Do Tulsa Trump Rally Attendees Have To Sign COVID-19 Waiver?
As the number of confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease surpassed 2 million in early June 2020, the campaign to reelect U.S. President Donald Trump ended its monthslong pause on large, in-person events and announced it would host a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the coming weeks. COVID-19 coronavirus disease Despite public health officials' recommendations at the time to avoid group gatherings and crowds to limit the spread of COVID-19, the Trump campaign announced on June 10 that it would host a rally at the Bank of Oklahoma Center, which seats almost 19,200 people, on June 19. Trump told reporters at the White House: public health officials told reporters Were going to start our rallies back up now. Weve had a tremendous run at rallies. ...The first one, we believe, will be probably  were just starting to call up  will be in Oklahoma  in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A beautiful, new venue  brand-new. And were looking forward to it. Theyve done a great job with COVID, as you know, in the state of Oklahoma. Beyond the event's potential threat to attendees' health, critics including high-profile Democrats and historians saw the announcement as a call to white supremacists during a national reckoning over racism following the death of George Floyd for two reasons: Tulsa is home to one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history  the 1921 Tulsa race massacre  and the event's originally scheduled date of June 19, or Juneteenth, is a day in many communities that traditionally celebrates the end of U.S. slavery in 1865. So two days after the initial announcement from the Trump campaign, the president yielded to that backlash and said he would delay the event and instead hold it on June 20. He tweeted: Democrats George Floyd Tulsa race massacre Juneteenth He tweeted   But as critics pointed out, the massive gathering still held the potential to expose large numbers of people to COVID-19. As if to confirm the danger, reports appeared saying the Trump campaign was asking attendees to agree in advance not to hold the campaign liable for coronavirus exposure:   To investigate the claim that attendees were asked to agree to a liability waiver, we went through the steps of reserving a spot at the Tulsa rally in the days before the event. To receive a digital ticket for the event, attendees had to complete the following form:   At the bottom of the registration page, the following text appeared: registration page By clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury. In other words, to reserve an entry ticket for the Tulsa rally, people had to agree that they would "assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19" and agree not to sue Trump or any organizers of the event if they got sick. That agreement essentially clears the campaign of any responsibility should attendees catch the virus. At first, campaign leaders declined to elaborate on their plans to protect attendees' health once they were at the event. Then, on June 14, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that attendees should wear masks. And campaign manager Brad Parscale said the following day that event organizers will hand out hand sanitizer and face masks (though they're not necessarily required) and check attendees' temperatures for fevers. He tweeted: Larry Kudlow should wear masks. said tweeted   Still unclear is if, or to what extent, the event will promote social distancing. It's possible people will stand or sit less than six feet apart from each other, despite recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to avoid that close of contact with people to prevent the virus' spread. Additionally, as of June 16, the CDC urged everyone to wear cloth face coverings when they leave their homes, stating on its website: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Considering the ongoing health risks due to COVID-19 and an upward trend in cases statewide, Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart said he would rather the president hold the event at a later date. He told Tulsa World: an upward trend in cases statewide Tulsa World I think its an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic. ...Im concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and Im also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well. As of June 15, Oklahoma had tallied 359 deaths and 3,417 non-fatal cases due to the virus. The Trump campaign had last held a big rally on March 2 in Charlotte, North Carolina, before much of the country shut down to curb the pandemic. In sum, given the substantiating evidence that, in order to receive a ticket for the Tulsa event, people must click a box agreeing they would not hold the Trump campaign or event organizers liable should they catch COVID-19 at the June 20, 2020, rally, we rate this claim "True". Fox, Joe, et. al.  "At Least 112,000 People Have Died from Coronavirus in the U.S."
  The Washington Post. Accessed 12 June 2020. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "How to Protect Yourself & Others."
 Accessed 12 June 2020. Sprunt, Barbara.  "Upcoming Trump Rally In Tulsa Faces Backlash Over Race, Coronavirus."
  National Public Radio.  11 June 2020. Bierman, Noah. "Trump Says He Will Resume Campaign Rallies June 19 in Tulsa."
  Los Angeles Times.  10 June 2020. White House.  Remarks by President Trump in Roundtable Discussion.
  10 June 2020. Oklahoma State Department of Health.  "Current Situation."
  Accessed 12 June 2020. Chiacu, Doina.  "Trump Economic Adviser Urges Wearing of Masks at Tulsa Rally."
  Reuters.  14 June 2020.
