this story: 1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.  2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire. 3. Since you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire. 4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you probably have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft. The   legend's message is twofold: that sometimes seeming adversity is actually the Hand of God arranging future events in our favor, and that often the most momentous decisions we make swing on little more than the expediency of the moment. Taking the second point first, we observe that if the young farm boy in the first example had been able to read and write, he would have gained the job he sought, that of a bookkeeper in a brothel, and thus would never have become the grocery tycoon he ultimately turned out to be. As to what led him to seek the bookkeeping position, he quite by happenstance chose to walk down a particular street, coincidentally on a day when a "Help Wanted" sign was posted in one of the windows. On another day, that sign wouldn't have been there, or he would already have had a job somewhere else.  It is ever thus  the directions of lives change depending upon which ad is answered, which interview is given, even which bus is taken. A chance encounter can lead to a marriage and the begetting of children, and just as certainly the slightly different choice of ad or bus can result in those two people's never meeting. Career direction is likewise up for grabs. As much as we like to feel we're masters of our fate, often we're the very last factor to have much influence on unfolding events, even within the confines of our own lives. But there's another message to this legend, one of the power of divine intervention and why it doesn't pay to second-guess God.  Today's disappointment can be a necessary, though momentarily painful, ingredient in tomorrow's success, as the snubbed bookkeeper or janitor finds out. Children of the moment that we are, we tend to forget this truth when caught up in sorrow over not getting what we'd set our hearts on, and tend only to remember it again when things ultimately turn out far better than they would have if we'd gotten our shortsighted way.  Barbara "father of the chide" Mikkelson Sightings:  In Somerset Maugham's 1929 short story "The Verger," an illiterate church caretaker is fired by the vicar when his lack of education comes to light. The ousted verger goes on to become a tobacconist, eventually owning a string of shops in London. Last updated:  20 April 2011 The Baby Train   2.  Cobb, Irvin S.  A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away. Asimov Laughs Again   Botkin, B.A.  Sidewalks of America.  Indianapolis-New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1954  (pp. 430-431).   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 196). The Big Book of Urban Legends An item about a collection of U.S. tax increases which were supposedly enacted as of 1 January 2016 due to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare") was circulated widely at the beginning of 2016, but it was merely an updated version of identical claims circulated in previous years that set 2014 or 2015 as the imposition date for those tax increases:  Although the tax increases listed in this item did come to pass, they took effect at the beginning of 2013 (not 2014 or 2015 or 2016), were completely unrelated to the Affordable Care Act, applied only to very high-income earners, and have been overstated in this list.  These tax hikes were enacted through the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, a compromise bill pushed through Congress as a partial resolution to the then-looming "fiscal cliff" crisis.  Under the provisions of that bill: American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 fiscal cliff   The top marginal federal income tax rate increased from 35% to 39.6%  The top marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains increased from 15% to 20% (not 28%).  The top marginal tax rate on dividends increased from 15% to 20% (not 39.6%).  Estate taxes increased from 35% of an estate's value in excess of $5,120,000 (in 2012) to 40% of the value above $5,340,000 (in 2014). It's important to note that the increase in marginal tax rates for federal income tax, capital gains, and dividends affected only those persons with taxable incomes over a $400,000 (single)/$450,000 (married) threshold.  It's also important to note that the previous estate tax rate of 0% was a special rule that applied only to the estates of persons who died in 2010 (the estate tax has since been increased to 35% for those who died in 2011 and 40% for those who died in 2012 and thereafter), and even today an estate tax  filing is required only for estates with gross assets in excess of $5 million (indexed for inflation).   estate tax The tax rate for dividends has also not increased from 15% to 39.6%: it appears someone has confused qualified dividends with nonqualified dividends. Qualified dividend earnings are tax-free for those in the 10% and 15% brackets, taxed at a 15% rate for those in the 25% up to 35% tax brackets, and taxed at a 20% rate for higher income taxpayers whose income surpasses the 35% tax bracket.  Nonqualified dividends only are taxed as ordinary income.  (Theoretically, a taxpayer with nonqualified dividend earnings who reached the top marginal federal income tax rate would be paying 39.6% tax on those earnings, but that's a condition that only applies to persons earning over several hundred thousand dollars per year.) dividends The list's reference to an "income payroll tax" increase from 37.4% to 52.2% is something of a mystery, as this is not a standard term for any type of government income- or payroll-related tax.  