Fifty-one percent of our taxes are paid by 2% of New Yorkers.
On the Cats Roundtable, a radio show and podcast with businessman and political donor John Catsimatidis, New York City Mayor Eric Adams made a claim about the richest New Yorkers contributions to city coffers. Fifty-one percent of our taxes are paid by 2% of New Yorkers, Adams said. We must understand the role that high-income New Yorkers play in this city. And when I hear people totally attempting to say they dont play a significant role, that is just wrong, they do. Is Adams right? We reached out to his press secretary, Fabien Levy, who said Adams was talking specifically about personal income taxes. During the interview,Adams was not so precise.The mayor, however, has made that qualification when making this claim before, such as when he was running for officein 2021. This is what he said at afundraising appearance in October 2021: Yeah, were over 8 million people. But do you know 65,000 pay 51 percent of our income taxes? Levy provided previously unreleased data from the Mayors Office of Management and Budget, which showed that in 2020, the top 2.5% of city taxpayers, when ranked by income, paid 51.6% of the citys personal income tax collections. According to areportreleased in December 2022 from the citys Independent Budget Office, a publicly funded organization that provides nonpartisan information about city finances, in 2020, filers with annual gross income of $500,000 or more, representing 1.6% of all filers, paid 49.2% of the citys personal income taxes. Independent Budget Office Communications Director Elizabeth Brown confirmed the office estimated Adams claim to be true, but only as it pertains to personal income tax collections -- not all tax collections. We dont break out the groups the same exact way the mayor spoke about them, but we believe his numbers are more or less accurate, Brown said. Personal income taxes are a fraction of what the city collects in taxes. According to thecitys January 2023 financial plan, personal income and the pass-through entity tax (an optional tax for partnerships and S corporations, such as limited liability corporations) represent 22% of the citys collections. Property taxes constitute 46% of the collections, while sales and use taxes represent 13%. Lucy Dadayan, an expert in state and local finances at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said that its not surprising that a small fraction of earners pay nearly half of the citys income taxes. Thats because about 2.1% of New York citys earners take home around 43% of New York Citys income, she said. This data point is nearly exact to data provided by the city from the Office of Management and Budget. The available data doesnt show how much the top 2% of city earners pay on property, sales, or other taxes, Dadayan said. But their contributions to other tax categories are significant, said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who frequently writes about city finances. According to the city, office buildings are 21% of the property tax levy, the citys single biggest tax, for example, and the reason the office valuations are high is because of their wealthy occupants, Gelinas said. Wealthier people also consume more in goods and services than middle-class and poorer people, and thus pay higher sales taxes, she said. Adams claimed that 51% of city taxes are paid by 2% of New Yorkers. If he had specified income taxes in his statement, we would have given a True ruling. The budget analysts who study the numbers confirm as much. The mayor was talking about personal income taxes, his spokesperson said. But someone listening to Adams interview would not necessarily have known that because Adams did not offer that qualification. Given his past similar statements in which he specified it was income taxes he was talking about, we do not see this as a case in which he was trying to mislead the audience. But because his statement on the radio show was accurate but needed clarification, we rate his statement as Mostly True.
On 25 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, bringing extended heavy rainfall, flooding, and, of course, rumors and scams in its wake. Hurricane Harvey landfall flooding One such rumor involved high-paying Federal Emergency Management Agency jobs ("FEMA Field Inspectors") purportedly created by the storm. Readers forwarded various versions of the rumor they spotted on social media, most mentioning a "Mr. Adrian Davis" recruiting a thousand workers for positions paying between $2,000 and $5,000 per week: FEMA is looking to hire help. $2000 per week plus expenses. 90 days or longer they need over 1000 people. Cannot have any felonies. 888 776 1296. Mr. Adrian Davis.True of False?I have not been able to verify this-the phone number goes from a fast busy to a regular busy.Thank you There is a post going around Facebook seeking FEMA Field Inspectors. $4-5 K per week. No experience necessary. The ad contains an error: "Will be reimburse travel"The phone number to call is 214-[redacted].All sounds too good to be true and I don't see anything similar on the FEMA website or Facebook page. Can you please check out a rumor via Facebook that FEMA is paying people up to 5,000 dollars per week to work in Houston as field inspectors. They have to call 214.[redacted] to register.Why wouldn't the FEMA hire people directly? Sounds like a HUGE scam to me!! The rumor spread quickly, thanks to its plausible premise of FEMA being understaffed in August 2017, the high (but not impossibly so) pay described, and the ease with which one could plausibly qualify. Although some iterations listed an area code of (888) and a contact name of "Adrian Davis," others provided a 214 (Dallas-area) number which appears to have no affiliation with FEMA. A poster provided an application deadline of 31 August 2017: deadline   On 30 August 2017, the agency addressed the "FEMA Field Inspectors" rumor on its official Facebook page: FEMA linked to a Hurricane Harvey page, with an expandable section titled "Rumor Control." That section revealed that the rumor was in fact true: Rumor Control There is a lot of misinformation circulating online and because rumors spread fast please tell a friend, share this page, and help us provide accurate information. Check here often for an on-going list of rumors and their true or false status. Hiring Rumor: There are reports of a flyer titled FEMA Field Inspectors needed ASAP and states Earn $4-5K per week call (214) 284-6594 for instructions on how to apply between the hours of 9:00am  11:00am up to August 31, 2017. This report is  (August 29). FEMA is hiring field inspectors under a pre-existing contract to assist with surge capacity of field inspections. Read more about becoming a home inspector. becoming a home inspector Rumor: There are reports stating FEMA is looking to employ 1,000 people offering to pay $2,000/week for 90 days and the phone number to call is 888-776-1296. This report is . (August 29) Learn more about official FEMA job opportunities to help with the response and review a list of trusted non-profit organizations who are active in disaster response. official FEMA job opportunities to help with the response trusted non-profit organizations who are active in disaster response According to FEMA, these jobs are available under a pre-existing contract "to assist with surge capacity," and the 214 number circulating is legitimate, as is the 31 August 2017 deadline. However, FEMA says the 888 number is not legitimate and the "$2,000 a week for 90 days" claim is inaccurate. We contacted the agency for further confirmation, but we have not yet received a response. FEMA.  "Hurricane Harvey: Rumor Control."