A big part of President Barack Obama's first State of the Union speech on Jan. 27, 2010, focused on the economy.To set the stage, he said his predecessor was largely responsible for the country's fiscal shape.At the beginning of the last decade ... America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion, Obama said. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.We've checked several claims to this effect in the last year,most recently one by Obama adviser David Axelrod. Indeed, we found that the government was enjoying a surplus of about $236 billion circa 2001. Later, when Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported the deficit was over $1.2 trillion. A good chunk of the deficits racked up by the Bush administration came from tax cuts, the war in Iraq and actions that Bush and a Democratic Congress took to prop up the economy right before he left office.In the same report, the CBO projected a 10-year deficit of about $3.1 trillion. But Obama said $8 trillion, based on budget numbers published by the White House Office of Management and Budget shortly after Obama took office.Why the discrepancy? When we checked the similar claim by Axelrod, we spoke with Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition. He said it has to do with how the two offices estimate the future. The CBO bases its projections on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010 and that a patch to fix the alternative minimum tax would expire, among other things. The White House does not; instead, it assumes that nothing changes in current law.So, Obama's overall point is correct that the government was enjoying a substantial surplus when Bush took office and had a big deficit when he departed; he's spot on about the surplus Bush began with. He's also correct about the deficit at the end of Bush's presidency, but there are two different ways to measure the 10-year projection when Bush left office. The CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. So given that discussion, we'll take Obama down a notch to Mostly True. In the aftermath of violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 (and in the context of a wider debate over the removal of Confederate statues), a particular quote spread on Facebook and Twitter, appearing to indicate Abraham Lincoln's opposition to racial equality. On 14 August, the remarks formed part of a Dallas Morning News column by former Texas State Senator Jerry Patterson, who wrote: wrote During his famous debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln explained to the crowd: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." Lincoln was no different than most white males, North and South, at the time. He was a white supremacist. The quote as presented by Patterson, and in several Facebook and Twitter posts, is authentic. Lincoln did make those remarks on 18 September 1858. They came at the beginning of his opening speech at the fourth of seven famous debates with Stephen Douglas, during Lincoln's unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. Lincoln had been under attack from Democrats who accused him of supporting racial equality, and his comments were a defense against those allegations.  Facebook Twitter There is no official transcript of those debates, and the accounts published at the time in two Illinois newspapers  the Republican Chicago Press and Tribune and the Democratic Chicago Times  often diverged along partisan lines, according to Rodney Davis and Douglas Wilson's annotated "Lincoln-Douglas Debates" (page vii.) page vii Nonetheless, here are the most relevant remarks, as reported in the pro-Lincoln Chicago Press and Tribune on 21 September 1858. You can read that day's report in full here.  here    Chicago Tribune Archives  Despite the frequent spinning of the speeches by both newspapers, there appears to be consensus on Lincoln's Charleston remarks regarding racial equality. The Chicago Times report, reprinted in Harold Holzer's 1993 Lincoln-Douglas Debates, does not significantly vary from that published by the Press and Tribune: reprinted I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, of having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch, as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man. Of course, this excerpt from one speech does not represent the totality of Lincoln's views on race and racial equality, but the remarks were far from a complete outlier, and Lincoln's views were more complex and uncomfortable than the prevalent modern impression of him as the racially-enlightened Great Emancipator.  We spoke to Columbia University historian Eric Foner, author of several books on Lincoln, including The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. Eric Foner "There's no question that: one, before the Civil War, Lincoln hated slavery. He always did," Foner told us: Two, he shared many of the prejudices of his society. That was a deeply racist society both north and south before the Civil War. He did insist that black people were entitled to what they call the natural rights of man  life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.... And also that black people were entitled to what they used to call the fruits of their own labor. During the Civil War, Foner says, Lincoln's views evolved radically as he was exposed to black people such as Frederick Douglass, who were far more talented than he had assumed, and as the efforts of freed slaves in the Union army earned them, in Lincoln's view, the right to citizenship. Just before his death, Lincoln gave a speech in which he mentioned the possibility of giving black Union soldiers and wealthy black elites the right to vote, in direct contradiction to his 1858 remarks. And yet, Foner told us, for a long time Lincoln's plan for black people in the United States largely consisted of arranging for them to the leave the country and set up colonies elsewhere. Foner also warned against overemphasizing the importance of ethnicity to Lincoln by isolating specific racist remarks he made: The fact is, Lincoln said almost nothing about race. He was not that interested in race...Race was not a major intellectual construct for Lincoln...And the 1858 speech was purely defensive. That doesn't excuse it, but he was being attacked in those debates as believing in negro equality.  "Whereas abolition was a central aspect of Lincolns moral compass", the Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates wrote in 2009, "racial equality was not": 2009 ...Lincoln despised slavery as an institution, an economic institution that discriminated against white men who couldnt afford to own slaves and, thus, could not profit from the advantage in the marketplace that slaves provided. At the same time, however, he was deeply ambivalent about the status of black people vis--vis white people, having fundamental doubts about their innate intelligence and their capacity to fight nobly with guns against white men in the initial years of the Civil War. Gates concluded: [Lincoln] certainly embraced anti-black attitudes and phobias in his early years and throughout his debates with Douglas in the 1858 Senate race... By the end of the Civil War, Lincoln was on an upward arc, perhaps heading toward becoming the man he has since been mythologized as being: the Great Emancipator, the man who freed  and loved  the slaves. But his journey was certainly not complete on the day that he died. Abraham Lincoln wrestled with race until the end.    Patterson, Jerry.  "If We Mean to Remove Memorials of White Supremacists, that Includes Lincoln."
