Did Anthony Kennedy Resign from the Supreme Court to Protect His Son?
Any occasion on which a member of the U.S. Supreme Court leaves the bench through retirement (or death) is a significant political event, providing the incumbent president with the opportunity to nominate a successor who is ideologically congruent with the party in power and (in most cases) will remain on the bench for decades to come.  The requirement that a Supreme Court nominee be confirmed by a vote of the U.S. Senate often touches off bitter fights between the two parties on the floor of that chamber. When Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his imminent retirement at the end of June 2018, it set the stage for a particularly momentous shift in the makeup of the Supreme Court, as Kennedy had long been the bridge between the court's liberal and conservative sides on a number of contentious social issues:  announced Justice Kennedy, 81, has been a critical swing vote on the sharply polarized court for nearly three decades as he embraced liberal views on gay rights, abortion and the death penalty but helped conservatives trim voting rights, block gun control measures and unleash campaign spending by corporations. His replacement by a conservative justice  something Mr. Trump has vowed to his supporters  could imperil a variety of landmark Supreme Court precedents on social issues where Justice Kennedy frequently sided with his liberal colleagues, particularly on abortion. Many critics still smarting over the Republicans' successful (and unprecedented) efforts at blocking approval of Merrick Garland, who had been nominated by outgoing president Barack Obama in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia -- thus allowing incoming president Donald Trump the opportunity to fill the vacant court seat instead -- immediately jumped on a conspiracy theory involving the timing of Kennedy's resignation and his son's employment: Merrick Garland    The details of this conspiracy theory were somewhat hazy, most versions of it seemingly implying that President Trump somehow leveraged his financial connections with Kennedy's son Justin to convince or coerce the jurist to retire ahead of the November 2018 U.S. mid-term elections (during which Democrats might pick up enough Senate seats to block confirmation of Trump's preferred nominee).   The most coherent form of the conspiracy theory posited that Kennedy's retirement was a sudden and unexpected event, a strategic move intended to allow Trump to nominate a friendly successor who would vote favorably on any issues involving Justin Kennedy that might come before the court as a result of the ongoing Mueller investigation into Russian election interference (whereas Kennedy would have to recuse himself from such issues if he remained on the bench):  As the New York Times noted, Donald Trump did have a business relationship with Deutsche Bank, where Justin Kennedy once worked (he left the company in 2009), that went back many years to a time when many other banks were leery of doing business with Trump: business [Anthony Kennedy and Donald Trump] had a connection, one Mr. Trump was quick to note in the moments after his first address to Congress in February 2017. As he made his way out of the chamber, Mr. Trump paused to chat with the justice. Say hello to your boy, Mr. Trump said. Special guy. Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Justice Kennedys son, Justin. The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the banks global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role. During Mr. Kennedys tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trumps most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history. And, of course, many news outlets have reported on the potentially suspect coincidence that right about the time Trump was sworn in as U.S. president, Deutsche Bank was fined an aggregate $630 million for their involvement in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme  and Deutsche Bank's records were later reportedly subpoenaed by special prosecutor Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections: reported $630 million subpoenaed [Trump] took out two mortgages against a resort in Miami and a $170 million loan to finish his hotel in Washington, D.C. According to Bloomberg, by the time Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2016, he owed Deutsche around $300 million, an unprecedented debt for an incoming president. (His June financial disclosure showed he owes the bank $130 million, which is due in full in 2024.) The loans to Trump werent the only abnormal behavior at Deutsche. Around the same time he received his new line of credit, the bank was laundering money, according to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). Russian money. Billions of dollars that flowed from Moscow to London, then from London to New York  part of a scheme for which European and American regulators eventually punished the bank. Was the timing of this illicit operation and the loans to Trump coincidental? Or evidence of something more sinister  a critical chapter in the presidents long history of suspicious business deals with Russian and post-Soviet oligarchs? Little hard evidence suggests that the Kennedy rumors are more than political conspiracy-driven speculation, however.  Justin Kennedy left Deutsche Bank before the money laundering activity referenced above took place, and some sources have asserted that Justin Kennedy had little or no involvement with Trump's Deutsche Bank dealings: MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, who worked for eight years at Deutsche Bank before joining the news network, cautioned about reaching conclusions because there are multiple parts of the bank that "can easily get confused and lumped together." "While I know and it has been well-reported, Deutsche was a massive lender to Mr. Trump, I want to put a new context," she said. "A lot of this comes from multiple sides of the bank, specifically the private bank, and that was not where Mr. Kennedy worked." Citing two former members of senior management, Ruhle said, "a lot of the recent lending comes from the private bank ... most of which was done after Justin left the bank." "The business Mr. Kennedy ran was part of a real estate team that did some business. It was not part of the private bank business," Ruhle continued. "To say that he was the point guy that lent all of this money to Trump, I think, is short-sided. It's a lot more complicated." The level of engagement Justin Kennedy might have had with Donald Trump's financial dealings at Deutsche Bank remains ambiguous for now, but the New York Times gave little weight to the notion that Anthony Kennedy was directly pressured into retiring, observing that it's not unusual for presidents to be mindful of when an open seat on the Supreme Court bench might be in the offing and strategize around the possibility: There were no direct efforts to pressure or lobby Justice Kennedy to announce his resignation, and it was hardly the first time a president had done his best to create a court opening. In the past half-century, presidents have repeatedly been dying to take advantage of timely vacancies, said Laura Kalman, a historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. When Mr. Trump took office last year, he already had a Supreme Court vacancy to fill, the one created by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But Mr. Trump dearly wanted a second vacancy, one that could transform the court for a generation or more. So he used the first opening to help create the second one. He picked Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who had served as a law clerk to Justice Kennedy, to fill Justice Scalias seat. And when Justice Gorsuch took the judicial oath in April 2017 at a Rose Garden ceremony, Justice Kennedy administered it  after Mr. Trump first praised the older justice as a great man of outstanding accomplishment. Throughout his nearly 30 years on the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump said, Justice Kennedy has been praised by all for his dedicated and dignified service. There is reason to think, then, that Mr. Trumps praise of Justice Kennedy was strategic. Then, after Justice Gorsuchs nomination was announced, a White House official singled out two candidates for the next Supreme Court vacancy: Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Raymond M. Kethledge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati. The two judges had something in common: They had both clerked for Justice Kennedy. Moreover, Politico reported back in April 2017 (before the Mueller investigation into Russian interference was even underway) that the Trump White House might have been utilizing connections between Trump's and Kennedy's children to ease the elder Kennedy into retirement.  Notably, Politico referenced Justin Kennedy's having a connection with Donald Trump, Jr., not President Trump himself, and made no mention of Deutsche Bank: reported While the White House is focused on shepherding Trumps first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, through the Senate confirmation process, the president and his team are obsessed with the next possible vacancy. The likeliest candidate is Kennedy, who has sat at the decisive fulcrum of the most important Supreme Court cases for more than a decade. Replacing him with a reliable conservative would tip the court to the right, even if no other seat comes open under Trump  whose team has taken to exploring every imaginable line of communication to keep tabs on the justice and to make him comfortable as he ponders a potential retirement. One back channel is the fact that Kennedys son, Justin, knows Donald Trump Jr. through New York real estate circles. Another is through Kennedys other son, Gregory, and Trumps Silicon Valley adviser Peter Thiel. They went to Stanford Law School together and served as president of the Federalist Society in back-to-back years, according to school records. More recently, Kennedys firm, Disruptive Technology Advisers, has worked with Thiels company Palantir Technologies. The White House has also closely monitored retirement chatter by tapping into the network of former Kennedy clerks, a group that includes Gorsuch himself. Some in the legal world viewed Gorsuchs selection  he would be the first Supreme Court clerk to serve alongside a former boss  as an olive branch to Kennedy that, should he retire next, his seat would be in reliable presidential hands. Those close to Trumps judicial-selection process stress that theyre not pressuring Kennedy to hang up his robe, only seeking to put him at ease. It may be true, as outlined above, that members of the Trump administration undertook efforts to "assure Kennedy that his judicial legacy would be in good hands should he step down at the end of the courts [current] term." But no substantive evidence yet suggests anything more than that President Trump and other members of his administration might have sought to curry favor with a justice who was already mulling retirement to influence the timing of that event. Arons, Steven.  "Deutsche Bank Records Said to Be Subpoenaed by Mueller."
