monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

What do you consider to be Trumps most serious lies? Like, if you had to have a top 3 that really get your goat, which ones would those be?

Nah, I don't subscribe to the idea that there's a hierarchy of lies, and that we should only be outraged by the particularly big whoppers.

Sure, big lies are damaging - not just to Trump and his job performance rating, but more importantly to the office of the President of the United States of America, and to the credibility of America in the world. But at least equally damaging is the constant, daily stream of falsehoods, misleading statements and lies coming out of the White House:

Whether those are laughably idiotic after-the-fact claims like Trump saying on Friday, after the failure of the AHCA bill, that he had been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing to do politically speaking was to let Obamacare explode - never mind the probably hundreds of times on the campaign trail where he promised to repeal and replace Obamacare on day one.

Or whether it's claims like this one:

An entirely fact-free claim, coming directly from the President of the United States of America, smearing his predecessor with an incredibly serious false accusation that was contradicted only hours later by James Comey and Mike Rogers.

And the best attempt of defending this constant stream of falsehoods that his lackeys have come up with are statements about "alternative facts" or claims that Trump, in his heart, might actually really believe the falsehoods he spouts on a daily basis.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Quote:

The part you forget is that Obama was waaay more polished, and had an ability to make himself the center of any blame.

What world are you living in? Obama never took the blame for anything that went wrong. It was always either the GOP or Bush's fault, but never Obamas, he didn't take the blame for anything.

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Trump hqs none of those characteristics.

You are correct.

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Hes so much of a narcissist that he cant imagine himself to blame for anything.

Can you name two things that didn't go right during Obama's term that he accepted blame for? Besides, I see narcissism as a qualification of being a politician, you can't be a successful one without it.

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That, and he is 100% "humor-free".

Well I guess that depends on your sense of humor. I can tell jokes here at work and my co-workers get them and laugh. I go home and tell the same jokes to my fiance and she just looks at me. I'm not saying my fiance is dumb, but she doesn't get most geek/nerd humor, where my co-workers are geeks/nerds.

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His claims of being blessed with a "High IQ" fail when its a fact that smartiness and acute senses of humor go together

To an extent you are correct, but I don't think there is a solid correlation between intelligence and ones sense of humor. I know a lot of smart people who don't have a solid sense of humor, I also know some really funny people who are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

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He is certainly letting his constituency down when it comes to placing their faith in him. Also, his own party seems to be looking forward to election 2018 and whether placing their troth with his cartful of bombast would be not such a great idea when they face a bunch of new challengers.

I'm sure you mean the 2020 election...

Trump could very well be the first sitting President who has to go through a primary and lose, he wouldn't be the first to go through a primary but he could be the first one to lose. I can only hope that we have a stronger and more centrist libertarian candidate for 2020.

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@old europe,

According to Politifact, only 4% of Trump's statements are totally true. In other words, 96% of what Trump says are lies or half truths.
How does this liar garner so many supporters?

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

For the 8 years prior to the election, that was no fact checking of the lies and untruths told by Obama and his admin.

Well, that's false statement, and it's easily disproven.

However, have you taken into consideration that Trump's lies and false statements might just get so much coverage because there are so, so many more of them than for previous presidents?

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@old europe,

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Well, that's false statement, and it's easily disproven.

Disprove it then. What lie did Obama tell that the msm called him on?

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However, have you taken into consideration that Trump's lies and false statements might just get so much coverage because there are so, so many more of them than for previous presidents?

That is indeed the case, but it doesn't excuse them from not doing the same with Obama and his admin. I'll be waiting on the proof that he was called out for lying...

1 Reply

@old europe,

There's no denying that Obama lied, but the level and number of lies compared to Trump is insignificant.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/opinion/trump-trapped-in-his-lies-keeps-lying-sad.html?_r=0

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Obviously, the only problem here is that Americans (just as Trump predicted) have become tired of all the winning, there would be so much of it. And he got this done FAST. He's clearly a smarter and more competent individual than we've given him credit for.

Quote:

Trump's historically poor start
Every American president has had his ups and downs. But we've never seen this kind of down this early: A Gallup poll on Monday had President Trump's job-approval rating at 36% (it was conducted mostly after the failed health-care push). To put that standing into perspective, here's where Gallup had these other early presidencies at about this same point in time:

Barack Obama: 63% (March 16-22, 2009)

George W. Bush: 53% (March 26-28, 2001)

Bill Clinton: 53% (March 12-14, 1993)

George H.W. Bush: 56% (March 12, 1989)

Ronald Reagan: 60% (March 15, 1981)

Jimmy Carter: 75% (March 20, 1977)

What's more, George W. Bush never hit 36% in Gallup until 2006 -- well after Hurricane Katrina and after the Iraq war had turned south.

NBCnews

1 Reply

@blatham,

Jesus could have run as a Republican and had a less than 50% approval on Gallup this early in the cycle. There is no way that politics is going to get back to doing what is best for the country instead of the party. Dems are only going to like dems and same for reps.

Hopey McChange did nothing to help that.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

Disprove it then. What lie did Obama tell that the msm called him on?

Here's the factcheck.org archive on President Obama, and on President Bush.

Many, many links to the mainstream media reporting on those statements at the time are included in the respective articles.

Baldimo wrote:

That is indeed the case, but it doesn't excuse them from not doing the same with Obama and his admin.

