Trump’s reign of error
The Donald has been in the news recently because he has said some things that weren’t true. One was that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City were in the streets cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Another was a Tweet of bogus statistics on race and crime. Trump has made so many crazy remarks that it’s hard to keep track of them—everything from tax rates, the economic benefits of fracking in Ohio, the number of women and children among Syrian refugees, Hillary Clinton as birther, unemployment numbers and on and on.
Cheering Muslims on TV?
He didn’t just make that stuff up. Such stories circulate on the Internet. Even the right-wing propaganda news site Breitbart News has debunked the Jersey City celebration story but debunking doesn’t erase the Internet. As for Trump, he doesn’t admit mistakes, rather doubling down telling George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, “It was on television. I saw it.”
Black on white crime ?
The race tweet has a citation to the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco.”
The statistics are completely bogus, for example 82% of murders of white persons were committed by white persons, not black. The “Crime Statistics Bureau” appears not to actually exist. The image of the gun-toting masked man in the bogus statistics image comes from a YouTube music video (that may be in Arabic—not sure):
Twitter was the source of the image Trump Tweeted, according to blogger Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs passed on from a guy with a modified swastika for his avatar.
Social Media
I see junk like this all the time on social media (especially Facebook). Trump himself seems to be trending downward on Facebook:
Opinion
It is disturbing is that a prominent public figure running for president of the United States cannot be bothered to check his facts, even though he can easily have people check them for him. A president has advisors, but Trump seems to think he needn’t consult his before smearing large groups of people.
But remember, Donald Trump is a birther. What would you expect from a birther?
Read more:
It’s very troubling that the currently leading Republican candidate for president is such a sucker for Internet rumors and fake stories, and has such little regard for the truth.
PolitiFact has evaluated 70 statements made by Trump. 74% of them have been rated Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire. Only 7% have been rated True of Mostly True. 19% were rated Half True.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
Republicans are simply the most disgusting liars in the world.
Is this not exactly what could have been anticipated when the GOP stoked these same fears and lies for the last 7+ years?
I do not believe for a second that Trump believes his rhetoric. But he is following a script that was written for him by others before him. He uses it as political fodder.
I suggest that everyone look for a video of an episode of the “Twilight Zone” called “He’s Alive”. I challenge anyone to watch the beginning of that episode and not hear the Trump’s voice, or Palin’s, or Limbaugh’s or Beck’s, etc.
We said it couldn’t happen here. We were wrong.
I present more Nazi imagery from the nutters:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/phyllis-schlafly-wants-railroad-cars-full-illegals-going-south
Nate Silver gives us a bit of hope:
The percentage of Trump Supporters is roughly the same as the number of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dear-media-stop-freaking-out-about-donald-trumps-polls/
romney the human “etch-a-sketch” helped pave the way for “serious” white house competitors to lie with impunity for the cameras. romney flouted requests for his tax returns, releasing just one year’s return when the custom is twenty years. one of the many reasons i didn’t want romney to win was to see some standards of campaigning preserved.
but it’s the job of the press to curb this behavior, and they failed miserably. and despite even the gop’s own attempts to kneecap trump with the facts, truth in presidential advertising is now completely irrelevant to their base, thanks to their own misfired efforts. [slow clap]
Apparently Trump wants to bring back waterboarding, too.
You think Eisenhower was a Nazi??!!?
Let’s not undercut our chiding of birfoons and other RWNJs for their loony exaggerations by providing them with counter-examples.
As I often say to birthers: you’re supposed to read your sources, not just link to them. Schlafly’s actual words were:
You mean I can’t just read the first paragraph and skim the rest?
I read the article. Again, my comment is not directed at what Eisenhower did 60 years ago. But in the context of what is going around in the teabag kingdom, with people calling for registries, and special ID, etc, the image of rounding up people and putting them on a train was just consistent with these themes.
Interesting analysis by Nate. I think the reason why the polls are not shifting a whole lot is because no one is backing out of the race therefore, support remains for each candidate. If candidates like Bush, Cristi, Huckabee, and Paul dropped out, you would see a bigger shift in the polls. Once the voting starts, candidates will quickly drop out and you will see where Donald Trump goes.