  Bloomberg.  4 December 2017.

 Mullen, Jethro.  "Deutsche Bank Fined for $10 Billion Russian Money-Laundering Scheme."
  CNN Money.  31 January 2017.
 Harding, Luke.  "Is Donald Trump's Dark Russian Secret Hiding in Deutsche Bank's Vaults?"
  Newsweek.  21 December 2017.
 Liptak, Adam and Maggie Haberman.  "Inside the White Houses Quiet Campaign to Create a Supreme Court Opening."
  The New York Times.  28 June 2018.
 Liptak, Adam.  "Study Calls Snub of Obama's Supreme Court Pick Unprecedented."
  The New York Times.  13 June 2016. The Washington Post.  "The Path Ahead for Trumps Second Nominee to the Supreme Court."
  29 June 2018.
 de Vogue, Ariane.  "Justice Anthony Kennedy to Retire from Supreme Court."
  CNN.  27 June 2018. Shear, Michael D.  "Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Will Retire."
   The New York Times.  27 June 2018.


 Goldmacher, Shane.  "Trumps Hidden Back Channel to Justice Kennedy: Their Kids."
  Politico.  6 April 2017.
 Tarlo, Shira.  "Did Anthony Kennedys Son Loan Donald Trump $1 Billion?"
  Salon.  29 June 2018.
On Aug. 2, Cook County became the largest government in the United States to charge a tax on sweetened drinks. The debut of the penny-an-ounce charge for drinks sweetened with sugar or non-caloric sweetenerswasnt exactly smooth, nor was it particularly well received with the soft drink-consuming public. Customers who examined their receipts at some stores found they had been charged extra for flavored seltzer water -- which is not subject to the new tax -- while restaurant patrons discovered those free refills now cost one cent per ounce. Cook County sweetened beverage tax applies to free refills of lemonade.pic.twitter.com/PDztyTDIBl As soft drink consumers and sellers came to grips with the new charges, the libertarian Illinois Policy Institute  never a fan of any tax, and a particularly harsh critic of the tax habits of Cook County and Chicago  framed the drink tax in a consumer unfriendly light. The new tax will make soda sold in Chicago among the most expensive in the country, the institute said in a tweet and in theheadline of an articleon its website. That is a little like proclaiming the sun rises in the east, but given intense public interest in the soda tax we thought it was a worth a look anyway. Accompanying the institutes tweets were graphics illustrating the various taxes that now will be paid by those purchasing sweetened drinks in Chicago. The new soda tax makes soda sold in#Chicagoamong the most expensive in the countryhttps://t.co/2JYANKDrcspic.twitter.com/KiUS5vzIYT The new soda tax makes soda sold in#Chicagoamong the most expensive in the countryhttps://t.co/2JYANKDrcspic.twitter.com/KiUS5vzIYT Chicago already charged a 3 percent soft drink sales tax, and that was on top of a10.25 percent sales taxthat includes state and local portions and is thehighest of any major city in the United States. For a 12-pack of 12-ounce cans or bottles of any sweetened soft drink, regular or diet, the sweetened beverage tax adds another $1.44. Thus, a 12-pack priced at $4 costs $5.97 at the register. The new tax adds 67 cents to a two-liter bottle. If marked on the shelf at $2.49, the new tax means youll pay 40 percent more at checkout. Thats how it works in Chicago, where the total price figures to be slightly higher than in the rest of Cook County even though the soda tax applies in the suburbs as well. Does that make Chicago-bought soda among the most expensive in the country? The institute grants its statement a lot of leeway by using the word among. Wherever the thirsty buy it, a Big Gulp is a Big Gulp is a Big Gulp. So the add-on cost of taxes is likely the prime factor behind any significant price differences. To date, the list of places embracing a soda tax is an extremely short one, hence Chicagos (and Cook Countys) emergence as among the most expensive places to pop for a pop. As it stands today, Cook County is one of only eight U.S. locations to impose or plan to impose a per-ounce tax on sweetened drinks. The other seven are cities and, with a population of 5.2 million, Cook County is by far the largest jurisdiction to adopt such a tax. Issue-wise, this is right in the Illinois Policy Institutes wheelhouse. It not only piles expense onto an extremely popular category of consumer products, but it also comes swathed in nanny state good intentions for the health of Cook County residents. By strange coincidence, this health concern arrives just as Cook County finds itself in desperate financial straits. (Inanother article,the institute claims Cook County cant even get its nanny state act right, as federal rules prohibit applying the new tax to sweetened drinks purchased with food stamps. It notes that polling shows people with lower incomes are more likely to drink soda.) At one cent per ounce, Cook County is on the lower end of the soda tax scale. In Boulder, Colo., that two-liter soda will cost an extra $1.35 and a 12-pack will be $2.88 more. Cook County is also one of the three jurisdictions in which voters did not voluntarily adopt the tax by referendum. (Illinois has no provision for such referenda.) There have been many complaints that Cook Countys soda tax was sold to voters as an anti-obesity measure but also includes drinks containing non-caloric sweeteners. But theordinance itselfcontains extensive language citing studies that link even diet drink consumption to kidney disease, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Cook County and the city of Philadelphia are the only places where drinks sweetened with non-caloric sweeteners also are subject to the tax. Thus, even among the eight places in the nation taxing or preparing to tax consumers by the ounce for sweetened soft drinks, Cook Countys measure reaches an especially broad swath of consumers. The Illinois Policy Institute cites Cook Countys new sweetened drink tax as making soda sold in the city of Chicago among the most expensive in the country. With Chicago already charging the nations highest sales tax of any major city plus a 3-percent soft drink tax, its almost certain that consumers in the city paid among the highest prices for soft drinks in the country even before the Aug. 2 arrival of the sweetened drink tax. But Chicago truly moved into a select group when its home county joined the seven other cities that have enacted or are poised to enact by-the-ounce taxes on sweetened soft drinks. With a nod toCaptain Obvious, we raise a glass of flattened, left-out-in-the-open Coke in the direction of the Illinois Policy Institute as we rate this statement