Was George Washington in favor of citizens being armed to resist the government?
In January 2016, a quote attributed to first U.S. president George Washington, about the importance of an armed citizenry, started recirculating on the internet:  This statement had been making the online rounds for several years, but it regained popularity in January 2016 after President Obama announced new measures on gun control. announced George Washington never uttered the phrase in question. The first ten words ("a free people ought not only be armed and disciplined") are taken from the former president's annual address to theSenate and House of Representatives on 8 January 1790, in which he argued in favor of an armed citizenry and self-sufficiency in production military supplies as a deterrent to war: annual address Among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies. The proper establishment of the troops which may be deemed indispensable will be entitled to mature consideration. In the arrangements which may be made respecting it it will be of importance to conciliate the comfortable support of the officers and soldiers with a due regard to economy. A page dedicated to fake quotes attributed to George Washington on theMount Vernon web site addressed this passage as follows: addressed This quote is partially accurate as the beginning section is taken from Washington's First Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union. However, the quote is then manipulated into a differing context and the remaining text is inaccurate. Although this meme does include a portion of Washington's first annual addressto members of theSenate and House of Representatives in1790, the majority of the quotewas never utteredby the Founding Father, and does not accurately represent his views on gun control. Nonetheless, its apocryphal nature doesn't hinder its continued reproduction as a genuine expression from George Washington:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke is blaming Gov. Greg Abbott for high inflation in Texas, taking a page out of the GOP playbook in attacking President Joe Biden. O'Rourke released anInstagram videoon April 23 with the caption, Greg Abbott is the single greatest driver of inflation in the state of Texas. TV news clips were stitched together with clips of O'Rourke speaking. In one clip in the montage, O'Rourke says, Under Greg Abbott, property taxes have gone up $20 billion. O'Rourke went on to say, When you add this to the other inflation that he's causing ...  with more clips pointing to electricity bills,traffic backups at the border in April due to additional commercial vehicle inspections Abbott ordered that he said would improve border security, and the rising costs of internet and phone for rural Texans. Overall, O'Rourke is saying Abbott is exacerbating consumer prices in Texas, which were already rising nationwide. We looked at one component of the ad: that jaw-dropping number of a $20 billion increase in property taxes. Is it true? Nationally, inflation hit a 40-year highaccording to March data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prompting criticism of Biden, especially as inflationrelates to government spending. O'Rourke's campaign pointed to aTexas Taxpayers and Research Association reporttitled Relief from Rising Values: 2019 Property Tax Reforms Cutting Tax Rates at a Record Pace. The report looked at the effects of legislation by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, and state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, that overhauled the school finance system and local government budgeting practices and tamped down property tax increases for Texans. The association found property taxes are continuing to rise, but at a slower rate. The campaign pointed specifically to a figure in the report depicting Texas local property taxes from 2011 to 2021. Property taxes levied were just over $50 billion in 2015, when Abbott took office, and just over $70 billion in 2021. The difference is about a $20 billion increase. Data on estimated revenue from local property taxes is available on the state comptroller's website. According to the2018-19 biennial reporton property taxes by the comptroller's office, property taxes totaled $52.2 billion in 2015. Comptroller data on school district, city, county and special district property taxes indicatethere was an estimated $73 billion in property taxes collected statewide in 2021. That's at least a $20 billion increase and in line with the analysis by the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. In the six years before Abbott's election, property taxes increased to a lesser extent, but that property tax growth was constrained by the Great Recession. To note, while O'Rourke is appealing to voters who may also be homeowners, both commercial and residential property taxes are included here. Austin Community Collegeeconomics professor Stuart Greenfield, whose state government career included work with economic models and how Texas distributes money to school districts, said just over half of the 2019 school district taxable value of property was single-family and multifamily homes. The Texas Taxpayers and Research Association is a lobbying organization that primarily spends its money on research. Its policy advocacy has a fiscal conservative bent, the association's President Dale Craymer said, but the organization doesn't advocate for the policies of one party over the other. Craymer said O'Rourke spoke correctly of the group's report based on the data it analyzed from the comptroller's office. The implication of O'Rourke's ad, however, is that Abbott is responsible for rising property taxes. Craymer said the role of state government is indirect at best when it comes to property taxes because rates are set locally and not by the governor or Legislature. Basically, the process by which rates are set and adopted is laid out in state law, Craymer said. The Legislature and the governor obviously are responsible for drafting and putting those