Donald Trump and US politics

When you kick pepper spray at the police so said police makes sure you can't procreate:

https://vimeo.com/230710949

26 second video

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Xavderion wrote:

When you kick pepper spray at the police so said police makes sure you can't procreate:

https://vimeo.com/230710949

26 second video

Pepper Balls as he is now known, had a very bad day



Censorship is a good thing, right?

http://archive.is/5KleI#selection-1915.1-1925.9

President Trump assaults a peaceful protester:

Really makes you think. The number is actually way too low btw, the real number is around 900.

Justin Castro suddenly loves strict immigration laws... what gives?



Also today I learned from the ACLU that posting an image of a white child is white supremacy:

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鬼殺し wrote:

http://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/545504933/fact-check-10-statements-from-trumps-phoenix-speech?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170823

For those who still care about verisimilitude.

1. How many protesters is "too many?" Not a lie.
2. It is a mischaracterization of Trump's initial Charlottesville statement to state he did not condemn, in the strongest possible terms, altright activism; he did. He also condemned Antifa, in the same terms. To a large extent the media treated the situation as the former lie instead of the latter truth. Not a lie.
3. CNN's ratings are down compared to earlier in 2017. However, the usual comparison is versus the same month in 2016, and by that standard CNN's ratings are up. I don't consider this a lie, but I do consider it stupid; CNN in 2017 is stronger than any previous year, and the recent dip is expected seasonal change.
4. Trump should have said "not as much as they should have" instead of "no." This was a lie.
5. I remember reading the NYT statement and getting the impression that it was an apology for weak election coverage, with a commitment to do better. It's worth remembering the zeitgeist of the time: every major MSM outlet had given very flimsy polling in the days up to Nov 8, and people were stunned by the inaccurate coverage. But rereading it, it isn't an apology; it was a "rededication." Sneaky. I do believe it was very consciously written to be interpreted as an apology, but technically Trump got fooled by this one.
6. "No need to worry about the massive 116% real increase in costs, because subsidies!" Not a good argument. Not a lie; as the article states, the "figure is correct."
7. I agree that 1.074 million is not "far" more than 1 million. But a 16.5-year low is "almost" a 17-year low. I'll still count one lie here.
8. Here's someone. I think Trump is being rather vindictive and going back to Oct 2016 ancient history (a la "tiny hands"), but not lying. (He's not lying about his hands being normal size, either.) "Everyone" is obviously hyperbole and to not subject to fact checking. This isn't a lie, but I suppose it'd be funny to mock it.
9 & 10. Seriously? At this point they are just assuming the reader is either skipping or in a trance.

A total of four genuine mistruths, of which two are likely more stupid than disingenuous. But hey, can't have a top 4 list, can we?

These "fact checkers" are a mess. Here's a good example of Politifact rating a 100% correct statement "mostly false".



Here's them blatantly showing their bias; both numbers are wrong but one could argue that they have some merit if you interpret them in a certain way. Either way, both Bernie and Trump should've gotten the same rating.



Here's them totally misrepresenting what Trump said.



Etc etc. Never trust "fact checkers".

verisimilitude - the appearance of being true or real.

It is inspiring to know that the goal isn't the truth, it is the appearance of the truth.

As for actual veracity, let's see what NPR reports on Trump's speech" NPR's statements will be in italics.

That's just one of the misleading or untruthful things Trump said. We fact-checked 10 of his statements.

Note they don't say they found 10 of his statements false, but the reader assumes that NPR will be clearly saying whether his statements are factual or not.

1. Anti-Trump protesters
"And just so you know from the Secret Service, there aren't too many people outside protesting, OK? That I can tell you."

It's impossible to fact-check exactly what Trump knew about protesters

In other words NPR admits they CAN'T fact check this. They then go on to cite the number of protestors the NIGHT before when it was much cooler than during the day. Numerous reports, photos and stills from the day don't show the same sort of packed crowds or huge numbers that are usually present when "thousands" of protestors are there. In any case, they said they can't fact check it, so their point is not only moot, but intellectually misleading. (are they anti-intellectuals?)

2. Charlottesville statement
Trump did say that, but he left out the second part of that sentence.

So, what Trump said was true, accurate and factual. NPR wanted more, and so now what he said isn't true?

The "on many sides" part they wanted to hear (since that is what the MSM has been using to stir the hornet's nest) was a fact that the Alt-Left doesn't like.

Note the NPR's slandering of what Trump said - It was that "many sides" part that angered many people — it appeared to put the KKK, neo-Nazi and other white supremacist rallygoers on the same moral footing as the counterprotesters who opposed them.

