Does GSA's Approval of Transition Process Mean Trump Conceded Defeat to Biden?
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 On Nov. 23, 2020, U.S. General Services Administrator Emily Murphy  an appointee of President Donald Trump  wrote a letter to President-elect Joe Biden that allowed him to start a formal transition of power. The paperwork, obtained by Snopes and displayed below, was the first formal recognition by Trump's government of a Biden presidency. letter formal transition of power The document from the head of the General Services Administration (GSA), an executive branch agency that oversees presidential transitions, raised questions about whether it meant that Trump himself acknowledged defeat to Biden. Concession statements to Americans or phone calls to winning candidates represent an informal step in the country's election process that typically occurs when one candidate secures the majority of electoral votes. Biden reached that milestone  winning key battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, by comfortable margins  weeks before Murphy's letter. However, Trump broke democratic norms by refusing to concede publicly. electoral votes.   Instead, the president's campaign filed a barrage of lawsuits in local jurisdictions across the country and accelerated a misinformation campaign online that denied or falsely presented the election results. While legal experts said the litigation did not contain enough evidence to reverse Biden's win, Trump's supporters viewed the effort as a commendable, tough, not-going-to-back-down approach to electoral politics. barrage of lawsuits in local jurisdictions misinformation campaign "It is not a stain on our national honor for a candidate to refuse to concede when there are open and compelling disputes about an electoral outcome," read a Nov. 23 statement by supporters of the Conservative Action Project, an initiative founded by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III. statement Despite not receiving Trump's concession, Biden filled his Cabinet for the White House, addressing the country under the "Office of the President Elect," and states certified results of the popular vote in order to begin the process of voting for president through the Electoral College. Office of the President Elect states certified results Cue Murphy's letter on Nov. 23. The document carried out the government's obligation under the 1963 Presidential Transition Act to allow presidents-elect and their appointees, aids, and other staff  otherwise known as a transition team  to access millions of federal dollars and set up White House operations before swearing-in ceremonies that would take place the January after general elections. 1963 Presidential Transition Act       Murphy submitted the paperwork after election officials in Michigan certified Biden's win there, and a conservative Republican judge in Pennsylvania shot down a Trump campaign lawsuit, The Associated Press reported. Pennsylvania Murphy's letter said: [Because] of recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results, I have determined that you may access the post-election resources and services described in Section 3 of the Act upon request. The actual winner of the presidential election will be determined by the electoral process detailed in the Constitution. So, in short, a member of the Trump administration, Murphy, filed paperwork to change Biden's official title in government systems to "apparent president-elect" and, as a result, granted him new privileges that only someone with that job title in federal government gets. But it was a wrong interpretation of that procedural step to claim Trump had therefore conceded the 2020 presidential race. Let us note here: No constitutional mandate or federal law requires losing presidential candidates to acknowledge defeat in order for the election's processes to continue. Rather, concession speeches have been an informal tradition that often symbolized a losing candidate's willingness to help with a peaceful transition between presidencies.  transition between presidencies The Associated Press reported: reported In recent days, senior Trump aides including chief of staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone had also encouraged him to allow the transition to begin, telling the president he didnt need to concede but could no longer justify withholding support to the Biden transition. [...] Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the GSA action is probably the closest thing to a concession that President Trump could issue. Even after Murphy's letter, the Trump campaign sent supporters emails promoting false claims about the election outcome to solicit donations, including messages to sell "COUNT ALL LEGAL VOTES" T-shirts.   Additionally, on Twitter the president said: "Remember the GSA has been terrific, and Emily Murphy has done a great job, but the GSA does not determine who the next President of the United States will be."   The tweet accurately suggested that presidential elections are technically unfinished until the Electoral College casts its votes and Congress certifies that count, no matter what the administrator does or says. However, it was a misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and state statutes to regard those post-Election Day procedures  steps that officially cement Americans' pick for president  as an opportunity to defy the will of the voters without providing compelling evidence of error or fraud. Hours after that tweet, Trump called reporters to a White House briefing room. He gave one-minute remarks about the economy and exited the room without taking questions from reporters. As he walked out, journalists shouted questions about his lack of a concession, and the president did not acknowledge them, White House footage of the event showed. White House footage In short, while a government agency under Trump's administration for the first time officially acknowledged Biden the "apparent president-elect" in a letter that grants him access to federal assets before his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, 2021, it is false to claim that Trump had conceded defeat to the president-elect.
