Trump & Truthful Hyperbole

[AI Wessex]

I'm highly opposed to this idea of supporting proxies to fight our wars.  It didn't work with Saddam, it didn't work with Al Queda, it's not going to work to our long term benefit with the Syrian "rebels" we are supporting and will ultimately betray.  Why does everyone see it in hindsight, yet let it go in real time?

I completely agree with this statement.  We supported Iran until we supported Iraq in its war against them.  We completely supported Iraq until they invaded Kuwait.  As the ex-Ambassador of Pakistan pointed out, it is a mistake to think that countries have friends when they have only mutual interests.  As interests change, so do allies.  Americans in general don't understand that.  Remember when Reagan sent McFarlane to Iran with a cake an offer to give them weapons in exchange for them gaining the release of the Lebanon hostages?  The sophistication of the typical American citizen about international relationships is so low that we think of other countries as taking "sides" in teams and the teams are in opposing leagues.

[rightleft22]

posted this in the wrong room

Yesterday I had a conversation with an educated libertarian trump follower. Happy to report that I didn’t get thrown when he used trump truthful hyperbole to back his position.

When he made the point of massive election fraud I asked for the evidence to back that up. He moved the conversation to Florida which does not prove this election is being, will, be rigged if Trump does not win. He ended his argument with second hand accounts of people who new people who saw fraud.

The conversation wasn’t heated. I just challenged his facts and notice the tendency towards conspiracy and distrust of facts.

This was a well educated articulate man willing to follow a man who he acknowledged did not share or represent his values as it came to character. 

Trump has successfully indoctrinated his followers to not trust the election process, the media, science, education, poles… That his lies are innocent fabrications a tool that reveille the darker “truth” … that his character and what he says doesn’t matter but they can trust him based on what he says, he is the only one that can save them.

Is Trump method intentional or ignorant?  I don’t get it

When history asks how tyrants gain political power this is how you do it.

[cherrypoptart]

I'd like to point out that the thing that makes all of these conspiracy theories so viable is the fact that our government is lying to us and constantly. If you like facts, that one is indisputable. People can only be lied to so many times before they start to just distrust everything. It's a little funny that the generation which grew up insisting that we cannot and should not trust the government is now saying that we should while at the same time being even more dishonest than the government they insisted could not be trusted back in the day. Our government has given us no reason to trust them. No reason at all. The lies just never end. And they never ever admit them even when they are caught flat out. They just keep lying. At this point it's just pathological. If anyone asks for proof I'm just going to shake my head. The proof is everywhere. For anyone who hasn't seen it there's just no help for it then.

I'll just give one example out of plenty: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/politics/nsa-data-mining/

"Obama: No one listening to your calls"

It's just lie after lie after lie with these people. We didn't even need wikileaks but it been interesting seeing how the lies get made at the government's constantly running lie factory that just churns them out one after the other non-stop like sausages.

Now Trump has lied too of course but the good thing about Trump is that his lies are completely different from the lies our government has been telling us and Trump will have no compunctions against exposing those lies since he isn't the one who told them. That'll be a very good start. Hopefully somebody will come along after Trump and then expose his lies as well. But he's the only one who will tell the truth about the corruption we now have with the establishment.

[AI Wessex]

I'd like to point out that the thing that makes all of these conspiracy theories so viable is the fact that our government is lying to us and constantly. If you like facts, that one is indisputable.

The thing I'd like to point out is that you use that as a smokescreen to validate every conspiracy theory that gets past your spam filter.  Being right one out of a hundred times about one of these "theories" in which the government is a villain conniving to deprive you of your guns doesn't justify using the other ninety nine times you're wrong where you defend hopeless losers and fanatics or are mortally suspicious of people you don't like.  You just gave a perfect example of your special kind of paranoia:

I'll just give one example out of plenty: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/politics/nsa-data-mining/

"Obama: No one listening to your calls"

I read the article.  Nowhere in it does it say that the government is "listening to your calls".  It says that the government is collecting information about phone calls, which is perhaps pushing the limit of government intrusion, but is not the same thing.  You like to stretch things beyond that breaking point to reassure yourself that the government really is out to get you. 

I don't think you've ever proffered up one of these "theories" that turned out to be true, but that doesn't mean that one day you won't be right.  There's a saying that an optimist has to be right all the time in order not to be proven wrong, but a pessimist only has to be proven right once.  You don't need even that much confirmation.

Now Trump has lied too of course but the good thing about Trump is that his lies are completely different from the lies our government has been telling us and Trump will have no compunctions against exposing those lies since he isn't the one who told them.