  Dallas Morning News.  14 August 2017. Davis, Rodney O.; Wilson, Douglas J. [eds].  "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates."
 University of Illinois Press.  2008. Chicago Daily Press and Tribune.  "Mr. Lincoln's Speech."
  Chicago Tribune Archive.  21 September 1858. Holzer, Harold. [Editor].  "The Lincoln-Douglas Debates."
  Fordham University Press.  2004. Gates Jr., Henry Louis. "Was Lincoln a Racist?"
 The Root. 12 February 2009. In mid-July 2018, outraged social media users shared a meme reporting that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump was forcing migrants to pay $800 in out-of-pocket costs to prove familial ties in order to regain custody of children taken from them under the government's "zero tolerance" immigration policy:   The text of the meme was based on a 10 July 2018 story originally reported by the Daily Beast, whose journalists spoke with Ruben Garcia, director of the El Paso immigrant shelter Annunciation House, and an immigration attorney, Iliana Holguin. In telephone interviews with Snopes.com, both of those individuals confirmed their accounting of the details in the Daily Beast's report: four adults (three mothers and one older sister) asserted that government social workers had told them they'd have to fork over $700 to $800 for DNA tests proving their relationship to separated children before they could get their kids back. story DNA tests Shortly after the story broke, however, both Garcia and Holguin reported to us that the government had abruptly changed course, with the former telling us: If you ask me the question, 'Do you know for a fact that any of those parent had to pay the money [for a DNA test]?' I do not. We had about five people who at that point said they were told they would probably have to pay for [the DNA tests]. Since that story came out, the whole scenery has changed because [the government] has now moved aggressively to reunite and release all of these kids. Holguin told us no formal request was ever made for the women to pay for the tests. She described the entirety of "zero tolerance" and its aftermath as "very chaotic" and said that conflicting information had been the norm throughout. "With the DNA test, I think someone at one point said it, someone repeated it  things were changing so quickly that it was just impossible to know at any given at any moment. The left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing." We reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency tasked with coordinating the care of unaccompanied immigrant children. An agency representative told us HHS, not immigrant families, pays for DNA testing. The federal government is rushing to meet a deadline set by a federal judge after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued for an injunction on family separations under "zero tolerance," a policy initiated by the Trump administration in April 2018. Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California gave federal agencies until 10 July 2018 to reunify children under five years of age with their respective adults, and until 26 July 2018 to reunify kids five through 17 years old. deadline policy According to a status report submitted to the court by HHS on 13 July 2018, not all families with children in the older age cohort will be subjected to DNA tests, as HHS has truncated its process for confirming family relationships to meet the looming deadline for reunification. In a statement, HHS spokesperson Evelyn Stauffer said: The department has been operating in good faith and earnestly trying to comply with court orders, including the rapidly approaching deadline for reunification. Our interpretation of the court's order is that HHS must make a determination of parentage, fitness, and safety before reunifying families, but that HHS need not undertake the fuller process of vetting for children's safety that HHS would ordinarily conduct in its operations. In the interests of transparency and cooperation, the department felt it necessary in our filings on Friday to share with the court our view that meeting the deadline would mean truncating the process we might have otherwise followed. Within the time the court allows, we will strive to implement the most comprehensive procedures possible to ensure child welfare. We look forward to continuing our close work with the court to accomplish the goals we share of safe, expeditious reunification. Under "zero tolerance," all immigrants caught crossing the southern border between ports of entry were charged with crimes  mostly misdemeanors. Adults accompanied by children were separated from them and, initially, the U.S. government appeared to have no plan to reunify families. no plan With court orders and pressure mounted by public outrage over the policy, the Trump administration has more or less reversed course. Garcia told us the federal government would begin reuniting the remainder of separated families at centralized locations in Arizona and Texas in the coming week in order to meet the court's 26 July 2018 deadline. Judge Sabraw also temporarily halted deportations of those families to give them time to decide whether to leave children behind in the United States in hopes they will win their asylum cases, or to be deported together. outrage Glawe, Justin, and Adam Rawnsley.  "Government Told Immigrant Parents to Pay for DNA Tests to Get Kids Back, Advocate Says."