  Accessed 30 August 2017. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris recently attacked President Donald Trump over his trade policy, saying it is hurting American workers. The California senator then said as many as 300,000 auto workers were expected to lose their jobs this year, suggesting Trump was to blame. Donald Trump betrayed a lot of people. He came in office, making all kinds of promises to working people, from farmers to auto workers, Harris said in aCNN interviewon Aug. 12. He said he was going to help working people, and it is estimated that as many as 300,000 auto workers may be out of a job before the end of the year. Trumps trade policy, especially the tariffs hes placed on China, have been blamed by economists forhurting farmers. But are as many as 300,000 auto workers really expected to lose their jobs by the end of this year as Harris claimed? Two recent fact-checks called that figure into question. Well review the facts and place a rating on the senators claim. Checking the facts After the interview, Harris campaign told CNN the 300,000 number is from aFebruary study by the Center For Automotive Research, CAR. The research group examined the impact of a 25 percent tariff Trump proposed on all imported cars and auto parts except on Canada, Mexico and South Korea. It estimated that between about 70,000 jobs and 367,000 jobs would be lost across all sectors of the U.S. economy, but not specifically among autoworkers, under a worst-case scenario. In May, Trumpdelayed for six monthshis decision on whether to impose the tariffs. Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor & economics at the research center, or CAR,told FactCheck.orgin an email: 300,000 auto workers out of a job before the end of the year is NOT what CAR is projecting. FactCheck.org added thatDziczekconfirmed the figure was an estimate for job loss across the economy one year after several proposed and implemented trade policies on the auto industry went into effect. Auto workers produce vehicles at Volkswagen's U.S. plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. in 2017. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig) The CAR report did not specify how many of the up to 367,000 job losses would come from the auto industry.Dziczektold CNN the (auto) sector is starting to shrink, but she added that a rapid loss of 300,000 autoworker jobs would be orders of magnitude worse than what we're expecting to see. The only industry specific estimate was for 77,000 job losses at car dealerships.Dziczektold PolitiFact California there would an overall net loss in auto assembly and parts sectors. How big of a loss depends on how willing consumers would be to switch brand preference from imports to vehicles made in the United States, she wrote in an email. FactCheck.org described Harris claim as wrong, while CNN said it was false. Harris campaign did not respond to our request for comment, including whether the senator has corrected, or plans to correct, her statement. Our ruling Sen. Kamala Harris claimed that as many as 300,000 auto workers may lose their jobs by the end of this year. She relied on a study that predicted, in a worst-case scenario, that between 70,000 jobs and 367,000 jobs could be lost across all sectors of the U.S. economy, but in no way all from the auto industry. The losses would take place one year after President Trump imposes a proposed 25 percent tariff on imported cars and auto parts. Trump has delayed his decision on those tariffs until later this year, meaning the one-year later impact would not be felt until well into 2020, and not by the end of this year as Harris said. Harris claim far overestimates potential job losses for the auto industry, the timing of them and ignores the fact that no decision has been made on the tariffs. We rated her claim False. FALSEThe statement is not accurate. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Few things anger New Jerseyans more than higher costs  and that just may be the point of a recentradio adcritical of Gov. Chris Christies time in office. One New Jersey, a Democratic grass-roots group, released the ad May 3. It uses the sound effects of a deck of cards being shuffled and cut to emphasize a theme that Christies gubernatorial tenure thus far has stacked the deck against taxpayers. Christie is up for re-election in November. His lone challenger is state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex). The ad goes after Christie in a number of areas but were looking at issues that are near and dear to many New Jerseyans: toll costs, public transportation, education and the wealthy paying their fair share in taxes. Under Republican Governor Chris Christie, tolls cost more. Train and bus rides cost more. College tuition goes up. But Christie protected a tax cut for millionaires, a portion of the 60-second ad states. Most of the claims are accurate but some details are lacking. Lets start by reviewing toll hikes. One New Jersey is correct that tolls are higher under Christie, but doesnt mention that the state has hadtwomajor toll increases in recent years  the larger of which was courtesy of Democrat Jon Corzine, not Christie. In August 2011, Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo agreed to raise trans-Hudson tolls by $1.50 starting in September 2011, followed by additional hikes of 75 cents annually through 2015 to fund a $33 billion capital plan for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Those increases affected the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals, Bayonne and George Washington bridges. The Corzine-approved hike that took effect Jan. 1, 2012 increased tolls 53 percent on the New Jersey Turnpike and 50 percent on the Garden State Parkway. Those hikes were the second part of a two-phase toll increase adopted by the Turnpike Authority in October 2008, when Corzine was governor. And costs also have increased for train and bus rides since Christie became governor in January 2010. Three months after Christie took office, NJ Transit approved its largest fare hike in history to help close a $300 million budget gap for the fiscal year beginning that July 1. The hikes, the first since 2007, amounted to 25 percent for train and some bus riders and 10 percent for local bus riders and light rail commuters. In February 2010 Christie called NJ Transit a political patronage pit that needed to cut costs and said fare hikes would be unavoidable since drivers of the states roads had just experienced another toll hike. Next, lets look at college tuition. Christie cut funding for county colleges by 10 percent in 2010, a year that also saw record enrollment increases at the states two-year schools. Tuition increased an average of 4.4 percent. Also, 24 of New Jerseys four-year colleges and universities raised tuition and fees in 2010 faster than the inflation rate, according to a Star-Ledger survey that year. Still, tuition generally increases annually at most schools. Finally, did Christie protect a tax cut for millionaires? Democrats approved a bill in May 2010 renewing a one-year tax rate increase of 10.75 percent for those with taxable income above $1 million. The rate had expired before Christie became governor. Christie, who campaigned that he wouldnt raise taxes, vetoed the surcharge -- protecting the rich, some claim -- and Democrats couldnt override it. Plain and simple, Christie picks and chooses when and how to use his power  and on whose behalf, One New Jersey spokesman Joshua Henne said in an e-mail. He used his power to roll back a tax hike on millionaires, but chose not to use his power to roll back toll, tuition and fare increases that disproportionately hurt New Jerseys middle-class and working families. Christie for Governor spokesman Kevin Roberts declined comment. Our ruling Part of an ad about Christie claims, Under Republican Governor Chris Christie, tolls cost more. Train and bus rides cost more. College tuition goes up. But Christie protected a tax cut for millionaires. The ad is correct that tolls, train and bus fares, and college tuition increased on Christies watch but disregards that some of those increases resulted because the governor slashed funding in an effort to close budget gaps. As for protecting a tax cut for millionaires, weve heard this one before and well point out again that Christie technically didnt cut the millionaires tax since it expired before he took office. Still, opinions vary wildly on that claim. We rate