Make the Pie Higher!
Claim:  "Make the Pie Higher!" poem is composed of actual quotes from George W. Bush.  Status:  True. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2002] MAKE THE PIE HIGHERby George W. Bush  I think we all agree, the past is over.This is still a dangerous world.It's a world of madmen and uncertaintyand potential mental losses.  Rarely is the question askedIs our children learning?Will the highways of the Internet become more few?How many hands have I shaked?  They misunderestimate me.I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.  Put food on your family!Knock down the tollbooth!Vulcanize society!Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher! Origins:  We certainly didn't need to write a piece to inform the world that, like his father, President George W. Bush is not a strong public speaker.  Particularly when speaking   extemporaneously, he often uses words similar in sound but different in meaning to what he intends tosay (e.g., "vulcanize" for "Balkanize") or uses incorrect forms of words (e.g., "resignate" for "resonate"), garbles familiar phrases by transposing words (e.g., "where wings take dream"), and makes a variety of grammatical mistakes (e.g., "how many hands have I shaked").  The point here was not to rehash the numerous lists of "Bushisms" to be found in a variety of media, but to perform a sort of investigative experiment into the accuracy of information transmission in the Internet age. A common phenomenon in the world of the printed word is that once a public figure  whether he be an athlete such a Yogi Berra, an entertainment figure such as Samuel Goldwyn, or a politician such as Dan Quayle  acquires a reputation for spouting malapropisms, people quickly begin to put words into his mouth. All sorts of humorous misuses of words and phrases that sound like something that person might have said are soon attributed to him as something he "really said"; newspapers run the erroneous quotes without verification and are later cited as documented proof of their veracity, thereby enshrining apocrypha as  fact. Only when someone undertakes the chore of trying to track the quotes back to their sources are the misattributions discovered, usually far too late to dislodge them from the public consciousness. So, we thought we'd tackle a project to see whether the increased availability of information in the Internet age has had any effect on this phenomenon; whether quotes are less likely to be misattributed when nearly every utterance of a public figure as prominent as a presidential candidate is recorded and stored in one form or another.  As a test example, we chose the "Make the Pie Higher!" piece reproduced above (generally credited to "Washington Post writer Richard Thompson," a satirist and illustrator who produces the "Richard's Poor Almanac" feature appearing in the Post's Sunday edition) and attempted to trace every statement listed therein to its source to determine how many of them were actually uttered by George W. Bush.  Our standard was that in order to consider a statement to be a genuine "Bushism" we had to find at least one major newspaper article that quoted the actual words spoken (rather than paraphrasing them), included specific information about when and where the statement was made, and was printed within a few days of the event at which the statement was offered. In this statistically insignificant non-random sample of one, we found that yes, the accuracy of quote transmission was remarkably high: All but a couple of the items in this piece could be reliably traced back to the mouth of George W. Bush. Here are the results:  "I think we all agree, the past is over." In March 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush locked up the Republican presidential nomination, beating out his chief rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, in a rancorous primary campaign marked by personal attacks and charges of dirty tactics on the part of both sides.  Two months later Senator McCain somewhat reluctantly endorsed Governor Bush for president during a joint appearance at the Westin William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, where both men tried their best (somewhat unconvincingly) to assure the press that they had put their differences behind them: Both sides swapped charges of dirty campaign tactics. McCain aides accused Bush supporters of personal attacks, and Mr. Bush denounced McCain forces for suggesting that the governor was guilty of anti-Catholic bigotry. On Tuesday, the pair told some 200 journalists that they had discussed policy, not personal history. "There's no point," Mr. McCain said. "I hold no rancor. Others will be the judge of this campaign, not me."  Mr. Bush said the McCain challenge toughened him for the fall campaign against Mr. Gore.  "We had a tough primary," Mr. Bush said. "I told him point blank: 'You made me a better candidate.'"  Later, on his campaign plane, the governor described the discussion as "very cordial, very frank, very open." He added: "I think we agree, the past is over."1 "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." On the campaign trail in South Carolina while pursuing the Republican nomination in January 2000, Governor Bush spoke before 2,000 loyal Republicans at a well-attended oyster roast held on a plantation outside Charleston and mystified his audience when, during his discourse on the need for a strengthened U.S. military, he made reference not to "mental" losses (which itself would have sounded odd in the given context), but to "mential" (pronounced "men-shul") losses: During his visit to South Carolina this week, the first Bushism exploded as the governor painted a passionate picture of the military dangers facing the US, and the pressing need for protection against rogue missile launches. "This is still a dangerous world," he told more than 2,000 supporters at an oyster roast. "It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mential losses." Bush's spokespeople could not immediately explain what a mential loss was, but it seemed only distantly related to missile launches.2 "Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning?'" During that same South Carolina campaign swing in January 2000, Governor Bush committed another grammatical mix-up while wrangling a sentence containing both singular and plural subjects, this example occurring (with a modicum of irony) during the portion of his stump speech dealing with education: That's not to say Bush hasn't had his share of flubs. Part of his stump speech focuses on education. On Tuesday, talking to a crowd of several hundred at a cavernous civic center in Florence, S.C., Bush decried those who ignore educational programs that produce no results  inadvertently revealing a temporary shortcoming in his own grammar skills.  "What's not fine is rarely is the question asked, are, is our children learning?" Bush said.3 "Will the highways of the Internet become more few?" During his January 2000 push to win the first primary election of the campaign, held in New Hampshire, Governor Bush was asked to comment on the recently announced merger of media giants Time Warner and AOL, and he addressed concerns over its potential monopolistic effects with some unusual phrasing: When asked about the Time Warner/America Online merger, the candidate took an unexpected detour on the information superhighway. The key question in considering the merger, Bush said, is "will the highways to the Internet become more few?"4 "How many hands have I shaked?" By October 1999 Republicans were noting Governor Bush's relatively rare appearances in New Hampshire and were beginning to question whether he had assumed he had the nomination sewn up and could afford to take the February 2000 New Hampshire primary for granted.   When reporters persistently questioned him about that possibility on 22 October 1999, during his first campaign swing through New Hampshire since early September, Governor Bush expressed the notion that the important factor was not the number of appearances he made, but the number of people he reached during those appearances: Asked repeatedly today about why he had not been around more, Mr. Bush at one point interrupted a reporter's question to say, "The important question is, How many hands have I shaked."5 "They misunderestimate me." The misuse of 'misunderestimate' for 'underestimate' seems to be one of  George W. Bush's more common elocutionary mistakes.  We can't pin down exactly when he used 'misunderestimate' for the first time in a public statement as a presidential candidate; the earliest print reference we could find appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on 13 November 2000, but it didn't detail where and when he said it.  Nonetheless,  Bush was still using the word (and catching himself at it) after his inauguration as President, as demonstrated by this excerpt from a 29 March 2001 news conference: Look, it is in our nation's best interests to have long-term tax relief, and that has been my focus all along. I'm confident we can have it, get it done. I believe not only can we get long-term tax relief in place. Since our country is running some surpluses in spite of the dire predictions about cash flow, I believe we have an opportunity to fashion an immediate stimulus package, as well. The two ought to go hand in hand. Those who think that they can say, "We're only going to have a stimulus package, but let's forget tax relief," misunderestimate ...  or, excuse me,  underestimate  just making sure you were paying attention  underestimate our administration's resolve to get this done ...6 "I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity." This line is a retrospective statement Bush uttered during an interview about his involvement in a partnershipthat bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1989: George W. Bush has frequently claimed to have cobbled together the deal to buy the Rangers in 1989. "I was like a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity," Mr. Bush said in a long interview about his past. "And I just grabbed on to it. I was going to put the deal together. And I did." The initiative, Mr. Bush acknowledges, came from Bill DeWitt, a businessman and friend of the family. Mr. DeWitt had heard that the Rangers were on the market and wanted to recruit Mr. Bush as a partner to buy the team.15 "I know that the human being and the fish can coexist." On Friday, 29 September 2000, Governor Bush was on the stump in Saginaw, Michigan, and deviated from his prepared speech to reassure the business community that he would not support the tearing down of energy-producing dams merely to protect threatened fish species, an issue he had recently covered while campaigning in the Pacific Northwest:    Friday, feeling the need to explain his statement during a speech on energy policy that he intended to maintain dams in the Pacific Northwest, he departed from his text and added, "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." He did not elaborate.7 Mark Crispin Miller noted in The Bush Dyslexicon that: This remark is striking not because it's silly but because it casts a threatened creature as a national enemy.  A relic of the Cold War, the phrase "peaceful coexistence" was a predtente Soviet coinage, meant to pitch conciliation between the world's two rival superpowers. "Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream." Swinging through Wisconsin in mid-October 2000 en route to a debate with Democratic presidential challenger Al Gore, Governor Bush was discussing the importance of tax cuts to American families when he transposed a couple of words in a well-worn phrase: The Texas governor and GOP presidential nominee tangles up words often enough that he sometimes jokes about it, and the phenomenon has acquired a name  Bushism. On the campaign trail Wednesday, he let one fly: "Families is where our nation finds hope," he said, "where wings take dream."8 "Put food on your family!" On 27 January 2000, speaking in Nashua just a few days before the New Hampshire primary, Governor Bush was trying to illustrate the economic plight of single working mothers and again transposed (and omitted) a few words in the familiar reference to putting food on the table for one's family: At a breakfast meeting with the Nashua Chamber of Commerce, Bush illustrated his brand of compassionate conservatism by urging his listeners to put themselves in the role of a single mother "working hard to put food on your family."4 Since these words are difficult to quote in the context in which they were offered, they were soon being rendered as the pithier "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "Knock down the tollbooth!" Governor Bush's misuse of 'tollbooth' for 'roadblock,' in reference to eliminating tax obstacles that prevent the working poor from joining the middle class, comes from his New Hampshire campaign appearances in January 2000, but contemporary reports don't seem to agree on the exact words he used  perhaps there was more than one such incident: Things must be good here, because the mere mention of tax cuts is not enough to get the crowd cheering. What they like is when Bush worries about the working poor; they applaud vigorously when he complains that a single mother making $22,000 is being penalized by the tax system. "It's not fair!" Bush exclaims. "It's a tollbooth on the road to the middle class, and I intend not only to reduce the fees but to knock the tollbooth down."9  "The hardest job in America is to be a single mom, making $20,000 a year," Bush declared at a recent Rotary Club lunch where he promised that as president, he would reduce the struggling woman's marginal income-tax rate and "knock down her tollbooth to the middle class."10   Last weekend, fire marshals were actually turning people away from political rallies. At a high school near Nashua, you could see folks forlornly peeking in the windows, yearning to be let inside to hear George W. Bush call for "a law that provides liability to teachers who enforce discipline in the schools." All the candidates are tired, but Mr. Bush's speeches are getting particularly unintelligible  at the same high school, he announced, "I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth to the middle class, I think we should knock down the tollbooth." 