Did 2021 U.S. Defense Bill Nullify the Insurrection Act?
Editor's note: Shortly after this article was published, U.S. President Donald Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act. You can read more about Trump's veto here from the Associated Press. The original article continues below. Associated Press House Resolution 6395, or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (NDAA), was surprisingly controversial during the final weeks of 2020. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to veto the military budget bill, which passed the House and Senate with more than a two-thirds majority vote, because it did not call for the removal of Section 230, an unrelated piece of legislation that provides internet publishers legal immunity from third-party content.  threatened to veto Section 230 On Dec. 22, 2020, conservative commentator Chuck Callesto claimed that there was another reason Trump might want to veto the bill. Callesto wrote that the NDAA contained a provision that "Nullifies the President's use of the Insurrection Act."   While Callesto presents his claim as if he is quoting directly from the bill, the phrase "nullifies the President's use of the Insurrection Act" does not appear anywhere in the NDAA (which numbers 1,480 pages, not 5,893 as Callesto claimed), the full text of which can be found here.  here Insurrection Act House Amendment 833 It's a bit of a moot point, however, as this amendment did not make it into the final bill. As of this writing, the NDAA does not include any language pertaining to the Insurrection Act.  The Hill reported on Dec. 6 that the amendment pertaining to the Insurrection Act was removed as Congress debated the NDAA: reported The NDAA also includes a modest rebuke of Trumps use of Pentagon funding on his southern border wall. The compromise includes House-passed language capping emergency military construction spending at $100 million annually for domestic projects. Trump took $3.6 billion from military construction funds to build the wall. The compromise jettisoned some rebukes of Trump, including House-passed language to restrict a presidents Insurrection Act powers and block funding for a nuclear test. But this year stands in stark contrast to last year, when most of House Democrats efforts to box in Trump on defense policy were stripped from the final product. In summary, the viral tweet claiming that the NDAA "nullified" the Insurrection Act is based on a House amendment proposed in July that would have restricted (not nullified) the president's use of the Insurrection Act. This amendment, which would have required the president to make certifications to Congress before invoking the Insurrection Act, did not make it into the final form of the legislation.
Oregons economy is looking up -- and in a recent speech at the Oregon Leadership Summit, Gov. John Kitzhaber counted the ways.Unemployment is falling, our credit rating is rising, the state ranks as one of the friendliest to business and just last year, Oregon had the second fastest growing economy in the nation.It was that last one that caught our ear. Oregon usually lags behind the country -- but when the state is hot, its hot, so it wasnt out of the realm of possibility. Still we decided to check it out.We got in touch with Amy Wojcicki, the governors spokeswoman, and she reminded us of an article The Oregonian published last June. The storys headline spoke for itself: Oregon economy growing at nations second-fastest rate.The story cited figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Statistics. In 2011, Oregons gross domestic product increased by 4.7 percent. The state was second only to North Dakota, which saw its GDP grow by 7.6 percent that year.The numbers show the governor was right. Still, we decided to dig just a little bit further because we know, when it comes to economics and statistics, nothing is ever quite as clear cut as it seems.We called up Tim Duy, a University of Oregon economist. That's the fact -- you can certainly point to it. But, he added, I would be wary.I think it's important to recognize that a significant amount of those gains came from manufacturing -- particularly microchips and related industries.All of this was covered in the original article. Indeed, manufacturing was far and away the biggest driver of growth that year. Intel alone had huge growth. So, we asked, whats the problem with that?It's a real effect, Duy said, But is this the experience of the average Oregonian? I don't think the average Oregonian perceives the economy as growing at the second fastest rate in the nation.We asked Duy if he could suggest another measurement that might provide a fuller picture -- he suggested the rate of job growth. Fortunately, this just came up in the states most recent revenue forecast. According to that report, which based its numbers on figures from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, Oregon ranks 26th overall in that category. Said another way: Were perfectly average.In a recent speech, Gov. Kitzhaber mentioned that a year ago, Oregon boasted the second-fastest growing economy in the nation. It was just one fact of several that he referenced to make the point that the state is rebounding from a dismal recession. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the governors statement is accurate. We agree with Duy that most Oregonians dont feel like theyre living in an economic boom, but that doesnt make the governor wrong.We rate this claim True. On Dec. 13, 2023, we researched online advertisements that were displayed on YouTube and other websites that claimed Disney was hiring remote workers to fill various data-entry job roles. The ads showed the Disney logo and two small castles. The text in the ads specified that there was "no experience necessary" and that the work-from-home (WFH) positions would pay up to $23 per hour.  Another similar ad showed the Disney logo with a picture of the Pixar Pal-A-Round ferris wheel at the Disney California Adventure theme park. The ad promised remote customer-service jobs with Disney and said that selected candidates would start at a pay rate of $18 per hour. In red lettering, the ad also promised free theme park tickets.  We found several additional iterations of these same sorts of ads. All of them mentioned Disney and lower-paying jobs that could be done from home. However, as we noted above with our fact-check rating, the ads were false. We found no evidence that Disney was hiring for remote positions for data entry or customer service, nor did we find other entry-level roles that would come with free theme park tickets. As of mid-December 2023, a search of Disney's careers website showed 920 total job listings. Only three of the 920 positions were specified as being remote and were listings for a designer, an animator and an engineer. website These sorts of misleading job ads have been displayed online throughout 2023. They have all led to several different websites. As of December 2023, the same advertiser displaying the Disney job ads was also paying to display ads that claimed Amazon was hiring delivery drivers with a "$3,000 sign-on bonus," according to the Google Ads Transparency Center website (archived). We were unable to find a way to contact the advertiser to ask about the ads. website archived Some ads from the same advertiser also said that Delta Air Lines was hiring for for remote job openings that would include "free flights for employees." Another one claimed that Netflix was hiring for remote customer-service jobs that would come with a free streaming subscription, free lunches and free insurance. None of these ads led to the jobs that had been described. A search for more information about the ads led us to several online complaints about their misleading nature, including posts on Reddit, X and Google's Gmail Help community. Some of the posts made claims that the ads involved phishing scams and malware. We were unable to confirm these claims. Reddit X Google's Gmail Help community While the purpose of the ads was not completely clear, we did notice that some of the purported job board websites that the ads eventually redirected to would ask users if they agreed to be contacted via phone calls, text messages and emails by over 170 of what were called "marketing partners." In other words, the goal of the clickbait ads about various nonexistent job roles may have been primarily about creating a way for one or more people (e.g., the advertiser on Google) to receive some sort of affiliate-marketing (or other kind of) commission based upon misleading online users from the get-go. This story will be updated if we receive more details. @KC6UFM. X, 11 Dec. 2023, https://twitter.com/KC6UFM/status/1734348051177976104. Transparency Center. Google Ads, https://adstransparency.google.com/. u/Chaomayhem. Its a Travesty That Google Clearly Doesnt Care about the Quality of Ads Run on YouTube. r/marketing via Reddit.com, 7 Sept. 2023, https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/16ck905/its_a_travesty_that_google_clearly_doesnt_care/. User 13516083175457701794. There Are Ads That Google Keeps Promoting and Showing to Me That Are PHISHING SCAMS. - Gmail Community. Gmail Help via Google Support, 30 Apr. 2023, https://support.google.com/mail/thread/213536488/there-are-ads-that-google-keeps-promoting-and-showing-to-me-that-are-phishing-scams. Working at Disney. Jobs and Careers at Disney, https://jobs.disneycareers.com/. After the 14 June 2017 shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise, a purported Vox infographic circulated on social media contrasting deaths of Republican lawmakers against deaths related to healthcare legislation. Twitter account @DudeSlater (purporting to be Vox's editor-in-chief) was (presumably) the first to share the graphic (which can be seen here in full): @DudeSlater first graphic here   However, the origin of the "Vox infographic" was unclear, and we were unable to locate a legitimate branded graphic on which it was based. We contacted Vox Media for more information about the image. A spokesperson confirmed to us that the claim is false and the image was not created by the outlet: This person's Twitter bio falsely claims he is the editor in chief of Vox. He is not an employee of Vox or Vox Media and does not in any way represent the Vox brand. The infographic he posted was not created or published by Vox. We have alerted Twitter executives to this issue, and are working with them to have this false information removed immediately. In April 