Thread: President Donald Trump

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

They don't care. One by one they've fallen into line and bent the knee and sold their principles and spines for pennies.

I watched a doco the other night called, ironically, "The Swamp".

The Koch Brothers basically told all Republicans that if a single one of them showed signs of supporting climate change legislation, the Koch Brothers would fund a primary campaign against them.

It's a vicious circle, because electing Republicans gets them more money in tax breaks to fund more Republicans.

That's the disease infecting the American political system.

Originally Posted by panama hat

Soon the other one will be gone as well, but it does make you wonder why they bother being firmly in the timeframe of coffin-dodging to care so much

Resentful demons. Somebody kicked rocks their way. The damage those two have done to the country will be dealt with for generations to come.

Fact-checking Trump’s lies is essential. It’s also increasingly fruitless.

Daniel Dale met President Trump’s convention speech with a tirade of truth Thursday night — a tour de force of fact-checking that left CNN anchor Anderson Cooper looking slightly stunned.

The cable network’s resident fact-checker motored through at least 21 falsehoods and misstatements he had found in Trump’s 70-minute speech, breathlessly debunking them at such a pace that when he finished, Cooper, looking bemused, paused for a moment and then deadpanned, “Oh, that’s it?”

So, so much was simply wrong. Claims about the border wall, about drug prices, about unemployment, about his response to the pandemic, about rival Joe Biden’s supposed desire to defund the police (which Biden has said he opposes).

Dale is a national treasure, imported last year from the Toronto Star, where he won accolades for bravely tackling the Sisyphean task of fact-checking Trump. My skilled colleagues of The Washington Post Fact-Checker team, who recently published a whole book on the president’s lies, have similarly done their best to hold back the tide of Trumpian falsehoods.

Dozens of organizations, from Snopes.com to FactCheck.org and many others, are kept busy chasing political lies, so many of which come from the current White House. But here’s the rub. More than a decade after the innovative Florida-based fact-checking organization Politifact.org won a Pulitzer Prize, fact-checking may make less of a difference than ever.

More and more, fact-checkers seem to be trying to bail out an ancient, rusty and sinking freighter with the energetic use of measuring cups and thimbles.

“My biggest takeaway of the last four years is probably realizing the extent to which big chunks of America are living in a different universe of news/facts with basically no shared reality,” was how Charlie Warzel, who writes about the information wars for the New York Times put it last week.

I happened to be sitting in the WAMU studio in late 2016 when Scottie Nell Hughes — then a frequent surrogate for President-elect Donald Trump and a paid commentator for CNN during the 2016 campaign — said something startling, live on the Diane Rehm radio show: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, (as) facts.”

Rehm had pressed her about Trump’s false assertion that he, not Hillary Clinton, would have won the popular vote if millions of immigrants had not voted illegally. That was a claim he seemingly had heard on Infowars — the conspiracy-theory-crazed site run by Alex Jones, who at one time claimed that the 2012 massacre of 20 children and six staff members at an Connecticut elementary school was a government-sponsored hoax.

Hughes gave not an inch of ground: Trump’s false claims, she insisted, “amongst a certain crowd . . . a large part of the population, are truth.”

Belief, therefore, takes the place of fact.

The situation has only become worse since then. And as scholars have observed, calling out falsehoods forcefully may actually cause people to hold tighter to their beliefs.

That’s the “backfire effect” that academics Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler wrote about in their study “When Corrections Fail” about the persistence of political misperceptions: “Direct factual contradictions can actually strengthen ideologically grounded factual beliefs.”

Not knowing what media sources to believe — and the growing mistrust in the press among many segments of the public — has added to the problem of politicians who lie.

Trump has played the media like a puppet. We’re getting better — but history will not judge us kindly.

Last week, I was asked to settle a family dispute about the believability of a news report that had been circulating on a group text-message chain.

One family member (I’m being vague since I hope to continue to be invited to Thanksgiving dinner) was outraged by the supposed revelations in a Newsweek article whose headline read “Brand New Mail Sorting Machine Thrown Out at USPS Center, Leaving Workers Sorting by Hand.”