  The Daily Beast.  10 July 2018. Hals, Tom.  "All Migrant Kids Under Five to Be Back With Parents by Thursday: U.S. Official."
  Reuters.  11 July 2018. Associated Press.  "Texas Shelter: US Flying Kids for Reunifications."
  16 July 2018. Morrisey, Kate.  "Judge Temporarily Halts Deportations of Reunified Families."
  San Diego Union-Tribune.  16 July 2018. Is this a mosquito? No. It's an insect spy drone for urban areas, already in production, funded by the US Government. It can be remotely controlled and is equipped with a camera and a microphone. It can land on you, and it may have the potential to take a DNA sample or leave RFID tracking nanotechnology on your skin. It can fly through an open window, or it can attach to your clothing until you take it in your home.  One of the current areas of research reportedly being undertaken in the scientific/military field is the development of micro air vehicles (MAVs), tiny flying objects intended to go places that cannot be (safely) reached by humans or other types of equipment. One of the primary military applications envisioned for MAVs is the gathering of intelligence (through the surreptitious use of cameras, microphones, or other types of sensors); among the more extreme applications posited for such devices is that they may eventually be used as "swarm weapons" which could be launched en masse against enemy forces. Some efforts in MAV research have involved trying to mimic birds or flying insects to achieve flight capabilities not attainable through other means of aerial propulsion. In 2007 a bug-like MAV model with a 3-cm wingspan was displayed at a robotics conference, in 2008 the U.S. Air Force released a simulated video showing MAVs about the size of bumblebees, and in 2012 engineers at Johns Hopkins University were studying the flight of butterflies to "help small airborne robots mimic these maneuvers." birds displayed video butterflies The specific mosquito-like object pictured above is, however, just a conceptual mock-up of a design for a MAV, not a photograph of an actual working device "already in production." And although taking DNA samples or inserting micro-RFID tracking devices under the skin of people are MAV applications that may some day be possible, such possibilities currently appear to be speculative fiction rather than reality. Some have claimed the U.S. government has not only researched and developed insect-like MAVs, but for several years has been furtively employing them for domestic surveillance purposes: The US government has been accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies amid reports of bizarre flying objects hovering in the air above anti-war protests. No government agency has admitted to developing insect-size spy drones but various official and private organisations have admitted that they are trying. But official protestations of innocence have failed to kill speculation of government involvement after a handful of sightings of the objects at political events in New York and Washington. Vanessa Alarcon, a university student who was working at an anti-war rally in the American capital [in September 2007], told the Washington Post: "I heard someone say, 'Oh my God, look at those.' "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?'. They looked like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects." Bernard Crane, a lawyer who was at the same event, said he had "never seen anything like it in my life". He added: "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical or is that alive?'" The incident has similarities with an alleged sighting at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York when one peace march participant described on the internet seeing "a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th Avenue". Entomologists suggest that the objects are indeed dragonflies. Jerry Louton, an expert at the National Museum of Natural History, said Washington was home to large, impressively-decorated dragonflies that "can knock your socks off". Others maintain the technical obstacles involved in creating flying insect-sized robots have yet to be overcome: The technical challenges of creating robotic insects are daunting, and most experts doubt that fully working models exist yet. "If you find something, let me know," said Gary Anderson of the Defense Department's Rapid Reaction Technology Office. Getting from bird size to insect size is not a simple matter of making everything smaller. "You can't make a conventional robot of metal and ball bearings and just shrink the design down," said Ronald Fearing, a roboticist at the University of California at Berkeley. For one thing, the rules of aerodynamics change at very tiny scales and require wings that flap in precise ways  a huge engineering challenge. Scientists have only recently come to understand how insects fly. Even if the technical hurdles are overcome, insect-size fliers will always be risky investments. "They can get eaten by a bird, they can get caught in a spider web," Professor Fearing said. Leonard, Tom.  "US Accused of Making Insect Spy Robots."   The Telegraph.  10 October 2007. Weiss, Rick.  "Washington Abuzz with Talk of Dragonfly Spies."   The Sydney Morning Herald.  