11 "Vulcanize society! " At the very beginning of the 2000 presidential campaign, Ken Herman reported in a front-page story appearing in the 23 March 1999 edition of the Austin American-Statesman that Governor Bush had expressed his disdain for racial quotas as programs that "vulcanize" society: Sometimes this smooth operator is anything but. This was evident in a March 23 piece by Ken Herman, the Austin American-Statesman's chief Bush watcher, who wrote about the governor's "2-step around hot topics." Mr. Bush says he's against "hard quotas, quotas that basically delineate based on whatever. However, they delineate, quotas, I think, vulcanize society."12 In this instance Governor Bush of course meant to say 'Balkanize' (to divide a group into small, often hostile units) rather than 'vulcanize' (to improve the strength of rubber by combining it with sulfur in the presence of heat and pressure).  However, the issue was muddied a few days later when the American-Statesman reversed itself and issued a correction:  A front-page story Tuesday inaccurately quoted Gov. George W. Bush's position on quotas in college admissions and the awarding of state contracts. The story said Bush believes quotas "vulcanize society." Bush actually said he believes quotas "Balkanize society."13 Whether the reporter misquoted Governor Bush or whether Governor Bush really did say 'vulcanize' and the American-Statesman later printed an amended quote at the behest of his office is something we can't determine. "Make the pie higher!" This final item (a misstatement of the concept of putting more money into the hands of Americans by reducing taxes to grow the economy and enlarge the economic "pie" that everyone shares  i.e., making the pie "bigger" rather than "higher") is the phrase perhaps most often cited as an example of "Bushisms," so much so that it was used for the title of the poem quoted at the head of this page.  And it is a real quote, something Bush said during the course of a 15 February 2000 Republican debate (moderated by CNN host Larry King) in Columbia, South Carolina, between Texas Governor George W. Bush, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and former Reagan administration official Ambassador Alan Keyes: The difference between our plans is, I know whose money it is we're dealing with. We're dealing with the government  we're dealing with the people's money, not the government's money. And I want to give people their money back.  And if you're going to have a tax cut, everybody ought to have a tax cut. This kind of Washington, D.C., view about targeted tax cuts is tax cuts driven by polls and focus groups. If you pay taxes in America, you ought to get a tax cut.  Under my plan, if you're a family of four in South Carolina, making $50,000, you get 50-percent tax cut. I've reduced the lower rate from 15 percent to 10 percent, which does this  and this is important. There are people on the outskirts of poverty, like single moms who are working the toughest job in America. If she has two kids, and making $22,000, for every additional dollar she earns, she pays a higher marginal rate on her taxes than someone making $200,000.  You bet I cut the taxes at the top. That encourages entrepreneurship. What we Republicans should stand for is growth in the economy. We ought to make the pie higher. This one initially posed something of a mystery to us, because transcripts of the debate prepared by the Federal Document Clearing House and CNN attribute the block of text quoted above to Senator John McCain, not Governor Bush.  However, the immediately preceding question had clearly been posed to Governor Bush, and newspaper accounts the following morning noted the "make the pie higher" comment as something uttered by Governor Bush: Bush, shedding his sometimes goofy demeanor, was as animated and forceful as he has been in any debate, punching the air with his fist to underscore his words. He scored points among the party faithful in calling for an end to the Clinton era in Washington  one of the money lines of the night. On taxes and bringing prosperity to struggling working mothers, however, Bush mangled one metaphor: "We ought to make the pie higher."14 Moreover, at a Radio/TV correspondents' dinner in Washington, D.C., a few weeks later, Governor Bush made humorous use of the item with no indication that the words weren't his own: Now most people would say in speaking of the economy, "We ought to make the pie bigger." I, however, am on record saying, "We ought to make the pie higher." As frivolous as this experiment may have been, let's hope it's a harbinger of more accurate information to come. Last updated:  21 July 2008    Sources:    7.  Allen, Mike.  "Bush's Gaffes Are Back As Debates Near."   The Washington Post.  1 October 2000  (p. A8).    11.  Collins, Gail.  "Savor the Moment."   The New York Times.  1 February 2000  (p. A21).     5.  Henneberger, Melinda.  "New Hampshire Warns Bush, 'Don't Be a Stranger Hee-ahh'"   The New York Times.  23 October 1999  (p. A12).    12.  Hunt, Albert R.  "George W. Can Run But He Can't Hide."   The Wall Street Journal.  1 April 1999  (p. A23).     4.  Hutcheson, Ron.  "Candidate George W. Bush Sometimes Mangles Words."   Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  29 January 2000  (p. A8).        Ivins, Molly.  Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush.   New York: Random House, 2000.  ISBN 0-375-50399-4  (p. 19). Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush     1.  Jackson, David and Wayne Slater.  "Subdued McCain Endorses Bush."   The Dallas Morning News.  10 May 2000.    16.  Kristof, Nicholas D.  "The 2000 Campaign: Breaking Into Baseball."   The New York Times.  24 September 2000.    10.  Leonard, Mary.  "Fight Intensifies for Votes of Women."   The Boston Globe.  22 January 2000  (p. A1).     8.  Mason, Julie.  "Campaign Notebook."   The Houston Chronicle.  19 October 2000  (p. A38).    14.  Miga, Andrew.  "Tight S. Carolina Race Fuels Contentious Debate."   The Boston Globe.  16 February 2000  (p. 27).        Miller, Mark Crispin.  The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.   New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.  ISBN 0-393-04183-2. The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder     3.  Miller, T. Christian.  "With a Grin, Bush Answers Early Charges of Aloofness."   Los Angeles Times.  14 January 2000  (p. 20).        Smith, Zay N.  "A Small Comfort Amid Election Snafus, Quarrels."   Chicago Sun-Times.  13 November 2000  (p. 26).     9.  Von Drehle, David.  "12 Hours, 4 Contenders, Many Parallels."   The Washington Post.  15 January 2000  (p. A1).    13.  Austin American-Statesman.  "Corrections."   25 March 1999  (p. A2).     2.  The Financial Times.  "Bushed Again."   14 January 2000.     6.  The New York Times.  "In Bush's Words: 'Both Sides Must Take Important Steps' in the Mideast."   30 March 2001  (p. A12).
