Thread: Trumped

Who’s Checking the Fact Checkers?
A new study sheds some light on what facts the press most likes to check.
By Peter Roff | Contributing Editor May 28, 2013

"Facts," someone once said, "are stubborn things." If there is one thing that is gnawing the marrow out of political coverage in America today, it's the so-called "fact checkers" whom editors of some of the nation's most prestigious publications have appointed to evaluate the veracity of statements made by candidates for public office.

According to the American Heritage dictionary, the definition of "fact" is: 1) Knowledge or information based on real occurrences; 2) Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed; or 3) A thing that has been done, especially a crime. The last is especially interesting since the way fact-checking has been employed in the last two election cycles is as near to a crime as a journalist can commit.


Now comes a study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs that demonstrates empirically that PolitiFact.org, one of the nation's leading "fact checkers," finds that Republicans are dishonest in their claims three times as often as Democrats. "PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama's second term," the Center said in a release, "despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP."

"Republicans see a credibility gap in the Obama Administration," said Dr. Robert S. Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. "PolitiFact rates Republicans as the less credible party."

As the first person to empirically demonstrate the liberal, pro-Democrat bias in the Washington press corps, Lichter's analysis is worth further study and comment. His study – and in the interests of full disclosure, he was once a professor of mine at the George Washington University - "examined 100 statements involving factual claims by Democrats (46 claims) and Republicans (54 claims), which were fact-checked by PolitiFact.com during the four month period from the start of President Obama's second term on January 20 through May 22, 2013." The conclusion: Republicans lie more.

Or do they?

As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has consistently reported, the fact checking business often – too often for anyone's good – turns on matters of opinion rather than matters of "fact." One recent example that drives the point home is the Washington Post's recent fact check that gave President Barack Obama "four Pinocchios" for asserting that he had, in fact, called what happened in Benghazi an act of "terrorism."

According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident.

The fact that, as the Lichter study shows, "A majority of Democratic statements (54 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18 percent of Republican statements," probably has more to do with how the statements were picked and the subjective bias of the fact checker involved than anything remotely empirical. Likewise, the fact that "a majority of Republican statements (52 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24 percent of Democratic statements" probably has more to do with spinning stories than it does with evaluating statements.

There is a "truth gap" in Washington, but it doesn't exist along the lines the fact checkers would have you think. It was Obama who said you could keep the health care you had if you liked it, even if Obamacare became law. It was Obama who said the Citizens United decision would open the floodgates of foreign money into U.S. campaigns. It was Obama who said Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video. It was Obama's IRS that denied conservative political groups had been singled out for special scrutiny. And it was Obama who promised that taxes would not go up for any American making less than $250,000 per year.

All of these statements and plenty more are demonstrably false, though some people still pretend there is truth in them. As the Lichter study demonstrates, it's not so much fact checkers that are needed as it is fact checkers to check the facts being checked.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/...st-republicans

Originally Posted by boopster

true but misleading.................that is what cnn's fact checkers use so that they do not have to label it as true or false.

Looking for a more Right Leaning version... then compare the two

Trump gets backing from Obama's half-brother

David M Jackson, USA TODAY
Sunday, 24-Jul-16 16:43:19 PDT

Donald Trump is mighty pleased with his latest endorsement: President Obama's half-brother.

Malik Obama, who has a had a falling out with his relative in the White House, told The New York Post that “I like Donald Trump because he speaks from the heart ... Make America Great Again is a great slogan. I would like to meet him.”

Trump heralded the support on Twitter, saying the half-brother "was probably treated badly by president-like everybody else!"

President Obama and his half-brother appear to have had little contact with each other in recent times.

The New York Post reports that Malik Obama "spoke to his brother a year ago and was miffed that he did nothing to help his own foray into politics when he ran for governor of the southwestern Kenyan county of Siaya in 2013."

http://www.king5.com/ext/news/nation...NsO0yeY0mQyEsE

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Who’s Checking the Fact Checkers?
A new study sheds some light on what facts the press most likes to check.
By Peter Roff | Contributing Editor May 28, 2013

"Facts," someone once said, "are stubborn things." If there is one thing that is gnawing the marrow out of political coverage in America today, it's the so-called "fact checkers" whom editors of some of the nation's most prestigious publications have appointed to evaluate the veracity of statements made by candidates for public office.