Now you winge completely out of whack by believing a man who has shown dozens of times that he is completely comfortable lying about anything and everything.  I can't fathom why you trust everything about him and nothing about people that he lies about.

[Greg Davidson]

The problem with truthful hyperbole is that it is just another way of saying something is factually wrong but feels right.

[rightleft22]

the good thing about Trump is that his lies are completely different

wow

maybe trumps scorched earth methods is just what the world deserves

[cherrypoptart]

If you want to make a distinction between listening to your calls and recording everything that is being said or even gathering all the metadata then that's what I would call lawyer's lies. Regular people aren't interested in such parsing exercises.

For instance,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75LkkXFbNh8

NSA Gen Keith Alexander LIES @ Def Con 2012 "we do not collect"

If you want to try to make a distinction between a lie and a deception be my guest but as I said plenty of people don't care about the hair's breadth of difference and I'm one of them. If that's your argument for trusting the government it's not a good one. All that means is that the government lies to us all the time and they don't feel the least compunction against it because like you and some others they don't see anything at all wrong with it and don't consider it lying at all.

Trump has never been in power. His lies don't have anything to do with our current government and its numerous abuses and crimes against the citizenry.

You don't have to believe Trump about anything. None of his accusations even matter. This has all been going on long before he got on the scene. He is in fact irrelevant except for the one important thing he has going for him, that being that he is outside of the establishment and has every reason to reveal its deceptions and crimes and no reason at all to hide them, at least not yet since he has been complicit in none of them himself. After he's been in office a while then it will be time to get someone new in there; another outsider who will reveal any such deceptive and self serving activities that compromise the integrity of our government he's engaged in during his tenure in power, just like now is the time to bring him in as an outsider to do that to Obama/Clinton/Bush. The complicity of the government of Saudi Arabia in helping to attack America on 9-11 is just one example and a very good start.

[Greg Davidson]

He is in fact irrelevant except for the one important thing he has going for him, that being that he is outside of the establishment and has every reason to reveal its deceptions and crimes and no reason at all to hide them, at least not yet since he has been complicit in none of them himself.

Why is Donald Trump outside the establishment? He's made use of campaign contributions to buy political influence - he even bragged about that during the Republican debates.

And how are the Democrats and the Republicans of today within the same establishment? Today's Republican Party has taken the most obstructionist set of actions against President Obama than any in our two-party system since the Civil War. And the close runner-up were the Republican abuses of government investigative powers (using a 300K loan 20 years earlier to a business associate of a newly elected President as a justification for an $80M Congressionally-sanctioned Whitewater investigation) and impeachment. 

So other than truthful hyperbole (that is fantasy that feels good), on what basis do you define the establishment, and if your definition is that borad, what exactly does it mean? 

[cherrypoptart]

"Why is Donald Trump outside the establishment?"

I can't answer that question any better than just pointing to all the information that is already out there. If you think Trump paying legal bribes to politicians to get deals done puts him in the establishment I won't try to talk you out of it.

I'm counting as part of the establishment, and I suppose basically my definition of it, the open borders globalist new world order corporatists who are selling America out for a quick payday and getting their own short term gain for our long term pain. That includes many Republicans but not all of them, particularly not the Tea Party Republicans.

I know hardly anything about Whitewater. The only thing I remember is that supposedly a bunch of files that law enforcement needed were lost and then suddenly showed up the day after the statute of limitations ran out.

[AI Wessex]

I'm counting as part of the establishment, and I suppose basically my definition of it, the open borders globalist new world order corporatists who are selling America out for a quick payday and getting their own short term gain for our long term pain.

That's a pretty roundabout and non-standard definition.  I could ask you to define who those people are more specifically, but I don't think we'd get much further than you don't trust "them," whoever they are.  As for what Tea Partiers would do about those things, ... what exactly is that?

As for the Whitewater papers that were discovered, Cherry is on target.  But it didn't matter, since neither the House nor Senate nor Kenneth Starr found that either of the Clintons had committed any crimes.

[AI Wessex]

If you want to make a distinction between listening to your calls and recording everything that is being said or even gathering all the metadata then that's what I would call lawyer's lies. Regular people aren't interested in such parsing exercises.

For instance,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75LkkXFbNh8

NSA Gen Keith Alexander LIES @ Def Con 2012 "we do not collect"

In the video he says that they only "collect" on calls involving someone outside the US.  Is that what you are calling a lie?  What's your evidence?