laws in effect. But the state really doesn't have a direct say in the amount of property taxes individual jurisdictions raise. The association's report found taxes would have been somewhat higher without twoproperty tax changes by the Legislature in 2019. One created a process where school district property taxes would decrease over time for senior citizens, whose school district taxes are capped. The second change, Craymer said, increased the school district property tax homestead exemption for homeowners from $25,000 to $40,000, saving homeowners about $180 per year. Also in 2019, the Legislature required cities, counties and most special districts to seek voter approval to set a property tax that raises revenues more than 3.5%. For junior colleges and hospital special districts, the threshold for voter approval is 8%. For school districts, it is 2.5%. State policy also affects property values, and increases in value are tied to increases in taxes. Richard Auxier,senior policy associate at the Tax Policy Center under the Brookings Institute and Urban Institute, said the value of Texas homes is increasing alongside the rest of the country. While you can frame that as property taxes went up, you can flip that to home values went up, Auxier said. It's always going to be a trade-off, because people want the value of their homes to increase, but people don't want their taxes to go up. Texas Republicans have campaigned on property tax relief, too. Abbottadded property tax reliefto the Legislature's third special session agenda in 2021 thatresulted ina now-approved amendment to the Texas Constitution. Abbottsimilarly publicized his support for property tax reliefas a priority in a May 2 tweet ahead of May 7 elections. Abbott'scampaign responded to O'Rourke's adby saying Abbott reduced property taxes by $18 billion since taking office and O'Rourke increased property taxes as an El Paso City Council member. Texas voters approvedProposition 2, which raises the homestead exemption for school district property taxes from $25,000 to $40,000. They also approvedProposition 1, which corrected a 2019 oversight in tax relief that did not apply to homeowners who are disabled or 65 or older because their school tax burden is capped. O'Rourke said in an April 23 Instagram video on rising inflation in Texas that, Under Greg Abbott, property taxes have gone up $20 billion. Data presented in biennial reports and on the comptroller's website show that estimated revenue collected through property taxes increased by more than $20 billion. O'Rourke's figure was accurate. But property taxes are set locally, not by the state. Although state policies might indirectly affect property taxes, the governor's role in setting property taxes is indirect. We rate this as Mostly True. Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. here In mid-November 2020, after all major news organizations declared former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election, President Donald Trump's campaign claimed in a series of fundraising emails that the election was "far from over," and that supporters should not believe messages to the contrary. (Read more fact checks like this one here.) Joe Biden Donald Trump here In other words, the emails claimed either Biden or Trump could serve as the country's 46th president come Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2021  even though Biden won key battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, by comfortable vote margins and exceeded the 270 Electoral College votes required to win the presidency.   The emails  like the president's tweets that falsely claimed he had won or denied Biden's victory  were part of an aggressive disinformation campaign attempting to attack the integrity of America's democratic process and convince supporters that Trump had a significant chance to serve another term. falsely claimed he had won "Joe Biden only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING. We have a long way to go  this was a flawed ELECTION," said a Nov. 19 campaign email obtained by Snopes.   To unpack the underlying claim  that American elections provide losing candidates an opportunity to defy the outcome of the popular vote  let's first lay out the country's steps for presidential elections under the Constitution, federal statutes, and state laws. Every four years, when Americans cast ballots in presidential elections, they are participating in the countrys popular vote. That happened Nov. 3 in the Trump-Biden race. Days later on Nov. 7, Biden was announced the winner of the popular vote based on the number of votes counted so far compared to the margin of votes between him and Trump in key battleground states. (Read why and how journalists make that determination in presidential races here.) here Typically, at that point in an election, the losing candidate acknowledges defeat by conceding to his opponent and addressing supporters in a speech. But Trump not only did not do that, he and his allies went a step further by spewing the unfounded conspiracy theory that any person or group who acknowledged Biden's victory was working to undermine the president. defeat by conceding Whether a candidate accepts the outcome of the popular vote or not, state officials at polling sites nationwide continue to count remaining ballots over the course of days or weeks, according to their respective rules. That process, which historically is a procedural step to cement the outcome of the popular vote, requires governors to prepare whats called a Certificate of Ascertainment that lists their state's slate of electors. For example, Biden won the popular vote in Minnesota, so that's state's certificate would list 10 Democratic electors who pledged to vote for Biden through the Electoral College. popular vote electors Likewise, if, hypothetically, Trump had won the Midwestern state, the state's certificate would list a different group of 10 people  electors who pledged to vote for the Republican candidate. All of this said, electors meet