Another family member had serious doubts about whether this was true. He dismissed it as “hearsay.”

And a third asked me to take a look: Would I have published the article?

It didn’t take me long to decide it wasn’t credible or publication-worthy. Newsweek, despite its legacy name, is suspect from the start these days. The article’s sourcing was thin. And a hyperlink, its main piece of evidence, led me to a local news site that already corrected the main element of its story. (Days later, Newsweek still hadn’t updated its story.)

These family members care about the facts, and were engaged enough to be curious about whether a report is accurate. And while it may have suited their politics better if it were true, they were open to hearing that it wasn’t.

But most people don’t have the time or energy to do research projects on the news they are reading, or the claims they are hearing from the White House, or the conspiracy theories that flood their Facebook feeds.

Most people no longer share with their fellow citizens the trust in news organizations — or in political actors — that would give them confidence in a shared basis of reality. And worst of all, the flow of disinformation on social media is both vile and unstoppable.

In this world, challenging official lies and seeking truth remains necessary, even essential. The yeoman’s work of Daniel Dale, and others like him, remains appreciated.

But I’m with Warzel on this: As Americans, we’re in trouble when it comes to a common ground of reality on which to stand.

And no amount of fact-checking is going to solve that overwhelming problem.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...wpisrc=nl_most

Originally Posted by panama hat

. . . are down to one despicable skeleton. Soon the other one will be gone as well, but it does make you wonder why they bother being firmly in the timeframe of coffin-dodging to care so much

I'd far prefer the jacobin lizard devil Soros to die than the other kochsucker

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

The whole campaign strategy seems to be that that only Trump can save America from Trump’s America.

Apparently a good option, as sitting president he wants to create a choice in voters minds, America or socialists. And only he can save America. It works.

Originally Posted by peaches

G’day Chico, you’re probably a nice enough bloke, but you’ve
been sucked into Trump’s orbit, same as normal & nice enough
German’s were sucked into Hitler’s orbit, they thought the sun
shone out of his arse too.

But believe me Chico, Trump is just as dangerous to the US of A
as Hitler was to Germany.

I had to dig back 6 months to retrieve this post.

........ but if anything, it’s more relevant now than it was then.

The longer that this campaign goes, the more I think that the turd will win.
People ie. voters are generally frightened cautious little mice at heart and they fear change and uncertainty.
So while there's a summer of discontent they'll not want to take risks.
The turd must be so happy to have civil unrest on the streets.
Every time a cop blasts a black he must have a little chuckle to himself.

Originally Posted by docmartin

People ie. voters are generally frightened cautious little mice at heart and they fear change and uncertainty.
So while there's a summer of discontent they'll not want to take risks.
The turd must be so happy to have civil unrest on the streets.
Every time a cop blasts a black he must have a little chuckle to himself.

Indeed, and somehow he is managing to frame the narrative that it is the democrats and libbies fault that there is violence and rioting on the streets and positioning himself as the law and order president.

Originally Posted by panama hat

Of course you would . . . and just using three/four labels this time, impressive. I'm guessing you'll not care to express why, or you'll simply cut and paste a list of his transgressions from Breitbart or similar.

You must be in a quandary now knowing that they're both Jewish - you know, the people you decry about 'owning everything'

I'm not anti jew ffs. Not the type that believes Jews rule the world or own it.

Originally Posted by docmartin

The longer that this campaign goes, the more I think that the turd will win.
People ie. voters are generally frightened cautious little mice at heart and they fear change and uncertainty.
So while there's a summer of discontent they'll not want to take risks.
The turd must be so happy to have civil unrest on the streets.
Every time a cop blasts a black he must have a little chuckle to himself.

King fuckhead is one of those types who never loses at anything regardless of anything. How else could a 14 year old in an obese old man's body get so far in life ?

It's all falling into place for him now.

John Hinckley's been released for a while now ....

Originally Posted by TheRealKW

Apparently a good option, as sitting president he wants to create a choice in voters minds, America or socialists. And only he can save America. It works.

