Says Rob Portman said the auto rescue was a lousy deal for Ohio.
Former Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland didnt waste any time attacking Republican Sen. Rob Portman for opposing the 2009 automotive bailout and calling it a lousy deal. He said the auto rescue was a lousy deal for Ohio, Strickland told an audience during his opening statement at the third Senate debate in Cleveland. This isnt the first time Strickland made this claim. Strickland made the charge in front of some Ohio delegates during a meeting held the week of the Democratic National Convention, according to theColumbus Dispatch. We wondered if Strickland was right. Did Portman call the automotive bailout a lousy deal? Stricklands campaign said the remark in question comes froma 2009 statement from Portman, who was a candidate for Senate that year but was not yet in office. The campaign accessed the news release using the Wayback Machine, an Internet Archive website. The General Motors bankruptcy plan Washington announced today is a lousy deal for Ohio, reads the statement. Taxpayers, including hard working Ohioans, are investing $50 billion in a GM plan that we now find includes shutting down plants in Mansfield, Parma, and Columbus, Ohio. The reason for this unprecedented taxpayer bailout and government intervention was to preserve jobs. Instead, for our $50 Billion taxpayer investment, thousands more workers will see their jobs disappear. Ohio deserves better than this. Thats the only direct reference to lousy Stricklands campaign sent PolitiFact Ohio, but they also sent an article from theColumbus Dispatchthat quotes Portmans former spokesperson in 2011 saying Portman still thinks the auto bailout was not a good deal for Ohio. Portmans campaign told PolitiFact Ohio that although Portman was not in office when the bailout launched, he would have supported the auto rescue. As evidence of this, Portmans campaign pointed to a 2010 U.S. Senate debate against Democrat Lee Fisher. Portman was asked if he would have supported the 2009 bailout, which Portman responded to with a yes, while also mentioning he would have liked to see more conditions in the bailout. $50 billion of our taxpayer money went to a private entity that the government essentially took over, and then they closed four plants here in Ohio. Portman said at the debate. So, if I had been in office at the time I would have supported it, but I would have been sure that Ohio didnt fall behind. Our ruling Strickland said Portman said the auto rescue was a lousy deal for Ohio. As a candidate for Senate, Portman did call the 2009 automotive bailouts of GM and Chrysler a lousy deal in a press release from 2009. Strickland cited this remark without including the fact Portman said he still would have supported the bailout. Stricklands claim is accurate, but needs a slight clarification. We rate Stricklands claim Mostly True.
Claim:  Aspiring work-at-homers promised big bucks for acting as intermediaries for international transactions wherein they cash checks for other parties have been defrauded by con artists.  REAL FRAUD WHICH COSTS ITS VICTIMS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] Good day, my name is Evaldas Vytautas. I'm Sales Manager of Lionder Web Design Agency. We are situated in Vilnius, Lithuania. Lionder Web Design Agency is pleased to offer you the position of Exchange Manager for our organization. We are excited about the potential that you bring to our company. We work with corporate clients and some of them prefer to do wire transfers, however we cannot receive international wire transfers because of heavy taxes. Tax for international wire transfer is 25% In Lithuania. There is no sense for us to work in such a way, however we don't want to lose our clients. You need to have Paypal/bank account. System is completely automated. You will work only 1-2 hours a day, receive, process payments from our clients through your Paypal/bank account. Report about all new payments, act only within the limits of law  earn minimum $1500-$2000 per month. Your salary will be 5-15% from every processed amount (you begin from 5%). To join the minimum requirements include : -MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (Skills, Knowledge, Ability, etc.)-The minimum qualifications are diploma or equivalent.-Must be able to multi-task and have good communication skills.-Knowledge of MS Word and other basic computer programs.-This being a new field there is NO experience needed. HOW TO APPLY: If you would like to pursue this opportunity simply send Your Resume (CV) to resume@lionder.net OR Download Job Application Form  (www.lionder.net/Job_Application_Form.doc), fill it in and send us to resume@lionder.net (No phone calls please. Callers will not be considered for the position). We will respond promptly. Please don't feel shy to contact our Online Support and ask any questions you will have: Contact Name: Julie JakulyteICQ- 257235542,AOL IM Screen Name- Jakulyte,Yahoo! ID: JJakulyte,MSN- Jakulyte@hotmail.com. No agencies, please. Lionder Web Design Agency is an equal opportunity/affirmative actionemployer. For more information about who we are and what we do, please visit our webiste  www.lionder.net It is necessary that we know your decision by November 20, 2004, so that we can plan accordingly. Regards, Evaldas VytautasLionder Web Design Agency Origins:  In   2004 we began noticing a new scam targeting those searching for part-time paid duties that could be performed from home. This new con uses the promise of high-paying work to lure eager job seekers into being defrauded themselves or used to steal from others. Those so led down the garden path are pulled in by advertisements for jobs involving the forwarding of monies or goods collected in the