I will be really really be disappointed if the GOP nominates Jeb Bush.
Remember, the GOP leadership has already affirmed Trump’s position in regards to the Presidential Race – He’s BETTER than Hillary Clinton by a mile.
Trump’s support is very strong now and I am not concerned with Trump needing to gain more support should he become the nominee.
If Trump becomes the nominee, Trump will instantly solitify his support.
Because it will beg the question – Do want Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House.
As far as GOP voters are concerned, Trump will receive nearly 100% of the vote.
Some GOP voters say NOW they would NEVER vote for or even support Trump should he become the nominee.
Obviously, it begs the final question.
Just what GOP voter is really going to vote for Hillary Clinton?
Jeb Bush may be attacking Trump now, but I gaurentee you that if Trump should become the nominee Bush 0% support for Donald Trump will instantly become 100% support for Donald Trump. Count on it.
That would be great. We need to get tough on terrorism. I mean if you can’t Water Board the terrorist how are you suppose to get information out of them (You just ask them nicely and they will be glad to give information.) And remember, the Syrian refugees are not citizens but guests to the US and I agree they need to be a short lease. They are guests and we should able to tell them where they can go and where they can’t go. Remember, they have abandoned there own country.
And that begs the ultimate question: what Republican would ever vote for BaracK Obama? And yet he was elected. Twice.
Tells you something, eh?
The opening paragraph with tell you “Who, What, When, Where, and How”. What else do you need?
Maybe that was not your intention, but you cannot brand Schlafly as a Nazi sympathizer for admiring what Eisenhower did, without calling Eisenhower a Nazi – and it just isn’t so.
What is so hard to understand about that? Most likely you made a mistake, if so, say oops and move on. Or as my ol’ pappy used to say, “wen ya fine yersef at the bottom uva hole, stop diggin”.
The Eisenhower Administration actions (Operation Wetback) resulted in unconscionable physical abuse and civil rights violations, but remember that they were carried out at the request of the Mexican Authorities who were in turn pressured by their own agricultural industry due to frustration with the Bracero System.
What about what the Copper Miners did in Arizona in 1917 (Bisbee Deportation and Jerome Deportation)? Are they (and by tacit implication President Woodrow Wilson) Nazis too?
I guess I’m saying that while I understand the sharp image that brought to mind when you talk of transporting people in box cars Nazi Germany was not the first ‘regime’ to use that tactic. I just think it is intellectually lazy to describe that ‘tool’ as a signature of Nazi thought. After all, Nazis used ovens for quite horrific deeds as well – should we demonize bakers and pizza makers because they use too ovens? Heck, I’ve got two ovens in my own house, shall I turn myself in as a war crimes criminal?
I actually have no problem branding Schlafly as a Nazi sympatizer, she demonstrated that to my satisfaction back in the 1970’s – but lets not drag Ike into her sewer, OK?
If you could jump up high enough, you could bite my ass.
Yeah, they will tell you what you what they think you want to hear, true or not. And the moral outrage over torture helps recruit more terrorists. It sounds to me like you admire the cruelty of terrorists, and really do not embrace American or Christian values.
I think we should deport you unless you learn to spell the English language.
Well, many states have the Death Penalty and we kill those who are guilty of henious crimes but if they are international terrorists we don’t dare mistreat or harm them in any away. The irony is that terrorists receive more rights and protections than some of our citizens.
What would you expect from a birther?
Yes, i need to spell better. I don’t support the Syrian refugees one bit. I think taking in refugees is a totally absurd idea. It’s one of the reasons why our country is in such bad shape. We spending all of our resources on illegal aliens and now refugees when we really need to be spending our resources on the middle class, the uninsured and our Vets. Even assuming the refugees check out OK, you still have to take care of them. That means a heavy drain on State and Federal Dollars and Resources. These refugees need to work. That means they will be stealing jobs meant for American citizens. They need health care. That means spending tax payers health dollars on refugees. (Noncitizens) I could go on but you get the idea. They can still be a threat even if there are just woman and children. In Paris a WOMAN blew herself up with a suicide vest. In Vietnam, we lost hundreds of soldiers to children (Shine my shoes please….Boom!). The best thing to do is to keep the refugees in Syria and establish a highly fortified safe zone for them. Humanitarian aid could be brought in from external sources. Keep refugees out of country. We have enough problems with illegal aliens.