12 October 2007. One of the several forms of political clickbait that has sprung up in the online world in recent years the false attribution of controversial and inflammatory political statements to various celebrities, a form that has already appropriated the name of notables such as Sandra Bullock, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Yet another expression of this misleading technique for generating clicks is attributing the sentiment that "Trump in one year is already better than 16 years of Bush and Obama put together" to celebrities ranging from actress Michelle Pfeiffer to singer Dolly Parton: Sandra Bullock Bruce Willis Demi Moore   Neither of these women (nor any other prominent entertainer) gave voice to this thought; it was actually a paraphrase of an opinion expressed by Brett Decker, a former Wall Street Journal editor and the author of the book Bowing to Beijing: How Barack Obama Is Hastening Americas Decline and Ushering a Century of Chinese Domination, while discussing economic policy during a radio interview on 5 January 2018: expressed Decker rejected narratives crediting former President Barack Obamas economic policies with recently developing economic figures during Trumps presidential tenure, framing such assertions as absolutely crazy: You look at the unemployment numbers, and its 4.1 percent. I look at Obama and Bush kind of combined, when I look at this block of sixteen years. Anyone that says this is inheriting some kind of Obama economy, he had eight years, and in 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent, absolutely crazy ... This idea that it has anything to do with Obama is absolutely crazy. Trump in one year is already better than sixteen years of those guys [i.e., George W. Bush and Barack Obama] put together, said Decker, pointing to a current 17-year high in consumer confidence. Kraychik, Robert.  "Brett Decker: Trump in One Year Is Already Better Than 16 Years of Bush, Obama Put Together."
  Breitbart.  6 January 2018. Claim:  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency," and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it. :   Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency.     UNDETERMINED: Video footage of his remarks was deleted from the Internet in an attempt to hide it.  Example:  [Collected via Twitter, November 2014] Hey Media, is UPenn pulling the Gruber video where he says ObamaCare passed by Democrats lying to the public a newsworthy event? Just askin'  Jonathan Gruber, an Obamacare's architect admitted that lack of transparency/stupidity of electorate helped pass the bill   Origins:  In November 2014, a 52-second long excerpt from a video of a 2013 conferenceinvolving Jonathan Gruber, a consultant who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration and Congress during the creation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or "Obamacare"), began to circulate on the internet. Gruber made the remarks captured in that excerpt during the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics in October 2013. Gruber's remarks became controversial when video of the conference was posted online thirteen months after the LDI panel on health economics took place. panel Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of economics, was speaking at a panel titled "The Role of Economics in Shaping the ACA and How Economics Can Inform Inevitable Mid-Course Corrections." The footage from which the comments originated ran for nearly an hour and covered issues tangential to Obamacare, such as its classification as a tax, subsidies, and how the bill came into law. Gruber's controversial remarks come at around the 18-minute mark in the video shown below:  During the portion of the video in question, Gruber said: This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK? So it's written to do that. In terms of risk-rated  subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in  you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money  it would not have passed. OK? Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. Look, I wish ... we could make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not. After video of the conference was put online, Gruber elaborated on what he meant by his attention-garnering remarks and apologized for them, saying that he "spoke inappropriately": elaborated Gruber's comments were part of a broader public conversation between him and economist Mark Pauly on the economics of health care reform. Gruber was responding to a remark by Pauly about financing transparency in the law and the politics surrounding the ACA's individual mandate. The political process, he said, striking a critical tone, resulted in inefficiencies in the law which should be corrected. "In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed," he said. "You can't  do it politically, you just literally cannot do it. It's not only transparent financing but also transparent spending." In the video, Gruber appeared to be speaking specifically about the political environment in 2010 and its impact on the law's funding mechanisms. Gruber takes a critical stance on some of those outcomes, calling them "irrational." "I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent but I'd rather have this law than not," Gruber said. "That involves tradeoffs that we don't prefer as economists but are realistic." Gruber apologized for his comments during an on-air interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow. "The comments in the video were made at an academic conference," Gruber said. "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments." Although Gruber apologized for the language he used, Gruber said that the larger point he was trying to make centered on the political pressures that shaped the law. He added that those pressures "led to an incomplete law with some typos." "It would have made more sense to do Obamacare the way we did in Massachusetts, which would be to just give people money to offset the cost of their health insurance," Gruber said. "That was politically infeasible and so instead it was done through the tax code." The full video of the 2013 Health Economics Conference was published by PennLDI on YouTube, and when the excerpt video of Gruber's remarks began to circulate online, many viewers assumed the comments to be recent (they were not), and others maintained PennLDI then removed the clip from the Internet due to the political controversy. On the latter point, several Twitter users posted screenshots of a YouTube error page that indicated the source video had been (at least briefly) removed by the University after Gruber's remarks became a focus of attention: recent  However, it isn't yet clear whether the PennLDI video was deliberately pulled from the Internet due to the political controversy it created, or whether it was made unavailable at some point after it was initially posted for unrelated reasons (e.g.,  error, copyright issues, technical problems).   