True. On 24 October 2016, health insurance broker Tyler McClosky created a phenomenon on Facebook when he posted a screen shot of what it would cost for a family of four with a total household income of $98,000 in Lee County, Florida, to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act's marketplace: We were able to recreate McClosky's viral post using the shopping tool at healthcare.gov and the same data he entered (two non-smoking parents with a combined income of $98,000 and two 8-year-old children in Lee County, Florida): tool   But data sent by a Department of Health and Human Services official pointed out that 81 percent of families of that size on an Obamacare plan have household incomes of less than $48,000. So the average family currently subscribing to Obamacare would not be paying nearly as much as the image above depicts in their out-of-pocket premium costs. We entered the same data but changed the income to $48,000 here:   McClosky created the post on 24 October 2016, the same day a report by the Department of Health and Human Services was released detailing an average 25 percent increase in costs to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) customers: customers Across states using the HealthCare.gov platform, the median increase in the second-lowest cost silver plan premium is 16 percent, while the average increase is 25 percent. This figure varies based on locale. For instance, a table compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that people in Phoenix, Arizona will have a 145 percent premium increase, but a tax subsidy will mean a 40-year-old, non-smoking Phoenix resident with a $30,000 annual income will not have to pay any more than last year (which is roughly $207 a month, depending on the plan selected). table According to data sent by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a majority of consumers covered by the ACA (85 percent) qualify for tax credits that keep pace with premium increases, so many won't see much of an impact on their out-of-pocket costs. data But McClosky was addressing people whose income disqualifies them from that assistance. He told us he used the $98,000 annual income as an example because that is the threshold at which households of four with two children do not qualify for tax credit assistance (you qualify if you make up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line). He said he created the post because he wanted to raise awareness about what it costs to insure a family in which each adult is making an annual salary of $44,000, and neither has access to employer-based health care  a fairly common situation in the United States. His concern, he said, is that only consumers who qualify for a tax subsidy can afford insurance under ACA. If their incomes are too high to qualify for assistance, they may simply go without. While the number of uninsured Americans dropped under ACA, as of 2015, 28.5 million people still lack coverage. Per the Kaiser Family Foundation: Even under the ACA, many uninsured people cite the high cost of insurance as the main reason they lack coverage. In 2015, 46% of uninsured adults said that they tried to get coverage but did not because it was too expensive. Many people do not have access to coverage through a job, and some people, particularly poor adults in states that did not expand Medicaid, remain ineligible for financial assistance for coverage. Some people who are eligible for financial assistance under the ACA may not know they can get help, and others may still find the cost of coverage prohibitive. In addition, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid or Marketplace coverage. Eric Seiber, associate professor of health services management and policy at Ohio State, said that the health care system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, and costs have steadily increased over the years. Despite its name, the Affordable Care Act doesn't actually address the cost of health care itself: The ACA is not health care reform. Its health insurance reform. It really doesnt do that much about affordable care or patient protection beyond the subsidies and Medicaid. People's perception that their wages have been flat is an effect of compensation increases going to cover rising healthcare costs instead of into their paychecks, Seiber said. McClosky, who sells health and life insurance plans in Florida, said that the Affordable Care Act has had the effect of diminishing competition among carriers. For instance, Lee County residents can only purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield. Prices in Miami-Dade are lower than in Lee County, because there are more carriers competing with each other. McClosky says insurance carriers have been squeezed by part of the mandate which requires them to spend 80 to 85 percent on claim payouts and health care quality improvement. He pointed to Assurant, a 123-yea-old insurer that specialized in individual and small business plans. They could not survive under the ACA and filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Health care is a source of roiling political debate for years. While the cost of health plans under Obamacare will go up an average 25 percent as of 1 November 2016, the majority of consumers won't experience much change in their out-of-pocket costs when open enrollment starts for 2017, because the tax credits will buffer that increase. Further, as the New York Times pointed out, many Americans are shielded from the immediate costs of health care by employer-based insurance or the public programs: pointed out These increases really matter only for those who buy their own insurance. Most people are unaffected by the rate increases because they get their insurance through an employer or are covered through government programs like Medicare, Medicaid or the Department of Veterans Affairs. Only a small fraction of Americans who have insurance buy individual policies. There are about 10 million people in the Obamacare markets and around an additional seven million who buy health plans outside the marketplace, according to Obama administration estimates. The published rate increases apply only to people who shop in the markets, but premiums are expected to go up sharply for the other plans as well. However, as McClosky's post makes clear, whether people notice it or not, American health care costs are high  and not everyone can qualify for available assistance. Kaiser Family Foundation. "2017 Premium Changes and Insurer Participation in the Affordable Care Acts Health Insurance Marketplaces."