U.S. to business entities in other countries. Supposedly, the successful applicants will make thousands of dollars through working from home for a few hours a week, with no special skills or training required. Sometimes international wire transfers are specifically mentioned in these solicitations, and the terms "import/export specialist," "marketing manager," and "financial manager" often turn up in their wording. The reputations of the venues where the ads are found proves no protection to those looking for such opportunities, in that this work-at-home scam has been touted thousands of times on popular job web sites including Monster, Careerbuilder, Careers.com, and Yahoo! Hotjobs. This con operates in one of two of ways, both of which leaves hopeful job seekers in a mess of trouble:  In its more usual incarnation, successful job applicants are tasked with depositing checks for varying amounts (anywhere from a few thousand dollars all the way into the six-figure range) into their personal bank accounts and relaying to their new employers 95% of the amount banked, keeping 5% as their commission. The explanation given by the employers for that which necessitates their having someone cash checks on their behalf varies from come-on to come-on, but the need to believe in 'something for nothing' (in this case a high steady income in return for a few hours' work per week) blinds the about-to-be-defrauded to the glaring implausibilities inherent to these tall tales of strange government-imposed restrictions, exorbitant tax rates in the homeland, the need to fly under a competitor's radar, and the like. The checks the unsuspecting dupes are given to deposit are worthless, but this detail is not discovered by them or their banks until weeks after the fact, which is long after 95% of the face value of said financial instruments has been wired to the thieves. As is the case in the 'cashier check' scam (sellers are duped into accepting cashier checks in excess of the amounts they seek for their goods on the understanding they are to forward the additional monies to third parties), the scam works because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) requires banks to make money from cashier's, certified, or teller's checks available in one to five days. Consequently, funds from checks that might not be good are often released into payees' accounts long before the checks themselves have been honored by their issuing banks. High quality forgeries can be bounced back and forth between banks for weeks before anyone catches on to their being worthless. cashier check In this form of the scheme, those who'd thought they were about to pack up and move to Easy Street thanks to their new jobs as international relayers instead find themselves on the hook for the amounts they wired to others. That the original checks were worthless does not absolve those who deposited them from financial responsibility for the funds they subsequently instructed their banks to pay out  the two transactions (the deposit and the disbursement) are regarded as separate. Therefore, if a hypothetical erstwhile wire transfer facilitator handled a bogus check for $10,000, instead of netting $500 (his 5% fee), he would be out $9,500 (the amount he had his bank wire to those who'd conned him).  The mayhem doesn't necessarily end there. There is a further danger that, now armed with the dupe's banking information from the wire transfer, these same thieves can use those numbers to create a demand draft to  withdraw funds without confirmation from the hapless job seeker's bank account until there's nothing left in it but dust. demand draft  In another version of the con, those who land these coveted 'jobs' are tasked with collecting payments from their new employers' clients in the U.S. and wiring these funds back to the home office, retaining a specified portion of the recouped accounts as their fees. Only after the fact does it come to light that the deposited checks were for non-existent merchandise vended through online auction sites, usually about the time that the police come a'knocking on the door. This form of the wire transfer scam mirrors a type of the CNP fraud in which job-seeking dupes are hired to repackage and ship to Nigeria goods purchased on stolen credit cards. As with the wire transfer come-on, the promise of  easy, high-paying part-time work blinds those who unwittingly become part of an international theft ring thanks to their desire to believe in the job fairy. In both cases, they're the ones left holding the bag when the police turn up to ask questions about the monies or goods others have been duped out of.Those searching for employment opportunities that will allow them to work from home are all too often the very people who can least afford to be defrauded. Although a great many folks  CNP daydream about earning livable incomes from the comfort of their dens rather than having to make the trek to their offices each day, they do not as a general rule of thumb search for such job openings with the same fervor as do the elderly, the physically afflicted, or the parents committed to remaining at home with their preschool children. Members of those groups hunt for work-at-home opportunities because laboring in more traditional job settings is impossible for them. Because genuine offers of work of this nature are few and far between, with the need to secure a steady income becoming more of a pressing issue with each passing non-employed day, those folks are at far greater risk of being victimized by such schemes  their desperation leads them to be gulled by pie-in-the-sky promises and mollified by the wild backstories that go with them whereas the financially better off are more likely to remain convinced something is very wrong with the offer of mucho bucks in exchange for only a few hours' labor performed from home each week by folks possessed of no special training or skills. Barbara "reshipboard romance" Mikkelson How To Avoid Falling Victim To Reshipper Scams: Avoid job listings that use these descriptions: "package forwarding," "reshipping," "money transfers," "wiring funds" and "foreign agent agreements." These and similar phrases should raise a red flag.   