this portion of the ad Mostly True. To comment on this story, go toNJ.com. On Feb. 2, 2021, two FBI agents were killed while serving a search warrant in Sunrise, Florida, in an investigation into violent crimes against children. The agents were identified by the FBI as Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger. killed Sadly, it didn't take conspiracy trolls long to pounce on this tragedy, claiming without evidence in memes that Alfin was "the top investigator for Hunter Biden's laptop":    This meme reflected another baseless claim that was pushed in the days leading up to the November 2020 election: that a laptop allegedly belonging to then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden contained child pornography. No evidence for this claim has surfaced. pushed That claim stemmed from a bizarre saga which played out in October 2020, when a laptop that allegedly belonged to the younger Biden and was left at a computer repair shop in Delaware was later given by the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, to a lawyer representing former President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who then provided a copy of the laptop's hard drive to the New York Post. bizarre saga Although the paper reported in detail on the contents of that laptop, the New York Post didn't state that they found evidence of child pornography on the laptop. This allegation circulated on various conspiracy sites and social media posts before the election and appeared to echo the Qanon conspiracy theory positing that various high-profile figures, from Democratic legislators to entertainers, are part of a satanic child trafficking ring. Qanon The New York Post story included what it reported were federal subpoenas for the laptop and its contents, which were seized by the FBI in December 2019. Hunter Biden announced in December 2020 that he had learned for the first time that federal authorities were investigating his tax affairs. story announced But the FBI agents who seized Biden's laptop were not the same ones who were serving the search warrant in Florida when the two agents were killed. The Baltimore Sun reported that the federal authorities who took the laptop from the computer shop owner work out of Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware, and that their investigation involved finances: reported Isaac said he met with FBI agents in late 2019 and provided them with a timeline of events. The agents returned about two weeks later in mid-December with a grand jury subpoena allowing them to seize the laptop and the external hard drive. The subpoena was signed by a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorneys office in Wilmington who handles criminal investigations such as fraud, and Isaac acknowledged receiving it. The agents also gave him a receipt for what they took, according to a photograph of it published by Fox News. The receipt included an FBI code, 272D, the bureaus internal classification for money laundering investigations, and BA for its Baltimore field office. Officials separately confirmed that the FBI seized the laptop and an external hard drive as part of an investigation, though they did not detail the inquiry or whether it involved money laundering or Hunter Biden. They also confirmed that the agent who signed the receipt works in Wilmington and is overseen by the Baltimore office. According to the FBI, Alfin and Schwartzenberger were assigned to FBI's Miami field office. Alfin, who was 36, had worked cases involving crimes against children out of FBI Miami since 2017. assigned Alfin and Schwartzenberger were serving a warrant on David Huber, a 55-year-old computer technician, who engaged agents in a pre-dawn gun battle, killing two FBI agents and wounding three others before turning the gun on himself. David Huber We found no real-world connection between Hunter Biden's laptop and the murder of the two FBI agents in Florida, and it appears that claims the two were linked were invented to stir up a specter of conspiracy where none was present. A video posted to YouTube on 8 October 2014 offered the deathbed revelations of former Lockheed Martin engineer (aka "Area 51 scientist") Boyd Bushman, who spoke with aerospace engineer Mark Q. Patterson shortly before he passed away at age 78 in August 2014: https://youtu.be/bqQArKpA5ZQBushman went out with an extraterrestrial disclosure bang, making claims about having worked on projects involving antigravity, UFOs, aliens, "Area 51," and Roswell, New Mexico. According to his comments in the video, government officials had been in contact with aliens who strongly resemble humans, tend to be "approximately four and a half to five feet tall," "have three back bones" that are "actually cartilage," and are able to communicate telepathically: "They're able to use their own voice by telepathy to talk to you. You walk in the room with one of them, and all of a sudden you find yourself giving the answer to your question in your own voice," he said. In the video Bushman described two types of aliens, some of whom live for 200 (presumed Earth) years and hail from a planet called "Quintumnia" where, improbably, they continue to rustle cattle despite their vastly advanced technological state: "They divide them into two groups. One group are wranglers, and the others are rustlers  the ones who are stealers of cattle. The two groups act differently. The ones that are wranglers are much more friendly, and have a better relationship with us." The sole piece of evidence Bushman presented in support of his tale about alien visitations from Quintumnia were some purported photographs of these extraterrestrial beings:  However, when Bushman's claims began to gain traction on the Internet, a Reddit user located an existing plastic toy alien doll that very closely resembled the image of the "alien" Bushman had proffered in his video: Reddit https://youtu.be/2FPQL9qoZ9IA news outlet in Quebec also pointed out that the "alien" seen in the pictures held up by Bushman during the interview could be purchased at WalMart. WalMart Did Boyd Bushman prankishly decide to have one over on everyone as he departed his earthly life, was he a publicity-seeking charlatan, was he a true believer who actually thought he had experienced the things he described, or was he suffering the effects of senility? Regardless of his reasons for offering them, Bushman's extraordinary claims weren't the least bit convincing in an evidential sense, as Stuart J. Robbins noted for SWIFT: SWIFT A deathbed confession can be a way to solidify one's reputation. The thinking could easily be, "People really believe that people are 100% honest on their deathbed, so I'm going to make sure I go out with a 'bang' and make my claims yet again. People who didn't believe me before might this time because they'll think I'm telling the truth 'cause I'm about to die." However, in addition to explaining why the common reasons to believe deathbed confession testimony are unconvincing, there's a better reason why the testimony is not useful: They're doing it wrong. Let's say I had a bunch of secrets of exotic physics and decided to do a deathbed confession. Here's what I would say: "I've been working on antigravity and warp field physics for the last 50 years, in secret, with the US government." Then, instead of showing photos of a spaceship or a blurry alien, I would add: "And, here are the equations. Here is a diagram for how you build a device. Here is a working model. Here is exactly how you put everything together." In other words, it shouldn't matter who I am, what my experience is, or what pretty (or ugly) picture I show. What I need to show is HOW to do it. Just saying something doesn't make it so. I need to give enough information for someone else to verify it and duplicate it. Otherwise, what's the point? To make a spectacle before I die? That's why I find this whole deathbed confession thing unconvincing and, perhaps more importantly, not useful: We have no more information than we had before. We have no way to verify any of the information claimed. No way to test or duplicate it. At best, we have another person claiming this stuff is real, and while he or she may be proven out with the passage of time, their "confession" contributed absolutely nothing to that advancement. Until then, it's no better than any other pseudoscientific claim. Cloutier, Jean-Francois.  "An Engineer from Lockheed Martin Talks About UFOs Before His Death."