Its been nearlyeight years since George W. Bush was president, but Democrats still plan to run against him. Certainly, thats what Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz promised on the eve of the first Democratic presidential debate. There are so many people who are focused on making sure we can look at the fact that, when we had a conservative Republican president, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, Wasserman Schultz said on CNNsState of the UnionOct. 11, 2015. Weve come through that -- 67 straight months of job growth in the private sector. People are no longer losing their homes. Thats the contrast well talk about. The DNC press office told us that Wasserman Schultz was thinking of President George W. Bush, and that the time period she had in mind were the last few months of his presidency, November through January. President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, so its reasonable to count that month as part of the Bush legacy. We pulled up theBureau of Labor Statisticsnumbers and Wasserman Schultz is on solid ground. Month Jobs (000s) Loss Nov 135,469 -765 Dec 134,773 -696 Jan 133,977 -796 Average -752 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Benchmark comparison The number is particularly high because Wasserman Schultz chose the three worst months of the Bush presidency. If she had chosen a longer period, say the last full year, the losses would have averaged about 365,000 per month. The losses would shrink even more if you look at longer period of time. Wasserman Schultz didnt mention that the economy continued to shed jobs at or above the 700,000 mark for the first two months of Obamas presidency before the trend began to ease. This chart from theBureau of Labor Statisticsgives a more complete jobs picture. The Great Recession saw employment declines of historic proportions.Government analystscompared the relative losses from 2007 to 2009 to past downturns. The bottom purple line on their chart tracks jobs in the Great Recession which officially began December 2007. Of course, Wasserman Schultzs statement implies that conservative Republican policies alone brought about a massive loss of jobs and the reality is more complicated. Some analysts believe that a portion of the blame goes back to policies that enjoyed Democratic support, including changes in financial regulation passed during the Clinton administration. But Wasserman Schultz did not make that claim specifically. Our ruling Wasserman Schultz said that under a conservative Republican president the country was losing 750,000 jobs a month. Wasserman Schultz was speaking of President George W. Bush and at the end of his term, the monthly job losses averaged about 750,000 jobs. The average would of course be less if she had included Bushs final 12 months -- or a period longer than that. There is an element of cherry-picking here, but the overall point holds up. We rate the claim Mostly True. The Atlanta region has drawn millions of newcomers here in recent years with its warm weather (snowstorms notwithstanding), reasonably priced housing, and job opportunities in real estate, banking and the airline industry. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed talked about the economic might of the region during a recent speech before the Atlanta Press Club. One statistic he used to cite the size of metro Atlantas economy surprised us, so we decided to do some fact-checking. The annual gross domestic product of metro Atlanta, the mayor said, is bigger than 28 states in the union. Is it really that large? Mayoral spokesman Carlos Campos said Reed was using U.S. Commerce Department data as the basis for his claim. We looked at the data, and the most recent statistics we found show the mayors statement might be conservative. Gross domestic product, or GDP, is the total market value of all of the goods and services produced within the boundaries of a specific area. Federal officials define the Atlanta metropolitan area as 28 counties that stretch as far north as Dawson, south to Meriwether, as far west as Haralson and as far east as Walton and Jasper counties. It includes Georgias four highest-populated counties: Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett. The Atlanta metropolitan area had nearly 5.3 million residents in 2010, the ninth-highest total in the nation. In addition to having a large labor force, metro Atlanta has two major transportation hubs that have helped its economy race ahead of other regions. One is Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which ranks among the worlds busiest airports. The other is the ports of Savannah and Brunswick, which are considered to be among the fastest-growing ports in terms of the volume of items shipped there. Although the ports are not located in metro Atlanta, Reed and others note they are important to the regions economy. About 180,000 full-time and part-time jobs in the 28-county Atlanta region can be attributed to the ports, according to a 2012 University of Georgia study. The region has 11 Fortune 500 companies with Atlanta addresses, according to the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Only New York City and Houston have more Fortune 500 businesses, according to the chamber. So how large is this regions economy? In 2012, the Atlanta region had a GDP of nearly $295 billion, according to the Commerce Department. Reed used that same number in his remarks. Among metropolitan areas, Atlantas GDP is the 10th-highest nationally, which is about where it should be considering it has the ninth-largest population. In order, the metropolitan areas with the largest gross domestic products are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston. In