[rightleft22]

Lies are lies there is no justification

And if you think that trump cares about his followers I think you going to be disappointed.
If Trump gets elect it is just a matter of time that his base turns on him or he turns on them and it won't be pretty.


Donald Trump is the biggest disaster ever to be inflicted on the American People. Look at me embracing Hyperbole

[AI Wessex]

Where's the hyperbole?

[TheDrake]

And how are the Democrats and the Republicans of today within the same establishment?

Let's see, there is the commission on presidential debates that they have exclusive control over. There's major party status and automatic ballot access. Senators Leahy (D) and Hatch (R) have been serving in that role since the mid 1970s. There's mutual agreement on bombing everywhere at all times. Mutual agreement on not balancing the budget. They are pretty well established.

Now, Trump is anti-establishment in his lone call for high tariffs on foreign goods, banning all Muslims, etc etc. Being part of the establishment is more than just who gives money to whom. It is part of a series of beliefs, an ethos. And having normal sized hands.

[TheDrake]

Nobody loves their followers more than Trump. He will take care of them bigly.

[cherrypoptart]

"Lies are lies there is no justification."

So Bill Clinton's lie about how "'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That..." are the same as the Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction that got us to invade Iraq?

That's not what we were told at the time or all this time since.

Here's an example of a Trump "lie" according to some guy at the UN:

"Mr Trump claimed his rival was “taking in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who probably, in many cases - not probably - who are definitely, in many cases, Isis-aligned”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-campaign-latest-peddling-lies-xenophobia-syrian-refugees-isis-un-counter-terror-a7375036.html

"Ben Emmerson, the UN’s special rapporteur on the protection of human rights in counter-terrorism, said his own investigation concluded that “there is no evidence that terrorist groups take advantage of refugee flows to carry out acts of terrorism, or that refugees are somehow more prone to radicalisation than others”.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is in contradiction to many other reports:

http://www.newsweek.com/how-isis-smuggles-terrorists-among-syrian-refugees-453039

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/710078/Police-swoop-three-Syrian-refugees-arrest-terror-charges-merkel-maziere-denmark-ISIS

[AI Wessex]

"Lies are lies there is no justification."

So Bill Clinton's lie about how "'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That..." are the same as the Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction that got us to invade Iraq?

That's not what we were told at the time or all this time since.

You're doing the Trump pivot from Whitewater to Lewinsky.  I guess that means you have no response to the Whitewater counter-argument.  But since you bring that up, let me ask, is he running for President again?  FWIW, he was held accountable by impeachment and not convicted.  How does any of that have any bearing on your thinking about Hillary?  Try not to pivot.

"Mr Trump claimed his rival was “taking in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who probably, in many cases - not probably - who are definitely, in many cases, Isis-aligned”.

And some of them, I assume, are good people.  It only takes one Syrian refuge out of a million to be "ISIS-aligned" for Trump's statement to be technically true.  Nobody would deny that, but Trump isn't suggesting that; he's saying that you can't trust any of them because one might be. 

You know what, you can't trust people to carry guns in this country, either.  Not just one person got killed with one, but every year 33,000 do.  How many have been killed in this country by Syrian immigrants tied to terrorism?  I think the answer is zero.  And here's my "prediction".  If Trump loses (or if he wins), far more non-whites will be killed by whites because they're not "like them" than the reverse.  The kinds of arguments you make are not much different from ones coming from white supremicists and separatists who are stoking the fire for domestic terrorism.  I'm not saying you're one, of course.  For all I know you're just fooling around with us playing devil's advocate and pretending to ignore when you're proven wrong.  If so, good job!  It's a very convincing act.

[Greg Davidson]

I am kind of stunned by cherry's comment:

I know hardly anything about Whitewater. The only thing I remember is that supposedly a bunch of files that law enforcement needed were lost and then suddenly showed up the day after the statute of limitations ran out.

But it also makes sense. If one is pretty much unaware of the 25 years of attacks against the Clintons by the right wing, I can see coming to a different understanding on present perceptions.

[rightleft22]

Why if I say lies are lies the counter is about other people lies.

If your ok with a leader making outrages fabrications you cannot be surprised when the leader eventually lies to you about something that impacts you. Not expecting more of a leader and worse defined the lies as well at least there different is absurd and hypocritical.

[cherrypoptart]

Well if you didn't defend Bill Clinton's perjury and you thought he should have been removed from office after impeachment for his lies under oath then that's fine but plenty of other people including almost everyone on the Democrat side now supporting Hillary and opposing Trump made the case that some lies matter and other lies don't. Now all of a sudden All Lies Matter.