  TVQC.  26 October 2014. Fetcher, Joshua.  "Former Lockheed Martin Engineer from Texas: I Met Aliens at Area 51."
  San Antonio Express-News.  30 October 2014. van Velzer, Ryan.  "UFOs Over Tucson Video Part of Viral Debate."
  The Arizona Republic.  14 December 2007. In September 2019, we received multiple inquiries from readers regarding an old story about the origins of the famous KFC original recipe  the blend of herbs and spices that went into creating "Colonel" Harland Sanders' original Kentucky Fried Chicken.  The African Diaspora Facebook page wrote: "Meet Mrs. Childress. Colonel Sanders Stole His Famous Fried Chicken Recipe From A Black Woman Named Mrs. Childress. He later paid her $1,200 for her recipe. KFC is worth 15 Billion Dollars today." That text was accompanied by the following image:    On Sept. 3, a Facebook account with the name Glenn Dickens wrote, "In case you didnt know. Meet Miss Childress, she died in poverty. She is the woman behind the original #KFC recipe. He took all her profits and made us think it was his recipe."    In recent years, this story has appeared in many other social media posts, memes, and articles, all of them claiming that the recipe that made Sanders rich and gave rise to one of the most popular fast-food chains in American history was initially stolen from a black woman (sometimes named "Mrs. Childress," sometimes "Miss Childress," and in some instances not named). posts memes articles Many iterations of the story hold that Sanders later handed over the relatively meager amount of $1,200 after getting pressured by the woman's family, and most posts include an image of an African American woman preparing fried chicken in a kitchen, describing her as "Miss Childress." In reality, the image was taken from a 1920s magazine advertisement for Snowdrift shortening, one that played on racist and painfully outdated stereotypes of that era, and depicted the woman (named only as "Sarah") as an exemplar of the racist "mammy" caricature  a cheerful, black, female domestic servant to white families, especially in the segregation-era American South. magazine advertisement mammy  Source: University of Illinois    It's possible the image is a photograph, but it is perhaps more likely a painting, since the norm for popular American magazines in the 1920s  such as Ladies' Home Journal, where the "Sarah" advertisement was published  was for photographs to be printed in black and white, with illustrations presented in color. It's not clear who the woman depicted in the advertisement was or on whom she was modeled, so we cannot rule out the possibility that she was the "Miss Childress" described in the KFC memes.  Journ a l published Also, evidence is lacking in support of the main claim  that Sanders stole his famous original fried chicken recipe from a black woman named Miss Childress. A 2010 blog post claimed that: "Ron Douglas in 'Americas Most Wanted Recipes' says that Sanders took his secret recipe from a black woman, one Miss Childress of Kentucky, whose family he paid $1,200 when they complained." However, Douglas' book does not, in fact, make any such claim.  post book We found no evidence to support the "Miss Childress" story in a newspaper archive that stretches back more than 100 years, and the prominent food writer Joshua Ozersky made no mention of Sanders' having stolen the recipe from a specific black woman, in his widely cited 2003 biography "Colonel Sanders and the American Dream." biography The version of events presented there by Ozersky is the conventionally accepted one: Sanders set up a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky, during the 1930s, then began serving food there, including fried chicken. His food and hospitality garnered the gas station a good reputation among passing travelers, and he eventually converted the business into a restaurant and motel. Sanders settled upon a blend of 11 herbs and spices that went into making his fried chicken, and began using a pressure cooker to fry the chicken. In later years, he franchised out the use of his recipe to restaurants across the United States, and from there the iconic brand emerged. Sanders' decision to use a pressure cooker (rather than a pan or deep fryer) to make the chicken was arguably the key factor in the development of fried chicken as "fast food" and the extraordinary success of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is a factor the "Miss Childress" memes and social media posts typically neglect, suggesting as they do that the success of Sanders and KFC was entirely attributable to the blend of herbs and spices used to season the chicken itself. According to Ozersky, for example, the use of the pressure cooker was considerably more important. As he wrote in his 2003 biography of Sanders: biography "... What made the chicken great was the innovation of using a pressure cooker to make it. It's much less glamorous than any secret mixture of herbs and spices but far more important ... No one was going to start a fast food empire using cast-iron skillets, even if those were the best way to cook chicken. (And they are ...) It takes too long to make chicken in a pan and even the most colossal version hammered out by a southern smithy can only hold thirty pieces at a time at most." Sanders patented his pressure cooker process in 1966, writing in his application that the method he had come up with allowed a cook to create "accurately controlled conditions of temperature, pressure, time, sizes of serving pieces, and amount and composition of breading used, for the purpose of producing superior taste, texture and appearance in the finished product." application While Ozersky cited no specific act of intellectual property theft on the part of Sanders, he did allude to the racial tensions and cultural appropriation involved in the development of fried chicken in the early 20th century American South, writing that Sanders embodied the following "paradox": "Anyone who knew anything of the South knew that no Kentucky colonel would have cooked the fried chicken in a southern household; the chicken in prosperous southern households, particularly in the Colonel's era, was inevitably cooked by a black maid or family housekeeper. Colonel Sanders created an alternative reality in which the white planter not only ate the chicken but implicitly made it. Nothing could have been further from the truth." We also put the "Miss Childress" story to Psyche Williams-Forson, chair of the department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park, an expert in the interaction of food, cultural history and women's studies and author of the 2006 book "Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power."  book She told us she had found "no direct evidence that Colonel Sanders 'stole' the KFC recipe from an African American woman," and had come across no information that indicated Sanders later paid the woman $1,200 under pressure from her family.  