terms of how Atlanta fares in comparison with other states, only 16 states had a higher GDP. In order, those states were California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Washington, Maryland, Indiana and Minnesota. Metro Atlanta would also beat out the rest of the state. The region makes up about two-thirds of the states GDP, the Commerce Department data show. The Atlanta region does have a larger population than the rest of the state. PolitiFact Georgia looked at other categories of gross domestic product, and the Atlanta region fared as well, if not better, in those areas. For example, in 2012, only 12 states had a higher per capita GDP than metro Atlanta. The per capita gross domestic product for metro Atlanta was $46,970. University of Georgia economist Jeff Humphreys said hes not surprised metro Atlanta has a higher GDP than most states. Atlanta is a huge metro area, said Humphreys, the director of the universitys Selig Center for Economic Growth. The population would outrank a lot of states. Indeed, metro Atlanta has a larger population than 30 other states, U.S. census figures show. Humphreys said the Atlanta region has a highly developed economy through economic resources such as the airport that are serving people in other states, the country and the world at this point. To sum up, Reed claimed the Atlanta region had a higher GDP than 28 other states. Our research showed Atlanta slightly better than that in most categories. We rate the mayors statement True. Former Lt. Governor Robert Duffy pennedan op-edpiece in the Rochester Business Journal urging upstate lawmakers to form their own caucus. Doing so would help them press upstate issues in a state legislature dominated by downstate lawmakers. But upstate New York breaking from downstate entirely? Duffy called the idea ludicrous. If we ever did that, the economic indicators of upstate New York would be among the lowest in the country, Duffy claimed. We do count on downstate to carry much of the load for the economic health of New York. Calls for upstate to secede from New York State are not new. But secession gained steam last year when upstate advocates pitched the idea at aprotestin the Southern Tier. Some were angry over gun control laws passed in 2013. Others were upset by the ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, because they believe the gas drilling process would boost that regions struggling economy. One of the leading secession proponents, the Divide NYS Caucus, hopes for momentum to build ahead of a future Constitutional Convention in New York State. Voters will decide whether to hold a convention in the 2017 general election. Downstate hasa bigger populationthan upstate. The Assembly is comfortably in the hands of lawmakers from New York City and the surrounding area, most of whom are Democrats. The State Senate, meanwhile, is controlled by Republicans, mostly from upstate and Long Island. Is Duffy right? Would upstates economy rank low on its own? The Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce was not able to tell us which economic indicators Duffy was referring to. We looked at two indicators typically used to measure the economy - unemployment and wages - to check his claim. The unemployment scorecard As ofJuly, the statewide unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Thats better than the national average of 4.9 percent. But New York State still ranks 25th in the nation, tied with three other states. Duffy says the line dividing upstate from downstate is the same used in this yearsminimum wage hike. In that deal, New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County were given a different timeline to reach the higher wage than the rest of the state. Our analysis uses the same method: We define upstate as everything north of New York City except for Westchester County. Theres no data publicly available that shows unemployment for this definition of upstate. We used county-level data from state and federal databases to evaluate Duffys claim. The unemployment rate in upstate New York is 4.6 percent, according to the latest data from the state Department of Labor. That number is an average of thecountiesweve defined as upstate. Thats better than the statewide average and would rank 23rd in the nation - ahead of the statewide ranking. The wage scorecard Income per capita is different than the average wage. It measures how much money someone takes in, whether its earned at a job or not, instead of just measuring how much a job pays. We looked at both. In upstate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the per capita income was $40,123 at the end of 2014, the latest county-level data. Upstate would have ranked 37th in the nation that year, below the national average of $46,049. New York State as a whole rankedfifththat year. As for wages, only Washington, D.C., had a higher average wage than New York States $67,521. The national average is $52,942. The average wage upstate was $42,287 by the end of 2015, according todatafrom the U.S. Department of Labor. If it was its own state, upstate would rank 44th for wages, ahead of South Carolina but behind New Mexico. Our ruling Duffy wrote in the Rochester Business Journal that the economic indicators of upstate New York would be among the lowest in the country if the region split from downstate. We compared national data on unemployment and wages to county-level data to rate his claim. With Duffys definition of upstate New York, unemployment is close to the national average while wages and income are among the lowest in the country according to the latest data. We rate this claim as Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/fa7c54fa-de00-4abc-9ed1-8e386ceaf46c Claim:  The four major U.S. credit bureaus will be allowed to share your private information with anyone who requests it as of 1 July 2003 unless you specifically request them not to. Status:  False. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2001] Just wanted to let everyone know who hasn't already heard, the four major credit bureaus in the US. will be allowed, starting July 1, to release your credit info, mailing addresses, phone numbers etc. to anyone who requests it. If you would like to 'opt out' of this release of info, you can call 1-888-567-8688. It only takes a couple of minutes to do, and you can take care of anyone else in the household while making only one call, you'll just need to know their social security number. Be sure to listen closely, the first opt out is only for two years, make sure you wait until they prompt you to press '3' on your keypad to opt out for good. Origins:  There is truth in the issue which seems to be uppermost in the minds of most of those who receive this message  that is, whether the phone number provided above is valid for the stated purpose or whether it's some sort of information-collecting scam.  The phone number listed (1-888-5OPTOUT) is indeed legitimate; it is a shared number set up with the cooperation of the Associated Credit Bureaus to establish a single point of contact for consumers to call to request that all four major U.S. credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, Trans Union, and Novus/Innovis) remove their information from the marketing lists and pre-approved credit offer lists sold to third parties.  Yes, they automated system will ask you to enter your phone number, Social Security number, and other personal information, because it needs that information to locate your record.  If you are uncomfortable supplying this information to an automated system, you will have to call each of the four major credit bureaus individually and speak to real people at each one of them, a cumbersone and time-consuming ' process. However, it is not true that consumers must call this number before 1 July 2004, nor is it true that recent legislation allows credit bureaus to share private information with "anyone who requests it."  This misinformation has been circulating since 2001, and the same message keeps getting get dusted off and sent around every year with an updated deadline.  (In fact, if you call the number listed above, the first option you're presented is to listen to a message explaining why the e-mail quoted above is false.) Contrary to the text of the dire warning quoted above, credit bureaus cannot sell your non-public personal information (e.g., Social Security number, employment history, bank account information) to "anyone who requests it."  Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1997, businesses seeking to obtain personal information from credit bureaus must have a "permissible purpose" in order to access credit reports.  (Permissible purposes include checking the backgrounds of persons to determine their creditworthiness before selling or renting property to them, extending them loans or credit, or considering them for employment.)  This restriction remains in force, it did not change on 1 July 2001, and it still applies whether or not you call the number listed above.    Credit bureaus can, however, create lists containing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of consumers with good credit and sell them to telemarketers and direct-mail marketers.  (Names, addresses, and phone numbers are not considered "non-public personal information" because they may be obtained from a variety of publicly-accessible sources, such as phone directories.) Consumers may call the 1-888-5OPTOUT number to request that all four major credit bureaus not include their information on these marketing lists.  There is no deadline for this process  consumers may call the number at any time. What did change back in 2001 was that due to the implementation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act) the banking, insurance, and securities industries were allowed to operate under the same corporate affiliation.  (This act set aside legislation passed during the Depression era, which had created legal barriers to prevent mergers between banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, and other financial institutions.)   Because of consumers' concerns that new financial conglomerates allowed under this legislation might pool their resources to compile huge databases of sensitive customer information and share them with third parties, Congress added a provision to the act requiring that all financial service companies send privacy notices providing a "reasonable opportunity" for their customers to opt out of this information-sharing by 1 July 2001.  (These notices had to provide consumers with details about all the kinds of information the companies collected about them and how they used that information.)  The 1 July 2001 deadline applied only to the sending of notification to customers by financial institutions, and it had nothing to do with credit bureaus.  Some key points of this "opt-out" process are:  Unlike credit bureaus, financial institutions can share your private information with third parties by default.  In order to stop this sharing, you must specifically invoke your "opt-out" privileges to request that they not do it.  Privacy notices had to be sent to customers by 1 July 2001, but there is no deadline by which customers must respond.  Your right to "opt out" of the information-sharing process is ongoing and may be invoked at any time.  Most importantly, you must contact every financial institution with which you do business to completely "opt out" of the information-sharing process.  