This typical female revenge legend, describing a woman's effective (but non-violent) way of striking back at her (former) partner, has been around since at least 1981. Legends such as these (see The $50 Porsche, for example) often feature a clever method of causing financial loss without the destruction of property: The $50 Porsche Examples: [Smith, 1986] A young couple living in the Bristol area had been having marital problems. Most of it was caused by the husband's bad temper and the fighting and constant arguing that had been going on for several months. Things finally came to a head one morning when the husband, just before he left on a three week business trip, told his wife they were finished and she had better get out of his house for good before he returned. When he arrived home his wife had gone, leaving the house in an awful mess. While he was clearing up he noticed that the telephone was off the hook. He replaced it and thought no more about it. Several weeks later the quarterly telephone bill arrived. It was astronomical  running into several thousands of pounds. He immediately queried it, only to be told that the phone had been connected to the speaking weather report in Australia for a three week period.  [Marsano, 1987] In Hollywood a man dumped his live-in girlfriend by telling her that he was off on a business trip and expected her to have cleared out of the house by the time he returned. Pretty cold, guy. The woman left, but when the man returned, he learned that she had found what Paul Simon might call the fifty-first way to leave your lover. The house was in good order, and the only thing was that the phone was off the hook. When he picked it up, he heard incomprehensible babbling, so he hung up. When his next phone bill arrived, it explained a couple of things. The strange language he had heard was Japanese, and it was giving the correct time. It had been giving the correct time enough to run up a bill of $80,000. Variations: Sightings:  An episode of the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses ("The Second Time Around," original air date 29 September 1981) features the evicted woman leaving a note announcing she's dialed the speaking clock in America.   Eskapa, Roy.  Bizarre Sex.  London: Quartet Books, 1987  ISBN 0-7043-2518-7  (pp. 82).   Fiery, Ann.  The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends  Philadelphia: Running Press Books, 2001.  ISBN 0-7624-107404  (pp. 81-86). The Complete and Totally True Book of Urban Legends   Holt, David and Bill Mooney.  Spiders in the Hairdo.  Little Rock: August House, 1999.  ISBN 0-87483-525-9  (p. 97). Spiders in the Hairdo   The Big Book of Urban Legends  New York: Paradox Press, 1994.  ISBN 1-56389-165-4  (p. 183). The Big Book of Urban Legends Barreca, Regina.  Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even.
  New York: Harmony Books, 1995.  ISBN 0-517-59757-8  (p. 45). Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even Brunvand, Jan Harold. 
Curses! Broiled Again!
  New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.  ISBN 0-393-30711-5; (pp. 216-217). Curses! Broiled Again! Brunvand, Jan Harold.  Too Good To Be True.
  New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.  ISBN 0-393-04734-2  (pp. 79-80). Too Good To Be True Hardy, David.  What a Mistake!
  Secaucus, NJ: Octopus Books, 1983  ISBN 1-55521-164-X  (p. 78). Marsano, William.  Man Suffocated By Potatoes.
  New York: Signet, 1987.  (pp. 149-150). Smith, Paul.  The Book of Nastier Legends.
  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.  ISBN 0-7102-0573-2 &nbsp. (p. 85). The Book of Nastier Legends Scam:  Accounts of check fraud being perpetrated at Walmart stores by employees and customers. SCAM Example:  [Collected via e-mail, July 2007]    Origins:  The image displayed above supposedly reproduces a 26 July 2007 memo (circulated as a PDF) from an official with Louisiana's Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) warning employees about a multi-city check theft ring operating out of Walmart stores. According to the memo, Walmart employees had been using cell phones to photograph customer checks, then employing the information obtained from the images to produce fake checks that are used to buy gift cards. PDF As for the question of whether this memo actually was written by a Louisiana official, we note that the Louisiana State Police (LSP) disclaimed the memo's appropriateness without denying that it originated within the DPSC:  LSP On Thursday, July 26, 2007, an unauthorized letter was distributed to employees in the Baton Rouge field office of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Office of Motor Vehicles, concerning an alleged multi-city fraud and theft ring operating at Wal-Mart involving Wal-Mart employees. It was alleged in the letter that the employees of the store would obtain a customer's checking account information, and the information would be used to create fraudulent checks. This letter was not official or sanctioned in any way by the Department of Public Safety; unfortunately this letter was made public. The Department will be conducting an internal investigation and, at the conclusion of the investigation, will take the appropriate corrective and/or disciplinary action. Members of the public should not rely on information contained in the letter. As always, consumers are cautioned to take steps to limit disclosure of their personal information and to be aware of their surroundings. As for the content of the memo, we note that instances of check fraud have been tied to a then-new practice (used in some Walmart stores) of processing checks not by the "traditional" method of retaining them and submitting them to banks for deposit, but by using them as authorizations to initiate electronic funds transfers (EFTs) and immediately returning them to customers.   In some cases, dishonest sales clerks have abused this procedure by deliberately failing to return checks to customers, then re-scanning the checks multiple times and using the ill-gotten proceeds to purchase gift cards and other merchandise. For example, TV station KTRK in Houston reported the following check-theft scam by a Walmart employee in December 2006: A former Wal-Mart employee is behind bars for her role in what authorities are calling a check fraud scheme. When you write a check at Wal-Mart, you hand it to a clerk who then runs the check through an electronic scanner and hands it back to you. Unfortunately some Wal-Mart shoppers did not get their checks handed back to them and it cost them thousands of dollars. Pam Davis never thought writing a $37 check at Wal-Mart would cost her thousands of dollars, but that's exactly what happened. She said, "I had gone to Wal Mart and written a check for $37 and did not realize I did not get that check back, which is the custom with electronic transfer. You are supposed toreceive the check back." Davis says  and authorities confirm  a clerk at Wal-Mart never returned Davis' check at the time of purchase, [so] the clerk was able to re-run the check through the electronic reader again and again.  