No Trump supporter is going to take a Clinton supporter, both Hillary and Bill, seriously on that. Probably few people will take any Hillary and Bill Clinton supporters seriously when they talk about how important lies are and they disqualify someone for political office. It looks like Democrats have done their job just a little too well.

[rightleft22]

This is not bias or based on second hand info.

Any honest examination of a Trump speech reveals:

A dependence on fabrication, hyperbole and self circler reference as fact. I said it, or read it (read what I wrote) so it must be true and not a lie. I belive what I say as I'm saying it so its not a lie....

Trump surrounds himself with yes men

Every confrontation reveals how easily Trump is provoked into childlike reactions.

Trumps has two strategies

Those on the other side are the enemy and must be destroyed, someone comes at you, you come at them harder – scorched earth – get personal, the end justifies the means. No apologies.  When you are accused of something accuse the accuser.  Accuse others of doing the very same thing your doing and play the victim.

Sow the seeds of mistrust. Blame blame blame. Never self reflect.

Some might find these admirable qualities for a leader however if, no when, the time comes when you might question what this man is doing this is what you are going to get.

[cherrypoptart]

What are some examples of Trump lies?

I will honestly tell you if a Trump supporter will find them important or not, for instance more important than the 2nd Amendment, border security, and Islamic terrorism because they will have to be in order to influence any Trump supporter into voting against him. And just like the lies Bill Clinton told didn't influence many if any people against supporting him and the lies Hillary has told haven't influenced many if any of her supporters into turning on her, it's highly unlikely that any of Trump's lies will be any more consequential to people who agree with him on the issues.

It's a worthy subject to bring up and discuss and it's nice to air out the hypocrisy on both sides when it comes to lying, such as the right making a big deal about it when Bill Clinton did it but now excusing it when it's Trump and the left doing exactly the opposite, but if anyone is hoping this will be a persuasive issue that is highly unlikely because it never has been before.

I also wonder if it's being asserted that Hillary hasn't told lies that are just as bad and just as disqualifying. Why are her lies okay or different? Or has she not told any?

[Greg Davidson]

Donald Trump lied on multiple occasions when he said that he saw thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11. How serious is this lie? It is not hyperbole to say that the sensitivity of the accusation fits comfortably within the category of lies told by political figures in Rwanda and Serbia prior to the initiation of ethnic cleansing.  If you are rating the severity of different types of lies, that is a serious lie.

Bill Clinton lied to avoid political damage from a sex scandal.

[cherrypoptart]

So if Hillary had told a lie like that, not that she ever would of course, but just hypothetically if she had instead of Trump, would her supporters give up on their support of her and her agenda, their agenda, to support Trump instead or just not support anyone?

[rightleft22]

I'm not trying to change anyone mind or loyalty.

IT is just my opinion that Trumps not being a politician and personality traits makes him the politician of politicians and not someone that should be trusted.

I'm not taking about the policies.

Trump has demonstrated that he is who he is, what you see is what you will get, and he will turn on his followers if and when it suits him.

[AI Wessex]

What are some examples of Trump lies?

Cherry, here is one of many web sites that has a list of lies Trump has said, focusing just on him lying about what he himself had said in public.

It's a worthy subject to bring up and discuss and it's nice to air out the hypocrisy on both sides when it comes to lying, such as the right making a big deal about it when Bill Clinton did it but now excusing it when it's Trump and the left doing exactly the opposite, but if anyone is hoping this will be a persuasive issue that is highly unlikely because it never has been before.

I also wonder if it's being asserted that Hillary hasn't told lies that are just as bad and just as disqualifying. Why are her lies okay or different? Or has she not told any?

This is your latest obsessive pivot.  I think everyone would agree that both Bill and Hillary have lied.  We would also agree that every politician has lied at some point or another.  We would also agree that Trump has lied.  What's different is that Trump lies even when he has no good reason to lie.  He lies because he doesn't want to be held to his own statements.  He lies to escape criticism.  He lies to make other people look bad.  He lies for no reason on almost every topic.  I don't understand why you think he isn't lying to you.

[cherrypoptart]

Well you nailed it, Al. Trump does lie about everything you said he does and most of all he lies about things that don't even matter and there isn't even any good reason for him to even lie about it especially when there is youtube video of him saying just the opposite only days before.