Trump was saying they were both bad, and NPR seems to think there is only bad and good with no variance in the degree of morality. They know that isn't true, and they know Trump didn't say they were equal. So, #2 is a lie by NPR.

3. CNN ratings
"CNN, which is so sad, so pathetic, and their ratings are going down."
Early in August, CNN released new data showing that its ratings are healthy. According to the report:

If Trump specifically said CNN's latest ratings, then NPR's claim hold weight. The report from early July doesn't paint CNN very well-- With the usual Tagline:

"CNN ratings behind reruns of Yogi the Bear cartoon"



I wouldn't expect Trump to track their minute by minute ratings, and NPR tries to shrug off the poor July ratings. NPR also doesn't mention that the ratings methods they use recently changed as of July 26th, which might be a factor http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/cnn-is-subscribing-to-nielsens-out-of-home-ratings-measurement-service/336396 Odd that CNN would commission a new ratings method, if they were truly showing better than ever ratings. From personal experience with multibillion dollar companies, they don't usually switch tactics when something is working very well. It is when it breaks or is producing less than desired returns that they "fix" it with something new.

Trump has made the claim before as part of his ongoing attacks on the media. He said CNN's ratings were down in July, too; PolitiFact likewise at the time found this to be "flat wrong."
BUZZZ - see above info.

4. "Racism was evil"
"I said racism was evil. Did they report that I said racism was evil? No."
Multiple headlines from an array of news outlets reported that Trump called racism "evil" in his Aug. 14 address — in which he also called out the KKK and neo-Nazis specifically after political pressure to do so.

So Trump told the truth. Did NPR give him credit for doing so? No? Intellectually misleading.


5. New York Times "apology"
"The New York Times essentially apologized after I won the election..."
Trump has claimed multiple times that the Times "apologized," though this time he seemed to back off slightly by saying it "essentially" apologized. Either way, the New York Times did not apologize, as NPR's Jessica Taylor wrote in a fact-check of a Jan. 29 Trump tweet.

"New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Dean Baquet did write a letter to readers after the surprising election conclusion examining the paper's coverage. In the note, they acknowledged that 'after such an erratic and unpredictable election there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump's sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?'

And a column from the paper's public editor (or ombudsman), Liz Spayd, pointed out problems with its data/forecasting vertical that predicted that Hillary Clinton had an 80 percent chance of winning the election. She also argued that the paper's reporters could have done a better job of tapping into 'the sentiments of Trump supporters.'

In other words, a backhanded apology. People in real life have seen people do this begrudgingly. NPR misleading people again.

6. Health insurance premiums
"Arizona is a disaster in terms of your price increase ... 116 percent."
This figure is correct.

So, Trump spoke the truth accurately.
Let's see how NPR tries to spin this. Are they intellectually honest or deceptive?

But when talking about Affordable Care Act premium increases, it's misleading to not also mention tax credits.

So, they decided to spin it.

"The caveat is that most people don't feel that price hike because they're insulated by the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act," as Will Stone, from NPR station KJZZ in Tempe, told NPR in March.

Will Stone claims that, yet person after person cites their contrary experience and how the credits aren't enough to offset the huge price increases. People are jumping out of coverage because they can't afford the "affordable health care" plans.
So, NPR misleads people once again.

7. Job numbers
"Since I took the oath of office, we have added far more than 1 million jobs in the private sector. Unemployment is right now at almost a 17-year low."
From February through July, U.S. firms have added 1,074,000 jobs, according to numbers from the Labor Department

Trump spoke the truth. We know they will try to spin that down, but they are fact checking here. It is like saying normal acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second, BUT when you account for all the movement in the galaxy it is REALLY....."

8. Economic growth
"Economic growth has surged to 2.6 percent. Remember, everybody said you will not bring it up to 1 percent."
Economic growth in the second quarter was indeed 2.6 percent

Trump spoke the truth again. Do they credit him or try to spin it. If you didn't guess spin, you guessed wrong.

9. Increasing wages
"Wages are rising."
Wages are indeed rising, but not very quickly

ACK, Trump speaks the truth again!. BUT BUT BUT ....

10. Stock market highs
"The stock market is at its all-time high in history."
Trump is right:
BUT BUT BUT -

TL/DR - Trump gets a 9/10 (with one N/A) on versimillitude, NPR gets a 0.5/10 on

@Dalai: the "did they report it? no" is clearly false. The spin on it was "oh NOW he says it because WE pressured him into saying it and he doesn't believe it too much or he would have explicitly said racism is evil days ago," but still.

"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!"

Trump is referring to the tale about US General John Pershing which claimed he executed Islamist militants in the Philippines using bullets smeared with pig's blood.

Let's try the Rorschach test. Is this statement true?