If you really must bring in the Syrian refugees, I recommend the Mammoth Cave System in Kentucky. I read somewhere you can fit a million people in that cave system. It’s the perfect place to house the refugees. Another great place for the refugees is Alcatraz. It’s an island and it can hold thousands. The refugees can live there and outside aid can be brought in.
Hers was.
The “Nazi imagery” didn’t come “from the nutters”: she made an explicit reference to an event from U.S. history that was fundamentally different from shipping people to extermination factories.
One could argue that that sort of treatment is harsher than what we consider “acceptable” these days. Or that it wouldn’t really improve the feasibility or humaneness of mass deportation.
But likening it to the Nazi mass murder program isn’t an “argument”: it’s a cheap and tawdry attempt to shut down discussion.
Putting them in a cell next to you should do it: within 24 hours they’ll be singing like canaries if we promise to move them to another block. Maybe 48 hours if they don’t speak English.
Actually, our ability to assimilate immigrants is one of our strengths. Why don’t you try to master spelling before you go on to economics.
Pope Francis says that torturing people is a mortal sin. How does that grab you?
http://www.romereports.com/2014/06/23/pope-francis-torture-is-a-mortal-sin
How would you do that? How would you be able to keep Syrian refugees who settle in New York from traveling to Connecticut? Are you going to place all of them under house arrest?
I deliberately refrained from making a “short lease” joke.
One reason that nobody takes you seriously is that you are an ignoramus.
The maximum population of Alcatraz was 312 people.
Here’s an even better idea–let’s use all those FEMA camps birthers were so worried about a few years ago.
If I (a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat) could vote in the Republican Primary, I would vote for Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton stands likely to draw seventy million votes. She doesn’t need to attract “GOP voters.”
I predict that Donald Trump will seat ten delegates at the convention. I will make any bet that you can cover on this proposition.
The basic problem, that of wording some law so that it only applies to a single specific ethnic group, has a nuance that John would not be able to understand.
I guess that I am not making my point clear enough. I was not calling Schafly a Nazi sympathizer. I was not being cheap nor tawdry. It is not about Eisenhower.
I will only say that we took different things from her comments and leave it at that.
I’m tired of the ignorant, stupid, cowards and pseudo-christians.
If memory serves, after the fall of the Shah the US took in several hundreds of thousands Iranians (ie: Muslims) who had fled their country — maybe a few turned out to be bad apples, but overall it greatly benefited the US.
Why are you even having the debate now? We (in France) certainly are not having it. The worst thing we could do right no is to turn down or alienate the millions good muslims who are our allies.
Even if you don’t like their religion (and personally i dislike ALL religions), is the concept to seeking allies in a fight so incomprehensible now?
This collective freaking out is making people here look at America in a funny way again, which I hadn’t seen since Katrina. Thank god Obama is your spokesman; that at least makes up for the rest.
Meanwhile white terrorists run rampant:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/23/1453749/-Two-people-shot-at-Minneapolis-4th-Precinct-Shutdown-Protest-by-Alleged-White-Supremacists
The main problem is not Trump spewing crap, but his supporters defending him even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary.
Case in point, the “cheering NJ Muslims on 9/11” story.
I’ve seen people on Twitter defending this in various ways:
* “Prove Muslims didn’t cheer in NJ on 9/11.” [As if that were possible.]
* “It’s true, the WaPo reported on it.”
[WaPo, in a single sentence in a larger story, reported on police investigating alleged incidents of the sort and never mentioned religion or nationality of the allegedly involved persons. But faced with that reply, they double down on irrelevant issues, like “WaPo doesn’t report rumours, just facts” (as if the fact that there were *alleged* celebrations means there were actual celebrations).