at state capitals in early December, weeks after Election Day, to formally cast votes for president and vice president, per guidelines outlined in the Constitution. No constitutional provision, nor any federal law, requires electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote; however, the majority of states and the District of Columbia have their own laws governing the Electoral College and aim to keep electors from defying the popular vote. Here are specific deadlines for those above-described steps in presidential elections, per The Associated Press: The Associated Press Dec. 8 is the deadline for resolving election disputes at the state level. All state recounts and court contests over presidential election results are to be completed by this date. Dec. 14: Electors vote by paper ballot in their respective states and the District of Columbia. Thirty-three states and D.C. have laws or party regulations requiring electors to vote the same way the popular vote goes in the state, and in some states, electors can even be replaced or subjected to penalties, according to the Congressional Research Service. Dec. 23: The certificates must be delivered to the designated officials. If they are not delivered, the law provides alternative avenues for getting the results to Washington. Jan. 6, 2021: The House and Senate hold a joint session to count the electoral votes. If one ticket has received 270 or more electoral votes, the president of the Senate, currently Vice President Mike Pence, announces the results. So, in short, a presidential election doesn't end on Election Day, nor when a candidate is projected the winner by news media. Rather, presidential elections officially conclude the following year, in January. But it's a false interpretation of state and federal laws governing presidential elections to consider those continuing steps after polls close on Election Day  when states certify results or choose electors, or the Electoral College votes for president  as opportunities to defy the popular vote. Per analysis of the guidelines by constitutional experts and election academics, the post-election day procedures mainly serve to cement what voters decided at the county and state level. We should note here: The emails from Trump's campaign alleging the election was "far from over" asked supporters to chip in to a so-called "Official Election Defense Fund" or "Election Defense Task Force," both of which the campaign framed as costly initiatives involving ballot recounts or various lawsuits to challenge Biden's win. But according to Brendan Fischer, director of the federal reform program at Campaign Legal Center, the average donor's money was not covering those expenses.  Brendan Fischer "Small donors who give to Trump thinking they are financing an 'official election defense fund' are in fact helping pay down the Trump campaigns debt or funding his post-presidential political operation," Fischer tweeted. tweeted In sum, it was accurate to claim the 2020 presidential election was incomplete as of mid-November. However, it was false to categorize the remaining procedures as reasonable opportunities for Trump to overturn Biden's victory. For those reasons, we rate this claim "false." Claim:  Someone who cheats at cards is properly styled a card shark, not a card sharp. Status:  Multiple  see below. Origins:  Long has the debate raged over whether a card cheat is properly termed a card sharp or a card shark. Sharks, after all, are known for dispassionately rending the flesh of their prey, which would seem in this linguistic battle to favor the card shark camp, since those who manipulate the pasteboards for the purpose of bilking others have no more conscience or concern for their victims than do their finned counterparts.   Yet card sharp also has in its favor that it seems to conjure up mental images of the poker cheats of the Old West, sharp-featured men with cards up their sleeves. Which, therefore, is it? Both terms still mean someone skilled in cheating at cards, although in recent years card shark has also come to acquire the less odious definition of someone skilled at the play of cards. (Were that not so, one would have to wonder at the naming of the 1978 TV game show Card Sharks, on which  contestants tried to guess whether the next card in a sequence was higher or lower than its predecessor.) As to whether card sharp or card shark entered the English language first, the answer is far from straightforward. A print sighting of card sharp dates to 1884 and one of card sharper to 1859, while the first print sighting of card shark takes us back only to 1942  evidence which  would seem to settle matters. However, both sharper and shark (in the sense of one who cheats) antedate all of the above, sharper to 1681 and shark to 1599, evidence which could be seen as giving the nod to shark. (By the way, the "shark" in question has nothing to do with carnivorous fish; it instead likely entered the English language via the German schurke, a word that in the 16th century had the meaning of a cheat or  swindler.)  If you thought the answer might be found via looking at the words sharp and shark absent the word card, that pursuit also leads down a blind alley, because some definitions of both those words contain elements of cheating or connivance. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a sharp as "A worthless and impecunious person who gains a precarious living by sponging on others, by executing disreputable commissions, cheating at play, and petty swindling; a parasite; a sharper." While that use of the word is rarely encountered these days, remnants of it are still with us, such as when we accuse someone of engaging in "sharp practices" (meaning the cutting of corners to achieve desired ends  while the person so engaged may be staying within the strict letter of the law, his behavior could still be regarded as unethical and suspect). As for the word shark, in addition to encompassing the species of flesh-eating fish it identifies, it has over time come to serve as a label for certain dislikable characters: those who prey greedily upon others (such as successful businesspeople famous more for their love of profit than for adherence to ethics) and those who by virtue of superior skill outmaneuver less capable opponents (highly effective divorce attorneys, for instance). Common compound nouns have been formed from 'shark' that address both meanings, such as loan shark in the "prey greedily" category and pool shark in the "superior skill" category. Barbara "all sharks, finned or otherwise, are best avoided" Mikkelson Last updated:  13 June 2008    Sources:   The Compact Oxford English Dictionary.   Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.  ISBN 0-19-861258-3. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary Alex Trebek's net worth became the subject of strange online advertisements in the weeks following his death. The husband, father, and "Jeopardy" game show host died on Nov. 8, 2020, following a battle with advanced pancreatic cancer. death The ad in question read: "Alex Trebek's Net Worth Left His Family In Tears." This was false.  Misleading, baseless, and false.  The ads were sponsored by LifeExact, The Financial Mag, Travel Patriot, and perhaps others, and were routed through Zemanta, which is owned by Outbrain. Crunchbase defined Outbrain as "a content discovery platform providing publishers a service for recommended links to increase traffic and generate revenue." Outbrain (via Zemanta) provided the technology that allowed the Trebek ads to appear, while LifeExact, The Financial Mag, and Travel Patriot hosted the landing pages. The landing pages featured an image slideshow, with one celebrity name and net worth figure per page. The slideshow story was headlined as: "52 Celebrities & Their Huge Net Worth  Chadwick Boseman's Net Worth Left Us in Disbelief." defined The "net worth left family in tears" advertising lure has also been used by advertising networks exploiting the names of Kenny Rogers, Sean Connery, and Pat Sajak. However, Sajak is still alive, and as of this writing is on the first page of the "52 Celebrities" slideshow. Kenny Rogers Sean Connery first page While the headline claimed the story was about 52 celebrities, including Chadwick Boseman, who died on Aug. 28, 2020, Boseman did not show up until after 140 clicks, on slide 140. Trebek appeared after 141 clicks, on slide 141. His page was the end of the slideshow. Trebek's page did not appear to acknowledge his cancer or passing. The page, which claimed his net worth was $50 million, was likely created in the past, and may have been moved along with Boseman's page to the end of the 141-page slideshow after their deaths. slide 140 slide 141 page The one-item-per-click slideshow model is known in the online advertising world as "arbitrage." On the business and technology blog Margins, run by Ranjan Roy and Can Duruk, Roy defined arbitrage as "leveraging an inefficient set of systems to make a riskless profit, usually by buying and selling the same asset." He also called it "the mythical free lunch that economics tells us does not exist." Margins In arbitrage, the advertising network's goal is to make more money on the ads displayed to readers who click through the slideshow than it costs to advertise the false "net worth left his family in tears" claim that lured them to it. As the family grieved Trebek's passing, on Nov. 11, his wife, Jean, shared a heartfelt message with a photograph from their wedding day. She posted to Instagram: posted My family and I sincerely thank you all for your compassionate messages and generosity. Your expressions have truly touched our hearts. Thank you so very, very much. Many Blessings to all,Jean Trebek In sum, the ads claiming that Alex Trebek's net worth "left his family in tears" were misleading and false. Snopes debunks a wide range of content, and online advertisements are no exception. Misleading ads often lead to obscure websites that host lengthy slideshow articles with lots of pages. It's called advertising "arbitrage." The advertiser's goal is to make more money on ads displayed on the slideshow's pages than it cost to show the initial ad that lured them to it. Feel free to submit ads to us, and be sure to include a screenshot of the ad and the link to where the ad leads. submit ads to us Jeffrey J. Rothschild, an American businessman now in his mid-sixties, is a successful engineer, entrepreneur, and former Facebook vice president whose net worth, according to Forbes, exceeds $3 billion. Jeffrey J. Rothschild He is also, if online conspiracy theorists are to be believed, a thought leader in a CIA-backed New World Order plot to exterminate most of the world's population and enslave the survivors. In Internet memes making the rounds since 2013, Rothschild is quoted as saying a third world war will be required to accomplish these goals: theorists quoted   New World Order Illuminati globalized feudalist system Rothschild supposed heart Much as it may disappoint anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, however, Forbes says that despite his great personal wealth Jeff Rothschild isn't related to the august banking family whose patriarch was Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) of Frankfurt, Germany. Jeff Rothschild's father, William B. Rothschild, inherited a rubber import business from his father, Marcus Rothschild, whose name appears nowhere in the Mayer Rothschild family tree. says Mayer Amschel Rothschild tree And although Jeff Rothschild did speak at a conference of Chinese and American entrepreneurs and investors in January 2013 (at which the above photo was taken), the event took place in Santa Clara, California (not China), and there is no record of him saying anything about a New World Order, a third world war, or a globalized feudal system. Nor have we been able to find such references in any other public statements uttered by Jeff Rothschild over the past two decades. conference This utter lack of evidence hasn't stopped anyone from