See, this kind of statement is exactly the reason that makes one think that your problem is not that Trump is lying so much, but that the media is fact checking him.

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

Jesus could have run as a Republican and had a less than 50% approval on Gallup this early in the cycle.

Sure, McGentrix. The problem is that Republican Presidents don't ever get job approval ratings above 50% on Gallup this early in the cycle.

The problem is definitely not that Trump is an incompetent, untrustworthy, lying buffoon.

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As John McCain put it, there's a lot of shoes to drop from this centipede.

Quote:

The White House Asked for Veto Power Over Sally Yates’s Testimony at Russia Hearing

..Earlier this month, the House Intelligence Committee invited Yates to share her account of those developments, in an open hearing on the Putin government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election. Such testimony might conceivably touch on why the Trump administration waited weeks after Yates’s warning to oust Flynn.

Yates accepted the committee’s invitation.

Then, the Trump administration informed her that she would need to clear her testimony with the president, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post..

NYMag

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Quote:

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told the Washington Post the other day, “This is the most failed first 100 days of any president…. I don’t know how it can get much worse.”

As much as I respect Brinkley’s work, I happen to believe it can get worse. Not only is the Russia scandal moving forward apace, but there are additional hazards on the horizon, including a possible government shutdown next month, the unraveling of Trump’s regressive budget plan, and a fight over tax reform that’s likely to end badly for the president and his party.

And Trump hasn’t even been confronted yet with a crisis that isn’t of his own making.

Benen

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@old europe,

I mean this particular election against Hillary.

16 Fake News Stories Reporters Have Run Since Trump Won

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@old europe,

Quote:

Here's the factcheck.org archive on President Obama, and on President Bush.

Many, many links to the mainstream media reporting on those statements at the time are included in the respective articles.

I don't recall any 24 hour news coverage of any of Obama's lie by the media. When the whole "If you like your Dr, you can keep your Dr." nonsense was exposed as a lie, there was hardly any news coverage of it. In fact the media continued to defend his lie's about the ACA and they continue to do so today.

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See, this kind of statement is exactly the reason that makes one think that your problem is not that Trump is lying so much, but that the media is fact checking him.

Due to your partisan hate of Trump, of course that is what you see. I agreed with you on Trumps lie's, but you fail to see how the media covered for Obama for 8 years, and that is what I'm pointing out. You can post all the links to Obama's whoppers, but those articles fail to point out the media calling Obama out for what he did. How many times did we hear about the 40% background check lie from Obama and the DNC only to have it repeated by the media. If they had checked Obama half as much as they check Trump, the media wouldn't have run with the 40% lie for as long as they did.

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@McGentrix,

You're kidding, right?

You really think that Trump's approval rating is at 36% because of stuff like this:

The Federalist wrote:

January 27: The Photoshopped Hands Affair

On January 27, Observer writer Dana Schwartz tweeted out a screenshot of Trump that, in her eyes, proved President Trump had “photoshopped his hands bigger” for a White House photograph. Her tweet immediately went viral, being shared upwards of 25,000 times. A similar tweet by Disney animator Joaquin Baldwin was shared nearly 9,000 times as well.

Do you think it's possible that maybe, after seven years of Republicans whining and complaining about Obamacare and trying to repeal it 52 times, and after one and a half years of Trump promising he would repeal and replace Obamacare on day one, that "we’re going to have insurance for everybody," that you "can expect to have great health care. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better." and then failing abysmally to deliver on those campaign promises, people actually just disapprove of the job Trump is doing as a president?

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@old europe,

Seems like a reasonable scenario to me.

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@Baldimo,

Factchecking got big in 2003 when factcheck.org was started.

A lot of old-timers here got to know about factcheck.org and fact-checking as a "thing" as a result of one true conservative member who kind of forced it into every discussion (or at least it felt like that). Like this in 2004. I miss that guy a lot.

Factchecking didn't become a thing because of 45. Some people might be more sensitive to it now. That's a thing. Awareness varies with exposure.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

I don't recall any 24 hour news coverage of any of Obama's lie by the media.

That's really a question about the quality of those statements.

I think people will hold it much less against Trump if he tries and fails to build a wall on the Southern border - even if you can call a failed campaign promise a "lie", if you want - than publicly attacking and smearing your predecessor with the fake claim that he wiretapped your offices.

Sure, his job approval ratings may continue to drop if he continues to fail delivering on his promises - particularly after he billed himself as "the most successful person ever to run for president," the "best builder," the "greatest jobs president God ever created." But that's very different from the news cycle you get when a sitting President, on a daily basis, spouts easily disprovable falsehoods just for the heck of it.

It's failing to deliver on campaign promises vs. purposefully lying in order to detract, to falsely claim someone else's success as your own, to attack and to smear opponents.

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American media apparently hasn't bothered to report this, but one of Trump's expanded DroneStrikes nailed Zaid Khayr!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39109438

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/27/us-drone-strike-in-syria-kills-top-al-qaida-leader-jihadis-say

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-qaeda-leader-idUSKBN16924L

Bravo!

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@McGentrix,

As far as the "16 fake news stories" go, most of these examples don't really fit the current understanding of the term. Some of them are just rumors gone viral; it's not as if some miscreant at the NY Times deliberately concocted something he knew to be false and put the story out there. Reporting the existence and substance of rumors is legitimate; claiming them to be true is not. Other examples, such as the election hacking one werelegitimate in the sense that the

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