Do not be fooled by official-sounding corporate names. Some scam artists operate under names that sound like those of long-standing, reputable firms.   Never forward or transfer money from any of your personal accounts on behalf of your employer. Also, be suspicious if you are asked to "wire" money to an employer. If a legitimate job requires you to make money transfers, the money should be withdrawn from the employers business account, not yours.   Do not give out your personal financial information. A potential legitimate employer will not request your bank account, credit card or Paypal account number. Provide your banking information only if you are hired by a legitimate company and you choose to have your paycheck direct deposited.   Do not fax copies of your ID or Social Security number to someone you have never met. Credit checks and fake IDs can be obtained with this information. Give these documents to your employer only when you are physically at the place of employment.   If you have questions about the legitimacy of a job listing, contact your Better Business Bureau, your state or local consumer agency, or the Federal Trade Commission.   Stop believing in the chimera of "something for nothing."  Additional Information:      Work-at-Home Schemes   (Federal Trade Commission)       Work-at-Home Schemes   (Better Business Bureau)   Last updated:  11 July 2011 <!-- In October 2020, a photograph supposedly showing a credit card belonging to Malia Obama, the daughter of former U.S. President Barack Obama, was circulated on social media along with a variety of claims related to Hunter Biden, the son of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden. One post, for example, claimed that this photograph came from the hard drive of a laptop that supposedly belonged to Hunter Biden  a controversial subject in its own right that we'll address below  and that it showed how Biden had used Obama's credit card to snort lines of cocaine off the surface of the device: New picture off Hunters laptop.... this is getting worse and worse.... he was either doing cocaine with Malia Obama, or just had her card because that's what usually happens, right??? LMAOOO. WHAT A SORRY POS!!   However, this picture is several months old, there's little evidence to support the claim that this credit card belongs to Malia Obama, and no evidence exists to show that this picture was taken from Biden's laptop. This photograph has been online since at least December 2019. At the time, celebrity websites circulated it in articles claiming that Obama's credit card had been stolen by hackers. MTO News, for instance, reported: MTO News Malia Obama's credit card was stolen and posted online by hackers, MTO News has learned. It's not clear how the hackers got ahold of Malia's card, or whether they used it - but a photo of the president's daughter's card showed up on Twitter this morning also conspicuously next to lines of what appears to be cocaine. However, we're skeptical that this card actually belongs to Barack Obama's daughter, and not another person perhaps named Malia Obama, as this picture appears to show that whoever owned the card had been a "member since 2011." First daughter Malia Obama was 13 years old in 2011. While some credit card companies allow minors to become authorized users under an adult's account, we don't know if that was the case here, and the minimum age to open a personal credit card is 18. minimum age The claim that this picture was pulled from Biden's laptop appears to be made out of whole cloth. In October 2020, the New York Post published an article claiming that it had obtained material from a laptop Biden owned. This story raised some immediate red flags, which included the fact that more than 50 former intelligence officials suspected the story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign; that some reporters at the news outlet refused to attach their bylines to the story; and that several news outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, were reportedly reluctant to report on the story because much of the information could not be verified. Russian disinformation campaign; refused to attach their bylines to the story;  Wall Street Journal Fox News Regardless of whether the picture truly showed Biden's laptop and the credit card of the former president's daughter, no evidence indicates the photograph was found on the laptop hard drive. The New York Post has published several documents that it claimed came from the laptop, but this photograph was not one of them. Bertrand, Natasha.  "Hunter Biden Story is Russian Disinfo, Dozens of Former Intel Officials Say."   Politico.  19 October 2020. Hall, Colby.  "EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Passed on Hunter Biden Laptop Story Over Credibility Concerns."   Mediate.  19 October 2020. Benveniste, Alexis.  "The anatomy of the New York Post's dubious Hunter Biden story."   CNN.  18 October 2020. Smith, Ben.  "Trump Had One Last Story to Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldnt Buy It."   New York Times.  25 October 2020. Glueck, Katie, Schmidt, Michael, and Isaac, Mike.  "Allegation on Biden Prompts Pushback From Social Media Companies."   New York Times.  14 October 2020. White, Alexandria.  "How Old Do You Have to be to Get a Credit Card?"   CNBC.  30 August 2020. Brockworth, Tiffany.  "Hackers Post Malia Obama's Credit Card Online w/ 'Cocaine'!!."   MTO News.  23 December 2019. Correction [29 October 2020]: Updated article to note that some credit card companies allow minors to be authorized users on adult accounts. In January 2020, readers asked us about the accuracy of reports that authorities in Australia had announced their intention to cull (kill) around 10,000 camels due to the pressure the animals were placing on drinking water supplies.  For example, on Jan. 7, the Weird World Facebook page posted a widely shared meme that contained the following text: meme "More than 10,000 camels to be killed because they drink too much water. Feral camels in South Australia are set to be killed in a bid to stop them drinking too much water as droughts and fires ravage the country. More than 10,000 camels will be shot by professional shooters in helicopters starting Wednesday."   Also on Jan. 7, the London Evening Standard published a story with a headline similar to that contained in the meme: "Over 10,000 Australian Camels to Be Shot Because They Drink Too Much Water." The article reported that: story "Over 10,000 camels will be shot from helicopters to stop them drinking water in drought ravaged South Australia. Professional shooters will move in on Wednesday, after orders from Aboriginal leaders in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands (AYP). The culling, expected to take about five days, follows complaints from locals about animals looking for any available water source, including tanks and taps in properties." Similar stories, with similar headlines, were published by the Independent, the Daily Mail, and IndiaTimes.com. Those reports, and the Weird World meme, were broadly accurate, though the specific claim that "more than" 10,000 camels would be culled as part of the plan appears to have been contradicted by a local official who said the number would be between 5,000 and 10,000. They also failed to mention that a small number of wild horses would be targeted in the kill, as well. Independent Daily Mail IndiaTimes.com The APY local government authority, in the state of South Australia, announced the cull in a Jan. 6 news release that read, in part "There will be a feral animal kill across the APY lands. Feral animals, but specifically camels, are the primary target ... The cull (kill) will occur the week of 8th January, 2020, when the aerial operations will commence (expected to go over five days)." news release In a supplementary news release published the following day, APY officials explained the reasoning behind the cull: news release The region's first major cull of feral animals is in urgent response to threats posed to communities by an increase in the number of feral camels, and some feral horses, due to drought and extreme heat. Thousands of feral camels are emerging from an arid landscape and moving into communities looking for water, while doing significant damage to infrastructure and housing, and creating serious safety hazards.  Traditional owners, who have been widely consulted about the cull, have reported extremely large groups of camels and other feral animals in and around communities and in specific hot spots across the APY Lands. The APY Executive Board of Management held an urgent meeting on December 11 about the impact of feral animals on communities and pastoral operations, and approved a resolution for an aerial cull of camels and other feral animals across the APY Lands.  ... Richard King, APY's general manager, said traditional owners recognized the need to manage feral owners, despite a camel cull presenting a spiritual conflict for some indigenous groups, because of serious risks to community safety and damage to important economic, natural and cultural assets. "There is extreme pressure on remote Aboriginal communities in the APY Lands and their pastoral operations as the camels search for water," Mr. King said.  "The dire situation is compounded by dry conditions, animal welfare issues, threats to communities, scarce water supplies, health and environmental impacts, the destruction of country, loss of food supplies and endangerment of travellers on the Stuart Highway and across the APY Lands. Given ongoing dry conditions and the large camel congregations threatening all of the main APY communities and infrastructure, immediate camel control is needed." Separately, APY's General Manager Richard King told CBS News that the number of camels being targeted in the cull was between 5,000 and 10,000  a range that somewhat contradicts the claim, repeated in several news articles, that "more than" or "over" 10,000 camels were to be killed. If the number ends up being 10,000, those reports will transpire to be rather accurate. However, according to King, the number could be as low as half of that figure, a detail noted by none of the articles or the meme mentioned above. CBS News Hennessey, Ted. "Over 10,000 Australian Camels to Be Shot From Helicopters Because They Drink Too Much Water."
 The Evening Standard. 7 January 2020. Osborne, Samuel. "Australia: More Than 10,000 Camels to Be Shot Because They Drink Too Much Water."
 The Independent. 7 January 2020. Wilkie, Kelsey. "Shooters Will Cull More Than 10,000 Australian Camels From the Air Tomorrow..."
 The Daily Mail. 6 January 2020. Chauhan, Shreya. "Solution to Bushfires? Australia to Kill 10,000 Camels Because 'They Drink Too Much Water.'"
 IndiaTimes.com. 7 January 2020. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Local Authority. "Media Statement -- There Will Be a Feral Animal Kill Across the APY Lands."
 6 January 2020. Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Local Authority. "Media Statement -- Feral Camel Control Operation Launches on APY Lands."