25 October 2016. ASPE Research Brief. "Health plan choice and premiums in the 2017 health insurance marketplace."
24 October 2016. Abelson, Reed, and Sanger-Katz, Margaret. "A Quick Guide to Rising Obamacare Rates."
The New York Times. 25 October 2016. Boulton, Guy. "Milwaukee-based Assurant Health to be sold off or shut down."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 28 April 2015. The protracted, often bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict exploded into a hot war on Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel and Israel retaliated by bombarding the Gaza Strip. More than 20,000 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were reportedly killed during the first two months of the war alone. The violence is driven by mutual hostilities and territorial ambitions dating back more than a century. The internet has become an unofficial front in that war and is rife with misinformation, which Snopes is dedicated to countering with facts and context. You can help. Read the latest fact checks. Submit questionable claims. Become a Snopes Member to support our work. We welcome your participation and feedback. Israeli-Palestinian conflict Hamas deadly attack on Israel retaliated were reportedly killed mutual hostilities Read Submit Become a Snopes Member feedback Warning: Some external links in this story contain graphic imagery and language. Viewer discretion is advised. In late November 2023, numerous readers messaged Snopes asking if hamas.com was a real website operated by the militant group during the Israel-Hamas war. Many social media posts raised the same question, or claimed the site was indeed an authentic platform operated by Hamas, which is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement that has held control of Gaza since 2007. hamas.com posts same question Hamas held control of Gaza For instance, one user on X claimed, "They [Hamas] are so proud of themselves for what they did in Israel on #October7massacre so they uploaded it all onto their web page [hamas.com]," in reference to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel that fueled the war. On Nov. 21, 2023, the state of Israel's official X account shared the website's URL, too, along with the caption, "To understand the scale of Hamas crimes against humanity visit Hamas.com." Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs' account shared the site, as well. claimed Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel shared account  While the website was real  that is, hamas.com indeed existed, as of this writing, and was publicly accessible  it was not operated by the militant group, as the group's official domain was in fact Hamas.ps, and hamas.com's content was not in line with Hamas' official statements. Rather, evidence showed the website domain name has existed since 1999, and an unknown person, or group, used it to make the in-question site in mid-November 2023. Though Hamas did not create the site, it was unknown who, or what, did, as of this writing. A number of Jewish and pro-Israel news outlets claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda were responsible. Meanwhile, a domain-search tool showed the site's creator(s) used Wix.com, an Israeli-based website-hosting service. We will update this report if learn more. Also, according to sources such as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, The New Arab and The Palestinian Academic Society, the official website for Hamas was hamas.ps, not hamas.com. That site was active as recently as September 2023, internet archives showed, though was taken down since then under circumstances that are unknown. The New Arab The Palestinian Academic Society In an attempt to determine hamas.com's origins, we examined its contents. It included several sections, such as "WHAT DOES HAMAS STAND FOR" or "HAMAS TESTIMONIALS." On the homepage, a subhead read, "Share our Success and spread Jihad," with numbers supposedly depicting people killed. Additionally, the website hosted several videos supposedly showing Hamas' actions. Such clips were titled, "Young Jewish girl punished and taken to Gaza" and "Our Hamas warriors kidnapping an old woman," for examples. Outside of the site, social media users shared that footage  a fact made known by a "Hamas.com" overlay on the clips. The website also contained various blocks of text written in English that supposedly outlined Hamas' principles or goals. For instance, one section claimed Hamas would "discreetly spread the ideology" or "supersede all democratic systems." (emphasis ours): Islamic PrimacyIslamic law should supersede all democratic systems Takfir DoctrineThe whole world should adopt Islam, with non-Muslims being viewed as infidels and targets for assassination Coordinated LeadershipEstablishment synchronized power structures globally Stealthy PropagationEstablish Social programs to discreetly spread the ideology without attracting unwanted attention. Another block supposedly explained "Hamas's Presence and Activities in Different Countries." Similarly to the above-mentioned part, the sentences contained clues that they were not actually written by Hamas. For instance, the section claimed Hamas was using "deceptive narratives" and wanted to "overthrow secular governments" (emphasis ours): Stage 1Spread through social activities, often masking as movements and charitable entities Stage 2Dawah: Non-Muslims to embrace Islam through deceptive narratives of compassion and societal unity Stage 3Engage in local politics with the objective of influencing decision-making at the national level Stage 4Using military tactics, obtaining weapons, and using violence to achieve the movements goals and interests Stage 5Overthrow secular governments and establish a new government based on strict adherence to the Islamic law, and the execution or enslavement of non Muslims The text was authored to spread a specific narrative about Hamas. Hypothetically speaking, if it had truly been written by the militant group, it would be a blatant documentation of planned violence. In reality, text authored by Hamas does not use such phrasing. For instance, Hamas' latest charter does not mention overthrowing secular governments or using violence to achieve its goals, like the website claims. Rather, it words its objectives like this: Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. latest charter it words its objectives like this Some social media users claimed the website was created on an Israel-based platform, Wix.com. Under the pretense of that claim, the site was possibly created to align with Israel's political agenda. claimed the We have created a new website to implicate hamas, but we arent very smart so we created it on an Israeli companys platform (wix) (Hamas .com was created by Israel to make it seem like Hamas created it) pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb pic.twitter.com/Mvysrw4TSb  Benjamin Netanyahu -   parody (@netanyahupress) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 We used ICANN  a tool that allows users to look up "current registration data for domain names and Internet number resources"  to independently verify that claim about the site being created on Wix.com, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. ICANN headquartered Our findings showed the website was, in fact, created using Wix.com. Wix.com  (ICANN screenshot) However, that evidence does not explain the website's purpose, nor prove a connection to Israel. For one, Wix operates globally, with offices in countries such as U.S, Germany, Brazil, India, and Singapore. Any user with access to Wix.com could have created the URL, regardless of the tech company's base in Israel. offices According to our findings via ICANN, the website's domain was created in 1999. We used Wayback Machine, an online Internet archive, to piece together the site's history. Those internet archives showed that, before Nov. 17, 2023, the domain hamas.com was not in its current form  that is, displaying text, videos and images related to the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. At some points since the domain's creation in 1999, it appeared to be for sale. Additionally, we found examples of the headlines reading, "Hot Israeli Woman," "Six Sigma Training," or "Iraq War Pictures Unedited" displayed on the Hamas.com website in 2006.  (Wayback Machine screenshots) (Note: Some social media users claimed the website was not safe to visit and could allegedly infect devices with malware. We checked the website's grade on Virus Total, a tool that scans URLs for viruses. The tool uses 90 security vendors to conduct analysis, and only two of them flagged hamas.com as possibly malicious. There was no further information about the alleged risk for visiting the site.) claimed tool Next, we considered the work of other journalists who investigated the site. While it was not clear who, or what, exactly, turned the website into a propaganda vessel during the Israel-Hamas conflict, journalists agreed Hamas was not involved. For instance, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist at BBC Verify, called hamas.com a "fake Hamas website." As the website "https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq" is being tweeted by many official Israeli government accounts, it's worth noting that it's a fake Hamas website. https://t.co/ajygxmXHCq The real website associated with Hamas is currently offline. pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R pic.twitter.com/w9uHfYK46R  Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) November 21, 2023 November 21, 2023 The first article on the topic was published by an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on Nov. 20, 2023. Pointing to the fact that Hamas' actual website was offline and underscoring that the videos on the website appeared to be similar to the footage released by the IDF, it claimed people attempting to promote Israel's political agenda "hijacked" hamas.com to "highlight Hamas' actions" on Oct. 7. article The day after Haaretz's article published, on Nov. 21, The Jewish Press published an article with similar claims. It called hamas.com "Israeli-run," referring to the fact that the website was shared by multiple Israeli embassies and hosted on an Israeli platform. Moreover, the newspaper described it as a site pretending to be a "presentation of the terrorist organization itself, bragging about the horrors it inflicted on the Zionists." article Meanwhile, the Israeli news website Ynetnews concluded the website's "origins are unclear," though it vividly "showcases Hamas atrocities through graphic videos." The article cited a statement by Israel's Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry that suggested the website was created to confront Hamas' supporters: 'The decision to purchase the domain supposedly belonging to Hamas is a sophisticated way to confront those who sympathize with Hamas and justify its atrocities,' said David Saranga, head of the Digital Diplomacy Division at the Foreign Ministry, in response to Ynet. Hamas' actual website is Hamas.ps, according to sources including Haaretz. According to MISBAR, an independent Arabic fact-checking platform, Hamas confirmed via Telegram that its official website was hamas.ps: confirmed Hamas warned through a post on Telegram against dealing with websites that impersonate the movement and collects funds as part of distortion, fraud, and espionage, while announcing that their official website is hamas.ps and they have no other websites. At the time of this writing, hamas.ps was not publicly accessible. When we attempted to go to the website, we got an error message  "This site cant be reached"  indicating that it was taken down. accessible However, we were able to access hamas.ps via Wayback Machine. According to those records, here's what the website looked like in September 2023 (we translated text in the below-displayed image using Google Translate's plug-in). It's unknown when, or under what circumstances, the website was taken down after that. Also unknown was when it was created. hamas.ps  (Hamas.ps, Wayback Machine screenshot) All in all, given that Hamas did not create hamas.com  nor was the militant group operating the site during the Israel-Hamas war  we rated this claim   Hamas.Ps down? Current Problems and Status. - DownFor. Down For, https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/hamas.ps. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Ibrahim, Nur. People Claim a Majority of Palestinians in Gaza Elected Hamas  Heres Why It Isnt That Simple. Snopes, 1 Nov. 2023, https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/01/majority-palestinians-gaza-elect-hamas/. ICANN Lookup. https://lookup.icann.org/en. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Israelis Hijack Hamas.Com, Turning It Into a Display of October 7 Atrocities. Haaretz. Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-20/ty-article/.premium/israelis-hijack-hamas-com-turning-it-into-a-display-of-october-7-atrocities/0000018b-eca2-d8b1-a9df-ecef8b380000. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Kahan, Raphael and itamar. Whos behind pro-Israel Hamas Website. Ynetnews, 25 Nov. 2023. www.ynetnews.com, https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/bktpbd1ra. VirusTotal. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/f40ff59c4f3947f2b9e95861580b98e4d9b458626b35b40eabaea635484261d5/detection. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023. Wintour, Patrick, and Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor. Hamas Presents New Charter Accepting a Palestine Based on 1967 Borders. The Guardian, 1 May 2017. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/hamas-new-charter-palestine-israel-1967-borders. Wix Offices Around the World | Help Center | Wix.Com. https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-offices-around-the-world. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.   | . https://misbar.com/en/editorial/2023/11/23/israel-promotes-a-fake-website-affiliated-with-hamas. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.    - . 5 Sept. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210905063708/https://hamas.ps/ar/. [Collected on the Internet, 2001] To anyone with love and respect for life: In New York there is a Japanese who sells bonsai-kittens". Sounds like fun huh? NOT! These animals are squeezed into a bottle. Their urine and feces are removed through probes. They feed them with a kind of tube. They feed them chemicals to keep their bones soft and flexible so the kittens grow into the shape of the bottle. The animals will stay their as long as they live. They can't walk or move or wash themselves. Bonsai-kittens are becoming a fashion in New York and Asia. See this horror at: https://www.bonsaikitten.com https://www.bonsaikitten.com Please sign this email in protest against these tortures. If you receive an email with over 500 names, please send a copy to: anacheca@hotmail.com. From there this protest will be sent to USA and Mexican animal protection organizations.  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] FOR EVERYONE WHO LOVES ANIMALS A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We  have to try to shut it down again! A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called  BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for the rest of their lives!! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their faeces. The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move. They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. If you think you can handle it, view https://www.bonsaikitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles. This petition needs 500 names, so please put your one name on it!!! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom, then send it to everyone you know. If you notice that there are 500 names on the list, please send it to: anacheca@hotmail.com Bonsai kittens are not real. Nobody is making bonsai kittens. Nobody is selling equipment to help people make bonsai kittens.  Nobody is instructing people in the "lost Eastern art of sealing kittens inside rectilinear jars."   When it was running (the site is no longer active), the Bonsai Kitten web site was a joke, not an actual promotion for the making of bonsai kittens. Investigations by law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, determined no real cats were harmed in the creation of the pictures used on the Bonsai Kitten web site. Signing a petition to shut down the Bonsai Kitten web site will not prevent any kittens from being harmed, because no kittens were harmed in the first place.  It was all a joke, one which some say was in terribly poor taste. If that was your reaction, take comfort in the knowledge that many others thought the same. How could you have known the Bonsai Kitten site was a satire despite its lack of "This is a joke!" banners emblazoned across it? Satire doesn't always announce itself as such (some feel that would ruin its humor), so in cases like this, one dusts off the common sense and aims it at the problem: The process described is impossible: animals so treated would die long before they could be "molded."  The web site offers no way to purchase the materials advertised.  A real commercial enterprise wouldn't build consumer interest through a flashy web site then fail to offer anything for sale.  (The site does include a page of "Helpful Tools & Supplies" but provides no form through which they can be ordered.)   The "Bonsai Kitten" site displays no actual pictures of the finished product.  There are plenty of pictures of kittens in jars which can comfortably accommodate them (cats are quite elastic and can fit into very small spaces without discomfort), but there are no photographs of molded kittens on display. The cruel.com web site offers an article entitled "Happiness is a Rectilinear Kitten," its comprehensive history of the furor and media coverage generated by the Bonsai Kitten web site throughout its first year of existence. history Emery, Theo.  "Animal Lovers Not Laughing About Joke Internet Site 'Bonsai Kitten.'"
  Associated Press.  22 February 2001. 

 Hoffmann, Bill.  "Furor Over 'Bonsai Kitten' Site."
  New York Post.  12 February 2001.

 Jacobson, Jennifer.  "Created at MIT, A 'Bonsai Kitten' Web Site Stirs Animal Lovers' Passions."
  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  21 February 2001.
 Kornblum, Janet.  "Bonsai Kitten Site Brings an Animal-Rights Roar."