promulgating these falsehoods, however. We ran across a similar quote shared by someone using the Twitter handle "truther monkey" in 2014: shared Jeff Rothschild gave this speech recently in China to some of the world's richest people ... please share .. pic.twitter.com/dPCqyyo8KT pic.twitter.com/dPCqyyo8KT  truther monkey (@Thedyer1971) April 4, 2014 April 4, 2014 Though their precise points of origin are uncertain, we traced both quotes to a 3 August 2013 post on a now-defunct "underground anarchist" blog called Anarchadia. Crucially, the anonymous author of the post cited no sources authenticating the statements. post "Where is the evidence he actually said these things?" asked someone in the comments section of the page. "Where is the evidence he didn't?" was the response  a low evidentiary bar indeed. As is the case in so much conspiracist discourse, the very existence of the quotes, if real, would be self-contradictory anyway. By definition, the Illuminati conduct their business in absolute secrecy, yet we find them, time and time again (going all the way back to the fictitious 1903 Protocols of the Elders of Zion), allegedly revealing their entire subversive agenda in public. Protocols of the Elders of Zion If that's as secretive they can be, we have nothing to fear from our supposed Illuminati overlords. Eaton, Kit. "The Facebook IPO Players Club: Jeff Rothschild."
Fast Company. 3 February 2012. Hahn, Jason Duaine. "So, What Exactly Is the Illuminati Conspiracy?"
Complex. 20 February 2015. Mac, Ryan. "Meet New Billionaire Jeff Rothschild, the Engineer Who Saved Facebook from Crashing."
Forbes. 28 February 2014. Rosenwald, Michael S. "The Rothschilds, a Pamphlet by 'Satan' and Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories Tied to a Battle 200 Years Ago."
The Washington Post. 20 April 2018. Sales, Ben. "Nearly 200 Years of Anti-Semitic Conspiracies Continue to Cloud Rothschilds."
The Times of Israel. 22 March 2018. Shasha, Han. "Facebook VP Talks at Summit on Startup Strategy."
People's Daily Online. 14 January 2013. Anarchadia. "Jeff Rothschild Helps the U.S. Military Censor Civilians."
3 August 2013. Forbes.com. "Profile: Jeff Rothschild."
18 May 2018. The New York Times. "Obituary: Marcus Rothschild, a Rubber Broker, 75."
11 June 1962. The Rothschild Archive. "A to Z Listing of Rothschild Family Members."
Accessed 18 May 2018. Shift Frequency. "The Dark Agenda Behind Globalism and Open Borders."
28 October 2016. United States Holocaust Museum. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
Accessed 18 May 2018. In July 2022, during a heat wave across the U.S. and other countries, we reviewed an email that claimed Lowe's Home Improvement was giving away free air conditioners in a sweepstakes. In reality, there was no giveaway, and the email was a scam. Scammers were pretending to be Lowe's in an apparent phishing attempt to get people's personal information, such as credit and debit card numbers. the U.S. other countries scam phishing The scam email read, "CONGRATULATIONS! You are the lucky online winner of a brand new [Lowe's] Sweepstakes BTU Portable Air Conditioner entry!" Lowe's  We advise readers to never click links or call phone numbers that appear in these kinds of scam emails. The links will lead to phishing attempts, and the phone calls will connect you with scammers who likely will try to lure sensitive data from you. advise readers scam Scam emails often contain obvious grammatical errors. Also, the "from" email address in scam emails can look unofficial, another sign of something suspicious going on. For example, instead of an official email address ending with "@lowes.com," the sender may have something like, "help@lowes-security-winner.co.com.cc." This would not be a legitimate email address for Lowe's. The U.S. Better Business Bureau (BBB) has published a number of articles about the dangers of phishing. In one of its advisories, the agency detailed how these kinds of scams work: one of its advisories Phishing scams tend to follow a pattern. The victim receives an email, phone call or text message (called smishing or SMS phishing). The message urges the target to click a link, share information, call a phone number, or download an attachment which likely contains malware. In the case of an email or text, the link frequently leads to a form, which prompts the target to enter personal information. Think twice before downloading anything from the internet, especially if its an attachment from an anonymous sender. Scammers will hide malware in an attachment and once downloaded, it can wreak havoc on your personal device or steal your personal information. If you're online at home, the scammer may also steal the IP address and then proceed to connect to any other device connected to your home wifi. The BBB also has tips on how to avoid falling victim to these kinds of scams: If something sounds suspicious, call the company directly or checking the company website directly. Dont click on links in an unexpected email  type the URL for the company into the browser or do a web search to find the right website. Dont click, download, or open anything that comes from an anonymous sender. This is likely an attempt to gain access to your personal information or install malware on your computer. Question generic emails. Scammers cast a wide net by including little or no specific information in their fake emails. Always be wary of unsolicited messages that don't contain your name, last digits of your account number or other personalizing information. BBB Tip: Phishing Scams Can Come in Text Messages, Prize Offers. 