However, Williams-Forson emphasized that a history does exist of white entrepreneurs and chefs taking recipes from African American women and men, without giving them proper credit. She pointed to the example of Idella Parker, who was a long-time maid to the white cookbook author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and later an author in her own right. In her 2006 book, Williams-Forson wrote: "The cookbook, according to Parker, required 'months and months together' in Rawlings' tiny kitchen extracting the recipes from '[Parker's] hands and head.' [Parker] says: 'Many of the recipes in the book were mine, but [Rawlings] only gave me credit for three of them, including 'Idella's biscuits.' There were several others that were mine too, such as the chocolate pie, and of course it was me who did most of the cooking when we were trying the recipes out.'  "In the end, Parker, whose many contributions made the cookbook a reality, only received an autographed copy. But of this she says, 'in those days I was grateful for any little crumb that white people let fall, so I kept my thoughts about the cookbook strictly to myself.'" More broadly, Williams-Forson told us, "some black women who performed domestic service had their recipes improperly 'borrowed.'" She added: "Given that throughout enslavement and long after, African American and white women often worked together in the kitchen instructing and cooking various recipes, it is quite difficult to make a strong assertion of whose recipe belongs to whom. The issue, however, is that African American women were never credited in cookbooks. How is this possible given the proven evidence of African American culinary skill?" Despite the absence of documentary evidence to support the "Miss Childress" theory, Williams-Forson outlined the reasons why it should not be dismissed, writing to us in an email: "This is not to say it did not happen. I am saying I did not find this evidence. And where might this evidence be uncovered? Would Sanders have acknowledged it? Might the African American family have kept a receipt? This is a needle in a haystack because it happened so often to African Americans, who were denied the opportunity to read and write, and thus were unable to document their culinary practices." Although we have found no evidence to support the claim, it is possible that Sanders did directly steal his fried chicken recipe from a specific African American woman, who may or may not have been named Childress. If he did, it is also plausible that no documentary evidence of that act of plagiarism ever existed, or that if it did, it has not survived. Alternatively, Sanders might have borrowed and taken elements of several fried chicken recipes, perhaps some of them invented by, or passed down or shared between, African American women  in the way that many recipes evolve and change over the years. "Miss Childress" might simply be a stand-in or symbolic victim in the wider legacy of appropriation and intellectual property theft that characterized much of the cultural relations between whites and blacks in early 20th-century America. Until and unless we obtain concrete evidence that clears up that uncertainty, we are issuing a rating of "Unproven." 4AM News. "Did Col. Sanders Come Up With the 11 Herbs and Spices or Miss Childress?"
 10 February 2017. Pilgrim, David. "The Mammy Caricature."
 Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. 2012. Abagond.Wordpress.com. "Colonel Sanders."
 7 September 2010. Douglas, Ron. "America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes From Your Family's Favorite Restaurants."
 Atria Books. 25 June 2009. Ozersky, Josh. "Colonel Sanders and the American Dream."
 University of Texas Press. 2003. Williams-Forson, Psyche. "Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power."
 The University of North Carolina Press. 8 December 2006. Public transportation was one of the topics when Abel Collins, program manager for the Rhode Island chapter of the Sierra Club, was a guest on the June 2 edition of 10 News Conference. Collins, an unsuccessful independent candidate for Congress in the 2nd District in 2012, said one goal of his organization is to cut pollution by getting better funding for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, which operates the states bus system. They're stuck. They have declining revenues and increasing demand. And RIPTA has really some of the fullest buses for its transit agency size around the country, he said. So it's really something that should get more attention and hopefully this is the year that the General Assembly sees fit to give RIPTA sustainable funding for the long term. There's a bill to do that and we've been pushing on it for years. We wondered whether RIPTA does, in fact, have some of the fullest buses around. We called Collins. He said he was told that factoid by Mark Therrien, the authority's assistant general manager for planning. We called Therrien. He said Collins was correct. When we asked for details, he referred us to theIntegrated National Transit Database Analysis System(INTDAS) which has national statistics over many years for transit systems throughout the United States. The database will generate a list of comparable transit systems around the country. We did that for RIPTA and decided to focus on the 30 that were closest based on a variety of measures such as size, according to the federal ranking. We also looked at six other systems -- in Eugene, Ore.; Fort Worth, Texas; Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; and Des Moines, Iowa -- that Therrien said were comparable as well. But what to look at? The database, whose most recent statistics were from 2011, doesn't include a direct measurement of how full the buses are. We discovered there were a lot of indirect ways to estimate capacity that gave different rankings. Therrien said we should look at passengers per hour. By that measure, RIPTA ranked 8th out of 37 systems. We also looked at the number of passenger trips divided by the number of vehicles in operation during peak hours. RIPTA ranked 9th by that measure. Meanwhile, we received an e-mail fromAlbert Gan, a professor with the department of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University, who developed the INTDAS system. He said the correct method would be to divide the number of passenger miles in a year by the number of miles driven when the buses were picking and dropping off passengers (known as revenue miles). By that measure, RIPTA ranked 13th out of 37. Then we heard back from Therrien's office, which advised us that it was best to look at the number of passenger trips divided by the number of revenue miles. In that instance, RIPTA ranked 10th. Some other systems were pretty crowded using that yardstick. Milwaukee had 24 percent more passengers per bus than Providence; Madison had 34 percent more; Eugene had 39 percent more; and Rochester, N.Y. had 46 percent more. To sum up, Abel Collins said, RIPTA has really some of the fullest buses for its transit agency size around the country. Some of the fullest is a little vague, but it implies that Rhode Island is going to be up there in the rankings. RIPTA, asked about the claim, suggested that we look at 11 transit systems. We ultimately analyzed data on more than three times that many, using a federal rating method that listed bus services comparable to Rhode Island's. RIPTA's rankings ranged from 8th to 13th. They varied a bit because there's no standardized way to calculate who has the fullest buses. Because there's some uncertainty but the different methods show RIPTA ranking high, we rate Collins' statementMostly True. (If you have a claim youd like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at[email protected]. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) Claim:  President Obama signed an executive order to lend $2 billion to a Brazilian oil company, with no financial gain for the U.S. false Example:  [Collected via e-mail, November 2009] This is a perfect example why many refrain from watching the news on ABC, NBC, CBS, or MSNBC. Today on a segment of the "Glen Beck Show" on FOX (Fox Cable News) was the following: "Today, even though President Obama is against off shore drilling for our country, he signed an executive order to loan 2 Billion of our taxpayers dollars to a Brazilian Oil Exploration Company (which is the 8th largest company in the entire world) to drill for oil off the coast of Brazil!  The oil that comes from this operation is for the sole purpose and use of China and NOT THE USA! Now here's the real clincher... the Chinese government is under contract to purchase all the oil that this oil field will produce, which is hundreds of millions of barrels of oil". We have absolutely no gain from this transaction whatsoever! Wait, it gets more interesting. Guess who is the largest individual stockholder of this Brazilian Oil Company and who would benefit most from this? It is American BILLIONAIRE, George Soros, who was one of President Obama's most generous financial supporter during his campaign. If you are able to connect the dots and follow the money, you are probably as upset as I am. Not a word of this transaction was broadcast on any of the other news networks! Forward this factual e-mail to others who care about this country and where it is going. Also, let all of your Government representatives know how you feel about this. Is this the kind of "transparency" you want from your government? Below is the Wall street Journal article to confirm this. Wall Street Journal editorial Wall Street Journal editorial Origins:  The above-quoted article references a segment attributed to Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck criticizing President Obama for signing an executive order to lend $2 billion to a Brazilian oil company to finance offshore drilling, all without securing reciprocal oil exports from Brazil or any other benefit to the U.S.   Nearly all of the substantive claims made in that article are false, as detailed below:  [President Obama] signed an executive order to loan 2 Billion of our taxpayers dollars to a Brazilian Oil Exploration Company This statement is false: President Obama signed no such executive order.  On 14 April 2009, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), an agency whose mission "is to assist in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to international markets," issued a preliminary approval for a $2 billion loan to Brazil's national oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), to help fund offshore oil exploration and development. Ex-Im preliminary approval The approval of the loan was an action undertaken not by officials who had been appointed by President Obama, but by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, as Ex-Im itself stated: The Bank's bipartisan Board unanimously approved the preliminary commitment to Petrobras on April 14, 2009, before any Obama appointees joined the Bank. In fact, at the time the Bank's Board consisted of three Republicans and two Democrats, all of whom were appointed by George W. Bush. Despite the claim that the money committed to Petrobras is "taxpayer dollars," Ex-Im notes that "the vast majority of our financing consists of guarantees of loans made by commercial lenders," that "the bank is self-sustaining and does not receive any appropriated funds from Congress," and that "the Bank's activities do not cost the American taxpayer a dime."    We have absolutely no gain from this transaction whatsoever! This statement is also false, one predicated on the mistaken assumption that the only tangible financial benefit of lending money to Petrobras was to guarantee a supply of Brazilian oil for the United States.  The Ex-Im's mission statement declares: mission statement The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is the official export credit agency of the United States. Ex-Im Bank's mission is to assist in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to international markets. Ex-Im Bank enables U.S. companies  large and small  to turn export opportunities into real sales that help to maintain and create U.S. jobs and contribute to a stronger national economy. Accordingly, as set forth in a 29 July 2009 press release, Ex-Im's chairman and president, Fred P. Hochberg, declared that the bank approved the $2 billion preliminary commitment not as a downpayment to ensure future oil purchases from Brazil by the U.S., but "to encourage purchases of U.S. goods and services by Petrobras": press release I chose Brazil as my first international destination for good reason: Brazil is a powerhouse among South American economies and offers tremendous opportunities for U.S. exporters in many sectors. I want Brazilians to know that Ex-Im Bank has the will and the capacity to finance their purchases of U.S. equipment, products and services. (Although Fred P. Hochberg is an Obama appointee, the President did not nominate Hochberg for the position of Ex-Im president until 20 April 2009, a week after the board approved the loan to Petrobras.) nominate    The Chinese government is under contract to purchase all the oil that this oil field will produce, which is hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. China does have an agreement to buy Brazilian oil from Petrobras, but not literally to purchase the entire output of Brazilian offshore oil fields.  In May 2009, the China Development Bank (CDB) agreed to lend Petrobras $10 billion (five times the amount of the Ex-Im loan); in exchange, "the two sides agreed to increase actual crude oil exports from Brazil to China." At the same time, Petrobras and Sinopec (the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation) signed a separate long-term export agreement providing for  Petrobras to export 200,000 barrels of oil to China per day from 2010 to 2019. agreed    Guess who is the largest individual stockholder of this Brazilian Oil Company and who would benefit most from this? It is American BILLIONAIRE, George Soros, who was one of President Obama's most generous financial supporter during his campaign. Billionaire financier George Soros has donated large sums of money to groups that support the goals of the Democratic Party (including an estimated $23.5 million towards defeating the re-election effort of President George W. Bush in 2004),  and his hedge fund (Soros Fund Management LLC) does hold stock in Petrobras.  