According to the American Heritage dictionary, the definition of "fact" is: 1) Knowledge or information based on real occurrences; 2) Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed; or 3) A thing that has been done, especially a crime. The last is especially interesting since the way fact-checking has been employed in the last two election cycles is as near to a crime as a journalist can commit.


Now comes a study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs that demonstrates empirically that PolitiFact.org, one of the nation's leading "fact checkers," finds that Republicans are dishonest in their claims three times as often as Democrats. "PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama's second term," the Center said in a release, "despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP."

"Republicans see a credibility gap in the Obama Administration," said Dr. Robert S. Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. "PolitiFact rates Republicans as the less credible party."

As the first person to empirically demonstrate the liberal, pro-Democrat bias in the Washington press corps, Lichter's analysis is worth further study and comment. His study – and in the interests of full disclosure, he was once a professor of mine at the George Washington University - "examined 100 statements involving factual claims by Democrats (46 claims) and Republicans (54 claims), which were fact-checked by PolitiFact.com during the four month period from the start of President Obama's second term on January 20 through May 22, 2013." The conclusion: Republicans lie more.

Or do they?

As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has consistently reported, the fact checking business often – too often for anyone's good – turns on matters of opinion rather than matters of "fact." One recent example that drives the point home is the Washington Post's recent fact check that gave President Barack Obama "four Pinocchios" for asserting that he had, in fact, called what happened in Benghazi an act of "terrorism."

According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident.

The fact that, as the Lichter study shows, "A majority of Democratic statements (54 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18 percent of Republican statements," probably has more to do with how the statements were picked and the subjective bias of the fact checker involved than anything remotely empirical. Likewise, the fact that "a majority of Republican statements (52 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24 percent of Democratic statements" probably has more to do with spinning stories than it does with evaluating statements.

There is a "truth gap" in Washington, but it doesn't exist along the lines the fact checkers would have you think. It was Obama who said you could keep the health care you had if you liked it, even if Obamacare became law. It was Obama who said the Citizens United decision would open the floodgates of foreign money into U.S. campaigns. It was Obama who said Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video. It was Obama's IRS that denied conservative political groups had been singled out for special scrutiny. And it was Obama who promised that taxes would not go up for any American making less than $250,000 per year.

All of these statements and plenty more are demonstrably false, though some people still pretend there is truth in them. As the Lichter study demonstrates, it's not so much fact checkers that are needed as it is fact checkers to check the facts being checked.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/...st-republicans

What’s worse, Snopes appears to have ripped that image from left-wing non-proft Media Matters’ coverage of the story. But even Media Matters — known for its misleading claims and hatchet jobs — didn’t claim that the screenshot came from Monday’s coverage. Apparently, it was too much for Evon to actually watch the convention on which he was presenting himself as the authoritative source.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/28/sn...#ixzz4G2chS5Sl

July 30, 2016, 11:15 pm
By Evelyn Rupert
Trump: Muslim soldier was a hero, but his father 'has no right' to criticize me


After a day of backlash over the GOP presidential nominee's comments regarding the family of Humayun Khan, Trump released a statement late Saturday night honoring him. "Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe. The real problem here are the radical Islamic terrorist who killed him, and the efforts of these radicals to enter our country and do us further harm," Trump said.

“While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution, (which is false) and say many other inaccurate things. If I become President, I will make America safe again.”

Khan's father, Khizr Khan, a lawyer who immigrated from Pakistan, addressed the Democratic convention last week, asking what Trump had sacrificed and whether he had ever read the Constitution.


Trump lashed out at Khan and his wife, Ghazala, who stood at his side on the stage, on Saturday.

The GOP nominee said he had "made a lot of sacrifices" through his work and raised questions about Khan's speech and why his wife hadn't spoken, suggesting that she "wasn't allowed" because of her Muslim faith. Ghazala Khan later said she was too upset to take the microphone.

The comments immediately sparked backlash from both Republicans and Democrats.