 7 January 2020. Lewis, Sophie. "Up to 10,000 Thirsty Camels Will Be Shot and Killed During Major Australian Drought."
 CBS News. 7 January 2020. Revelations came to light in fall 2019 that U.S. President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate current Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden and his son. In response, the presidents defenders have highlighted a May 4, 2018, letter signed by three Democratic senators to Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor general of Ukraine (a similar role to the U.S. attorney general), as evidence that claims of improper behavior are misplaced. The letter was notably described by Washington Post columnist Marc Theisen as betraying a double standard. have highlighted letter notably described This sentiment was amplified by several media outlets, as well as a viral tweet (retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.) from the Twitter account Comfortably Smug, which according to BuzzFeed News is run by a Republican political consultant and deliberate spreader of false information: retweeted run by   Several reasons exist why the above tweet and associated sentiment are incorrect and misleading. At the top of that list is the fact that the letter in question did not concern a request to investigate Trump, nor did it request the opening of any investigation. letter Instead, it requested information on why Ukrainian special prosecutor Serhiy Horbatyuk (who serves in a special prosecutor role charged with investigating corruption cases linked to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich) had been prohibited from issuing subpoenas for evidence or interviewing witnesses in four existing investigations into former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort. Manafort, prior to joining the Trump campaign, had worked as a political consultant for Yanukovich and his political party. The four investigations involved money that flowed either to Manafort for this consulting work or to a law firm working with Manafort and others to improve Yanukovichs image in the West. They did not involve Trump. consultant law firm The three Democratic senators  then-Foreign Affairs Committee members Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy  were responding to a May 2, 2018, New York Times report that the four Manafort investigations in Ukraine were specifically singled out from a docket of nearly 3,000 corruption cases in Horbatyuks portfolio to be blocked from issuing subpoenas and interviewing witnesses. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in his charge to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was investigating Manafort in part because of concerns that he owed substantial funds to Russian oligarchs as a result of this consulting work, potentially giving them leverage over him as he ran Trump's campaign. The reason Ukrainian officials impeded the investigation was no secret, according to the Times  it was to placate the Trump administration, which opposed the Mueller probe: report as a result according Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament who is an ally of [now former] President Petro O. Poroshenko, readily acknowledged that the intention in Kiev was to put investigations into Mr. Manaforts activities in the long-term box. In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials, Mr. Ariev said in an interview. We shouldnt spoil relations with the administration. These discussions came at a complicated time for Ukraine, a country that has been fighting Russian aggression and that had been in the process of securing arms from the United States. The decision to halt the investigations by an anti-corruption prosecutor was handed down as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins, the Times reported. reported Far from requesting an investigation, the senators requested answers to three specific questions from a specific Ukrainian government official: specific questions Manafort broadly admitted to involvement in activities related to those four Ukrainian probes via a September 2018 guilty plea. admitted Even ignoring the allegedly implied quid pro quo in the Trump-Zelensky call, a comparison between the senators request for information from the chief Ukrainian law enforcement official and Trumps requests of Zelensky is problematic. As senators on the Committee on Foreign Relations, which not only provides oversight for arms deals but also general oversight of Americas relationships with its allies, Menendez, Durbin, and Leahy were acting within their constitutional rights and obligations as official representatives of the U.S. government with oversight responsibility over the executive branch. for arms deals constitutional rights Conversely, in his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump explicitly requested that the Ukrainian president meet with his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani  an unelected private citizen without a security clearance or oversight from anyone but Trump  to initiate investigations into a disparate set of claims whose sole unifying feature is that they concern Trumps political rivals: the Democratic National Committee and the Biden family. disparate set of claims Because the letter at issue did not actually demand an investigation into Trump or even compel initiation of any investigation, we rank the claim that Democrats asked Ukraine to investigate Trump in 2018 as false. DailyWire.com.  Double Standard: Senate Democrats Asked Ukraine To Help Them Investigate Trump.
  25 September 2019. Pollack, Joel B.  Democrats Wrote to Ukraine in May 2018, Demanding It Investigate Trump.
  Breitbart News. &nbsp 24 September 2019. foreign.senate.gov.  Letter to Yuriy Lutsenko.
  4 May 2018. Thiessen, Marc A.  Democrats Double Standard on Ukraine.
  The Washington Post. 24 September 2019. Stuef, Jack.  The Man Behind @ComfortablySmug, Hurricane Sandy's Worst Twitter Villain.
  BuzzFeed News.  30 October 2012. Kramer, Andrew E.  Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation With Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 2 May 2018. U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  1:17:cr-00201-ABJ #423 Statement of the Offenses and Other Acts.
  14 September 2018. WhiteHouse.gov.  Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: President Zelenskyy of Spain
  24 September 2019. Congressional Research Service.  Arms Sales: Congressional Review Process.
  Updated 14 August 2019. Graham, David, A..  Trumps Incriminating Conversation With the Ukrainian President.
  The Atlantic.  25 September 2019. Vogel, Kenneth and Matthew Goldstein.  How Skadden, the Giant Law Firm, Got Entangled in the Mueller Investigation.