The phone number given in the message quoted above (1-888-5OPTOUT) applies only to credit bureaus. Calling this number will not affect the ability of any banks, insurance companies, credit card companies, brokerage firms, or any other financial institutions with which you do (or have done) business from sharing your information. The bottom line is that laws regarding the selling of personal information by financial institutions have become more stringent recently, not less.  The changes may not have made the laws as stringent as we'd like them to be, but at least they're a step in the right direction, not the scare stories these messages make them out to be. Additional information:        Consumer Credit File Privacy: The Real Deal   (Federal Trade Commission)        Protecting Financial Privacy   (Privacy Rights Clearinghouse)        E-mail Sends Wrong Message   (Associated Credit Bureaus)   Last updated:  3 December 2007    Sources:   Buggs, Shannon.  "Don't Be Fooled on Privacy Issue."   The Houston Chronicle.  16 July 2001  (Business; p. 1).     O'Harrow Jr., Robert.  "Credit Firm Told to Stop Selling Data."   The Washington Post.  17 April 2001  (p. E1).     Yip, Pamela.  "Now Is Time for Consumers to Opt out of Sharing Financial Data."   Associated Press.  9 June 2001.     Newsweek.  "Money Notes."   2 July 2001. In 2014 and 2015, two people associated with an anti-abortion organization called the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, posed as fetal researchers for a fake company called Biomax in order to gain entry to National Abortion Federation conventions. The pair's goal was to gather evidence that Planned Parenthood, and other abortion providers, were selling tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. (Although it is unlawful to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration, it is legal for patients to donate extracted material for medical research, and for providers to receive reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue as part of the donation process.) The CMP subsequently posted videos online which they claimed documented Planned Parenthood officials offering to illegally sell fetal tissue for profit, while Planned Parenthood maintained the videos were deceptively edited and captured only discussion related to legal reimbursements for tissue donation procedures. videos sell fetal tissue A text meme circulated during the 2020 presidential campaign held that California Attorney General Kamala Harris (who by 2020 was a U.S. senator and a Democratic vice presidential candidate) had unfairly prosecuted the CMP "journalists," while taking no action against Planned Parenthood for "selling aborted baby parts":   That meme was both inaccurate and misleading. It is true that no charges were brought against Planned Parenthood in California  for the sound reason that Planned Parenthood was investigated by multiple states  but none of them found sufficient evidence to support a prosecution over claims that the organization had unlawfully sold (or offered to sell) human fetal tissue. As NPR reported, by the end of 2015, 12 different states had opened investigations into allegations that Planned Parenthood was "selling body parts," and none of them turned up evidence of wrongdoing by that organization. (Another eight states, including California, decided not to pursue similar investigations.) reported On the other hand, after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked the district attorney in Harris County to open a criminal investigation into Planned Parenthood in 2015, a grand jury there took no action against Planned Parenthood, but did find sufficient evidence to indict Daleiden and Merritt on felony charges (which were later dropped) of tampering with government records over their use of fake identification. indict In late 2019, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood in a civil lawsuit filed by that organization, rejecting arguments that Daleiden and Merritt were simply acting as investigative journalists, and ordering Daleiden, the Center for Medical Progress, and others, to pay Planned Parenthood $2.3 million in damages for violating federal and state laws by trespassing on private property and secretly recording video of others without their consent. lawsuit In March 2017, Daleiden and Merritt were charged in California with 15 counts of violating state invasion of privacy laws that prohibit the recording of conversations without consent. A Superior Court judge dismissed some of those criminal charges, but another count was subsequently added in July, and several criminal counts remain current as of September 2020. added remain current Although then-Attorney General Harris was involved with the initial investigation of Daleiden and Merritt, she had left that office to take her seat in the U.S. Senate two months before charges were first brought against the pair by her successor, Xavier Becerra. Kurtzleben, Danielle.  "Planned Parenthood Investigations Find No Fetal Tissue Sales."
  NPR.  28 January 2016. The [Davis] Vanguard.  "Criminal Case against Anti-Abortion Activists David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt to Move Forward."
  31 July 2020. Egelko, Bob.  "Case To Go Forward Against Two Antiabortion Activists Who Recorded Conversations."
  San Francisco Chronicle.  29 July 2020. Egelko, Bob.  "California Files More Charges Against Antiabortion Activists."
  SFGate.  7 July 2017. Fernandez, Manny,  "Last Charges Dropped Against Abortion Foes in Making of Planned Parenthood Video."
  The New York Times.  26 July 2016. Williams, Juliet.  "Planned Parenthood Awarded $2.3 Million for Secret Videos."