Five times, they changed the amounts each time," Davis claimed. "It was almost $3,000." Authorities believe the clerk gave the checks to other people who then went on shopping sprees inside the store. Capt. Mark Herman with Precinct 4 said, "In some of the cases they were getting $300 Wal-Mart gift cards, clothing, just all kinds of purchases." Constables say the clerk did the same thing with checks written by other Wal-Mart customers. February 2016 also saw the sentencing of a Walmart customer who (along with his wife) defrauded other customers of hundreds of thousands of dollars through the method of peeking over their shoulders to obtain personal information which the couple used to create counterfeit checks: A man who cashed $300,000 worth of counterfeit checks using personal information stolen by peeking over the shoulders of hundreds of Wal-Mart customers was sentenced to prison. Robert MacVittie and his wife lined up behind customers trying to cash payroll checks at "dozens and dozens" of Wal-Mart stores in 20 states and recorded them providing their Social Security numbers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Melucci said at the hearing where MacVittie received a 34-month sentence. The couple would then use the victims' identities to create counterfeit checks, which they cashed at other Wal-Marts. Melucci called MacVittie, 35, and his wife Jennifer, 32, "the Bonnie and Clyde of counterfeit checks." More than 400 people had their identities used on the successfully cashed counterfeit checks, Melucci said. Although it is possible a similar type of fraud could be effected by clerks' surreptitiously using cell phones to photograph customer checks, we have not been able to verify that this specific form of theft is occurring, much less that is taking place on a multi-city level by organized rings of Walmart employees.  photograph A few tips can be helpful to shoppers to avoid falling victim to this sort of fraud:  Be aware of how the stores you patronize process checks.  If they scan checks to use them as EFT authorizations, be sure your check is returned to you before you leave the checkout counter.  Use your bank's web site to monitor your checking account transactions online and notify your bank immediately if you spot any suspect transactions.  Using credit cards (or debit cards) rather than checks generally makes it easier to challenge fraudulent transactions and limit your liability for illegitimate charges.   Last updated:  7 February 2016  Mandak, Joe.  "'Shoulder Surfing' Husband Gets Prison in Walmart Check Scam Targeting Hundreds."    WTAE [Pittsburg].  4 February 2016. Finally, a point where Republicans and at least one prominent Democrat agree.LikePresident Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Austins U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul says corporate tax rates are too high.To a recentvoters guidequestion on how to combat unemployment, McCaul -- a Republican seeking another term representing the 10th Congressional District -- gave responses that included lowering Americas corporate tax rate, highest in the world at 35 percent.A decrease to 25 percent would stop driving American businesses overseas, McCaul said in the guide, produced by the Austin and Texas chapters of the League of Women Voters and theAustin American-Statesman. McCaul faces Tawana Cadien (Democrat) and Richard Priest (Libertarian) on Nov. 6.PolitiFact has recently checked corporate tax rate claims with a different figure, so we decided to compare this statement.McCaul spokesman Mike Rosen told us by email that 35 percent is the top statutory rate for U.S. corporate taxes, citing an April 5, 2012,backgrounderfrom the Council on Foreign Relations.The council, an independent, nonpartisan think-tank, said the U.S. had the highest corporate tax rate in the world by two measures: Excluding state and local taxes, the rate was 35 percent. With those sub-national taxes, the rate was 39.2 percent.Most news stories we read while researching this fact-check used the latter rate -- combining federal, state and local. Thats the yardstick used in related PolitiFact articles, and its also the statistic that made headlines when an April 1, 2012, rate cut took effect in Japan and moved the U.S. into first place. The rest of the top five are France, Belgium and Germany, according to a September 2011reportby the Washington-based Tax Foundation that gave 2012 federal-plus-state/local rates, weighted to reflect the economies sizes so that small countries would not have a disproportional effect on the average. OECD statutory corporate tax rates, 2012  Source: Tax Foundation 2011report The foundations 2011 report and most of the news articles we read for this story limited their comparisons to advanced industrialized countries -- often citing the34 membersof the global Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We asked foundation spokesman Richard Morrison for help tracking down country-by-country rates that did not include taxes below the federal level, to make an apples-to-apples comparison with McCauls 35 percent.Morrison pointed us, via email, to anOECD web pagewith achartshowing those numbers for 2012.The U.S. rate of 35 percent is the highest on the chart, with the other OECD nations averaging 23.6 percent (figures that, unlike the statistics cited above, are not weighted to reflect size of national economies).So McCauls statement holds true for federal-level-only corporate tax rates as well as for the state/local-plus-federal rate.Butrecent PolitiFact itemshave also taken into account the rate corporations pay after deductions and exemptions, called the effective rate.In anAug. 27, 2012, Truth-O-Meter article, PolitiFact New Jersey wrote, When you factor in various tax breaks, the rate actually paid by U.S. businesses has been among the highest in the world, but not in first place, studies show.The 2011 foundationreportsummarized 13 studies of effective corporate tax rates across the world, which used different methodologies and were not limited to the OECD roster. The smallest study compared 10 countries; the largest, 183.Those studies found the U.S. effective tax rate ranging from 23 percent to 34.9 percent, which often placed it in the top five, but never No. 1.But the U.S. hit the top spot in a more recent report. Morrison told us the latest such comparison was made in September 2012 for the libertarian Cato Institute. Thatreportcalculated the U.S. effective rate at 35.6 percent and ranked it highest among OECD nations but fourth among all 90 nations it examined.How did U.S. rates get to be among the highest? Actually, other countries dropped theirs, we learned by phone from Jonathan Masters, author of the Council on Foreign Relations piece.We found succinct descriptions of the history in Time magazine and The Hill, a Washington, D.C. newspaper. An April 2, 2012, Timeblog postsays that while the U.S. rate stayed steady for two decades, the trend internationally has been towards lower corporate tax rates. The Hills Aug. 27, 2012blog postsays that in 1986, the OECD nations average corporate tax was 50 percent, but today, its 25 percent for those countries -- it has fallen in half. Meanwhile, the U.S. rate, which fell from 46 percent to 34 percent as a result of tax reform in 1986, is now stuck at 35 percent.Our rulingMcCaul said the U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest in the world at 35 percent.The rate set by federal statute is the highest, both by itself and when considering the federal rate plus state and local taxes.However, theres much less consensus about effective corporate tax rates -- the rates corporations actually pay. Studies dont even agree on what the U.S. effective rate is, pegging it between 23 percent and 35.6 percent. Older studies put the U.S. near the top; a recent study says the U.S. is No. 1 among OECD nations.We rate McCauls statement as Mostly True. Claim:  Map shows states in which employees can be "fired for being gay." PARTLY  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, April 2013] I saw a map of states where you can be fired for being gay. Is this true?  