2015, a rumor started circulating online holding that CNN reporter Brooke Baldwin had said, "Don't hire veterans. They can't be trusted with authority":  In later versions, this rumor was presented as Baldwin's having said, "Don't hire veterans. They're too damaged to be trusted with authority":  Baldwin, however, never said this. The quote "Don't hire veterans, they can't be trusted with authority" is a very loose paraphrase of a passage from her 28 April 2015 interview with Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland about the importance of police training:  "We talk about training, we talk about having officers. I was talking to the city councilman last week who was saying, 'Brooke, these people have to live in the community. There's a lack of emotional investment.' And a lot of these young people  and I've been talking about them so much. A lot of young people  and I love our nation's veterans, but some of them are coming back from war, they don't know the communities, and they're ready to do battle." Baldwin's actual comment about how some veterans might not make good police officers because "some of them are coming back from war [and] they don't know the communities, and they're ready to do battle" was rather far from the claim that she had stated "Don't hire veterans, they can't be trusted with authority." Still, many viewers (and many who didn't even see the interview) found Baldwin's words to be offensive. Shortly after the interview aired, Baldwin issued an apology via Twitter: apology  Baldwin also clarified her comments and issued an on-air apology the following morning: apology  "I absolutely misspoke. I inartfully chose my words a hundred percent, and I just wish, just speaking to all of you this morning ... I wholeheartedly retract what I said. I've thought tremendously about this, and to our nation's veterans  to you, I have the utmost respect for our men and women in uniform, and I wanted you to know that this morning. So to all of you, I owe you a tremendous apology. I am truly sorry." Claim: A Facebook coupon offering 50% off at Target stores is real.  Example: [Collected via Facebook, November2015]I saw this on Facebook this afternoon. Similar to the Kohl's hoax coupon going around in the last week or so.   Origins: InNovember 2015, a survey scam began circulating on Facebook which promised users 50% off at Target stores in exchange for liking, commenting, and sharing the scam with their friends:    The scam circulated via a variety of images and directed people toseveral different URLs (such as holidayschristmas.com and Coupon-Christmas.com), none of which were associated with Target stores:   Once users commented, shared and liked the coupon  ensuring that the scam reached a wider audience  they were directed to a survey site where they were required to provide personal information, fill out surveys, and make a purchase before they could retrieve their coupons. Even then, however, a 50% off Target coupon was unlikely to materialize, as this promotion wasnotconnected with the store: not   These survey scams are quite popular on Facebook. The customers of Target (previously)Costco,Home Depot, Lowe's, Kroger, Best Buy, Macy's, Olive Garden, Publix, and Walmarthave all been targeted by similar scams. Costco Home Depot Lowe's Kroger Best Buy Macy's Olive Garden Publix Walmart These ruses are so prevalent that theBetter Business Bureauissued a warning about them in 2014:Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Better Business Bureau Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organization's real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions.    Last updated: 25 November 2015 Originally published: 25 November 2015 In March 2016, photos showing a bottle of Coca-Cola with the words "share a Coke with the KKK" written on its label started circulating online:    This is not a real product sold by Coca-Cola. While the "Share a Coke" campaign allows Coca-Cola drinkers to personalize their cans, some words or phrases (such as "KKK") are not available:    The image showing the "KKK" bottle was created for an online petition on the web site Color Of Change, asking the company to pull its sponsorship of the Republican National Convention due to Donald Trump's failure to condemn the KKK in an interview: petition interview Even with Trump refusing to disavow the support of the Ku Klux Klan this weekend and declaring All Lives Matter at a rally, Coca-Cola and other companies still have not canceled their sponsorship of the RNC. How can Coca-Cola, a company that heavily markets to and profits from Black people, fund a platform for a presidential nominee that is being bolstered into office by former Grand Wizard David Duke, the KKK, and other white supremacists? The petition presupposes both that Coca-Cola will be sponsoring the 2016 Republican National Convention, and that Coca-Cola would be effectively endorsing the Ku Klux Klan by sponsoring the RNC. On 23 February 2016, representatives from the advocacy groups ColorofChange, Americas Voice, CREDO Action, Million Hoodies, MoveOn, and Presente.org admitted as much in an open letter to Coca-Cola and other alleged sponsors of the 2016 RNC: letter Based on your corporate sponsorship of the 2012 Republican National