The only adjustment to payroll-related taxes resulting from the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was that a two-year old cut to payroll taxes which had previously reduced the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% for 2011 and 2012 was not extended.  Additionally, this item's coda claiming that "not one Republican voted to do these taxes" is completely false.  The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 passed Congress by a margin of 89-8 in the Senate with 40 Republican votes in favor, and a margin of 257-167 in the House with 85 Republican votes in favor. (The original claim undoubtedly refers to the House or Representatives' voting in 2010 to pass the health-care reform bill without a single Republican vote in favor, but that association is moot because, as noted, the tax increases listed above had nothing to do with that bill.) 89-8 257-167 health-care reform bill Ohio's economic condition is improving. That's good news for Gov. John Kasich, but it comes with an asterisk.An improving economy is also considered good news for President Barack Obama. Kasich, a Republican, backs challenger Mitt Romney. The point came up, as it has before, during a recent Fox News interview.The Democrats are saying one of the big factors helping the president is the auto bailout, particularly in the northern part of the state, host Paul Gigot said, wondering if Kasich's boosting of jobs was helping Obama's campaign.Kasich, as he has before, downplayed the role of the auto recovery.We're up 123,000 jobs over the last year and three-quarters, he said. We're actually, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, down 500 jobs, auto jobs in Ohio.A loss of jobs? PolitiFact Ohio was interested.We looked at figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we asked Kasich's office for his sourcing.First, we noted that Kasich, in talking about the last year and three-quarters, was referring to the period from January 2011, when he took office, until August 2012, the last month for which figures were available.BLS figures for Ohio show that total nonfarm employment went in that period from 5,064,600 to 5,187,600 -- an increase of 123,000 jobs, as Kasich stated.In talking about auto jobs in that period, Kasich's staff said he was referring to jobs in the BLS categories of motor vehicle manufacturing and motor vehicle parts manufacturing.The first category saw an increase of 700 jobs from January 2011 to August 2012, from 19,200 to 19,900.In the second and larger category, employment went from 56,000 to 54,800, a loss of 1,200 jobs.That's a net decrease of 500 jobs.So Kasichs numbers are correct. But additional information is needed to clarify his claim.The timeframe Kasich used is an issue in itself, as we have noted before. In talking about Ohio jobs, the governor only used figures that covered his time in office, starting in January 2011. But the first federal aid to the automakers was made in 2008 while Republican President George W. Bush was still in office. It continued in early 2009 under Obama.The auto industry hit bottom in June 2009, when vehicle manufacturing jobs in Ohio dropped to 14,200, down from 23,800 jobs one year earlier. By the time Kasich took office, after the auto bailouts, that number had increased by 5,000 jobs. That isn't reflected in the governor's tally.Parts manufacturing, down 1,200 jobs since Kasich took office, is up 3,900 jobs from the trough of June 2009.It is also worth noting that the figures the governor cited reflect only direct jobs in the auto industry. Some industry analysts, such as the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, also look at two other categories of employment in the industry -- intermediate and spin-off -- in considering the impact auto manufacturing has on the economy. Under that gauge, job growth in other businesses that have a connection to the auto industry also would be considered.On the Truth-O-Meter, a statement that is accurate but needs clarification or additional information rates Mostly True. On 28 December 2015, an image purportedly showing a shark attacking two motorists stranded on a flooded Missouri highway started going viral on Facebook:  Before we examine the origins of the above-displayed image, let's take a moment to judge the authenticity of the photograph based on simple common sense. The man in the above-displayed picture is standing in about thigh-high water, and since the average male in the United States is about5 foot 9, we can reasonably assume that the water is no more than a fewfeet deep. The rest of the lane is visible in the upper left-hand corner of the image, so it appears that this flood only affected a small portion of the roadway. Also, Missouri is a landlocked state in the central U.S. far from any ocean, so any flood waters in that area would likely be fresh water and not salt water. All of these factors make the pictured site a highly unlikely habitat for the ocean-going great white shark species. average In fact, a larger version of the image clearly shows that entire road is not flooded:  The text accompanying the image alleges that the incident took place in Missouri, a Midwestern state located about 400 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico:  While that is not an impossible distance for a great white shark to travel, it is highly implausible that a large sea creature such as a shark would be able to traverse a fresh water river all the way from the ocean up toMissouri. (A story earlier this year about a bull shark caught in the Missouri River turned out to bean April Fool's joke.) story The Facebook post also mentions that the shark attack victims pictured were recent recipients of Mark Zuckerberg's alleged $4.5 