  Associated Press.  15 November 2019. Gov. Chris Christie wants to increase state spending in the coming fiscal year, but he claims the proposed budget is smaller than the one in place when he took office in January 2010.The governor made that point in a Feb. 21 speech before state legislators and other officials, when he unveiled his proposed $32.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2013, which begins July 1. The adjusted budget for the current fiscal year stands at roughly $30.9 billion.The budget I propose would total $32.1 billion for the coming year, Christie said. While this represents minimal growth from last year, it is still below the level of state spending when I took office.PolitiFact New Jersey was interested in whether state spending was higher two years ago, and a state Treasury Department spokesman showed us the numbers that back up Christies claim.The proposed fiscal year 2013 budget is smaller than the fiscal year 2010 budget in place around the time Christie took office -- but just barely. The difference between the two budgets is about $5 million.Lets break down the numbers.Christie, a Republican, was sworn into office on Jan. 19, 2010 -- in the middle of fiscal year 2010, which began under former Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat. Two months later, the new governor introduced his budget for fiscal year 2011.To support the governors statement, Treasury spokesman Andrew Pratt pointed out how the fiscal year 2010 budget when Christie took office was $32.151 billion. That figure represented the adjusted budget as of March 16, 2010, according to a Treasury report at the time.The governors proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 is $32.146 billion, according to a recent budget summary. As such, his statement is true, Pratt told us.So, the proposed budget is roughly $5 million less than the level of state spending when Christie took office, marking a decrease of 0.016 percent. Thats not a lot of money, but it still means Christies statement is correct.But theres a major reason for why the fiscal year 2010 budget was larger than the proposed budget for fiscal year 2013: federal stimulus dollars.That adjusted budget of $32.151 billion for fiscal year 2010 included $2.289 billion worth of appropriations supported by stimulus funds. Those stimulus funds were used to help close a projected budget shortfall.Without those stimulus dollars, the proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 would be larger than the budget in place when Christie took office.Our rulingIn his Feb. 21 budget speech, Christie claimed in regard to his proposed fiscal year 2013 budget: While this represents minimal growth from last year, it is still below the level of state spending when I took office.According to state Treasury documents, Christie is accurate. The proposed budget is $32.146 billion -- about $5 million less than the $32.151 billion spending plan in place when Christie took office.We rate the statement True. To comment on this ruling, go toNJ.com. As the premiere of the horror flick Jeepers Creepers 3 approached in September 2017, many posted messages on social media to remind potential moviegoers about director Victor Salva's criminal history: messages   Salva was convicted in 1988 on charges related to the sexual molestation of 12-year-old actor Nathan Forrest Winters during the filming of his movie Clownhouse. Salva served 15 months in prison and finished his parole in 1992. The Associated Press reported at the time: served Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in "Clownhouse," a low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns. Salva, sentenced to three years in state prison, served 15 months and completed parole in 1992. Salva is a registered sex offender: registered offender   said Victor Salva, a former child-care worker who impressed Hollywood filmmakers with his early cinematic work, was sentenced to three years in state prison in 1988 for molesting a 12-year-old boy who had acted in two of his films. Salva videotaped one of the encounters. [...] The revelations came as the now 20-year-old victim, Nathan Winters of Concord, Calif., picketed a screening of "Powder" on Monday night in Westwood. Winters passed out leaflets urging the public to boycott the movie and said his family and friends would continue protesting after the film debuts Friday on more than 1,500 screens nationwide. Winters said he was "in awe" that Disney would even make a movie with Salva. "I can't believe [Salva] is allowed to work with children again," Winters said. "He should not be allowed around children ever again." At the time, Salva released a statement saying "How deeply I regret my actions." It continued:  statement I paid for my mistakes dearly. Now, nearly 10 years later, I am excited about my work as a film maker and look forward to continuing to make a positive contribution to our society. Caravan Pictures, the company that made Powder for Disney, also released a statement: "He paid for his crime, he paid his debt to society," said Roger Birnbaum, whose Caravan Pictures made "Powder" for Disney and reportedly didn't know of Salva's record until the film was midway through production. "What happened eight years ago has nothing to do with this movie." More recently, Salva's past hindered the casting of Jeepers Creepers 3 when the web site Breakdown Services removed the casting call for a 13-year-old character (to be played by an 18-year-old) upon learning of Salva's crime.  casting Winters never starred in another movie.  movie Welkos, Robert.  "Disney Movie's Director a Convicted Child Molester."
 LA Times.   25 October 1995. Guthmann, Edward.  "Concord Molest Victim Confronts `Powder' Director / Actor protests at Disney Screening."
 SF Gate.   25 October 1995. Goldstein, Patrick.  "Victor Salva's Horror Stories."