Convention we have reason to believe that your company is planning to again sponsor the RNC this year. We believe it is a sign of strong corporate leadership for you and your company to refrain from sponsoring Donald Trumps hateful and divisive rhetoric. While Coca-Cola did sponsor the Republican National Convention in 2012, the company also sponsored the Democratic National Convention that year: sponsored Many of the sponsors of the Democratic convention were also sponsors of the host committee in Tampa for last week's Republican National Convention. "The Coca-Cola Company believes we have a role to play in the political process and that includes helping to make the political conventions a success," said Coca-Cola spokeswoman Nancy Bailey. Claim:  Country singer Charlie Daniels authored an opinion piece about press coverage of the Paula Deen racial controversy. CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July  2013] The was attributed to Charlie Daniels about Paula Deen.  Did he write it?  I think that if anything exemplifies the overt prejudice and determination of the American media to report only the news that suits their social and political interests and concept of what does and does not fit their agenda, it's the totally overblown coverage of something Paula Deen said 20 years ago, and some party she planned that she wanted to resemble a plantation scene featuring black male waiters in period dress. If Hollywood plans a movie featuring black waiters in a plantation scene or portray women as prostitutes or cast minorities in caricature roles does the media get upset and start calling the movie moguls racists? Is there any grown person who could truthfully declare under oath that they have never uttered something that someone might find personally offensive? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Do the twenty-year-old words of a lady with a television cooking show trump the lie an Attorney General told Congress, or officials at the IRS usurping the rights of the American public and pleading the fifth amendment when confronted about it or the hiding of the facts surrounding the murder of four Americans at a Consulate in Libya or the incredibly shabby image of a president taking a one hundred million dollar vacation in this economy while closing down tours of the White House or the NSA invasion on the privacy of millions of unsuspecting citizens? [Rest of article here.] here Origins:  Grammy award-winning singer/musician Charlie Daniels regularly writes and posts opinion pieces about current political topics to the "Soapbox" section of the Charlie Daniels Band web site. As he notes in his periodic explanations of his efforts: Soapbox explanations From time to time in this column I feel somewhat obligated to explain myself, what I am, what I believe and what I am attempting to do by writing the things I write. It seems that as we acquire new readers there is some misunderstanding of what the soapbox is all about, so here we go again. First of all, this column is a series of essays made up of my personal opinion, my experiences and my beliefs.  I don't claim that the essays in this column represent anybody but myself. As far as the intellectual content is concerned it is being written by a man with limited formal education and the grammar, punctuation and spelling may from time to time leave something to be desired, but I will however, get my point across. I happen to believe very strongly in the things I write about, from the point of a private citizen who happens to love his country and its people and wants what he considers best in the national interest. My articles will range from the profound to the ridiculous, the sad to the humorous, the informative to the inane. It is not meant to be a news column and I'm not good at remembering dates and names. This above-quoted "The Press and Paula Dean" article was published by Charlie on 1 July 2013 in response to a racial discrimination controversy involving celebrity chef Paula Deen that broke in June 2013, stemming from a lawsuit filed by a former employee of restaurants owned by Deen and her brother, Earl "Bubba" Hiers. The Press and Paula Dean Last updated:  8 July 2013 On 14 August 2015, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a movie poster for a film called Twilight Saga: Moonlight Glow (Part 1) (embedded above). Subsequently that post was shared hundreds of thousands of times, followed by rumors about a soon-to-be-released Twilight sequel. shared Example: I have been seeing pictures posted on social media about a new twilight saga coming in Nov, of 2015 called twilight moonlight glow but  when I search it on the web I can't find any info about this movie. Is this a hoax? However, a closer look at the image revealed that the poster was clearly not the harbinger of new Twilight sequels (which would certainly not be a surprise to fans, were the projects legitimate): As the detail illustrates, the date of the film was rendered in a style most commonly seen outside the United States (day/month/year), whereas official Twilight movie posters utilize an American format (month/date/year, as seen here, here, and here). Under the date, a URL led to a DeviantArt user's page, which revealed that the circulating Twilight saga "Moonlight