  USA Today.  20 February 2001  (p. D3). On 18 December 2016, Twitter user David Dellanave posted a message claiming that the Minnesota Vikings football team had opened up U.S. Bank Stadium to shelter the homeless on a particularly cold winter night: posted Although Dellanave is not a reporter or a spokesperson for the Minnesota Vikings, his message was picked up and reported as fact by several news outlets, including Yahoo News and CBS Sports:  Yahoo News CBS Sports The Minnesota Vikings are embracing the Christmas spirit early and helping out the community on Sunday night. According to David Dellanave, U.S. Bank Stadium will be open to the local homeless population during a night with crazy cold temperatures. The Minnesota Vikings, however, did not open U.S. Bank Stadium on 18 December 2016 to shelter the homeless. Dellanave eventually deleted his original tweet and posted follow-up messages claiming that he had posted the false information as an attempt to draw attention to a social issue: Tweet deleted. Point was to highlight a social issue and waste of taxpayer money that could help people instead of make private profits 1/3  David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 Zero interest in retweets or followers, have never cared and never will. 2/3  David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016  But most importantly if I thought for a second someone in need would take it seriously, wouldn't be worth the potential good. 3/3  David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 I'm sorry if this obviously misguided attempt at highlighting a social issue hurt anyone. Didn't think a tweet would go so far & I regret it  David Dellanave (@ddn) December 19, 2016 December 19, 2016 Claim:  Subway is ending its long-running Sub Club promotion due to the prevalence of counterfeit stamps.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2005] Today I went to my local SUBWAY franchise, and was horriied to discover that they will no longer be doing the SUBWAY CLUB stamp program. The cashier at the store told me it was because some kids in California had stolen a roll of stamps and tried to sell it on eBay. He showed me a small in store display that explained that they would no longer be issuing stamps and would honor existing stamps until June 30th, 2005.   Origins:  Regular customers of the Subway chain of sandwich shops, which operates more than 23,000 restaurants in 82 countries, are familiar with one of longest-running promotions in retail history: the Sub   Club.  Ever since the 1980s, Subway customers have received a stamp for every six-inch sandwich purchased (two stamps for a foot-long); filling up a Sub Club card with the requisite number of stamps entitles the customer to a free sandwich.  Alas, by the end of September 2005 the Sub Club will be no more, another victim of technology which makes counterfeiting coupons and proof-of-purchase stamps on home computer equipment all too easy. Coupon fraud has exploded in the last few years as counterfeiters using high-quality printers have not only created phony coupons for their own use, but have also sought to profit by offering millions of dollars' worth of false coupons for sale to others through on-line auction sites.  In some cases grocery stores and other retailers have even stopped accepting legitimate coupons distributed on-line and printed at home because manufacturers have refused to honor counterfeits.  Now, with thousands of Sub Club cards and stamps (real, stolen, and counterfeit) available for sale through auction sites, and Subway franchise owners increasingly discovering counterfeit stamps among their redemptions, the company has decided to pull the plug on the decades-old free sandwich promotion.  Although each Subway restaurant can set its own timeframe, the Sub Club will be phased out company-wide by 1 October 2005.  Subway is designing a replacement for the Sub Club, but details of the new promotion have not yet been announced (although some outlets are now using centrally-stored information retrieved via Subway cards with magnetic strips). Subway cards Last updated:  26 May 2011    Leamon, Scott.   "Police Accuse Pair of College Students with Forging Subway Sub Club Stamps."   WSLS-TV {Roanoke, VA].  22 October 2004. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont loves to boast about hisindependence from super PACsand billionaires, saying his campaign relies on the support of small donors. Recently, the Democratic presidential hopeful extended his small donor claim to Russ Feingold. Sanders sent out a news release May 26, 2016 that said he would be raising money for Feingold, a former U.S. senator who is aiming to unseat Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in a rematch of their 2010 contest. Sanders also sent an email to his national fundraising list. We are going to have to elect candidates up and down the ballot who recognize that it is too late for establishment politics and economics, Sanders wrote. Candidates like my friend, former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. Sanders continued: Russ led the fight with me to make the Affordable Care Act much stronger in 2009. He voted against the USA PATRIOT Act and the war in Iraq. He authored and passed landmark campaign finance reform legislation and his campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. That last accolade caught our eyes. Sanderss record-breakinglevelof small-contribution support has been well noted. We wondered if small donors were also powering Feingolds campaign. Sanders backup Typically, small donors are considered those who give $200 or less over an election cycle. Having a lot of small-dollar contributions can indicate strong grassroots support and an effective online fundraising effort. When asked to back up the statement, Sanders team sent us to anews releaseissued by Feingolds campaign in April 2016. At that time, the release said, 30,000 Wisconsinites had contributed to Feingolds campaign with money coming in from each of the states 72 counties. The release also claimed 96 percent of all contributions in the first quarter were $100 or less. The problem for fact-checkers -- it cannot be independently verified. PolitiFact National explored the issue when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said our campaign depends on small donations for the majority of our support. Her team provided similar information, saying more than 50 percent of the money raised by the campaign came from online grassroots donations, with 98 percent smaller than $250. Until an individual donor surpasses $200 in contributions, their funds are unitemized on campaign disclosure reports. So the number of donors who give less than $200 is unknown. Numbers reported to the Federal Elections Commission provided weak support for Clintons statement, PolitiFact National found. And small donors accounted for less than 20 percent of Clintons total donations, according to those figures. The claim was ratedMostly False. FEC numbers The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group, tracks money given to candidates from individuals and PACs, as well as those self-financing their campaigns and money contributed from other means. Sanders profile on the groups web site reports that 99 percent of his campaigns more than $200 million in funds has come from individual contributions (as opposed, for instance, to political action committees). Of that, 62 percent -- or more than $129 million -- was from contributions of $200 or less. The other part comes from large individual contributions of up to $2,700. So what about Sanders Wisconsin pal, Feingold? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Feingold has raised more than $10 million in the race against Johnson. Like Sanders, an overwhelming amount of his funds, 93 percent, come from individual contributions. But, Feingold has received a larger share of donations from large donors than small ones. Feingold received 52 percent of his overall funds from people who gave more than $200. Another 41 percent came from small individual donors. He also received about $600,000 from PAC contributions. So, the majority of Sanders funding -- 62 percent -- comes from these small donors while 41 percent of Feingolds funding came from small donors. The phrase powered by, of course, is open to some interpretation. We took a look at candidates in other competitive Senate races across the country this election cycle. Most candidates received less than 20 percent of all campaign funds from small donors. Some approached 30 percent -- still far below the proportion of funds Feingold has raised from small donors. So, while Feingold is not above 50 percent -- and does not match Sanders level -- we feel like the claim is generally on target. It doesnt factor into this claim, but as a point of reference, Johnson has raised just less than $12 million. Individuals donated about 80 percent of that money. He has gotten a far greater share of his contributions from big spenders -- those donating between $200 and $2,700 this election cycle. Just 15 percent of his funds come people who donate less than $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Our rating Sanders said in a fundraising letter that Feingolds campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. Both the presidential and congressional hopefuls have received the majority of their support from individual donors. While small donors have played a role in Feingolds funding, theyre not as integral as Sanders small donors. We rate the claim Mostly True. As President