 LA Times.   11 June 2006. Claim:  A man was ordered to pay $30,000 in support for a child that DNA testing proved was not his. Examples:  [Collected via Twitter, January 2015] We need justice for Carnell Alexander  just one victim of paternity fraud in MI.   Origins:  In January 2015, what appeared to be a child support-related horror story began to circulate on the Internet. According to several news articles (mainly of the "[news channel] on your side" variety), Detroit resident Carnell Alexander was  ordered by a court to pay more than $30,000 in support for a child that was provably not his. Moreover, the articles claimed, Alexander's DNA test results had been acknowledged by the court but disregarded in what was clearly a miscarriage of justice.  The claim was substantiated on a few levels: Alexander provided his DNA testing results proving that he did not father the child in question, and many articles offered visual evidence showing the amount ($30,000) owed by the Michigan resident to the state. Alexander's situation has been held up as an example of "paternity fraud," but a number of  aspects have been elided from the retellings of his story, aspects that provide context necessary to understanding how what looks to be a clear-cut case of injustice could have come to pass:  The vast majority of articles about the Carnell Alexander case all stem from one local Detroit news report about the issue, creating the false impression that a number of media outlets have verified the facts of the case rather than simply recycling single-source information.  Significant advances in DNA testing have been developed since Alexander was named the father of the now-adult child in 1987. Due to the relative ease of modern DNA testing, a case such as this one would be extremely unlikely to occur today.  An oft-repeated aspect of the case involves the mention of "paternity fraud," leading many readers to believe that the debt owed by Alexander is to the mother of the child and should therefore be forgiven because DNA test results have proved he was not the father. However, the unusual outcome of the case stemmed not from monies owed to the child's (unnamed) mother, but to monies owed to the state as compensation for welfare benefits obtained by the mother. By all accounts (which link back to an October 2014 news segment and article from Detroit station WXYZ), the child's mother intentionally and wrongly named Alexander as the father of her child in order to obtain state assistance: WXYZ [The mother] was struggling to care for the child. When she applied for state assistance, the case worker told her she had to name the father. "That was the only way I could get assistance," she said. She said she didn't realize the state would go after the father to pay the support given to the child. "Everything is my fault, that I put him through," she said. It was not easy [for him] to get a DNA test. Alexander didn't know where the woman was that had claimed he fathered a child. He only had an 8th-grade education, off-and-on employment at the time, and no money to hire help. He asked the court for help, but the court couldn't help him in the way he was asking. Friend of the Court employees are not allowed to give legal advice.  Alexander explained to the judge and court again and again his situation. He says in hindsight, he didn't understand the formal legal steps necessary to make things right. Eventually he, by chance, ran into someone he knew would know where the woman was, and got a DNA test. It proved what he had been saying all along: the child he had never met was not his. The mother had realized that, and the real father was in the child's life. Alexander took this information to court. The judge was unmoved. "Case closed. I gotta pay for the baby," said Alexander. The case also involved an omission on the part of a process server who claimed to have served Alexander with notice of a pending paternity claim against him early on in the child's life. State records proved that Alexander was incarcerated at the time he was purportedly served notice, and that the individual responsible for serving him mistakenly or intentionally claimed otherwise: The court focused on a summons tied to the paternity case in the late 1980's. The state sent a process server to Alexanders dad's house in Highland Park to let him know about the paternity case. The process server turned a document into the court saying Alexander was delivered the summons, but he refused to sign the summons. "I wasn't there. I couldn't refuse to sign," said Alexander. Michigan Department of Corrections ... records confirm Alexander's story  he did not receive that order at a home in Highland Park. He was in prison for a crime he committed as a young man. However, one article about the case referenced a circumstance unmentioned by other reports, that Alexander had initially agreed to "admit" paternity in order to facilitate the mother's approval for welfare services: article But how did Alexander get entangled in a paternity case? Alexander's ex had a baby and didn't know who was the child's father. She reportedly needed state assistance, so the case worker demanded that she name a father for the child.  Alexander, who only went up to the eighth grade education-wise, decided to help his ex so that she could receive state assistance. According to the unnamed woman, she did not realize that the state would go after the child's father for monetary support. The state of Michigan unfortunately does not have paternity fraud laws that protect men.  