It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics when they were spotted and excerpted from the longer PennLDI video by Philadelphia investment adviser Rich Weinstein, then posted to the YouTube channel of the American Commitment 501(c)(4) (i.e., a politically active nonprofit organization), whose Phil Kerpen tweeted: Rich Weinstein American Commitment My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent... Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 My wife texts to say the latest Gruber video we posted is lighting up her Facebook feed... excellent...  Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014  The claim that the University of Pennsylvania deliberately tried to scrub the clip from the Internet may also have stemmed from Kerpen or the PAC: Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 Um, hey, University of Pennsylvania: Pulling the Gruber video now really doesn't help your cause. https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb https://t.co/KoW7Kx2WLb  Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 10, 2014 November 10, 2014  Last updated:  12 November 2014 On 5 May 2015, a photograph purportedly showing a fisherman holding a furry trout was posted to the web site of a local Wisconsin news station: photograph  Wanted to share a rather remarkable catch I had this afternoon. I was fishing the Menomonee River where some trout were packed into a bottleneck. I caught a few and nothing was out of the ordinary until I reeled this one in. I have never seen anything like it. I contacted a local wildlife official and they referred to it as a rare fur-bearing trout. They went on to explain that this was an extreme case of Saprolegnia, or cotton mold. Apparently old Great Lakes legends spoke of these as a uniquely evolved trout species that existed only in the deepest, coldest parts of the lakes and needed the fur to stay warm. I doubt it will make Cabella's non-traditional mount wall but I'm still excited to reel in a genuine Wisconsin legend! You have my permission to share and use this photo in any form you'd like. You can credit George Weber. Im a 41 year old carpenter and live in Wauwatosa. The image was picked up by several web sites such as Unexplained Mysteries and Cult of Weird and soon prompted an Internet debate about the existence of furry trout.  Unexplained Mysteries Cult of Weird Although there is no species of fish called "furry trout," a genus of freshwater mold (also called cotton mold) known as Saprolegnia does grow on diseased fish and lends them a somewhat furred appearance. But unlike the picture of the fish seen in the above-displayed photograph, this mold typically grows in patches and doesn't resemble fluffy white fur: resemble   So if this fish isn't suffering from Saprolegnia, then is this a real furry trout?   Stories about fur-bearing trout have been circulating for years, but that mythical creature still exists only in the imaginary realm. One common form of the myth is that the species came about as the result of a hair tonic spill in the Arkansas river, while another theory holds that this furry fish evolved to grow a thick coat in order to survive in the cold waters of Alaska: theory Some of those tall tales of the West are partly true, no matter how ridiculous they sound. As noted in the first installment of Roaming Wyoming, jackalope may be fake, but science does support the existence of rabbits that may look like they have horns. Is there a factual basis behind the story of the fur-bearing trout? So far, not one has been found. Just plenty of good-natured humor. The fur-bearing trout, also called the furry fish, beaver trout, or (probably jokingly) the sabled salmon, is said to live wherever water becomes cold enough to warrant a warm winter coat. This includes all of Canada, and most of the far northern states of the United States (including Wyoming). The most publicized encounter with the fur-bearing trout appeared in a 1929 issue of Montana Wildlife magazine, the official publication of the Montana State Fish and Game Department. Mr. J.H. Hicken of Whitefish, Montana, told his story in colorful detail. Mr. Hicken snagged a furry fish at a lake in Glacier National Park where the water was so cold it was below the freezing point. But, "Nature has taken care of her own by providing the fish with a thick coat of fur," Mr. Hicken remarked. He did add that since the fish are so cold, "the change of temperature from this water to atmosphere is so great that the fish explodes upon being taken from the water, and fur and skin come off in one perfect piece, making it available for commercial purposes, and leaving the body of the fish for refrigerator purposes or eating, as desired." Real furry trout do not exist, but these fictional creatures can sometimes be spotted mounted on the walls of hunting lodges and museums. According to The Beasts That Hide from Man: Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals, one of the most famous examples of the furry trout was hanging in the Royal Museum of Scotland until it was revealed to be a hoax. A local taxidermist admitted that he had covered the fish with white rabbit fur: famous  While we can't definitively say if this Wisconsin fisherman covered his fish in rabbit fur, it's clear that this catch has more in common with a widely spread hoax than it does with freshwater mold. Claim:  The federal government has banned public school students from bringing sack lunches to school. Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, October 2013] Naturalcuresnotmedicine.com  posted an article indicating that the "Feds" are prohibiting school lunches from home without doctor's orders. Is this true or false. When and where?  Is it true that the federal government won't allow parents to pack lunches for preschool kids without a doctor's note? It doesn't even sound slightly true to me,  but it's being tossed around the internet. Origins:  Intermittent rumors about imminent government control of school lunches (and specifically, a ban on lunches brought in from home) have popped up across the internet since 2011, and claims about the imposition of a government ban on brown bag lunches have continued to circulate since.  Mentions of home lunch bans began cropping up on the Internet as early as 2011, with the pattern with this cyclical rumor appearing to be consistent: A parent packs a lunch,  receives a note from a teacher or school official informing them of a district or program policy regarding lunches from home, and the note circulates as proof that the "feds" are sweeping in to seize control of the cafeteria. Back in 2001, one Chicago-area school called Little Village Academy banned home lunches. The Chicago Tribune covered the minor controversy, explaining that the school's principal (not the federal government) had instituted the rule at his school only after watching students bring lunches consisting of "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" on field trips. The rumor about federal lunch bans died down a bit after 2011 but picked up again in 2013 when a mom blog relayed the story of a friend in Virginia who had received a note from her child's school about packed lunches. The note, which was quickly reproduced on a number of prominent natural news and conspiracy sites, read: mom blog natural news I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians note to that regard. I am sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact Stephanie [redacted] the Health Coordinator for Federal Programs Preschool at [redacted]. Perhaps due to the start of the school year, the same story began to circulate in September 2014, with the same image and text attached. Given the timing and the return to classrooms for the majority of America's kids, it's no surprise the tale has once more gained traction and begun to spread virally on social media sites.  circulate When the story first began to travel across the social web, the Director of Communications and Public Relations for Henrico County Public Schools responded to an inquiry on this particular incident with a statement noting that schools receiving funds to participate in the federal Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs must provide meals to schoolchildren at no cost to their parents, and allowing schoolkids to bring their own lunches from home would (barring special medical requirements) violate that requirement: Head Start Nutrition Assistance Programs It is Head Start policy, not Henrico County Public Schools policy, that there cannot be any costs to parents associated with the program, meals or otherwise. Parents packing a lunch is considered a "cost" by Head Start. As a result, every year parents are informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition that merits a specific diet, along with a physician's note to that regard. Meals served by the school conform to USDA nutritional requirements along with cultural, religious, and personal preferences on a case by case basis. Parents are always welcome to discuss their children's dietary needs with our health coordinator. While many disagree with this particular Head Start (HS) performance standard by which we are regulated and funded; as good stewards of federal dollars, it is protecting one of our most at risk populations and operating at the highest level of expectation with all of the funding strands we utilize for Pre-K. Additionally, parents are made aware of the policy as stated in the preschool parent handbook upon entrance to the program and are required to sign they have received and read it. The family advocates go over it with them on some of their initial meetings with parents. As indicated in this response, the issue was not one of the federal government's trying to control exactly what schoolkids may eat for lunch, but rather one of ensuring that all children covered under the Head Start program were provided with their allotted lunches at no cost to their parents. Last updated:  16 September 2014 In the summer of 2020, readers asked Snopes to examine the authenticity and accuracy of a widely shared Facebook post whose author claimed that the cashier at their local Walmart had donated their change without asking their permission in advance, or offering alternative ways of paying or receiving their change.  