Origins:  The map displayed above identifies twenty-nine states (shown in red) where, according to the accompanying title, "you can be fired for being gay." This map is "true" in the broad sense that it identifies states which do not currently have statewide laws prohibiting all employers from engaging in discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but it is not the case that those states are all completely devoid protections against that form of discrimination.  Anti-discrimination laws typically address not just discrimination in the termination of employees but also in other job-related aspects, such as hiring, promotion, job assignment,  and compensation. In general, employees who work on an at-will basis may (with some narrow exceptions) be terminated without cause  at-will and without their employers incurring legal liability.  However, members of certain protected classes may not be discriminated against in employment for reasons related to the characteristics that make them members of those classes (e.g., sex, race, religion, national origin, age).   Since the U.S. has not yet enacted national regulations establishing sexual orientation as a protected class, most employees who have such protection are afforded it on the basis of state laws.  protected classes While the twenty-nine states shown in red above may currently lack statewide laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, it is not true that all employers in all of those states may freely fire employees "for being gay."  Some of those red states have laws which protect public (i.e., government) employees from sexual orientation discrimination (but not those who work in the private sector), some of those states have laws passed at county or city levels which protect employees in those local areas from such discrimination, and some of those states protect public employees from employment discrimination through means other than laws (e.g., executive orders, administrative orders, personnel regulations).     Maps like the ones displayed below present more detailed representations (at both the statewide and local levels) of the status of laws banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation in the United States:   Last updated:  10 April 2013 On Jan. 4, 2021, the Madhouse Magazine website published a story that said film actress Daryl Hannah was pregnant at age 60 with what would be her first child. She married musician Neil Young in 2018. He was 75 years at the time the website published this headline: "Neil Young and Daryl Hannah Expecting Their First Child Together." published married  The Madhouse Magazine website had a disclaimer page that described its stories as satire.  This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that labeled its stories as being satirical in nature. labeled According to the satirical story, Hannah became pregnant at age 60 and made the announcement on social media: A spokesman confirmed that Neil Young's wife, Daryl Hannah, is pregnant. This will be the couple's first child. Young made the announcement on social media as he posted an image holding a "Prego" tomato sauce jar with the caption, "We are Prego!" Hannah, 60, is in good health and is being monitored. It is quite rare to become pregnant after age 50, but she's one of a growing number of older new mothers in the United States  a trend that's bolstered by changing societal norms and new advances in fertility treatments. Several months later, several Twitter users spread the satirical story and described Hannah as becoming pregnant at age 61, not 60, around the time of her birthday, Dec. 3.  This tweet was posted days before Hannah's 61st birthday.  This reference to John F. Kennedy Jr. was about QAnon conspiracy theory supporters who really did believe he was going to come back from the dead. Of course, that was not the case. (Hannah and Kennedy Jr. previously dated before he died in a plane crash in 1999.) reference to John F. Kennedy Jr. really did believe previously dated  A tweet from Dec. 5.   The satirical story appeared to catch on in the middle of December.   We saw various accounts share the satire story on this day.  A snippet from the Madhouse Magazine story was also shared as a screenshot:  A section from the satirical story.  In the snippet, it said: Neil Young, 75, was giddy with excitement as he gushed at the prospect of a new baby. "I understand we are up there in age, but don't let these old grey temples fool ya now. Just because theres snow on the roof don't mean theres no fire in the basement!" Neil then did a few pelvic thrusts to emphasize his virility. "You better stand back" said Neil to the female reporters, "You might get pregnant standing too close to me!" Giving birth at age 60 may be rare, but just last year a 74 year old woman in India gave birth to twins. "I have the Uterus of a 20 year old and the eggs of a teenager", said Hannah. "There was no IVF or anything like that, me and Neil did it the old fashioned way by humping like jackrabbits." The satirical story spread well beyond its Madhouse Magazine origins, including in a Sept. 13, 2021, article on heightzone.com. The headline read: "Daryl Hannah Is Pregnant at the Age of 60 with Husband Neil Young, Couple Expecting a Baby Boy!" We stumbled upon similar stories on celebsaga.com and mixedarticle.com. article on heightzone.com celebsaga.com mixedarticle.com We also found the purported news reposted a seemingly endless number of times on Facebook:  A question with an easy answer: Hannah was not pregnant.   This appeared to be a real photograph from 2018.   It's possible that the misleading story from heightzone.com prompted a surge in new posts around Dec. 14, 2021.   "Wrong" is certainly one way to describe "satire."  