million giveaway. This is another indication that the photograph is a jape, since the claim that the founder of Facebook was giving away money to random people on Facebook was itself a hoax. money While Bill Tennison scored a viral hit in December 2015 when he claimed that a motorist was attacked by a shark on a flooded highway in Missouri, he wasn't the first person to sharethis fake photograph. This image has been circulatingonline since at least 2000 and has been attached to flood waters in Ireland, Houston, Englandand New Orleans. Ireland Houston England New Orleans Also, as many commenters have pointed out, the license plates, road signs, and cars seen in the image indicate the pictured road is more likely located somewhere in the United Kingdom than Missouri. Update: We received the following comment on 31 December 2015 from Stephen Rushbrook. Rushbrook This was taken by Computer game Artist Russell Hughes when he was working for Stainless Games back at our farmhouse offices in the Isle of Wight That spot is infamous for flooding. So on that stormy day we were all by the roadside laughing at those who didn't know how to drive through a flood. Later (after the pub, blacksmiths arms just up the road) he turned his photo into this. He then sent it to the company. It escaped when Matt Edmunds sent it to his friend at Reuters. It then became 'news picture of the day' and that was that. Within the day we were getting emails from our friends from round the world saying have you seen this ? Btw it was taken here Dropped pinnear The Middle Rd, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 4HPhttps://goo.gl/maps/noY1ehkSvcS2 https://goo.gl/maps/noY1ehkSvcS2 On 7 August 2018, Texas governor Greg Abbott posted a 9gag.com-branded meme on Twitter which included a statement attributed to former British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill about how "fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists":   However apt this quote may (or may not) be, it did not originate with Winston Churchill. Abbott deleted his tweet after critics pointed out that fact to him, but he said during a press conference that knowing who originally made the statement was "irrelevant" because he believed in its sentiment regardless of who said it: "What I tweeted was a sentiment that I had. It was irrelevant to me who may or may not have said that in the past. I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism for saying it. If no one else said it, attribute the quote to me because it's what I believe in." press conference So who does deserve credit? Similar quotes positing the idea that fascism would come to America disguised by a different name can be traced at least as far back as 1936 (although they weren't attached to Churchill's name until decades later).  On 18 March 1936, for example, the Cincinnati Inquirer reported on words delivered by Norman Thomas, an American Presbyterian minister who was running for president as the Socialist Party of America's candidate, at an informal luncheon: "Fascism is coming in the United States most probably, but it will not come under that name."   A few days later the same newspaper mentioned the same statement in a book review of In the Second Year, a dystopian novel by Storm Jameson set in a fascist Britain. That article added some additional words to the statement and reported that Thomas had been quoting Huey Long, an American politician who had been assassinated the previous year: Norman Thomas said recently in a speech made in Cincinnati "Fascism is coming in the United States most probably, but it will not come under that name." In this statement he was repeating the words of the late Huey Long, but Huey added: "Of course we'll have it. We'll have it under the guise of anti-fascism." No one has yet been able to document Huey Long's having made such a statement, however. Several variations of this quote have appeared in print since Thomas' 1936 remark. In 1938, for instance, Rev. Dr Halford E. Luccock of the Yale Divinity School said that "When fascism comes to America, and it has already come to some parts, it will not be marked with the swastika and labeled 'Made in Germany ... It will not even be called Fascism ... But will be called by that high-sounding and highly praised name - Americanism." Playwright Clare Booth reportedly had a similar take: "Speaking of Fascism," she writes, "Of all national ways of life, it is, perhaps, the most quickly habit-forming. It is the alcohol and the opium of the political systems; it will rob us eventually of our physical and mental and even moral powers, but it gives us temporary illusion of escape from an inimical world, a lift of the spirit, a feeling of superiority, of power ... also, we are warned (though not loudly, not often enough) when -- or if -- fascism comes in all America she will come so prettily costumed in red, white and blue as to be practically indistinguishable from a music hall's Fourth of July performance 'Rockette,' than which nothing could look more charmingly, happily, uniformly american.  Apparently Churchill's name was spuriously appended to this statement about fascism circa 2010 more than 40 years after his death (and with no supporting evidence). 2010 Timothy Riley of the National Churchill Museum told us that these words do not appear in any of the articles, speeches, or books penned by Churchill: "Winston Churchill authored over 15 million words  in articles, speeches, books and other writings. There is no evidence that the statesman wrote the words in question.  It is impossible to know if he uttered the words in conversation, but I am not aware of any of Churchills contemporaries who recorded or recalled the statement." The Cincinnati Enquirer.  "Fascism Coming  Under New Name!"