1 Mar. 2022, https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/16758-bbb-tip-phishing-scams. Kirka, Danica, and Jill Lawless. UK Breaks Its Record for Highest Temperature As Heat Builds. Snopes.com via The Associated Press, 19 July 2022, https://www.snopes.com/ap/2022/07/19/uk-breaks-its-record-for-highest-temperature-as-heat-builds/. McLaughlin, Tim, and Brendan OBrien. Record-Breaking U.S. Heat Wave Bakes Americans. Reuters, 20 July 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/coast-coast-us-heat-wave-threatens-tighten-its-grip-2022-07-20/. Criminals, beware. Just because you got away with an illegal activity doesnt mean the IRS isnt going to come after your earnings. Thats because just ahead of the 2021 tax season, the IRS released guidelines that required taxpayers claim items they have stolen, as well as earnings from illegal activities.  The claim made headlines in publications that joked potential criminals were running out of time to return stolen goods to avoid paying taxes on them. And went viral when the financial Twitter account @litquidity took to social media to remind taxpayers that tax szn is around the corner.  publications joked running out of time  And its true. Publication 17, which contains the IRS general rules for filing federal income tax returns, lists illegal activities under other income  categorized as self-employment activity  required to be reported to the federal tax agency.  Publication 17 general rules  Screengrab/IRS Publication 17  IRS Publication 17   "Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity," read the 2021 the IRS guidelines. The guidelines also require that those who steal property must report fair market value as income in the year that the item was stolen. Of course, one can avoid paying taxes on such items so long as the person returns them to the person they were stolen from in the first place.   Screengrab/IRS Publication 17  IRS Publication 17   The handy regulations also list how to report embezzled funds, notes that bribes are considered nondeductible expenses, and notes that kickbacks, side commissions, and push money must also be included in the Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from self-employment activity. Its not just items or earnings obtained through illegal activities. That watch you found in the gym locker room? Yep, its taxable.  If you find and keep property that doesnt belong to you that has been lost or abandoned (treasure trove), its taxable to you at its fair market value in the first year its your undisputed possession, noted the IRS. Snopes spoke with an accountant who said that while the reporting requirements themselves aren't new, there was previously a separate form specifically for reporting illegal activity income. It's unclear to what extent people actually used the form in the past. Its not exactly clear whether law enforcement will be given information about individuals who report income from illegal activities. What is clear is that anyone under the age of 65 who made more than $12,550 in 2021 is required to file by April 18, 2022.  Sources Dolan, Debra. Time Is Running out to Return Stolen Goods to Avoid Paying Taxes on Them. Https://Www.Wdbj7.Com, https://www.wdbj7.com/2021/12/29/time-is-running-out-return-stolen-goods-avoid-paying-taxes-them/. Accessed 30 Dec. 2021. IRS Asks That Criminals Provide Its Cut of Stolen Property, Illegal Income. KXXV, 29 Dec. 2021, https://www.kxxv.com/news/local-news/irs-asks-that-criminals-provide-its-cut-of-stolen-property-illegal-income. Publication 17 (2021), Your Federal Income Tax | Internal Revenue Service. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17. Accessed 30 Dec. 2021. Stole Something? IRS Says Stolen Property and Bribes Must Be Reported as Income. Usatoday, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/12/28/irs-says-stolen-property-must-reported-and-twitter-goes-wild/9035694002/. Accessed 30 Dec. 2021. Claim:  List reproduces various "Marxist" statements made by Hillary Clinton.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, August 2007] A little history lesson:   If you don't know the answer make your best guess  Answer all the questions before looking at the answers. Who said it? 1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." A.  Karl MarxB.  Adolph HitlerC.  Joseph StalinD.  None of the above 2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." A.  LeninB.  MussoliniC.  Idi AminD.  None of the Above 3) "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." A.  Nikita KhrushevB.  Josef GoebbelsC.  Boris YeltsinD.  None of the above 4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own ... in order to create this common ground." A.  Mao Tse DungB.  Hugo ChavezC.  Kim Jong IlD  None of the above 5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed." A.  Karl MarxB.  LeninC.  MolotovD.  None of the above 6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." A.  PinochetB.  MilosevicC.  Saddam HusseinD.  None of the above Answers: (1) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/29/2004(2) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  5/29/2007(3) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(4) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(5) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  6/4/2007(6) D.  None of the above.  Statement was made by Hillary Clinton  9/2/2005 Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid and voteAnybody (woman) that would vote for her just because they think it's time for a female president has got to be out of their lunatic mind! Origins:  This list of purported "Marxist" quotes by former first lady, senator, presidential candidate, and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is (like many collections of utterances from various political figures) difficult to rate as strictly "true" or "false": She did make the statements reported above, but they have all been stripped of any explanatory context, and some of them had portions elided, creating potentially misleading impressions about the nature of those statements.  Below we verify the source and complete wording of each statement on this list and provide the context in which it was made.  (All of these entries  date from between 2004 and 2007, during which time Hillary Clinton represented the state of New York in the U.S. Senate.)  "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." This statement by Senator Hillary Clinton was not (as commonly assumed) addressed to the general public, but rather to a group of relatively well-to-do Democrats attending a June 2004 fundraiser for California senator Barbara Boxer.  Her statement specifically referred to a desire to repeal tax cuts that had recently been enacted by the Bush administration, cuts which many Democrats had criticized as favoring the wealthy: tax cuts Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters  some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend  to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress. "Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."  "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few ... And to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity." This entry is a pieced-together passage from a 29 May 2007 economic policy speech given by Senator Clinton on the subject of "Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity."   The supposedly "Marxist" nature of this statement is undercut when the sentences that immediately followed it (affirming support for a free market economy) are included for context: speech It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society. Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed.  When we get our priorities in order and make the smart investments we need, the markets work well.  "(We) ... can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people." "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground." "I certainly think the free-market has failed." The above three statements are all out-of-context passages taken from a 4 June 2007 CNN "Presidential Forum" conducted with three Democratic presidential hopefuls, senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.  The second statement was part of a straightforward expression of the need to for people to reach a consensus (through metaphorically giving up some of their political "turf," not literally giving up their possessions) on how to proceed in order to tackle an issue such as universal health insurance, while the first statement is another pieced-together quote that omits the contextual references to the issues of health care, dependence on foreign oil, and climate change:  Presidential Forum We can set the vision. We can even work to articulate the goal. But the pathway is extraordinarily complicated because of how we live today andhow we think of ourselves in relation to our fellow citizens. Take health care. I think we could get almost unanimous agreement that having more than 45 million uninsured people, nine million of whom are children, is a moral wrong in America. And I think we could reach that agreement, and then we would have to start doing the hard work of deciding what we were going to do to make sure that they were not uninsured, because an uninsured person who goes to the hospital is more likely to die than an insured person. I mean, that is a fact. So, what do we do? We have to build a political consensus. And that requires people giving up a little bit of their own turf, in order to create this common ground. The same with energy  you know, we can't keep talking about our dependence on foreign oil, and the need to deal with global warming, and the challenge that it poses to our climate and to God's creation, and just let business as usual go on. And that means something has to be taken away from some people. The third statement was part of a passage in which Senator Clinton listed a number of entities (including churches, schools, and the government, as well as the free market) that she felt had failed in helping young people to make responsible decisions (particularly in reference to abortion): Q: Could you see yourself, with millions of voters in a pro-life camp, creating a common ground, with the goal ultimately in mind of reducing the decisions for abortion to zero? A: Yes. Yes. And that is what I have tried to both talk about and reach out about over the last many years, going back, really, at least 15 years, in talking about abortion being safe, legal, and rare. And, by rare, I mean rare. And it's been a challenge, because the pro-life and the pro-choice communities have not really been willing to find much common ground. And I think that is a great failing on all of our parts, because, for me there are many opportunities to assist young people to make responsible decisions. There is a tremendous educational and public outreach that could be done through churches, through schools, through so much else. But I think it has to be done with an understanding of reaching people where they are today. We have so many young people who are tremendously influenced by the media culture and by the celebrity culture, and who have a very difficult time trying to sort out the right decisions to make. And I personally believe that the adult society has failed those people. I mean, I think that we have failed them in our churches, our schools, our government. And I certainly think the, you know, free market has failed. We have all failed. We have left too many children to sort of fend for themselves morally.  "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched." This passage was taken from a 2 September 2005 appearance by Senator Clinton in front of constituents in Elmira Heights, New York, where (in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina) she expressed her opinion about the need for federal regulatory oversight of the oil industry in order to curb high gasoline prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil: The anxiety and anger felt by motorists was evident at nearly every turn in her travels throughout the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. She made clear she shared the concern. "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in our entire economy that they're being watched," she said in explaining her call for an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission. "I think human nature left to itself is going to push the limit as far as possible, and that's what you need a government regulatory system for: to keep an eye on people to make the rules of the game fair, to make a level playing field and not give anybody some kind of undue advantage." Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country's long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. "We've had 30 years to do some things we haven't done," she said. "In fact we've gotten, we've gone backwards in many respects. "I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I'm tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies," Clinton said.   Last updated:  30 March 2015    Fouhy, Beth.  "San Francisco Rolls Out the Red Carpet for the Clintons."   Associated Press.  29 June 2004.    CNN.  "The Situation Room: Sojourners Presidential Forum."   4 June 2007. In February 2020, a variation of a familiar scam circulated on Facebook. The dubious website airalaskaoffer.com offered users a "chance to get 2 free tickets of Alaska Air." To enter, users had to complete survey questions.   Alaska Airlines was quick to call out the scam on its Facebook page, offering advice on how to spot real offers: call out advice  As if the poor writing on the bogus offer weren't enough of a red flag, we've seen numerous scams like this one before. Save the company name, it was practically a carbon copy of previous anniversary scams. As we previously reported: this one before These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the companies they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook share buttons and post comments to the scammers site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two Reward Offers (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards). A viral alert proliferating on Facebook since February 2018 warns users to avoid clicking on links that promote entertainment apps or web sites offering them a glimpse of what they might look like as a bald person or as a member of the opposite sex. This is the full text of the alert, according to which these apps are controlled by "extreme hackers" out to invade your privacy: WARNING FACEBOOK There is a website link traveling around Facebook at an extraordinary rate which allows you "to see what you would look like as the opposite sex" and also one that lets you see what you look like "as a bald person". DO NOT enter these links, they are controlled by extreme hackers who are now gaining control of people's personal information and selling it on the black market. As soon as you have clicked share to Facebook it gives these hackers instant access to your own personal details and puts your family and friends personal details at risk. PLEASE SHARE TO MAKE YOUR FRIENDS AWARE As is typical of such alerts, certain features of actual Facebook apps that access personal information in users' profiles have been misconstrued as illegal and the security threat they pose is exaggerated. A number of apps of this kind are constantly promoted on Facebook. This example poses the question, "What would you look like as a bald person?":   Clicking on the link opens an external web page that instructs the user to log in with Facebook to see the results:   This disclaimer appears in fine print at the bottom of the page: This app uses data and contents only if they are publicly available or with the consent of the users. We kindly ask you to use the app only, if other users will not be affected adversely. *Only users who have reached the age of 16 may use this free function. You agree that your picture will be transmitted to the provider FaceApp (St. Petersburg, RU) for the sole purpose of its editing and will be deleted afterwards (data protection and objection notice). Users who log in are then presented with a dialogue box informing them that certain information (typically their Facebook profile data, photos, and e-mail address) will automatically be shared with the web site if they continue (although this particular one doesn't, some apps also request permission to post on the user's Facebook page). If they choose to continue, users are then presented with a selection of photos from their Facebook page and invited to choose one for the demonstration. The app displays the chosen photo side-by-side with an altered version depicting the subject without hair, and invites the user to like the app. It is all relatively harmless, but Facebook users should take seriously all notifications to the effect that they by using the app they are granting the company that provided it access to some of their personal data. We also advise reading the Terms of Service and Privacy notifications provided by such apps (usually via links somewhere on the associated web page) for a detailed description of what you're agreeing to. By granting access to your e-mail address, for example, you're agreeing to receive marketing e-mails and/or newsletters from that company. These pages are also where you would be notified if the company plans on sharing your data with third parties. Terms of Service Privacy Facebook provides this general overview of what types of information games and apps are allowed to collect when you install them: provides Keep in mind when you install an app, you give it permission to access your public profile, which includes your name, profile pictures, username, user ID (account number), networks and any info you choose to make publicly available. You also give the app other info to personalize your experience, including your friends list, gender, age range and locale. other info In short, the companies that offer apps like these aren't typically "hackers" (much less "extreme hackers," which sounds exciting, but we're not sure how one goes from being a mere hacker to an extreme one), nor do they sell your private data on the "black market." However, when you use such apps you do grant them access to personal information in your Facebook profile, which may also be shared with third parties. The moral of the story is: Use Facebook apps cautiously, but don't buy into fear-mongering warnings about them.