In sum, the story about Hannah becoming pregnant was labeled as satire but later spread well beyond its origins. For this reason, we have rated this claim as "Originated As Satire." For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor. why [green-label]Claim:[/green-label] President Obama has issued an executive ordergranting a $2,350 dollar tax rebateto every American who filed a tax return for 2014. [dot-false][/dot-false] [green-label]Example:[/green-label] [green-small][Collected via e-mail,November2015][/green-small] Some women at work were discussing the following: Apparently they saw on Facebook that, as an executive order by PresidentObama, the government is giving everyone who filed 2014 taxes a $2,350.00rebate/refund to be mailed out this month (November 12, 2015). I have lookedeverywhere (on the Internet) that I can think of. The only place I can findit is on a site called "United Media Publishing". Also, the only referenceto this that I can find on Facebook sends a person to this same article fromUnited Media Publishing. Is this true??? [green-label]Origins:[/green-label] On 14 August 2015 the web site United Media Publishing (UMP) issued an article titled "Obama Orders 2350 Dollar Tax Rebate In November" which reported that: The Obama administration has directed IRS director John Koskinen to have the agency prepare for one of the largest cash refund/rebate hand-outs in the history of the organization. The President has authorized by way of anexecutive order that a 2350 dollar tax rebate be issued to every American who filed a tax return in the 2014 fiscal year, irrespective of whether they paid tax or not. Update: A representative for the IRS confirms that the first tax rebate checks will go into the mail November 12th. WhileUnited Media Publishing's initial claim didn't attract much attention on social media, the highlighted portion in the above-reproduced excerpt breathed new life into the hoaxin early November 2015. Unfortunately for readers (hopeful that anunexpected $2,350 windfall was headed their way atChristmastime),United Media Publishing is nothing more than a fake news site, one that doesn't feature a disclaimer notice identifying its content as fake news. Prior fabricationsspread by UMP included aCharles Mansondeath hoax and a story aboutthousands of Christian couples filing for divorceinprotest of the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage. Charles Manson divorce  [article-meta] [green-label]Last updated:[/green-label] 11 November 2015 [green-label]Originally published:[/green-label] 11 November 2015 In January 2020 we received multiple inquiries from readers about an alert that was shared widely on Facebook and Twitter, purporting to be an "emergency notification" from an unspecified "Ministry of Health" about an ongoing outbreak of a new coronavirus.  Broadly speaking, the warning appeared in two forms. The most commonly shared was a text post that typically read as follows: *Urgent: Health Bulletin to the Public * *Ministry of healths emergency notification to the public that the Coronavirus outbreak this time is very very serious & fatal. There's no cure once you are infected.**Its spreading from China to various countries* *Prevention method is to keep your throat moist, do not let your throat dry up. Thus do not hold your thirst because once your membrane in your throat is dried, the virus will invade into your body within 10 mins.**Drink 50-80cc warm water, 30-50cc for kids, according to age.* *Everytime u feel your throat is dry, do not wait, keep water in hand.* *Do not drink plenty at one time as it doesnt help, instead continue to keep throat moist.**Till end of March 2020, do not go to crowded places, wear mask as needed especially in train or public transportation* *Avoid fried or spicy food and load up vitamin C.**The symptoms/ description are**1.repeated high fever**2.prolonged coughing after fever**3.Children are prone**4.Adults usually feel uneasy,*headache and mainly respiratory related**5: highly contagious*   The message was typically followed up with an exhortation to share its warnings, such as, "Please forward to help others." One version of the viral alert even concluded by pleading with readers, "Please share if you care for human life."  warnings version The second principal form in which the message appeared was as a photograph of a printed email, dated Jan. 28, 2020, and purporting to have been sent by "NWLLAB." It contained many of the same key components  it purported to come from an unspecified "MOH" (Ministry of Health), and its main recommendation to the public was again to "keep your throat moist" by drinking water. It read as follows: appeared photograph Pls tell ur families, relatives and friends MOH Health Bulletin to the Public: The Upper Respiratory Infection affecting China at present is quite serious. The virus causing it is very potent and is resistant to existing antibiotics.  (virus is not bacterial infection hence cannot be treated by antibiotics). The prevention method now is to keep your throat moist, do not let your throat dry up. Thus do not hold your thirst because once your membrane in your throat is dried, the virus will invade into your body within 10 mins. Drink 50-80cc warm water, 30-50cc for kids, according to age. Everytime [sic] you feel your throat is dry, do not wait, keep water in hand. Do not drink plenty at one time as it does not help; instead, continue to keep throat moist. Till end of March, do not go to crowded places, wear mask as needed especially in train or public transportation.  Avoid fried or spicy food and load up vitamin C.  The symptoms/description are: 1. Repeated high fever.2. Prolonged coughing after fever. 3. Children are more prone. 4. Adults usually feel uneasy, headache and mainly respiratory related illness.  This illness is highly contagious. Let's continue to pray and wait for further notice about the infection.  Please share.    Neither the printed email nor the viral Facebook message were official statements produced by any public health authority. The alert was apt to spread widely online precisely because it did not include any details about its supposed source, aside from mentioning a "Ministry of Health" in an unspecified country or region.  The message also contained erroneous advice, claiming that readers could avoid contracting the virus by "keeping your throat moist," avoiding fried or spicy food, and taking vitamin-C supplements. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the so-called "novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)" outbreak is thought to have first been transmitted from animals to humans in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in China. Since then, it has spread from person to person. Previous coronaviruses like Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have been transmitted between humans primarily through "respiratory droplets"  that is, coughs and sneezes.  outbreak The CDC's general respiratory infection prevention advice applies to the 2019-nCoV outbreak, as follows: as follows No evidence exists to indicate that any public health authority is officially advising the public that a dry throat makes individuals more vulnerable to contracting the virus, and that therefore drinking water is an effective prevention method, nor that vitamin C deficiency contributes to one's vulnerability to contracting the illness, nor that fried and spicy food are a medium for transmission of 2019-nCoV.  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Situation Summary."