Donald Trump weighed imposing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, some commentators have warned that this would be a misguided approach. Noah Smith, a columnist for Bloomberg View and a former finance professor, wrote acolumnin which he noted, among other things, that a crucial issue facing metals-producing industries isnt foreign competition  its automation. Tariffs, Smith wrote, wont bring back good jobs at steel and aluminum factories. Since 1990, production of metals in the U.S. has held roughly constant, but the number of people employed in the industry has fallen steadily. Thats due to technological improvements, he wrote: Productivity has improved, even as demand has stayed more or less constant. Mathematically, that means fewer jobs for steel and aluminum workers. Tariffs wont change that equation. If anything, by hurting downstream industries like car and equipment manufacturers, the new import taxes will probably kill more factory jobs than they save. We cant predict what will happen in the future, but we wondered whether Smith is right about the trend lines for production and employment in the American metals-producing sector since 1990. And when we took a closer look, we found that hes on target. We found data for employment in the primary metals-producing sector, which incorporates five subcategories: iron and steel mills, steel product manufacturing from purchased steel, aluminum production and processing, production and processing of metals other than iron and aluminum, and foundries. Employment levels in this sector have declined reasonably steadily since 1990, despite a period of stable employment during the late 1990s, a sharp but temporary fall during the Great Recession, and a modest uptick over the past year or two in which metals employment growth has outpaced that of the overall economy, said Jed Kolko, chief economist at the jobs site Indeed.com. Overall, since 1990, employment has declined by about 42 percent. At the same time, production in primary metals has remained roughly the same since 1990 except for the Great Recession. For most of that period, production has ranged between 90 percent and 110 percent of the benchmark level (the amount produced in 2012): If you put these two statistics together, the overall pattern becomes clear: As production stays roughly the same and as fewer workers make it happen, productivity rises over time. The idea that steel in particular has experienced a productivity revolution due to technology is the same story I have been telling since the early 1990s, said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. The basic story is that one person can produce a lot more metal today than he or she could produce a few decades ago. Burtless said he has a brother whos been working in the coke oven of a steel plant since the mid 1970s and who has seen first-hand the dramatic reduction in person-power needed to keep integrated steel mills running at full capacity  as well as improvements in quality. Michael J. Hicks, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, agreed that Smiths analysis is on target. I would agree that the most likely cause of the productivity gains are technology, though I would interpret technology broadly to include not just machinery but the way that factories organize production, such as internal logistics and the reduction of redundant operations that might be enabled by technology, Hicks said. And J. Bradford Jensen, a professor of international business at Georgetown Universitys McDonough School of Business, added that imports did have something to do with the loss of employment in steel and aluminum, but the more important factor is technological change and productivity growth, he said. Tariffs won't change that, much like relaxing regulations on coal and pollution will not bring back many coal-mining jobs, he said. Smith wrote, Since 1990, production of metals in the U.S. has held roughly constant, but the number of people employed in the industry has fallen steadily. His numbers are solid, and experts agree that automation has done significant harm to employment levels in the metal industry. We rate the statement True. Presidential candidate Ted Cruzs campaign came out swinging directly at rival John Kasich for the first time in a TV ad. The attack ads are getting more direct, as the delegates in contention dwindle. This ad presents a series of facts to suggest that Kasich, as governor of Ohio, orchestrated shady deals to benefit his friends and campaign funders. Right before John Kasich was governor, he collected $611,000 from a Fortune 500 corporation, the ad says. After Kasich became governor, that same company received $619 grand in state tax breaks for job creation. But last year, the company laid off 100 Ohioans, even as its CEO cut a half-million-dollar check to Kasichs super PAC. John Kasich, not for us. To find out whether its fact or fiction, lets take each allegation one at a time. Kasich took money from a Fortune 500 company According to newsreports, in 2001 after leaving Congress, Kasich joined the board of directors of Worthington Industries, an Ohio steel processor and Fortune 500 company. Security and Exchange Commission filingsshowthat Worthington board members were paid $45,000 per year as a retainer, and $1,500 per meeting attended. Worthington also reimbursed board members for travel expenses and other out-of-pocket costs. The CantonRepositoryreportedthat Kasich quit the Worthington board upon winning the governors race in 2010, but was still owed deferred compensation from the board. Kasich received $611,000 total in deferred compensation from Worthington, and at least $103,000 of the total came after he had been sworn in as governor. That same company received $619,000 in tax breaks after Kasich took office In the first bill he signed as governor, Kasich made good on a campaign promise to attract investment to Ohio. He nixed the Ohio Department of Development and created a private, nonprofit corporation called JobsOhio, explaining that in order to lure companies to the state, government needed to move at the speed of business. Kasich designed JobsOhio to be funded by a lease on state liquor profits. He declared it exempt from public records requirements and state audits. And he made board appointments for JobsOhio a responsibility of the governor. To drum up job creation, JobsOhio reviews potential opportunities to offer incentives such as tax breaks, and sends its recommendations to the Ohio Tax Credit Authority for final determination. The tax credit authority has a five-member board, and three of its appointees, including the chair, are Kasichs. An Associated Press investigation found that, less than a year after JobsOhio was created, it recommended a series of tax incentives totalling $619,000 for Worthington Industries subsidiaries, which the state tax credit board awarded. Last year, the company laid off 100 Ohioans In March 2015, Worthingtonannouncedit was cutting 555 jobs nationwide, which included 115 in Ohio. The company blamed the loss of these jobs --manufacturing cabs for large agricultural and mining equipment -- on industry-wide downturns. Worthington spokeswoman Cathy Lyttletoldthe CantonRepositorythat any incentives the company receives are only paid when the company delivers the jobs it promised. She said that pursuing tax incentives is standard business practice, and Worthington received $400,000 in tax breaks under the previous, Democratic regime of governor Ted Strickland. Companys CEO donates half-million to Kasichs presidential bid The Center for Responsive Politicsconfirmsa $500,000 contribution from Worthington CEO John P. McConnell to the New Day 2016 PAC, via Internal Revenue Service records released November 30, 2015. Several of Kasich's board appointees stepped up with campaign donations as well. OpenSecrets.org shows that the wife of ethics committee chairman Merom Brachman, Judith, gave the maximum donation to Kasichs campaign, $2,700, in August 2015. John C. Boland, the chair of JobsOhio, donated the $2,700 max to Kasich in July 2015. JobsOhio board member Gary R. Heminger and his wife, Jane, each donated $2,700 to Kasich on the same day in October 2015. JobsOhio board member Lawrence J. Kidd and his wife, Cindy, each donated $2,700 to Kasich on the same day in August 2015. All together now Cruzs attack ad parrots a complaint filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission by Kasichs Democratic challenger in the 2014 election, Ed FitzGerald. The ethics commissionpassedon investigating FitzGeralds complaint. Chairman Brachman, who, like the other commissioners, was appointed by the governor, said that Kasich had provided enough information to conclusively rule out any conflict of interest. He added that actions by JobsOhio are not subject to the authority of the ethics commission. Rob Nichols, Kasichs spokesman, dismissed this Cruz ad as a one-hit wonder that only ran briefly in Wisconsin and is no longer airing. The ads four accurate, provable data points, arent in dispute, Nichols said. But he has a beef with the insinuation that any of the described actions were wrong, or even out of the ordinary. They didnt say, The governors corrupt, because that you could fact-check, Nichols said. Everything there is 100 percent, entirely above-board, but when you say it with a snarly voice over scary music, people think its inappropriate. Our ruling Cruzs attack ad links a series of headlines to suggest that as governor, Kasich rewarded his former business ties in exchange for political contributions. The