In his Saturday statement, Trump bashed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her Middle East foreign policy record and the attack on U.S. personnel in Benghazi and warned against radical Islamism and immigration from certain countries.

“Given the state of the world today, we have to know everything about those looking to enter our country, and given the state of chaos in some of these countries, that is impossible,” he said.


http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...r-has-no-right


Must read from a "Marine"..

Not to mention that Hillary voted "yes" to that unconstitutional war !

I hope you all have the bravery to pass this along to every Democrat you know. We need to stop the BS!

Lets barrage Communist News Network, I mean CNN, with this and all the main stream media. They don't have the balls to read this on air.

An Open Letter to Khizr Khan
July 31, 2016
Posted by Chris Mark

Dear Mr. Khan,

I want to preface this letter by stating that I respect your son’s sacrifice for this great nation. By all accounts, he is a true hero that sacrificed himself in service to our country. For that I am thankful.

As a veteran, I watched your comments at the Democratic National Convention with a mixture of sadness, and anger. The United States has a military comprised of volunteers. Every single member has made the conscious choice to join the military and serve. There is not a single service member who has been forced into service. It is important for all service members (and apparently, their families) to understand that service to this great nation does not imbue one with special privileges or rights. I found your comments troubling when you said: “Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

Does it matter whether Mr. Trump has sacrificed “…nothing and no one?”…has Ms. Clinton “..sacrificed” for this nation? How about Mr. Obama? Your comment stating that Mr. Trump “…has sacrifice no one” is alarming. Are you intimating that YOU sacrificed? Sir, your son willingly sacrificed himself. As a father I cannot imagine the pain you must feel but his sacrifice is his own. He was not forced to serve.

I am troubled that you would allow a party that has little more than contempt for the US Service Member to parade you into the DNC to denounce Donald Trump. Did you watch when protesters at the DNC booed and heckled Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Florent Groberg? Did you notice your party interrupting the moment of silence for slain police officers? Your own hypocrisy in not denouncing these acts and instead using the DNC as a platform to make a political point is disgraceful. The simple fact is that whether one served or sacrificed does not give greater power to their statements. One vote is as valuable as another. That sir, is why our Country is great. Your condemnation of one person for a statement while standing idly as your party disparages veterans and police officers is the height of hypocrisy.

To conflate the need to prevent potential terrorists from entering our country with the belief that ‘all Muslims’ should be banned is simply wrong and disingenuous. As a reminder, Mr. Trump said: ” “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” The irony of your son’s own death at the hands of these very people in Iraq should not be ignored. I have little doubt that your son would have recognized the need to protect our country from these very people. In fact, he held is own troops back so that he could check on a suspicious car. Your son understood sacrifice and how to protect “his people”…’his soldiers’….’his fellow Americans’…

As you continue to make the media circuit and bask in the glow of affection cast upon you by a party that has little regard for your son’s own sacrifice, and veterans in general, I would ask you to consider your comments and your position more closely.

Respectfully,

Chris Mark

US Marine and Navy Veteran.

https://globalriskinfo.com/2016/07/3...to-khizr-khan/

ALLEN WEST Released A BLISTERING PERSONAL MASSAGE For The MUSLIM FATHER Who ATTACKED TRUMP At DNC … THIS is a MUST READ

July 31, 2016

Everyone’s talking about the speech delivered by Mr. Khizr Khan, accompanied by his wife Ghazala at the DNC that focused on the loss of his son, U.S. Army Captain Humayan Khan.

It appears things have devolved into such a level of immaturity relating to the speech that I believe there’s a need for a clear analysis of Mr. Khan’s address, and what he should have presented.

First, let me offer my condolences to the Khan family for their sacrifice, as they are now an American Gold Star Family. Their son and I share an unbreakable bond. We both served our nation and, along with three other generations in my family, took the oath to support and defend our Constitution and served in combat zones.

Yes sir, Mr. Khan, I’ve read our Constitution and firmly recognize the preeminent responsibility of our federal government is to “provide for the common defense.” I also comprehend the relationship between the three branches of government…you know separation of powers, checks and balances, coequal branches of government.

I would offer a simple recommendation to Mr. Khan. Perhaps you should have asked President Barack Obama if he had read the Constitution — undoubtedly you would agree we have witnessed a few unconstitutional actions from him.

