Tag: Trump lies

Trump’s False Attacks on Voting by Mail Stir Broad Concern

New York Times logoThe president’s assertions about widespread fraud have little or no basis in fact but are resonating with his supporters and give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome.

President Trump is stepping up his attacks on the integrity of the election system, sowing doubts about the November vote at a time when the pandemic has upended normal balloting and as polls show former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ahead by large margins.

Having yet to find an effective formula for undercutting Mr. Biden or to lure him into the kinds of culture war fights that the president prefers, Mr. Trump is training more of his fire on the political process in a way that appears intended to give him the option of raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome.

Promoting baseless questions about election fraud is nothing new for Mr. Trump. He has hopscotched from saying that President Barack Obama was elected with the help of dead voters to suggesting that undocumented immigrants were voting en masse to claiming that out-of-state voters were bused into New Hampshire in 2016. Continue reading.

Trump Falsely Claims Obama ‘Never Even Tried’ to Address Police Misconduct

New York Times logoAs President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday encouraging changes to policing, he falsely accused his predecessor, President Barack Obama, of choosing not to tackle the issue. Here’s a fact-check.

WHAT WAS SAID
“President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period. The reason they didn’t try is because they had no idea how to do it. And it is a complex situation.”

False. The Obama administration tried to address police misconduct in numerous ways, and some of those efforts have been reversed or limited by the Trump administration.

“The assertion that the Trump administration has done more than the Obama administration is ridiculous,” said Barry Friedman, a law professor and director of the Policing Project at New York University School of Law. “The Obama administration has taken a number of critical steps in police reform.” Continue reading.

NOAA leaders violated agency’s scientific integrity policy, Hurricane Dorian ‘Sharpiegate’ investigation finds

Washington Post logoNo punishments have been proposed, despite the violations

An investigation conducted on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that agency leadership violated its scientific integrity policy through actions that led to the release of a statement that backed President Trump’s false statement about the path of Hurricane Dorian, according a new report.

The NOAA statement, issued Sept. 6, 2019, contradicted its own meteorologists at a weather forecast office in Birmingham, Ala.

The scandal over the forecast for Hurricane Dorian has come to be known as “Sharpiegate,” after President Trump displayed a modified NOAA forecast map during an Oval Office briefing to depict the storm threatening Alabama. Continue reading.

Jimmy Kimmel Gives Simple Reason Why Trump’s Protester Conspiracy Is Nonsense

Backing this theory takes “a special kind of monster,” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host said.

Jimmy Kimmel is debunking the “bunker boy.”

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump tweeted an unfounded conspiracy theory that Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old protester who was roughly shoved onto the ground by police in Buffalo, New York, was involved in a “set up.”

Without evidence, the president claimed that Gugino, who had to be hospitalized after the incident, “fell harder than was pushed” and was trying to scan and black out police equipment. Continue reading.

Colin Powell: Trump ‘lies all the time’

He also says Trump is not following the Constitution.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called on voters not to reelect President Donald Trump this fall — saying it’s time to make America better for all people, not just a few.

“I think he has not been an effective president,” Powell told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Sunday morning. “He lies all the time. He began lying the day of inauguration, when we got into an argument about the size of the crowd that was there. People are writing books about this favorite thing of lying. And I don’t think that’s in our interest.”

“Every American citizen has to sit down, think it through and make a decision on their own,” he added on “State of the Union.“ “Don’t listen to everybody out there. Don’t read every newspaper. Think it through. Use your common sense and say, ‘Is this good for my country?’ before you say, ‘This is good for me.'” Continue reading.

Bill Barr and Trump desperately want to blame Antifa for violence — but they’re coming up dry so far

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has turned his wrath on Antifa during the George Floyd protests, demanding Antifa be labeled a terrorist organization and accusing the movement of committing acts of violence at demonstrations. But journalists William Bredderman and Spencer Ackerman, in the Daily Beast, threw cold this week on efforts to blame the leftist group.

They found that “none of the 22 criminal complaints representing the first wave of protest charges mention Antifa in any way.”

Calling Antifa a “terrorist organization” is problematic in more than one respect. First, Antifa doesn’t begin to fit the traditional definition of terrorism and doesn’t target innocent bystanders the way that actual terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda or the Ku Klux Klan have done. Second, Antifa isn’t an organization, but a decentralized movement and collection of tactics. Continue reading.

Fact-Checking Misinformation Can Work. But It Might Not Be Enough.

Last week, Twitter tried something new. When President Trump tweeted that “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” Twitter appended this message to Trump’s tweet: “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” — which in turn, linked to a page with the headline: “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”

Given the dangers misinformation poses to both democracy and public health, many believe social media platforms have a responsibility to monitor and correct misinformation before it spreads. But can corrections like this even work? And what role should social media platforms play in combating misinformation?

Well, it turns out there is evidence that fact checks do work. Numerous studies have demonstrated that when confronted with a correction, a significant share of people do, in fact, update their beliefs. Continue reading.

Protesters’ breach of temporary fences near White House complex prompted Secret Service to move Trump to secure bunker

Washington Post logoPresident Trump was rushed to a secure bunker in the White House on Friday evening after a group of protesters hopped over temporary barricades set up near the Treasury Department grounds, according to arrest records and people familiar with the incident.

The security move came after multiple people crossed over fences that had been erected to create a larger barrier around the White House complex around 7 p.m.

Secret Service officers detained at least four protesters, who were charged with unlawful entry at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, according to arrest records. The incident took place near the border between the White House lawn and Treasury Department, about 350 feet from the East Wing, and close to a Treasury fence line that has been at the center of past security failures. Continue reading.

Donald Trump, friend of ‘all’ peaceful protesters?

Washington Post logo“I am … an ally of all peaceful protesters.”

— President Trump, in remarks at the Rose Garden, June 1

These remarks from the president came just as authorities were using rubber bullets and chemical gas to clear peaceful protesters outside the White House.

On Twitter the next morning, Trump boasted: “D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination.”

And before all that, he was on the phone lecturing the nation’s governors and calling for 10-year prison sentences. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time,” Trump said of the protests sparked by police violence against African Americans, according to leaked audio of the call. “They’re going to run all over you. You’ll look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate, and you have to arrest people, and you have to try people, and they have to go to jail for long periods of time.” Continue reading.

Facebook staff anger over Trump post

Facebook staff have spoken out against the tech giant’s decision not to remove or flag a controversial post by US President Donald Trump last week.

Mr Trump took to Facebook to repeat a tweet about the widespread protests in Minneapolis, following the death of George Floyd in police custody.

Twitter had placed a warning over the content, which it said “glorified violence”, but Facebook said it did not violate its company policy.

Some staff said they were ‘ashamed’. Continue reading.