That's a joke right? You know that's exactly what the current situation is right?

Originally Posted by TheRealKW

Indeed, and somehow he is managing to frame the narrative that it is the democrats and libbies fault that there is violence and rioting on the streets and positioning himself as the law and order president.

Again, a lobotomized squirrel could frame that narrative because it's exactly the reality of the situation. I had no idea you were on my side of the argument!

Let me break it down for you. Each city has it's own Mayor who runs their city how they see fit. They run the police force and courts how they see fit. EVERY single city that's currently been on fire for months with billions in damages, tens of deaths and thousands of injuries are ALL run by Democrats.

Like Mayor Durkan in Seattle who let honest, tax paying civilians get trapped inside an illegal autonomous zone where rapes, and murder was rife. She called it the 'Summer of love'. Please explain to me how Trump is responsible for that? Or the Mayor Beetlejuice in Chicago who stops the police from doing anything to stop the violence (until it reached her street of course) Again, enlighten me as to how trump is responsible for the atrocious decisions these mayors make?

You think it's random coincidence that 19 out of the top 20 cities with the worst crime are run by democrats? Oh and that was before they started defunding the police.

Oh, but when Trump wins it will be because he's Hitler and not because people don't want to live in a country where their elected officials literally endorse the scum burning their businesses to the ground. Hilarious.

Originally Posted by TommyB

Each city has it's own Mayor who runs their city how they see fit. They run the police force and courts how they see fit.

The do, do they? How far did you get in school again?

Originally Posted by TommyB

... 19 out of the top 20 cities with the worst crime are run by democrats?

Is that another Trump fact or Breitbart fact?

I'm not even going to engage with that nutter, given this is the level of his esteemed leader's discourse.

Originally Posted by tomcat

Trump Says He Could Beat LeBron James in a Dunk Contest If Not for Bone Spurs

Originally Posted by TommyB

EVERY single city that's currently been on fire for months with billions in damages, tens of deaths and thousands of injuries are ALL run by Democrats.

That is a fucking lie. These cities are not on fire nor have they been "burning" for months and no there is not "billions" in damages. That is just a bunch of lies that you see on Fox news. It would be news to all the millions of residents of those cities who are living their lives normally.

Originally Posted by TommyB

Like Mayor Durkan in Seattle who let honest, tax paying civilians get trapped inside an illegal autonomous zone where rapes, and murder was rife.

HAHAHAHAH! I live in Seattle and the autonomous zone was two square blocks that was like a hippy commune. I know I went down there to see it for myself. I even snapped a couple of pics...





At the end of the day all you on the right have are lies and fear mongering.

Originally Posted by bsnub

That is a fucking lie. These cities are not on fire nor have they been "burning"

That's all commies' lies...

Originally Posted by elche

Is that another Trump fact or Breitbart fact?

It's a fact fact. I've already posted the link and it was from a lefty source. The gormless WP were really proud of themselves for fact checking Trump's claim it was 20 out of 20 by proving it was actually 19 out of 20. Couldn't make that shit up if you tried!

This is the Donald Trump thread, not the protests thread.

Originally Posted by misskit

This is the Donald Trump thread, not the protests thread.

You're dealing with a trumpanzee remember. They're not very bright.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You're dealing with a trumpanzee remember. They're not very bright.

Fake news! The protest thread didn't exist when I made that post. My posts are posted after they've been checked for "hurty words". By then the thread had been cut and the protest thread created.

Originally Posted by TommyB

Fake news! The protest thread didn't exist when I made that post. My posts are posted after they've been checked for "hurty words". By then the thread had been cut and the protest thread created.

That happens all the time, any pro Trump comment that veers slightly off coarse gets moved to a different thread or a whole new thread made with a condescending title.

Originally Posted by deeks

That happens all the time, any pro Trump comment that veers slightly off coarse gets moved to a different thread or a whole new thread made with a condescending title.

Condescending title not needed.

You're just racist thickos as the whole world knows.