  The New York Times. 24 February 2019. Claim:  Senator John Kerry referred to a Secret Service agent as a "son of a bitch."    . Origins:  Prior to February 2004, Senator John Kerry was the polar opposite of a "household name"  very few who didn't follow politics had even heard of him, let alone felt they had some sense of the man. Yet his emergence as the Democratic Party's front runner for the presidential nomination has stirred interest in the Senator, leaving a great many folks wondering what sort of fellow he is.  Because few Americans will have a chance to make the Senator's acquaintance before being called upon to cast their votes in the November   2004 election, most will have to base their assessments of his character upon accounts given by others. Yet sorting fact from rumor is often a difficult task in that all too often the stories that appear to offer startling insight can't be proved or disproved; they exist as unverifiable anecdotes (e.g., the rumor that John Kerry ate some long-suffering pilot's pizza). pizza However, every now and then a story comes along that the news agencies have vetted. Which brings us to the "son of a bitch" incident of 18 March 2004. While snowboarding in Ketchum, Idaho, Senator Kerry was knocked over by one of the Secret Service men assigned to protect him. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Kerry [was] taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow." A reporter and camera crew, who were following on skis, witnessed the collision but did not capture it on film. When asked about the crash, the Senator said, "I don't fall down. That son-of-a-bitch ran into me." Or "knocked me over," depending on which version you heard. (Actually, the Senator does fall down, at least according to The New York Post, which reported him as having taken a header on the wet floor of a convenience store the night before.) It probably needs to be pointed out the Senator referred to the agent in such fashion to a third party, as opposed to shouting his assessment into the bodyguard's face at the time of the accident. Yet, that Mr. Kerry didn't deliver the insult directly might speak worse of him. Though the etiquette mavens might not agree, it's almost understandable to call the other party to an accident all manner of cuss words in the immediate aftermath of a collision. Such an outburst is akin to dancing about swearing a blue streak after dropping a hammer on your foot, in that what is vented  though heartily felt at the time  is inappropriate and is realized to be such once the moment has passed. Yet, once there is distance between the accident and the fulmination, the "heat of the moment" defense no longer applies in that sober reflection is presumed to have taken place in the  interim. Did sufficient time pass between the accident and the remark for the initial frustration over having been upended into the snow in front of an audience to have worn off? Or did one follow quickly upon the heels of the other? The New York Times characterized that span as "a moment later" whereas CNN said "He later used an expletive to describe the agent who knocked him down," a phrasing that implies the passage of a goodly chunk of time, even if it doesn't state so outright. Whether Senator Kerry had time to cool down or not, it was churlish of him to call the person charged with protecting his life a son-of-a-bitch, and foolhardy to address such remark to a reporter, an act guaranteed to propel the ire-filled comment into the morning editions. Discretion around members of the fourth estate needs to be second nature for those who look to make their careers in politics, in that an elected official given to blurting things willy-nilly is a liability to those he serves. In similar vein, if a man can't be troubled to speak well of his Secret Service cover, the very agents who will lay down their lives for him, he should at least be enough of a gentleman to refrain from describing them with cuss words. Some who have encountered this story have stopped to ponder if perhaps the Senator voiced his "son of a bitch" characterization in an affectionate or playful manner, as some are wont to do in reference to acquaintances they feel particularly close to. Or, that the remark had been delivered in a tone of pretend anger as a way of ruefully admitting how inglorious the collision must have appeared to onlookers. Yet those theories wash out upon examination of the earliest account. According to The New York Times' description of the incident, Senator Kerry wasn't joking  he was pissed off: When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over." "Sharply" does not describe any form of affectionate phrasing. Far from escaping public notice, Kerry's characterization of one of his government-appointed bodyguards became fodder for Jay Leno of The Tonight Show on 22 March 2004: But he's [John Kerry] quite an athlete. They showed him snowboarding. He's in Idaho and he's snowboarding. You see him on the news? He is pretty good. He's a good snowboarder. Man, he was going downhill faster than Howard Dean. It was unbelievable. There was an accident on the slopes. This is true. Kerry snowboarding. A skier collided with him, knocked him to the ground. Kerry got up, called the guy a son of a bitch. That's what he called the guy. In fact, today the FCC fined him $500,000 dollars and told him the next time he goes snowboarding it has to be with a five-second delay. President Bush has also been guilty of publicly labeling someone with a vulgarity  in 2000 while then the Republican presidental nominee, his privately-meant assessment of a certain reporter as "a major league asshole" was picked up by a live microphone. Our Major League Remark describes what happened and how, plus offers a variety of points to ponder for those intent upon working out whether President Bush or Senator Kerry was the more boorish. Major League Remark Barbara "the boor war" Mikkelson Last updated:  2 September 2007    Sources:   Crowley, Candy.  "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics."   CNN.  19 March 2004.    Halbfinger, David.  "Amid Natural Splendor in Idaho, a Weary Kerry Gets Away From It All."   The New York Times.  19 March 2004  (p. A20).    Parker, Kathleen.  "Be a Sport, Senator Kerry."   Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  31 March 2004  (p. A15).    The New York Post.  "Kerry Flopped Day Before, Too."   21 March 2004  (p. 10).    The White House Bulletin.  "Late Night Political Humor."   22 March 2004. 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. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who plans to say this spring if hell again seek the Republican presidential nomination, questioned the validity of federal unemployment statistics as he otherwise extolled the boom in his home state, according to a reporter in attendance. In a tweet, Dave Weigel of Bloomberg Politics quoted Perry saying during a Jan. 26, 2015, breakfast event with Jewish voters in Des Moines that the official unemployment rate is unreliable: Its been massaged, its been doctored, Weigel quoted Perry saying. By phone, Weigel told us Perry made his remark while celebrating his states economy and did not take reporter questions. At our request, Weigel later emailed us his fuller transcript showing Perry said: We've got the lowest participation rate since the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president. I'm talking about participation in the work force. That's of really great concern for me. Perry continued: I mean, who is it standing up for these people that I call the uncounted? They've lost hope that they can even get a job, so they're not even counted. When you look at the unemployment rate today, that's not the true unemployment rate, it's been massaged, it's been doctored, Perry said. The U.S. unemployment rate was 5.6 percentin December 2014, down from as much as 10 percent in 2009, Democrat Barack Obamas first year as president.The Texas jobless ratewas 4.6 percent, the states lowest since May 2008. Indeed, on Jan. 15, 2015, in his last speech to Texas legislators as governor, Perrysaluted the statesjob gains, also noting the Texas jobless rate was significantly below the national average. So we were curious what he meant about the rate being doctored and asked Perry aides to elaborate--without success. Jobless rate an imperfect indicator Nationally, the persistence of discouraged workers and declining workforce participation often come up as criticisms of the jobless rate. Perrys mention of the official jobless rate leaving out discouraged workers was accurate. After Obamas latest State of the Union address, PolitiFact rated Mostly True the Democratic leaders declaration the unemployment rate was the lowest it had been since before the financial crisis that blew up around the time of his 2008 election. Still, that fact check noted Obama was citing the most basic version of the unemployment rate,which draws on regular surveys of households that originated in 1940. Another version of the rate, known as U-6, tries to capture a broader picture of labor-market weaknesses by accounting for people who are unemployed plus people working part-time who would rather have full-time work -- and people who have stopped looking for work but would begin to look again if labor-market conditions improved. By rolling in these additional factors, the U-6 rate tends to track the official unemployment rate but is usually a few points higher. And as it happens, the U-6 rate -- unlike the official unemployment rate -- hasnt returned to its pre-financial-crisis level. The national December 2014 U-6 rate was 11.2 percent, higher than the 11 percent rate in September 2008. This gets us to Perrys mention of labor force participation, which gauges the number of people in the labor force compared to the civilian, noninstitutionalized population. The labor force shrinks whenever someone retires, voluntarily gives up working (such as when they become a full-time parent or go back to school full-time) or because they simply give up on finding a job. Historically, workforce participation was down in the national recession at the end of Carters tenure and through the start of Ronald Reagans presidency,PolitiFact noted in 2012. More recently, the labor force participation rate has markedly decreased since 2008. In September 2008, it stood at 66 percent; it was nearly 63 percent as of December 2014, the most recent month of available data. So, the participation rate is lately at its lowest point since the late 1970s, which also was a time when fewer women had jobs outside the home. This decrease has partly been influenced by the aging of the workforce (as in Baby Boomer retirements). No signs of doctoring These wrinkles noted, is there evidence the jobless rate has been massaged and doctored, as Perry put it? We found none. In November 2013, after a manipulation charge bubbled up involving the Philadelphia region, the U.S. Census Bureau -- which conducts the Current Population Survey that gathers information from households later converted by the government to the unemployment rate --posted a statementsaying: We have no reason to believe that there was a systematic manipulation of the data described in media reports. As a statistical agency, the Census Bureau is very conscientious about our responsibility to produce accurate Current Population Survey data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics and all other surveys we conduct. The bureau referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Commerces Office of the Inspector General, whichsaid in May 2014 it had found no evidenceunemployment data had been manipulated in the months leading up to the November 2012 national election. That report also recommended some bureau reforms. None of several experts responding to our inquiries said the unemployment rate has been massaged or doctored. Among them,Andrew Biggsof the American Enterprise Institute told us the fact the regular jobless rate doesnt reflect discouraged job-seekers or part-timers wishing for full-time jobs isnt a deliberate government misrepresentation. Still, Biggs emailed, it means the unemployment rate doesnt deliver an accurate picture of the labor markets health. If labor force participation were the same today as prior to the recession, I believe the unemployment rate would be around 8.3%. So the idea that the labor market is really healthy today just isnt that true, he said. In 2013, economists told PolitiFact it would be extremely difficult to alter the unemployment rate. William Shobe, director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the University of Virginia, said its important to remember there are many measures of unemployment, including privately produced surveys. And they all agree, within the margins of error, Shobe said. The immediate conclusion that you can draw from that is that no rogue interviewer or group of rogue interviewers have managed to budge the unemployment far (or at all, mind you) from the value it would have had otherwise. Shobe added that any effort to fudge the national numbers would require the participation of interviewers across the country. Otherwise you would see only a localized move which would wash out as noise in the national stats, he said. Shobe, reached afresh for this story, said he was unaware of developments that would support the former governors claim. The whole idea that you could get a group of these statisticians to lie about these survey results theyre collecting and have that stick, thats just crazy, Shobe said.These are career civil servants. Their incentives are to get the best possible numbers. Shobe suggested we query University of Wisconsin economistMenzie Chinnwho told us by email that he considers such critiques