Also, no mention in WaPo of “thousands”.]
* “People tend to conflate things,” [… while not even acknowledging what Trump said never happened.]
* “Look at this video which proves Trump right:…” [linking to a video from 2009 totally unrelated to 9/11]
Basically that’s all serious cases of confirmation bias. It’s like saying “John Doe ate live babies, I’ve seen it!” and then going “OK, maybe the guy didn’t eat live babies, but he’s a bad person so the claim was sorta justified”.
Because locking people up in an underground cave without sunlight is totally not going to traumatize and/or radicalize them. *smh*
If that happened, your ilk would next suggest to keep them there forever “because they obviously could not fit in with society after years in a cave”, right?
Courtesy of a couple of different posters at RealClearPolitics:
WaPo story: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/18/northern-new-jersey-draws-probers-eyes/40f82ea4-e015-4d6e-a87e-93aa433fafdc/
Someone with a clue discovered that the people in questions were the infamous “Dancing Israelis”, and got more of the story: http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/03/WTC/spies10.html
As I put it in a response at RCP:
[Note: Trump was claiming he saw it “with his own eyes”, but is now suggesting that maybe he saw it on TV, not directly, so the “distance” bit may be over-the-top]
You’re clueless John. How do you think we got information out of the nazis during ww2? We didn’t have to use torture. Torture doesn’t work. Every report done on the waterboarding program has concluded that. Torture just makes the person give you what they think you want to hear not what is true
And you know what, even if it were true, so what?
Here is what i think:
a. there are heartless people without empathy in every culture everywhere;
b. after what the French did to Algeria or Vietnam, or the US to Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Chile and other parts of the world, I can’t quite bring myself to taking the higher moral ground and feeling overly indignant towards the “they had it coming” crowd (even though two wrongs never make a right);
What matters is:
i. not all of the people in that culture feel that way; in fact, a majority probably feel the opposite;
ii. And those are the ones we should befriend (instead of tarring them with the same brush), if only to help fight the first category.
In short, using the “they danced on 9/11” argument is (1) likely, factually wrong, (2) idiotic, and (3) counter-productive.
Or we’ll give them “night vision” — breeding super-powered syrians with radar sense is what john is groping towards.
Are yout confused? We try the terrorists and have executed some after trial. Many are in the prison system much like those citizens of ours who commit heinous crimes
In that case, I give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant he actually saw it himself on TV and it wasn’t just someone telling him it was on TV.
But like the “Muslim registration” claim, he keeps backing off in small steps from his original claim without acknowledging it was 100% false form the beginning.
Most GOP candidates have decided to just flat out lie with impunity, knowing they have a large base that doesn’t care for the media correcting/debunking the false claims anyway.
Not sure whether that will help them in a general election where they have to do more than just win over their own crazies.
I’ve been saying for years (admitted as a joke) that the liberals should loudly endorse oxygen just to see the opposition asphyxiate itself.
A widespread campaign showing Obama saying “Do not drink arsenic” could help your political problem.
Yes,
Old Donny Combover has truly amazing eyesight indeed as apparently from his Trump Tower midtown apartment he was able to witness the poor bastards who threw themselves of the Twin Towers.
Yes at a distance if over 4.5 miles, he was able to differentiate debris from people through smoke and haze and could probably identify sex, age, marital, financial and health status.
He also said he saw people jump from the towers from his apartment miles away
Maybe he lived in a cave?
I think that many Americans are insular and spoiled. I couldn’t say how many.
And sh*t like this doesn’t help:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/23/pastor-who-hosted-republicans-paris-victims-were-devil-worshippers.html
Well, in public, they’d deny the air they were breathing contained oxygen and claim oxygen is a hoax spread by degenerates who believe in “science”; in private they’d all have a tank of the stuff in the closet.
Trump’s campaign manager, on the New Hampshire ballot challenge:
“If anything like this would ever happen Mr. Trump’s supporters would probably riot in the streets of New Hampshire.”
http://www.unionleader.com/Donald-Trump-NH-GOP-Primary-Ballot-being-disputed
Well now.