  18 February 1936. JYK.  "This and That."
  The Morning Call.  5 March 1939. McD, J.F.  "A 'Lively Age' to Come?'
  The Cincinnati Enquirer.  22 February 1936. McGaughy, Lauren.  "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Tweets Fake Winston Churchill Quote About Anti-Fascists."
  The Dallas Morning News.  7 August 2018. An ad goes after Sen. John McCain for being just like President George W. Bush, hitting McCain onIraq, oil companies and health care.It also criticizes him on tax policy. A millionaire who's for tax cuts for millionaires. McSame as Bush, the ad states. It's true that Bush and McCain are both millionaires, with McCain being somewhat wealthier. Bush's net worth in 2006 was between $7.6-million and $20.1-million, based on his personal financial disclosures required by law and analyzed by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. McCain, meanwhile, is worth somewhere between $27.8-million and $45-million. (Sen. Hillary Clinton's net worth is between $10.4-million and $51-million, while Sen. Barack Obama's is between $456,012 and $1.1-million.) So McCain and Bush are both millionaires, and that part of the statement is correct. We couldn't find any proposals John McCain supports that offer new tax cuts for millionaires, so we suspect this is a reference to McCain's support of the Bush tax cuts. Bush's tax cuts lowered rates across the board for those who pay federal income taxes, so they benefited both millionaire and nonmillionaire taxpayers. But data compiled from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that millionaires saw the most sizable drops to their tax rates measured as a share of income. Those tax cuts will expire during the next presidential administration unless Congress acts to keep them in place. McCain actually opposed the Bush tax cuts before changing his mind and supporting them now. He said the reason for his change of heart is that rescinding the tax cuts would be the equivalent of a tax increase after they had been in effect for so long. (Both Obama and Clinton want to roll back the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes.) If you're trying to identify the candidate who supports the Bush tax cuts, McCain is your man. But we're concerned that the ad leaves the impression that McCain advocates new, additional tax cuts for millionaires rather than keeping the present situation in place. For that reason, we knock this claim down one peg on the Truth-O-Meter and find it Mostly True. An Iranian president says hesready to resolvethe nations nuclear standoff with the West  what gives? Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich gives at least partial credit to economic pain orchestrated by the United States and international allies. While the United States must still be very cautious, he saidon ABCsThis Week, one of the big lessons here is that economic sanctions do seem to work. Right now Iran is suffering 30 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment, he told a roundtable including CNNs Newt Gingrich, ABCs Jonathan Karl and PBS Gwen Ifill. I mean this nation is hurting and our economic sanctions, because we've been patient with them, because we have actually rounded up almost every other nation to support us, have had a huge impact. Is Iran suffering such high inflation and unemployment under economic sanctions? Tumbling oil exports Now, economic sanctions are nothing new for Iran, which hasfaced U.S. sanctionssince its 1979 Islamic revolution. But the pressure has been rising. Other nations have joined in sanctions since 2006 in response to Irans efforts to develop a nuclear weapon,according to a report by Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service, which provides nonpartisan analysis to Congress. Oil exports, which fund nearly half of Irans government spending, have fallen by about half since 2011, from about 2.5 million barrels a day to about 1.25 million. The drop has been driven, Katzman says, by a European Union embargo and U.S. pressure on Iranian oil customers. Iran also lost access to the international banking system. The combination has caused a sharp drop in the value of Irans currency, the rial, Katzman says. Meanwhile, sanctions helped trigger a recession thats driving up unemployment. Has that meant 30 percent inflation, 20 percent unemployment, as Reich told ABC viewers? Theres not a simple answer. Inflation estimates range from30 percent to 70 percent. Official unemployment