Glow" poster was a creative work of fan tribute and not an official promotional graphic. here here here revealed Moreover, fan interest in a new entry to the series has remained strong enough to warrant significant entertainment news coverage (of which there was none supporting the rumor). The books on which the films were based ended at the same juncture as their cinematic counterparts, so no additional book story lines exist for further Twilight adaptations involving the characters of Edward and Bella Cullen. Although author Stephenie Meyer originally planned a novel presenting the events of the series from Edward's perspective (titled Midnight Sun), that project was scrapped after unfinished drafts of the book were leaked online. story lines Finally, rumors of a different November 2015 Twilight sequel (purportedly the third part of the films' final installment, Breaking Dawn, Part 3) had previously circulated. Those claims were junk news, similarly spread by hopeful fans, and not related to any new projects attached to the franchise. Twilight sequel Claim:  A miraculous car that gets 200 miles to the gallon is sold by mistake then reclaimed by the factory and is never seen again.  Examples:  [Collected via e-mail, 1999] A retiring General Motors employee, after many years of service, receives a car as a retirement gift. (as well as a nice pension, etc.). So he is given permission to select a car from the lot there at the factory. He selects a Chevrolet Caprice, a big, luxury car. After receiving it, he is satisfied with his choice. After all, who wouldn't enjoy driving around in a roomy, comfortable car. After driving it for a while, he noticed something quite odd ... a car like this usually consumes a substantial amount of fuel, but the gas gauge hardly moves at all.  After a few weeks, he gets suspicious. Things like this don't happen. Being the company man he is, he returns it to the factory. Explaining this to the service tech must've caused some strange looks, but they took it in anyway. After he got his car back, he noticed it got the typical gas mileage of a comparable car. Could've this car had some secret "modifications" that allowed him to drive for weeks, on the same tank of gas? Detroit's automakers have purportedly seized, er.. bought out patents of items that improve gasoline mileage like the 100 mpg carburetor, etc. Maybe the R&D department at GM put this theory to practice, and this was an example.  [Collected via e-mail, 1997] A couple journeys from Western Canada to Detroit to buy a new car and presumably save shipping costs while having a vacation in the States at the same time.  Driving back to the prairies, they find to their astonishment that the gas gauge is not moving down to "empty" even though they've been driving for hours.  Arriving home some thousands of miles away from Detroit, they have only refilled the tank once or twice. A few days after returning, the husband looks out at his driveway in the morning to find two mysterious men tinkering with his car (the hood is up).  Running out, they race off; he checks under the hood, finds nothing amiss, and concludes it's just vandals or would-be thieves whom he was fortunate to apprehend before any damage was done.  BUT, when they drive the car, they find their gas mileage is now normal. Variations:  The miraculous car legend ends one of four ways:    Mysterious men appear and tinker with the engine, rendering the car no different than any other.   The car is reclaimed by the factory. If the owner afterwards gets the same car back (sometimes it's replaced outright with another vehicle), it now gets ordinary gas mileage. No-nonsense business types show up to make a fabulous offer for the car, which is accepted. The owner wakes up one morning to find the car vanished without a trace. Origins:  The legend of the miracle high-mileage automobile has been around longer than most of our readers, with a version set it Philadelphia having appeared in a 1948 newspaper. (Even at that time, the story proved unverifiable, with the article's writer identifying it as such and passing it along only as an example of a current rumor   sweeping through the community.) Since that early sighting of more than half a century ago, the legend has gone on to enthrall audience after audience as each couple of years sees it pop up anew. Its origins are as strange as the story itself. Between 1928 and 1935, Charles Nelson Pogue, an inventor from Canada, applied for numerous patents for what he claimed was a new type of carburetor that supposedly completely vaporized gasoline before introducing it to the cylinders, thereby extracting a great deal more energy from the fuel. According to the Pogue patent description, fuel was introduced into the engine in this vaporous "dry" state rather than in the normal droplet-laden "wet" state, thus combining more readily with air, making it burn with far greater efficiency. Better combustion combined with the raising of the engine's operating temperature from 160F to 180F were said to be responsible for vastly improved fuel economy.  So much for the techno-talk. The Pogue carburetor was touted as getting 200+ miles to the gallon. Glowing reports about this miracle of ingenuity's making a 1,879 mile trip on 14.5 gallons appeared in the May 1936 issue of Canadian AutomotiveTrade magazine, reports which Pogue later denied.  