However, the implication that President Obama unilaterally directed the issuance of a loan to Petrobras as quid pro quo repayment to George Soros is erroneous since, as noted above, the loan was approved and made by a Republican-majority board of Ex-Im officials who had been appointed by  George W. Bush. Soros' hedge-fund firm  sold off 5 million of its 37 million Petrobras shares in May 2009, and the firm sold off another 22 million shares in August 2009, before Petrobras received any loan funds from Ex-Im. sold sold   In a letter published by the Wall Street Journal on 21 August 2009, Ex-Im president Fred P. Hochberg refuted the criticisms expressed in that newspapers' editorial of three days earlier: Your editorial "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling" (Aug. 18) more correctly should have read, "Obama Underwrites U.S. Jobs." That's because the mandate of the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im Bank) is to help create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing U.S. exports. Our offer to provide financing to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras does exactly that. That's what is behind our decision to offer at least $2 billion in loans or loan guarantees to help finance purchases of U.S. goods and services by Petrobras. This increases the likelihood that  American  not foreign   workers will be employed to satisfy part of the company's planned $175 billion investment during the next five years. Ex-Im Bank does not make U.S. policy. In fact, our charter prohibits us from turning down financing for either nonfinancial or noncommercial reasons, except in rare circumstances including failure to meet our environmental standards. We make no grants. The vast majority of our financing consists of guarantees of loans made by commercial lenders, not Ex-Im Bank direct loans. The foreign buyers that use Ex-Im Bank products pay us in full. Over the past 16 years the fees that we collect have netted American taxpayers more than $4.9 billion plus the jobs those exports have created. Thanks to the fees we charge, the bank is self-sustaining and does not receive any appropriated funds from Congress. At a time when jobs, and exports, are more important than ever in helping our economy recover, Ex-Im Bank is achieving its mission to keep Americans working, and we're doing it without burdening the U.S. taxpayer. Additional information:  Facts About the Proposed Ex-Im Bank Loans  Last updated:  10 February 2010 Twenty-three years into his Senate tenure, Wisconsins Herb Kohl hasnt announced whether he will seek another six-year term in 2012.But as Republicansstep up their criticismof him, Kohl is making crystal clear his disdain for the kind of rough-and-tumble campaign environment that almost surely would be part of another campaign.Compared to his last couple races when Kohl used his massive personal fortune to vanquish underfunded opponents with soft-sell TV ads, it would be a new environment for the senator who owns the Milwaukee Bucks and built the Kohls department and grocery store chains.Inremarks to reportersin Madison on April 28, 2011, Kohl ruminated about the state of todays campaigns. He said people dont like anybody in public life because of venomous attacks and sniping among congressional members, something he said he engages in hardly at all.Then he got specific: Ive been through four campaigns and have not done any negative campaigning. And I dont get into any personal jousts with other people in public life. But thats just my style.So has Kohl really avoided any negative campaigning?Thats quite a claim in this age of mud-slinging and aggressive campaign tactics. We decided to check it out.Of course, it would be impossible to track down every campaign statement Kohl made since 1988 and copies of decades-old TV ads. So we focused our look-back to media descriptions of TV ads, debates and the candidates strategies in his four races. We also talked to the people who should know best: several of his former opponents or their aides, Kohls campaign staff, and a longtime political reporter.Kohl has of course benefited from negative attacks launched by groups supporting his campaigns, but he spoke only of his own campaigns conduct, so well limit our review to that.One more note before we begin: Because there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes negative campaigning, we asked Team Kohl what exactly he meant by his claim.Sen. Kohl has said that he believes campaigning is about telling the people of Wisconsin what hes done and what he plans to do, not tearing down his opponent or telling people not to vote for them, Kohl press secretary Lynn Becker said. He has not been deliberately malicious or factually dishonest in his campaigns or while serving in public office.Indeed, his two most recent opponents said there was no negative campaigning in their contests -- and had high praise for Kohl.He never did anything negative in his campaign. Hell have the job as long as he wants the job, said John Gillespie, founder of Rawhide Boys Ranch, who lost to Kohl in 2000.Say hi to Herb if you talk to him. Tell him I owe him a dinner, said Robert Lorge, Kohls 2006 rival.Fair enough. Those were landslide wins.What about the earlier contests?1988:Kohl was a surprise entrant in the Democratic primary, winning the nomination comfortably over former Gov. Tony Earl, Ed Garvey and Doug La Follette. Hefrustrated hisrivalsby limiting his debate participation and spending millions on TV ads.At the time,Earls media consultant David Axelrod chargedthat Kohls popular slogan -- Nobodys Senator But Yours -- was an implicit negative attack. It implied that candidates who -- unlike Kohl -- have to raise most of their campaign money are beholden to donors, said Axelrod, who later went on to help a guy named Barack Obama get elected president.Earlattacked Kohl as uninformed and error-prone, prompting Kohl campaign aide Bill Christofferson to call Earl desperate and guilty of misrepresentation.Insiders on both sides agree that Kohl ran no attack ads in the primary -- and none in the very tight general election that saw Republican state legislator Susan Engeleiterclose the gap to just a fewpointswith a series of ads targeting Kohl in the closing weeks.Engeleiter herself told us she has nothing but positive recollections of a pretty cordial campaign. She also praised Kohls dealing with her when she later was confirmed as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.La Follette and Garvey say today that they wouldnt call Kohls primary race negative. Regarding Kohls slogan, La Follette agreed with Kohl aide Christofferson, who said:  Herb Kohl was talking about himself, not anyone else, when he promised to be 'nobody's senator but yours. 'Indeed, Kohl explicitly used his positive campaign ads as a selling point, and called his victory a blow against negative campaigning.1994:In his first re-election campaign, Kohl wasted little timeaggressively portraying Republican opponent Robert Welch, a state lawmaker from Redgranite, as an extreme conservative and flip-flopper. At an early debate, he cited Welchs no-exceptions stance against abortion and his vow never to vote for a tax hike as extreme. According to media accounts, he did not explain the flip-flop charge.Afterwards, Welch told reporters Kohl was nastier than I expected.Later, after Welch attempted to tie Kohl to President Clinton, Kohl launched arare TV ad that focused on an opponentby name. Another followed. The ads accused Welch of distorting Kohls record. One said that fellow Republicans had criticized Welchs tactics -- something deemed misleading in aMilwaukee Journal fact check.The exchange led Welch to accuse Kohl of running a multimillion dollar mudslinging campaign. Kohl said it was Welch who went negative.The rhetoric heated up. At one point in the race, after Welch accused Kohl of religion bashing, Kohl spokesman Jeffrey Gillis said that  Welch's attack again shows that he'll say or do anything to get elected.So, that seems