of the rate to be specious; Chinn pointed us to his October 2012blog posttaking to task a similar statement by business executive Jack Welch. Asked to assess Perrys comment in full, Chinn said: Its true that had the labor force participation rate not declined, and we used the number of employed actually observed to calculate a rate, then mechanically the unemployment rate would have to be higher. Regardless, he said, its not so that government statisticians changed the procedure for calculations in order to change the reported unemployment number  which Chinn said is how he would define doctored. By phone,Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist, said nothing notable has occurred to demonstrate the unemployment rate has been doctored or massaged, though in August 2014, Princeton University economistAlan Kruegerand others wrotea paperpointing out fewer people are responding to the survey that feeds the rate. ANew York Timescolumnist, David Leonhardt,summarizedthe upshot as being a seeming increase in the number of people who once would have qualified as officially unemployed and today are considered out of the labor force, neither working nor looking for work. Sinclair speculated by email that Perrys reference to discouraged workers being left out of the rate means hed prefer to see the rate calculated with the workers counted. But the words massaged and doctored, Sinclair said, each carries a charge, implying the rate is nefariously manipulated. We have no evidence of that, Sinclair said. Our ruling Addressing Iowans, Perry said the official U.S. jobless rate has been doctored, its been massaged. Theres legitimate debate about what statistic best measures the state of the workforce and even agreement that the widely quoted unemployment rate (which Perry stressed as meaningful about a week before this Iowa stop) doesnt provide the fullest picture of the labor force. But that's a far cry from showing the government is massaging or doctoring numbers, which implies organized underhanded wrongdoing. Perry may yet elaborate. We find this claim factually unsupported and ridiculous. Pants on Fire! PANTS ON FIRE The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here formoreon the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. The item reproduced below originated as an e-mail sent to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh in July 2010 by Dr. Sebastian J. Ciancio, a urologist practicing in Danville, Illinois. In that e-mail, the doctor encouraged the radio host to "share this story with your listeners so that they know how the ruling class spends their tax dollars." In this example collected from the Snopes inbox in August 2010: I was speaking to an emergency room physician this morning. He told me that a woman in her 20's came to the ER with her 8th pregnancy. She stated "my momma told me that I am the breadwinner for the family." He asked her to explain. She said that she can make babies and babies get money for the family. The scam goes like this: The grandma calls the Department of Children and Family Services and states that the unemployed daughter is not capable of caring for these children. DCFS agrees and states that the child or children will need to go to foster care. The grandma then volunteers to be the foster parent, and thus receives a check for $1500 per child per month in Illinois. Total yearly income: $144,000 tax-free, not to mention free healthcare (Medicaid) plus a monthly "Link" card entitling her to free groceries, etc, and a voucher for 250 free cell phone minutes per month. This does not even include WIC and other welfare programs. Indeed, grandma was correct in that her fertile daughter is the "breadwinner" in the family. Variations: In December 2010 the following photograph was added to circulating versions of this item, even though the pictured family has no connection to the story and no mention of race appeared in the original text:  In 2014, the setting was moved from Illinois to Florida. The gist of this "story" is the claim that an Illinois woman who was pregnant with her eighth child (while still in her 20's) admitted to an emergency room physician that she was deliberately having children and giving them up to foster care in order to earn money for her family, with her grandmother volunteering to raise the children and collecting $1,500 per month from the state for each child, for an annual tax-free income of $144,000 (plus additional benefits). Is the story true? It's a second-hand account, and Dr. Ciancio declined to identify the physician who supposedly told it to him, which makes verification of that aspect of the tale difficult. Nonetheless, whatever a pregnant patient may have told an unnamed emergency room physician, the scenario described simply isn't possible. According to payment rates published by the State of Illinois' Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), monthly payments for licensed relative home care range from $384 to $471 per child, depending upon the age of the child: payment rates  The maximum monthly payment (for a child age 12 and over) is $471 per month, not $1,500 per month, so the largest amount of money a foster parent caring for eight children would receive in a month (assuming all of those children were at least 12 years old) would be $3,768, for an annual total of $45,216  a far cry from the $144,000 yearly income claimed above. (And even the $45,216 figure is a generous projection, given that it's an obvious impossibility for a woman who is pregnant with her eighth child to already have eight children all over the age of twelve.) Pickel, Mary Lou.  "Tea Party at the Capitol."
  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  28 February 2009. On 28 May 2015, a news-like link began to circulate on Facebook claiming popular actor Channing Tatum came out as gay. The link's headline stated "Channing Tatum comes out as Gay," and the preview text read "Channing Tatum comes out as Gay following a number of rumours":  While the rumor was briefly popular on sites like Twitter and Facebook among Tatum's fans, it was generated by the site Feednewz.com. Feednewz.com is not a news site; rather, its primary purpose is the generation of user-submitted links that appear to be news stories. As with a similar viral hoax involving EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, the Channing Tatum hoax spread atypically far for a FeedNewz.com link due to user interest in the fabricated claim. Danny Dyer Claims like the one about Tatum often spread due to a compelling headline alone. Readers who clicked through to the appended link were greeted with the following image revealing the prank:  Channing Tatum did not reveal any new information about his sexuality, and he remained married to actress Jenna Dewan until they separated in March 2018.  Jenna Dewan 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