  30 January 2020. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "2019 Novel Coronavirus -- Prevention and Treatment."
  30 January 2020. Claim:  The IOC has announced 3-on-3 basketball will be an official sport at the 2016 Olympics.   Example:  [Collected via Twitter, January 2015]  The 2016 Olympics will feature 3-on-3 basketball. Who would you chose? pic.twitter.com/4VZhxLLy2i pic.twitter.com/4VZhxLLy2i  BALL UP NBA (@BallUpNBA) January 15, 2015 January 15, 2015  Origins:  On 14 January 2015, the satirical Australian web site Betoota Advocate published a fake news article claiming 3-on-3 basketball would be an officially sanctioned sport at the 2016 Summer Olympics: published After decades of pressure and debate, as well as an official application submitted by the International Basketball Federation, the IOC have this week confirmed that a three-men-a-side basketball variant will be included as a part of the official event program for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The final decision was made quietly during an annual committee meeting late last month. After nearly a decade of exploring different options, the International Olympic Committees executive board have confirmed that they will to go ahead with the proposal despite the fact that the request would result in a higher number of athletes and increased number of medals, thereby adding to the cost and complexity of the Games. While the Betoota Advocate's article was shared only a few hundred times on social media, the rumor about 3-on-3 basketball's becoming an official Olympic sport received a viral push when Deadspin reported the hoax as real news: reported The IOC has officially added a new half-court 3-on-3 basketball event to the competitions to be held in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This rules. Right away, you'll have to throw a big bucket of calm down on your head because, as the IOC put it in a 2012 letter discussing its interest in 3-on-3, a large part of the impetus is to focus more on the amateurism of sports and get the event away from being "somewhat of an exhibition for the American NBA." When reporter Kyle Wagner realized his mistake, he added an update at the top of the article stating he had been duped by a satire site: Nah, this isn't happening. I wrote a post based on a satire website, which is just about the dumbest way to f*ck up. Sorry. F*ck me. Woulda been cool though.   Last updated:  16 January 2015 In July 2015, many online viewers were intrigued by a meme reporting that Brian May, the lead guitarist for the band Queen, is also an astrophysicist.  While Brian May's educational history is certainly no secret, interest in the rock legend's other life as an astrophysicist was renewed when the musician visited the team behind NASA's New Horizons interplanetary space probe to discuss results from the probe's recent fly-by of Pluto: visited New Horizons  As lead guitarist for the legendary rock group Queen, Brian May has spent an entire career in the spotlight. But May traded the music for his other passion  science  and spent some time backstage with the New Horizons team as it dived into the first results from the Pluto flyby. May, who has a doctorate in astrophysics, was awed by the opportunity to meet the team and sift through images and other Pluto system data in real time. And he'll have other opportunities down the road, as mission principal investigator Alan Stern added May as a New Horizons science collaborator. May also wrote about his time with the New Horizon's team in a blog post  on his web site dated 20 July 2015: blog post  I had an unforgettable 3 days with the amazing New Horizons team. Im still 'coming down. Alan Stern, leader of the Science Team at APL in Laurel, Maryland, personally made sure I was treated like one of the family, as a collaborator, and I felt privileged to the nth degree. I was, of course, as always, obsessed with finding stereoscopic opportunities while I was there, and the Gods of the Underworld must have been with me, because I was there when the first 2 by 2 mosaic full-planet picture was downloaded from the probe, and assembled into exactly the required highish res partner to the iconic last-look photo which preceded the final fly-by. Baseline must be a few hundred thousand miles, but Ill need to check that. Of course the New Horizons guys were already doing serious science on this image as it arrived, but I was able to assemble the two images to make the most satisfying stereo view I can ever remember making. I got some help making some prints on site, so I was able to show this 3-D to the entire team through the lenses of some OWLS I took over. So this is definitely the first REAL high quality stereo image of Pluto in history. And we can say its officially NH approved ! No fiddling this time. The right image is the last-look photo from 15th July, and the left image is the two-by-two downloaded from NH on the 17th. All I did was fine-adjust the orientations to match up, and match up the colouring by eye.  According to May's official biography, he was working toward his PhD in astrophysics when he put his education on hold to go on tour with Queen after the group's "popularity first exploded." In 2007, more than 30 years after May left school to pursue a career as a musician, he turned in his 48,000-word thesis for the Imperial College, London: biography thesis It's been the longest gap year ever. It was a tough decision back then to leave my studies for music. I'm so proud to be here today. Astronomy has always interested me. I used to love sitting at home and watching Sir Patrick Moore on the Sky at Night." https://youtu.be/E-zurr9PHKg In terms of educated rock guitarists, music fans may also recall that Tom Scholz, founder of the popular band Boston, holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for Polaroid Corporation as a senior product design engineer prior to hitting it big in the music world. Tom Scholz Some April Fools' Day jokes outlive their marginal and ephemeral usefulness and continue to be spread as valid bits of information long after April 1 has come and passed. One example of such occurred in 2020, when a jape about a toll-free phone number that could be used for tracking the status of $1,200 economic stimulus payments being sent to U.S. taxpayers continued to circulate via social media: economic stimulus     The federal government has not yet announced an automated system for tracking stimulus payments. Persons who call the number shown above may end up "stimulated," but not in an economic sense -- it connects callers with a phone sex line. The IRS reportedly will start issuing stimulus payments via direct deposit beginning on April 9. Taxpayers who receive paper checks (because the IRS does not have their bank account information on file) may be receiving their payments anywhere between April 24 and September 11, depending upon their adjusted gross income. start issuing Mengle, Rocky.  "When Will I Get My Stimulus Check?."
  Kiplinger  3 April 2020.