And while you were at it, Mr. Khan, perhaps you could have asked Hillary Clinton about handling classified information — since I’m quite sure your son, Captain Khan, had at a minimum a secret clearance.

I don’t think your son would have been able to, well, have his “careless” mishandling of classified materials and information simply excused. Perhaps Mr. Khan, you could have addressed the necessity for high standards of honor, integrity, and character in a commander in chief.

Also, I found it interesting Mr. Khan, that you and your wife, an American Gold Star family, would take the stage to support a sitting president and one desiring to be president, who had abandoned Americans in a combat zone and lied about it.

I tend to believe that if alive, your son would consider that type of behavior abhorrent and deplorable. Or perhaps, as it seems, your speech was politically driven, and not based on principle? After all, you did take the stage before a crowd that disrespected a Medal of Honor recipient…is that cool with you?

You see, I understand Mr. Khan, that your son and your family are Muslim and Muslims do indeed serve in our armed forces. But in the military I know, we do not celebrate that which divides, but rather that which unites. And what is it that unites us as Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines? It is service above self, commitment to something greater than the individual, and sacrifice for our country and comrades in arms.

Now, let’s be honest Mr. Khan, those of us with knowledge could just as easily bring attention to SGT Hasan Karim Akbar and Major Nidal Hasan, both Muslims serving in the U.S. Army. Just as you celebrated your Muslim son’s sacrifice, there are others who could give testimony to their loss due to those Muslim soldiers — and I use lower case reference to them (soldiers) because they dishonored the oath and were traitors to our Code of Honor. Your son was not, but that had nothing to do with him being a Muslim: he was an American Soldier.

So, Mr. Khan, since you had such an immense stage, what should you have addressed? You should have taken the time to explain how humbled and thankful you are to live in America. You should have mentioned how honored your son was and the pride you felt knowing he was serving your adopted country. You should have explained to America, and the world, what killed your son…the ideology of Islamism, Islamic fascism.

You could have told all of us why it needed to be defeated and that we need a commander in chief who would not abandon Americans in combat, but ensure they were supported in order to defeat this scourge.

Mr. Khan, you could have taken these words spoken by a proven courageous and resilient leader, Sir Winston Churchill, who has a U.S. Naval vessel named after him, and expounded upon them:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

And now we can all understand why Barack Obama had Churchill’s bust removed from the Oval Office.

Those were the insightful, prescient, and relevant words of Sir Winston Churchill from the first edition of his book, The River War.

Mr. Khan, this is what you should have addressed; it would have been so very well received. You could have told the world and defined the enemy that killed your son…instead my assessment is that you will be remembered as a political pawn.

You could have taken the time to explain the words written by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, dated March 28, 1786, to U.S. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Jay, reporting on their meeting with the Ambassador of Tripoli:

“We [Adams & Jefferson] took the liberty to make some enquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. [Note they clarify “nations who have done them [i.e. Muslim Barbary States] no injury”] The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their prophet [i.e. Mohammed]; that it was written in their Koran; that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Mussulman [Muslims] who was slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Mr. Khan, you had a moment to speak on history and provide us clarity and truth from a Muslim man who lost his son, an American Soldier, to Islamists. You could have clarified the difference between your son and SGT Hasan Karim Akbar and Major Nidal Hasan. That sir, to me, was a missed opportunity.

Then again, maybe you had no intention of using the platform provided to you as a teachable moment…but rather a politically-influenced opportunity for gain.

You, Mr. Khan, had the chance to be the face and voice of a Muslim family that stood with the fundamental principles and values of liberty, freedom, and democracy upon which this Republic was founded — in which you have found a home.

You could have articulated how a 7th century savage and barbaric ideology inspired by a murderous warlord, psychopath, and, by modern day standards, a pedophile, was not a radical but the leader of a militant phase of Islam introduced after the 622 AD event referred to as Al Hijra.

Mr. Khan, I grieve for the loss of your son. However, I grieve even more that you used his sacrifice and loss as nothing more than a damn politicized stunt. May God forgive you for it.

http://topsecretinfodump.com/allen-w...dnc-must-read/