A manager of a Winnipeg auto dealership claimed he had driven a Pogue-equipped car 217 miles on a gallon of gasoline. A different dealer principal claimed to have driven 26 miles on a pint of fuel.  The story snowballed onward from those breathless testimonials as one rumor quickly followed on the heels of another. Thieves were reputed to have broken into Pogue's shop and made off with three of his carburetors. There was talk of armed guards and wolfhounds guarding the shop and the now-famous inventor. Wealthy backers (from Winnipeg or Toronto, depending on whom you heard the story from) were rumored  to be bankrolling Pogue, but the arrangements mysteriously fell through. Ford of Canada was said to have bought the invention outright. All in all it was a very exciting time. Alas, one can get by on mere smoke and mirrors for only so long. Those with sense enough to not be deafened by the hyperbole were not long kept at bay with tales of wolfhounds, thieves, and mysterious briefcase-toting moneymen. They wanted to see the carburetor. That, of course, was never permitted. No one reputable was allowed to see the mechanical miracle in action, let alone have a chance to measure its results. After the initial excitement over Pogue's 1936 announcement had faded, more serious types began to openly doubt that the carburetor would work as described.  In the December 1936 issue of Automotive Industries magazine, its engineering editor, P.M. Heldt, said of a sketch of the Pogue carburetor: "The sketch fails to show any features hitherto unknown in carburetor practice, and absolutely gives no warrant for crediting the remarkable results claimed." Other journalists were beginning to voice similar opinions. In response to calls to put up or shut up, Pogue's miracle carburetor was heard of no more. Faced with the choice of believing someone had made claims his invention couldn't later live up to or that a monied bad guy had bought up a technology to forever keep it off the market, at least some chose to believe the suppression theory. That the carburetor never made it to the public, they said, was proof enough of its existence. Those 1930s news stories breathlessly trumpeting Pogue's miracle of technology form the basis of the economical carburetor legend now before us.  As gas prices  fluctuate, our dependence on fossil fuels is driven home time and again. Who wouldn't long for a miracle of engineering that would free us from the tyranny of the gas pump? And thus the groundwork for belief is laid. As sometimes happens in the world of urban legends, desire for something to be true transforms a rumor into certainty that this very thing is fact. Over the years, our legend about a 200 mpg car has bobbed to the surface in community after community, been debunked in numerous respected publications, and bobbed right back up in the wake of those debunkings. The need to believe in this wondrous technology and the evil car manufacturers who are deliberately withholding it from the market appears too strong to combat. A bit of rational thought should be all that's needed to lay this legend to rest. Why would the car manufacturers at all care about keeping such a technological advance away from consumers? Unlike the petroleum companies, they've no vested interest in how much fuel a car uses. An automaker's self interest is best served by getting the newest irresistible technology to the consumer before his competitors do. If any one of them possessed the secret of the 200 mpg car, he'd have rushed it into production, hoping to beat his competitors to the punch. Those who are tempted to believe the Evil Government is responsible for keeping this miracle out of our hands should reflect for a moment on the current state of world politics. The government of the United States would like nothing better than to throw off the yoke of dependence upon foreign oil. A miraculous carburetor would grant that freedom, allowing Americans to continue to enjoy current levels of use without the need to go hat in hand to OPEC or even those dastardly Canadians. The domestic supply would be more than enough. Though rarely is this tale told about anything other than a gas-miserly carburetor, this version describes a miraculous lightbulb: It was around 1920, shortly after he had married, when the old man originally purchased the light bulb from a small store in town. It appeared to be a normal light bulb. However, when after sixty years it was still going strong, he decided to write to the manufacturers and tell them of this remarkable phenomenon. By return a reply came from the company indicating that they were very interested in the bulb and would like to send someone to see it. Eventually, one of the directors of the firm called and, instead of just showing interest, offered to buy it for 1,000. The old man, of course, refused, as the light bulb had given him good service. However, his curiousity was certainly aroused  why so much money for his light bulb? The director could provide no plausible explanation as to why they were willing to offer so much for the bulb, so the old man decided to explore this mystery further. With the help of a solicitor friend