This last point, if true, could be the crux of the issue: If Alexander in any way agreed to falsely allow the mother to name him as the father on the child's birth certificate, or was aware that she had done so and did not dispute it, it's likely that Michigan viewed him as legally responsible for half the expenses whether his DNA was a match or not. (That  aspect of the case cannot be verified because family court proceedings are not a matter of public record.) Ultimately, the case could hinge  not on whether Alexander was indeed the biological father of the child, but whether he claimed the child as his own as part of an attempt to facilitate his former partner's receipt of welfare (and thus prevented the state from recouping those funds from the child's true biological father).    Last updated:  29 January 2015 In December 2016, rumors flew about Donald Trump's personal beliefs and connections as he continued to announce picks for his incoming administration. One such rumor was a meme with a quote that purported to be from the President-elect, painting him as a flat-earther: flat-earther   mocked up Speaking to reporters in Baltimore on Monday, following the 138th conference for the National Guard Association of the United States, the Republican Partys presidential nominee revealed that he is a member of a growing population known generally as flat earth truthers. I fly a lot, and I mean a lot. No one flies more than me. Listen, I own a jet. I own a 757, beautiful plane, its the best plane! If the world were round, believe me, I would know! The comments came in response to a question from AP reporter, Charles Darr, regarding the future role of the National Guard, as private companies proliferate space travel. Mr. Trump, if elected, are you willing to increase taxes in order to meet the growing budget demands of the National Guard, as existential threats from our enemies grow along with the advancement of space travel technology? Darr asked. The presidential hopeful replied that such a future is nonsense, adding that the round earth people, and you know who they are, these people have an agenda. CNN.com.de (like many pages of its ilk) is not affiliated with the legitimate news organization CNN. The site uses a web address similar to CNN.com's in order to trick readers into believe that they are reading genuine news items. However, this web site does not publish factual stories. publish While there is no disclaimer on the web site that specifically states its content is fictional, it does provide several hints that its stories are hoaxes. For instance, the provided contact number of (785) 273-0325 does not lead to CNN's, but that of the Westboro Baptist Church.  (785) 273-0325 In late February 2019, a misleading meme was circulated on Facebook that led viewers to ask whether U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had mysteriously amassed vast wealth in yearly increments to the tune of $2.4 million while in office:   As Senate Majority Leader, McConnell received an annual salary of $193,400, but the Kentucky Republican reported an influx of family wealth between $5 million and $25 million in 2008, according to his financial disclosures. That influx was the result of an inheritance his wife received upon the death of her mother, and that  information has been part of public discourse since 2014, when it became campaign fodder for McConnell's Democratic opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes: salary  Although the meme and the campaign ad upon which it was likely based were set up to make it seem as if McConnell's wealth increase were the result of his role in the Senate and thus involved unethical or illegal activities, most of his net worth actually derives from his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who hails from a wealthy business family and married McConnell in 1993. Chao is the daughter of James S.C. and Ruth Mulan Chu Chao. Her father is the founder of the New York-based international shipping and trading company Foremost Group, an organization her sister, Angela, chairs. How wealthy is the Chao family? Wealthy enough to have bestowed Harvard Business School with a $40 million gift in 2012. chairs gift According to the non-profit government transparency organization Center for Responsive Politics, McConnell's net worth jumped from an estimated $7.8 million in 2007 to $17 million in 2008, owing entirely to a tax-exempt, money market fund in an account he held jointly with his wife: 2008   As the Washington Post reported in 2014, McConnell's increase in wealth reflected inheritance mone Chao received when her mother passed away in 2007: reported Thats almost a sevenfold increase in 10 years. McConnell has quadrupled his net worth since 2007, when it was $7.8 million. So what happened in 2008? His financial disclosure form tells the storysuddenly there appeared a tax-exempt money market fund, valued at between $5 million and $25 million, listed as a gift from a filers relative. (Look at Line 2 and then Line 3.)   Indeed, a McConnell spokesman confirms that this was an inheritance for McConnells wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, after her mother died in 2007. Chao, who married McConnell in 1993, earns significant income on her own, serving on corporate boards, and has at least $1 million in a Vanguard 500 Index Fund. (Since these shares are in her name, McConnell only needs to report they have a minimum value of $1 million.) The Center for Responsive Politics estimated McConnell's net worth in 2015, the most recent figure available, to be nearly $27 million. 2015 Kessler, Glenn.  "How Did Mitch McConnells Net Worth Soar?"
  The Washington Post.  22 May 2014. Newmyer, Tory.  "The Secret to Mitch McConnell's Millions."
  Fortune.  20 March 2014.