like quite a bit of snarling.Looking back, though, Welchs campaign manager Mike Maxwell doesnt have strong opinions about the back and forth.I dont know that Kohl was particularly negative through that election, he told us. He didnt recall the distort ad that Kohl ran. He did say that some might consider the extreme charge a negative attack.Kohl, Maxwell recalled, just had overwhelming resources and then he signed (Bucks first round draft choice Glenn Robinson) six days before the election. (We could not reach Welch for comment).Kenneth Lamke, a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter who covered the 1994 race, offered the strongest opinion we heard on whether Kohl went negative against Welch. He says yes.Lamke said the extreme charge by Kohl was within bounds but uncharacteristic of Herb. Lamke viewed the attack as unprovoked and an exaggeration; Gillis, the Kohl aide, said it was a response to the drumbeat of criticism of Kohl during the Republican primary. Lamke, we should note, asked us to describe his personal politics as leans Republican.We asked several political scientists to characterize the language of the Kohl ad. They reacted cautiously because we could not provide the ad itself, just direct quotes from it in media accounts. That makes it impossible to fully judge the tone. Vanderbilt professor John Geer, an author of a much-cited book on negative campaigning, said it sounded like a tame response ad -- not the kind of classic negative ad the public doesnt like. Darrell West, of the Brookings Institution, agreed. UW-Madisons Ken Goldstein said Kohls ad met the academic research definition of negative because it focused on Welch, not Kohl. The test of whether it was unfair is whether it was accurate, he said. So Kohls campaigns have been remarkably low-confrontation affairs, with the most notable exception being 1994, the first -- and perhaps only -- time Kohl aired TV spots going after an opponent.So how does Kohl fare on his statement that he has never campaigned negatively?Clearly, Kohl has spent the vast bulk of his time and money on upbeat, positive ads. Even his opponents agree strongly with that -- one even wants to buy him dinner.The only ad that pops up as arguably negative is the 1994 distort spot against Welch. It drew some critical attention, but is viewed as a pretty tame response ad. Beyond that, Kohls campaigns have engaged in some labeling and name calling. And Kohls aggressive 1994 portrayal of Welch as an extremist was arguably negative.Kohl is mostly on target here, with some minor exceptions.Mostly True. In August 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign, a Reddit user programmed a robot to respond to any mention of the words "tax return" with a comment insinuating that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump refuses to release his tax returns because he has donated millions of dollars to an organization that promotes pederasty. The bot called AutoModerator responds to every comment in the sub-reddit EnoughTrumpSpam with the phrase: EnoughTrumpSpam Speaking of tax returns, did you hear Donald Trump is refusing to release them because Donald Trump has donated to NAMBLA? That's what all the best sources, the most tremendous sources are saying, and if they're all saying that Donald Trump donated to NAMBLA, well, I can see why Donald Trump would want to cover up his donations to NAMBLA. I'm not claiming that Donald Trump donates to NAMBLA, but that's what these excellent sources are alleging, that Donald Trump does indeed donate to NAMBLA. The phrase is accompanied by a disclaimer that it was generated by a bot. But that hasn't stopped the oblique accusation that Trump may be a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association from making its way around the Internet: Also, @seanhannity? Look into this disgusting Trump/NAMBLA nonsense. So gross how the left lies.Trump.NAMBLA.Say that every night. @seanhannity  Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 9, 2016 August 9, 2016  A Reddit user who calls himself J. Peterman  possibly a reference to a character on the television sitcom Seinfeld  said he created the bot to mock Trump for his habit of making claims that he attributes to nameless "people:" character claims I created it by taking advantage of an existing bot, /u/automoderator, made available for all moderators to use to automate certain tasks, and you can make custom code for the subreddit's configuration of auto moderator. I did that and I made it reply to the trigger word "tax returns" with the copy/paste you see. /u/automoderator For example, in June 2016, Trump hinted that President Barack Obama may have had a connection to the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, saying: saying People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on... He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands  it's one or the other, and either one is unacceptable. A Reddit moderator who goes by "Faiz" and claims to have helped launch the bot told us that he believes it turns Trump's own manner of generating suspicions against his opponents against him: We didn't expect it to take off like this, but the community effort on EnoughTrumpSpam really helped it go viral. The joke spread off Reddit and began confusing people so much so that some news outlets even began picking the story up. I think it's success is, in a way, emblematic of the way Trump spreads lies and gets people to believe them by constantly repeating them. A random user originally posted the block of text and it became instantly popular on Reddit. We all loved it because of how much it imitated Trump's style of making unsubstantiated accusations. You really can't tell the difference between some of the text in the meme and some things Trump wrote during Obama's birther conspiracy. As for why Trump, we picked it up mostly because, as suggested by the name (EnoughTrumpSpam), we are an anti-Trump community and we found this to be a perfect foil to highlight the way Trump spreads conspiracy theories. J. Peterman said he was taken aback by how much attention the bot generated. The prank seems to have caught fire, with someone jumping in to create a fake Fox News page with the title: "NAMBLA neither confirms nor denies Trump's donation allegations."  page Now that it's taken off, I'm quite surprised. I'm surprised by how much press attention the bot's coding has garnered as well as the meme in general. I cannot take credit for creating the meme, that was around for a week or so before I did the bot, and it was everyone else who kept the meme going. Faiz, the moderator, said he hopes that the prank goes far enough that Trump's campaign is forced to respond to it. The ultimate coup de grce, he told the Daily Beast, would be if it forces Trump to do something he has adamantly refused to do: release his tax returns. Daily Beast The only logical conclusion would really be Trump releasing his tax returns but he would never do that because hes hiding donations to NAMBLA, Faiz told the Daily Beast. Thats what Ive heard from some very smart people anyway. You can see the bot in action in the screenshot taken from Reddit here: Reddit    It's worth noting that even if the story were true, NAMBLA is not a nonprofit organization, and so donations to the group would not show up on Trump's tax returns. NAMBLA returns