he did a little investigating and discovered that in the 1920s this particular light-bulb manufacturer had bought and tested the patent for an everlasting bulb. Only a few of these bulbs were made and the company, finding the invention worked, destroyed the bulbs and suppressed the idea  after all, it would have put them out of business. Unknown to the company one of the lights had accidentally become mixed up with a batch of ordinary bulbs and this was the light bulb which had lit the old man's kitchen for the past sixty years. (Sometimes lore collides with reality: A long-lived light bulb has been burning since 1901 and currently lights a fire station in Livermore, California.) light bulb Barbara "gasoline allied" Mikkelson Origins:  The legend about the need to suppress the steam-driven carburetor that can produce 200 mpg to protect the oil industry surfaces in an episode of the TV series Spoils of Babylon ("The Foundling: The War Within; original air date 9 January 2014). Last updated:  26 June 2014 The Mexican Pet    Brunvand, Jan Harold.  The Vanishing Hitchhiker.   New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.  ISBN 0-393-95169-3  (pp. 175-178). The Vanishing Hitchhiker    Dale, Rodney.  The Tumour in the Whale.   London: Duckworth, 1978.  ISBN 0-7156-1314-6  (pp. 114-115). The Tumour in the Whale    Dorson, Richard.  American Folklore.   Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1959  (p. 253). American Folklore    Ellis, William and Alan E. Mays.  "Art Linkletter and the Contemporary Legend."   FOAFTale News.  June 1994  (pp. 1-10).     Morgan, Hal and Kerry Tucker.  Rumor!   New York: Penguin Books, 1984.  ISBN 0-14-007036-2  (pp. 123-125).  Rumor!    Smith, Paul.  The Book of Nasty Legends.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.  ISBN 0-00-636856-5  (pp. 9, 67).  The Book of Nasty Legends    Vance, Bill.  "Was Winnipeg Inventor Victim of Oil Barons?"   The Toronto Star.  17 April 1993  (p. H2). The Complete and Totally  Book of Urban Legends    Holt, David and Bill Mooney.  Spiders in the Hairdo.  Little Rock: August House, 1999.  ISBN 0-87483-525-9  (pp. 85, 106). Spiders in the Hairdo   The Big Book of Urban Legends.  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 22). The Big Book of Urban Legends With the rise of the fiscally conservative tea party and the recent release of a draft report by the presidentially appointed National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the nation's fiscal challenges have rocketed up the list of urgent agenda items in Washington. We'll take a look at two comments on federal spending made on the Nov. 14, 2010, Sunday talk shows -- one by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the other by Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky. We'll address Conrad's here.In an interview on ABC'sThis Week With Christiane Amanpour, Conrad -- who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the presidentially appointed panel -- said, If you look at our spending, it's the highest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, revenue is the lowest it's been as a share of our economy in 60 years, so we're going to have to work both sides of the equation.Let's take a look at Conrad's numbers.As we did with Paul's item, we turned to a historicaltablefrom the Office of Management and Budget that shows tax receipts, spending and the deficit as a percentage of GDP -- essentially, as a percentage of the nation's economy as a whole.In 2009, the last full year available, federal spending accounted for 24.7 percent of GDP. That's higher than it's been in any year since 1949 -- 60 years prior. You have to go back to 1946 to find a higher percentage -- 24.8 -- and that was a year in which the nation was winding down high rates of spending for World War II. (From 1943 to 1945, the height of the war, federal spending ranged from 41 percent to 43 percent of GDP. )Clearly, recessions have an impact on how high this percentage gets. The only other years since 1946 in which federal spending exceeded 23 percent of GDP came in 1982 and 1983, with 23.1 percent and 23.5 percent, respectively. That was during and immediately after the 1981-82 recession -- the last one that rivaled today's in severity. Economic downturns tend to affect this statistic because theyslowGDP growth and increase the demand for government services. Even without special stimulus measures, spending goes up for mandatory items such as food stamps.Either way, Conrad is correct on spending. What about tax revenue as a percentage of GDP?In 2009, tax receipts accounted for 14.8 percent of GDP. According to the table, tax receipts as a share of GDP were always higher all the way back through 1950, when they accounted for 14.4 percent of GDP. That would be 59 years -- not quite 60, but very, very close.The recession factors into the tax revenue statistic as well. Both the 2008 stimulus package under President George W. Bush and the 2009 stimulus under President Barack Obama included tax breaks as a major component.Because the statistics show a number so close to 60 years -- and because Conrad was speaking during a television interview rather than a prepared speech or written statement -- we'll give him some leeway and rate the statement True.