statistics, meanwhile, are out of date, and outside experts question their accuracy, anyway. The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development dont have up-to-date figures for Iranian unemployment. Still, Reichs in range. Gary Hufbauer, a former U.S. Treasury official and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has studied sanctions for 30 years, said Reichs numbers seem reasonable. Heres how the Congressional Research Service put it in June: Inflation: 30 percent plus, according to Iran Central Bank in May 2013, but believed to be over 50 percent by outside experts. Unemployment rate: Official rate is 15.3 percent as of the end of 2011, but outside experts believe the rate is higher. Reich pointed us to news articles from theAssociated Pressand energy news siteOilPrice.com which offer some support for his numbers while highlighting the uncertainty. The Associated Press reported in June inflation over 30 percent, though it cited a 14 percent unemployment rate. OilPrices.com noted Sept. 19 that analysts outside the country found that unemployment rate impossible to believe, and quoted an estimate from Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian-born economic adviser to the European Union, of more than 20 percent. (The OilPrices.com report echoes a Reuters report from thesame day.) So reasonable seems like a fair assessment for Reichs numbers. We should also note theres not universal agreement on the size of sanctions role in all that financial pain, which experts also attribute to Iransfiscal management. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley with a background in economics, told PolitiFact it just makes sense unemployment and inflation would follow a slash in oil exports. The typical consequence for a nation dependent on exports when those exports are cut is high inflation and high unemployment, he said. Michael Malloy, a professor at the University of the Pacifics McGeorge School of Law who specializes in banking regulation and economic sanctions, told PolitiFact it's likely to be a much more complicated picture. Our ruling Reich told ABC viewers that under economic sanctions, now Iran is suffering 30 percent inflation and 20 percent unemployment. Irans own statistics arent widely trusted and international organizations dont have recent unemployment figures. But those numbers fall within a broad range of expert estimates cited by news reports and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Its worth noting that Irans economic struggle has been exacerbated by its own economic policies and other factors, not just sanctions. Still, theres good evidence theyve had a huge impact, as Reich said. We rate his claim Mostly True. On 10 May 2016, the Facebook page "Occupy Democrats" published a post claiming that Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly lost custody of his two children because he abused his ex-wife: post   Clicking through the link led to an articlefromOccupy Democrats, this one in February 2016: Notorious FOX pundit Bill OReilly has been denied custody of his children by a New York appeals court after they were convinced that he was unfit to care for them after a vicious domestic violence incident. His kids, a 12-year-old boy and 17-year-old girl, will stay with his ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy. The court ruling announced that: Viewing the totality of the circumstances, there is a sound and substantial basis for the Supreme Courts determination that it is in the best interests of the children for the mother to be awarded primary residential custody. Particularly relevant in this case are the clearly stated preferences of the children, especially considering their age and maturity, and the quality of the home environment provided by the mother. The right-wing propagandist and shameless liar initially lost custody of his kids following OReillys horrific attack on his ex-wife; his daughter told a court psychologist that he was choking her mom or had his hands around her neck and dragged her down some stairs. Thearticle did not back theheadline's assertions: it stated first that O'Reilly specifically lost custody of the children because he was deemed "unfit to care for them" following a "vicious domestic violence incident." But the portion of a court document quotedsimplysaid thatit was in the best interest of the children to remain in their mother's care. Occupy Democrats cited Raw Story, which in