On July 20, 2020, Sheryl Jacob posted a photograph of a receipt from the Walmart store on Worcester Road in Framingham, Massachusetts, indicating that at around noon that day, she had purchased two items  priced at 49 cents and 88 cents. She paid $2 in cash. The remaining 63 cents in change had been donated, so the cashier didn't owe her any change. In the accompanying post, Jacob claimed that the cashier asked her for $2 (rather than the $1.37 total price of the items), and that she only realized afterwards that her 63 cents in change had been donated without her consent. According to Jacob, the cashier said the store's policy was to not give out change in the form of cash. She wrote: wrote So folks here we go. Watch your receipt at Walmart. I bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. I paid with cash $2.00 and they just donated my 63 cents without even telling me. I thought both items were a dollar a piece and didnt think twice about giving her the 2 bucks.. then I looked at the receipt. I questioned the cashier and she said they dont give change. Its not about the amount of money. Its the principle. They could have Told me. At the very least offer me a Walmart card with .63 cents on it. I feel like Ive been ripped off. Whos to say where my 63 cents is going to go. It just says donation. Is this just the beginning? Whos to say they wont find different ways to take more of my/our money in the future. Its not right.   In an interview with WCVB, a local news station in Boston, Massachusetts, Jacob said the cashier did not offer her the opportunity of paying with exact change, or paying by credit, or debit card:  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the United States was hit by a nationwide coin shortage in 2020 because lower in-person shopping volumes meant fewer coins were in circulation  but also because the virus slowed coin production at the U.S. Mint. As a result, several major retailers introduced policies to encourage or request customers to pay with exact change, use a credit or debit card, or have the amount of their change loaded onto a loyalty card.  coin shortage Those policies occasionally caused confusion among both shoppers and supermarket staff, as we have examined elsewhere, and this appears to have been what happened at the Framingham Walmart on July 20.  examined A spokesperson for Walmart told Snopes the company had investigated the transaction in question, which Jacob described accurately, and found it was an isolated incident. They added that the company's policy is still to give customers the choice of whether to get change, or donate the difference.  Since the company corroborated Jacob's account, we are issuing a rating of  However, it's worth noting that, by donating the change for Jacob, rather than offering her that option, the cashier in question misunderstood Walmart's policy, which is to provide coin change if a customers wants it.  Mac Guill, Dan. "Did a Nationwide US Coin Shortage Occur in Summer 2020?"
 Snopes.com. 8 July 2020. Mac Guill, Dan. "Did Kroger Supermarkets Overcharge Customers Due to a Coin Shortage?"
 Snopes.com. 23 July 2020. In the opening skirmish of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton cast her rival as a man who put his own business interests ahead of the welfare of average Americans. Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis, Clinton said. He said back in 2006, Gee, I hope it does collapse because then I can go in and buy some and make some money. What does the record show? We found many examples from 2006 to 2009 when Donald Trump spoke of the great opportunity that came with falling real estate prices. One of the earliest instances was in a Trump audiobook from 2006. The man interviewing Trump for the audiobook says, There's a lot of talk, which you've no doubt heard too, about a so-called real estate bubble. What's your take on that pessimism? Well first of all, I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy. You know, if you're in a good cash position  which I'm in a good cash position today  then people like me would go in and buy like crazy, he says in a portion of the audiobookposted by CNN. If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know, you can make a lot of money. Now that was before the collapse that led to the Great Recession, and arguably, Trump was simply offering sound business guidance. Trump touted the same view acoupleof times in2007. But at that point, the country still was not looking at an economic catastrophe. The situation was quite different by early 2009. The investment house Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history. The Dow had suffered its worst weekly loss ever. Washington had bailed out General Motors and Chrysler. Foreclosures were rising weekly. Trump was on CNNFeb. 17, 2009, talking about the economy with host Wolf Blitzer and said the moment was a great opportunity. Blitzer asked Trump why. If you get something really prime, really good, eventually it's going to be worth a lot more than you paid, Trump explained. I used to tell people two years ago, don't buy real estate and I used to preach it hard. And now I'm saying, I think that this is a good time. Whether you hit the exact market or not, I can't tell you. But I think this is a great time to buy. If you have cash, this is the great time to buy. To be clear, Trump was speaking as an investor. He was not necessarily rooting for the housing crisis. But it was under way as he spoke. We reached out to the Trump campaign and did not receive any information to add to this picture. Our ruling Clinton said Trump was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. While Trump did not welcome the tragedy of foreclosures for millions of Americans, he did speak optimistically about the opportunities the overall situation created for an investor such as himself. Clintons statement leaves out that nuance, but in large measure, it matches Trumps words. We rate this claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/22c6df0a-1ffe-421d-b06a-b6c208a27038