ads tone is ominous, but the text is factual. What isnt explained is that everything in the ad has been the subject of prior complaints that did not provoke any regulatory action. Its beensuggestedthat an overhaul of state rules might preventsimilar situationsfrom arising, and similar allegations from dogging Ohio leaders. But thats a different ad, for another day. We rate these claims Mostly True. One of the arguments made by the Trump administration for lowering the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States is that the costs of refugee resettlement outweigh its benefits. lowering Estimates vary on the total annual cost of processing and resettling refugees in the U.S., but a rough breakdown by the National Conference of State Legislatures put the total expenditures for accepting approximately 70,000 refugees in 2014 at $582 million.These cost estimates rarely attempt to take into account any economic benefits refugees might provide to the countries that take them in. According to a Facebook meme making the rounds since mid-2018, just such an analysis was undertaken by the Trump administration, but the results were suppressed because they undercut the official position:A recently leaked federal study found that refugees to America brought in $63 billion in government revenues than they cost in the last 10 years. Trump chief policy adviser Stephen Miller banned the release of the study, because it contradicts his claim that refugees are too costly. Pass it on!A leaked document fitting that description was indeed published by the New York Times in September 2017. It was an early draft of a report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing, at the president's request, the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program. The Times noted that:The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.All in all, the report said, the net fiscal impact of refugees over the 10-year period was positive, not negative, to the tune of $63 billion at all levels of government:The study concluded that refugees on average had a net fiscal impact "comparable" to that of the general population:The per capita annual net fiscal benefit was $2,205 for refugees and $1,848 for the general U.S. population, a difference not likely to be significant given margins of error and other limitations of this study. Expenditures for the general U.S. population were on average higher than expenditures for refugees, while revenues were more comparable.However, none of this information was contained in the final report delivered to the President, the Times reported, noting that some of the refugee program's proponents believed the results of the study were "suppressed" internally. Administration officials characterized those results as illegitimate:This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data, said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. The actual report pursuant to the presidential memorandum shows that refugees with few skills coming from war-torn countries take more government benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services than the average population, and are not a net benefit to the U.S. economy.John Graham, the acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the health department, said: We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents and that no report had been finalized. He noted that Mr. Trumps memorandum seeks an analysis related to the cost of refugee programs. Therefore, the only analysis in the scope of H.H.S.s response to the memo would be on refugee-related expenditures from data within H.H.S. programs.The three-page report the agency ultimately submitted, dated Sept. 5, does just that, using government data to compare the costs of refugees to Americans and making no mention of revenues contributed by refugees.The Times also said that according to White House sources, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who is reputed to be the chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, "personally intervened" to ensure that only the costs of admitting refugees, and not the fiscal benefits thereof, were enumerated in the final report. (According to the New Yorker, the White House denied that Miller was involved in producing the report.)The Facebook meme is largely accurate, then, although it somewhat mischaracterizes what became of the original draft report. It wasn't "banned" from release, in that it doesn't appear the report was ever intended to be made public. It was allegedly suppressed, however, in that it never reached President Trump's desk, and all discussion of the fiscal benefits of admitting refugees into the United States was excised from the final document.  Estimates vary on the total annual cost of processing and resettling refugees in the U.S., but a rough breakdown by the National Conference of State Legislatures put the total expenditures for accepting approximately 70,000 refugees in 2014 at $582 million. breakdown These cost estimates rarely attempt to take into account any economic benefits refugees might provide to the countries that take them in. According to a Facebook meme making the rounds since mid-2018, just such an analysis was undertaken by the Trump administration, but the results were suppressed because they undercut the official position: A recently leaked federal study found that refugees to America brought in $63 billion in government revenues than they cost in the last 10 years. Trump chief policy adviser Stephen Miller banned the release of the study, because it contradicts his claim that refugees are too costly. Pass it on!   A leaked document fitting that description was indeed published by the New York Times in September 2017. It was an early draft of a report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing, at the president's request, the estimated long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program. The Times noted that: document The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion. All in all, the report said, the net fiscal impact of refugees over the 10-year period was positive, not negative, to the tune of $63 billion at all levels of government:  The study concluded that refugees on average had a net fiscal impact "comparable" to that of the general population: The per capita annual net fiscal benefit was $2,205 for refugees and $1,848 for the general U.S. population, a difference not likely to be significant given margins of error and other limitations of this study. Expenditures for the general U.S. population were on average higher than expenditures for refugees, while revenues were more comparable. However, none of this information was contained in the final report delivered to the President, the Times reported, noting that some of the refugee program's proponents believed the results of the study were "suppressed" internally. Administration officials characterized those results as illegitimate: This leak was delivered by someone with an ideological agenda, not someone looking at hard data, said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. The actual report pursuant to the presidential memorandum shows that refugees with few skills coming from war-torn countries take more government benefits from the Department of Health and Human Services than the average population, and are not a net benefit to the U.S. economy. John Graham, the acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the health department, said: We do not comment on allegedly leaked documents and that no report had been finalized. He noted that Mr. Trumps memorandum seeks an analysis related to the cost of refugee programs. Therefore, the only analysis in the scope of H.H.S.s response to the memo would be on refugee-related expenditures from data within H.H.S. programs. The three-page report the agency ultimately submitted, dated Sept. 5, does just that, using government data to compare the costs of refugees to Americans and making no mention of revenues contributed by refugees. The Times also said that according to White House sources, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who is reputed to be the chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, "personally intervened" to ensure that only the costs of admitting refugees, and not the fiscal benefits thereof, were enumerated in the final report. (According to the New Yorker, the White House denied that Miller was involved in producing the report.) denied The Facebook meme is largely accurate, then, although it somewhat mischaracterizes what became of the original draft report. It wasn't "banned" from release, in that it doesn't appear the report was ever intended to be made public. It was allegedly suppressed, however, in that it never reached President Trump's desk, and all discussion of the fiscal benefits of admitting refugees into the United States was excised from the final document. Blitzer, Jonathan.  "How Stephen Miller Single-Handedly Got the U.S. to Accept Fewer Refugees."
  The New Yorker.  13 October 2017. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld.  "Trump to Cap Refugees Allowed into U.S. at 30,000, a Record Low."
  The New York Times.  17 September 2018. Davis, Julie Hirschfeld and Somini Sengupta.  "Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees."
  The New York Times.  18 September 2017. Phillips, Amber.  "Here's How Much the United States Spends on Refugees."
  The Washington Post.  20 November 2015. The New York Times.  "Rejected Report Shows Revenue Brought in by Refugees."
  19 September 2017.