turn cited Gawker,which reported that O'Reilly had "lost custody" of his children in February 2016, but that article, again, did notsuggestthat O'Reilly was denied custodial care of the children due to violent behavior: Raw Story Gawker The lengthy decision affirms the holding of a Nassau County Supreme Court justice last year that the children, now aged 13 and 17, should live full-time with their mother (the former couple had been splitting residential custody). As we reported at the time, OReilly appealed that ruling, thereby delaying its enforcement (and, of course, extending his multi-front battle against McPhilmy and her new family). The Appellate Division issued its 1,400-word opinion on February 24, a little over a month after attorneys for OReilly and McPhilmyknown in court documents as Anonymous 2011-1 and Anonymous 2011-2presented oral arguments at the divisions courthouse in Brooklyn Heights. According to the opinion, the courts four justices unanimously ruled in McPhilmys favor based upon the clearly stated preferences of the children[.] The February 2016 court documents fromto the hearing can be read in full here. They make little mention of contentionbetween O'Reilly and his ex-wife (aside from a brief description of ongoingacrimony, not violence): here Here, viewing the totality of the circumstances, there is a sound and substantial basis for the Supreme Court's determination that it is in the best interests of the children for the mother to be awarded primary residential custody. Particularly relevant in this case are the clearly stated preferences of the children, especially considering their age and maturity, and the quality of the home environment provided by the mother (see Matter of Manfredo v Manfredo, 53 AD3d 498, 500 [2008]; Matter of O'Connor v Dyer, 18 AD3d 757 [2005]). Moreover, under the circumstances of this case, the Supreme Court did not err in denying the father's motion for an award of sole decision-making authority with respect to the children, and continuing instead the existing provisions of the judgment of divorce, which call for joint legal custody and joint decision-making authority. While ordinarily it is not appropriate to award joint legal custody and decision-making authority where the parties are antagonistic toward one another (see Irizarry v Irizarry, 115 AD3d 913 [2014]), in this case, the record supports the court's finding that, despite their antagonism, the parties have been able to agree on most decisions concerning the children (see Matter of Thorpe v Homoet, 116 AD3d 962, 963 [2014]). Moreover, the record supports the court's finding that if either parent were awarded sole decision-making authority, there would be a danger that it would be used to exclude the other parent from meaningful participation [*3]in the children's lives. In addition, the court appointed a parenting coordinator, who can assist the parents in resolving any disputes they may have concerning decisions about the children. It ispossible that arguments or physical altercations between Bill O'Reilly and his ex-wife were a factor in the court's 2016 decision to uphold the family's custody arrangements, but if that were the case, the ruling on which news reports did not indicate such a circumstance. The appellate court's opinion read as a standardcustody arrangement, and the sole factor emphasized in it was the preference (not safety) of the children. Occupy Democrats' May 2016 rehash of the February 2016 news insinuated that custody hinged on allegations made by his "young daughter." However, that "young daughter" was described as 17 yearsoldas ofFebruary 2016 court documents, and no reference was made to any "damning" accusations levied by her. It istrue O'Reilly was accused byGawkerin May 2015 of abusing his ex-wife verbally and physically, but  despite reporting to the contrary  those accusations weren't referenced or hinted at in the February 2016appellate court's decision to uphold a custody arrangement involving his children.  Garcia, Arturo.  "Foxs Bill OReilly Loses Custody Of Teen Children After New York Appeals Court Ruling."
Raw Story.  29 February 2016. Taylor, Colin.  "Family Values Hypocrite Bill OReilly Loses Custody Of Kids After Choking His Wife."
Occupy Democrats.  20 February 2016. Trotter, J.K.  "Bill OReilly Loses Custody Of Children In New York Court Ruling."
Gawker.  29 February 2016. Trotter, J.K.  "Court Transcripts: Bill OReillys Daughter Saw Him 'Choking Her Mom.'"
