The "Fake News" Thread

[krAbs]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/07/12/president-trumps-claim-billions-and-billions-are-pouring-into-nato-because-of-his-administration/?utm_term=.965275d47eed

I feel weird posting this because it feels like a fairly begning lie that you would expect from any politician, rather than a Trump norm-busting type of lie, but still. Speaks to a pattern, ya know?

[krAbs]

some light fake news for the day:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/07/17/no-president-trump-youve-havent-signed-more-bills-than-any-president/?utm_term=.00c3e2814dd8

"“We’ve signed more bills — and I’m talking about through the legislature — than any president ever.”
–President Trump, remarks at a “Made in America” event, July 17, 2017

Shortly after the president made this statement, he amended it: “I better say ‘think,’ otherwise they’ll give you a Pinocchio. And I don’t like those — I don’t like Pinnochios.”"

"But actually Trump has not even caught up to Truman’s 100-day total – and he’s fallen behind other recent presidents"

"Our colleague Philip Bump documented that 60 percent of the bills signed by Trump so far have been just one page long."
"Tempted as we are to give the president Pinocchios for his statement, he seemed to be speaking off the cuff and was operating on outdated information from his first 100 days. We don’t play gotcha here at The Fact Checker, and we appreciate he added a caveat. He certainly appeared to pause for a moment and wonder if he was right. For Trump, that’s a step in the right direction."

[krAbs]

More fun times with Trump:

First off,
"Trump said his six-month approval poll numbers are "not bad" relative to other presidents at this point in his presidency."
The truth:
Not bad isn’t a scientific term, but by any sober measure Trump is performing relatively worse compared to his contemporaries, as well as any president since World War II."

Up next, "Trump said, "I've gotten rid of the Johnson Amendment … I signed an executive order so that now ... ministers and and preachers and rabbis and whoever it may be, they can speak. You know, you couldn’t speak politically before, now you can."

The truth:
"Experts say Trump’s claim is an overstatement because his executive order merely directed the Treasury Department to be lenient in its enforcement of the law. The president does not have constitutional authority to eliminate laws. In practice, the law has rarely been enforced, experts said, and clergy members have spoken about social and political issues, or even spoken in favor or against candidates."

Third, a bit off beat, we have some VP fake news about health care:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/07/18/vice-president-pences-bushel-of-false-and-misleading-claims-about-health-care/?utm_term=.2b7e714a2c92

^^Really too much here to summaries in one paragraph.

[krAbs]

2 minutes ago, calscuf said:

Stop it krabs.  This thread is for old white guys to jerk each other off while badmouthing CNN, nothing else.

I live to give old white guys crabs. ;D

[RallyMo]

3 hours ago, calscuf said:

Stop it krabs.  This thread is for old white guys to jerk each other off while badmouthing CNN, nothing else.

Ridiculous, it was created by our resident Chicano activist.

[Lhalo]

 

[krAbs]

Man...I'm sorry guys. I've been slacking recently.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/26/donald-trump/amazon-no-tax-monopoly-donald-trump-said/

Trump said Amazon has a "no-tax monopoly."

Amazon is an industry giant, but it does not exert enough market control to be considered a monopoly, and no U.S. tribunal has ever deemed it as such.

While Amazon takes advantage of tax breaks and loopholes, it pays federal corporate tax, and charges sales taxes in 46 U.S. jurisdictions. It also supports federal legislation that would require other online retailers to pay state tax on internet sales.

Trump’s statement is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire!

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/25/donald-trump/tweet-donald-trump-revives-charge-improper-ties-be/

Trump tweeted, "The person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from (Hillary Clinton) for wife!"

This tweet distorts key elements of the story, severely undercutting its accuracy.

A Virginia state candidate married to an FBI official did get donations from a longtime Clinton supporter, McAuliffe, who was also the Democratic governor of Virginia. But the tweet ignores at the spouse played no role in fundraising for his wife’s campaign, and it ignores that that McAuliffe made the donations on his own, for state-level political goals -- not to influence an investigation that Andrew McCabe wasn’t even involved in yet.

We rate the statement Mostly False.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/07/26/26-hours-29-trumpian-false-or-misleading-claims/?utm_term=.9ecd62315d2e

Kind of a best of: "In a period of less than 26 hours — from 6:31 p.m. on July 24 to 8:09 p.m. on July 25 — President Trump made two fired-up speeches, held a news conference and tweeted with abandon, leaving a trail of misinformation in his wake." One of my favorites:
"“Boy, have we put those coal miners and coal back on the map.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 800 jobs have been created in the coal industry since Trump became president — an increase of less than 2 percent. Administration officials often misleadingly refer to “mining” jobs, which mostly consist of jobs in the oil sector, which has rebounded from a price slump that has little to do with administration policies."

[Adam]

Amazon also employed 78% of the global population give or take a few points.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

[Thomas]

28 minutes ago, Vegas Halo Fan said:

Well yeah. Why trust the guys with the communications degrees (if you're lucky) to decipher the weather reports? Always best to go to the source!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

 

[Thomas]

I mean for fuck's sake there is a Cat 4 storm about to cross the gulf stream and they are using the tropical storm icon instead of the hurricane icon. Fucking amateurs.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

3 hours ago, Thomas said:

I mean for fuck's sake there is a Cat 4 storm about to cross the gulf stream and they are using the tropical storm icon instead of the hurricane icon. Fucking amateurs.

Taking this one step further - the shoulder logo on the Carolina Hurricanes' jerseys contains a single red flag with a black square in the center flying from a hockey stick. The flag code for a hurricane warning is two such flags, flown one above the other. (This has stayed with me over the years, as my father and I were at Jacksonville Beach as Hurricane Dora approached in 1964, and we watched the lifeguards at Jax Beach raise the two flags above their main office.) One flag is a tropical storm warning, which is a storm that lacks winds high enough (above 70 MPH) to be classified as a hurricane. Then again, maybe the people who designed the logo knew what to expect from the team.

To top it off, the National Weather Service ended the Coastal Warning Display Program in 1989. The Hurricanes moved to Charlotte from Hartford in 1997, eight years later.

Coastal Warning Display Program

 

[Vegas Halo Fan]

The University of Tulsa got it right, and they're located in a land-locked state.

 

[arch stanton]

6 hours ago, Thomas said:

I mean for fuck's sake there is a Cat 4 storm about to cross the gulf stream and they are using the tropical storm icon instead of the hurricane icon. Fucking amateurs.

But he was having such a good hair day

[UndertheHalo]