Gawker.  20 May 2015. Since the 2010s, a picture has permeated corners of the internet purportedly showing two women adorned with large "blizzard cones" to protect their faces from a snowstorm. For example, a Reddit post claimed:  The picture was authentic and accurately captioned (aside from the misspelling of "Montreal"). Snopes traced the location of the photograph's original, physical copy to an archive in the Netherlands, where an editor shared what is known about its backstory. Through a reverse-image search, Snopes found the photograph has been circulating onlinesince at least 2010, when it was published by the entertainment website Bored Panda. Since then, dozens of websites, such asCountry Living, and social media platforms, including ImgurandX,have shared the picture. Many posts accurately claimed the face masks were said to protect the two individuals from snow, though some falsely asserted that such masks were supposedly used to prevent infectionduring the 1918 Spanish Flu. reverse-image search since at least 2010 Country Living Imgur X protect the two individuals from snow during the 1918 Spanish Flu We found the above image hosted onFine Art America's online photograph database, where it wascreditedto the image-licensing group, Bridgeman Photos. We contacted that agency and were referred totheDutch foundation, Spaarnestad Photo,which confirmed it was housing the original, physical copy of the picture for theNational Archives of the Netherlands. Fine Art America credited Bridgeman Photos After reviewing the photograph upon Snopes' request,Spaarnestad Image Editor Kim Tieleman told us by email that information regarding the its origins was handwritten on its back. That note said Spaarnestad publishing house first published itin 1939 in the Dutch-illustrated magazine Het Leven, which translates to "life" in English.According to Spaarnestad's records, the picture's caption is: Two ladies wear plastic face protection against the blizzard and cold in Montreal, Canada 1939. There was no information about who took the picture, nor the identities of the women. As of this writing, the photograph's credit was the Nationaal Archief/Collectie Spaarnestad/Het Leven, according to Tieleman. The picture's authenticity aside, Snopes was unable to determine whether the cone-shaped mask was a one-off invention in the 1930s, or if the device gained any type of popularity to protect people from snow. We found no evidence of other photographs depicting similar items, and we were unable to identify the cone mask's original inventor, or a patent for it. Fashion and culture historian Deirdre Clemente, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,told Snopes via email thatshe had never seen or heard of "such a contraption." However, given the popularity of plastic at the time, she said she was not surprised that such an invention existed. "Tons of innovations in plastics [were produced] in the 1930s and more so into the 1940s, so it's culturally on point with that period," Clemente said. Deirdre Clemente Plastic was invented in 1907 by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland, according to the Science History Institute in Philadelphia. This, the U.K.'s Science Museum wrote, sparked a "consumer boom in affordable yet highly desirable products." S cience History Institute Science Museum "18 Cool Inventions From the Past." Bored Panda, 18 June 2010, https://www.boredpanda.com/cool-inventions-from-the-past/. "Can You Guess the Weird Purpose Behind These 1930s Face Cones?" Country Living, 22 Jan. 2016, https://www.countryliving.com/life/a37397/weird-invention-1930s-face-cones/. "Cone-Shaped Face Masks to Protect Face in a Snowstorm. Montral. 1930s." R/OldSchoolCool, 20 Dec. 2020, www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/kgqe1v/coneshaped_face_masks_to_protect_face_in_a/. "Deirdre Clemente." University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 9 Dec. 2013, https://www.unlv.edu/people/deirdre-clemente. "History and Future of Plastics." Science History Institute, https://sciencehistory.org/education/classroom-activities/role-playing-games/case-of-plastics/history-and-future-of-plastics/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. "Https://Twitter.Com/Fakehistoryhunt/Status/1263911647686639618." Twitter, https://twitter.com/fakehistoryhunt/status/1263911647686639618. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. "Https://Twitter.Com/vSaleharde/Status/1158698236028305413." Twitter, https://twitter.com/vSaleharde/status/1158698236028305413. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. Imgur. "15 Absolutely Absurd Inventions." Imgur, https://imgur.com/a/FcwBb. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. Limited, Alamy. 635 Face Protection from Snowstorms Stock Photo - Alamy. https://www.alamy.com/635-face-protection-from-snowstorms-image212668423.html. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. "Plastic Face Protection From Snowstorms, Montreal, Canada, 1939 by French School." Fine Art America, https://fineartamerica.com/featured/plastic-face-protection-from-snowstorms-montreal-canada-1939-french-school.html. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023. The Age of Plastic: From Parkesine to Pollution | Science Museum. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/chemistry/age-plastic-parkesine-pollution. Accessed 26 Aug. 2023.