Hillary on the other hand lies about things that do matter like the Heller decision, open borders, free trade and TPP, bankers, etc. Her lies are diabolical and not meant to be uncovered. She lies on important issues. She even said so herself when she admitted taking both public and private positions. The equivalent for Trump would be if he's lying about the wall, and then he increases refugees from terrorist countries without proper vetting, and he goes back on his word with his Supreme Court list. Those are lies that would matter. Like Hillary's.

[Greg Davidson]

So if Hillary had told a lie like that, not that she ever would of course, but just hypothetically if she had instead of Trump, would her supporters give up on their support of her and her agenda, their agenda, to support Trump instead or just not support anyone?

I absolutely believe that I would judge Hillary Clinton by her actions. If she had told such an inflammatory lie, I would not support her. I wouldn't go to Trump because he does the same.

[Greg Davidson]

Hillary on the other hand lies about things that do matter like the Heller decision, open borders, free trade and TPP, bankers, etc. Her lies are diabolical and not meant to be uncovered. She lies on important issues. She even said so herself when she admitted taking both public and private positions.

Just because Hillary does not share your position on gun rights does not mean that she is lying.  And if you look at the actual quote she made on open borders in the wikileaks information, she was explicitly talking about with respect to energy (not labor).  Her comment about taking public and private positions was in direct reference to the Spielberg movie "Lincoln" - did you see it? Are you shocked that politicians sometimes take political positions?

I believe that this is a very different moral situation than inciting angry mobs with a false story that American Muslims were cheering on 9/11. Let's test your honesty, cherry, do you believe it is the same or different?


Due to the unprecedented level of scrutiny she has gotten, both through the myriad of Congressional investigations and wikileaks,we have pretty clear information that her integrity is at least as good as that of the last three Republican Presidents.

 

[AI Wessex]

Well you nailed it, Al. Trump does lie about everything you said he does and most of all he lies about things that don't even matter and there isn't even any good reason for him to even lie about it especially when there is youtube video of him saying just the opposite only days before.

That's all you need to know, but even though you know it, you still sweep it under the rug and continue to believe in him.  Go figure.

Hillary on the other hand lies about things that do matter like the Heller decision, open borders, free trade and TPP, bankers, etc.

OK, tell me what the lies were.  Be clear so I won't come back at you and say you're twisting or misunderstanding what she has said.  Saying you don't believe that she'll do what she says is not a case of her lying, but of you mistrusting her, which says a lot about you and nothing about her.

The equivalent for Trump would be if he's lying about the wall, and then he increases refugees from terrorist countries without proper vetting, and he goes back on his word with his Supreme Court list. Those are lies that would matter. Like Hillary's.

IMO, he's not going to build a wall and doesn't care either way.  There are a few reasons why I think that.  First, it would cost $300B-$400B and take over a decade to do it.  Where would that money come from?  He no longer says Mexico will pay for it, but that Mexico will reimburse the US for building it.  Why in the world would they do that?  I won't look for a quote, but he said at one point that the only reason he keeps talking about building the wall is because it gets people at his rallies excited.

I do think he will refuse to accept refuges, even though there is no good reason to do so.  So, his xenophobia won't go away.

According to some sources, Trump never even looked at the list of potential SC nominees, and the list has changed already at least once.   He doesn't care who's on it, as long as it looks like people who might support him like it.

He's playing you, like he plays everybody he does business with.  He knows what to say to get you to think he'll do what you want.

He lies like a rug.  He can't find the truth on almost any issues because he wouldn't recognize it if he saw it.

[cherrypoptart]

Thousands and thousands was truthful hyperbole but I believe he saw enough. Perhaps instead of saying thousands he should have left it at swarms.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/12/02/trump-100-vindicated-cbs-reports-swarms-on-roofs-celebrating-911/

And I'm not buying any of the spin regarding the Heller decision, or her open borders. The only credit I might give her on open borders is she isn't quite lying about it. She's openly promising it, in so many words, just like Obama did. And that's a promise he kept. But if she ever did say anything about securing the border that's just a blatant lie. She pulled left on TPP to beat Sanders and that was just a lie because she never stopped supporting it. What's funny about that is I just watched The West Wing episode about how Jed promised during his campaign to protect good high paying American jobs when even he knew it was a lie and impossible all along and he as much as admitted it to a crushed and disappointed Josh as 17,000 great paying IT jobs were going to get outsourced to India. If even Jed Bartlett lied about it there is no way I'd believe Hillary more.

On Heller Hillary said recently that she was talking about keeping guns out of the hands of toddlers or some such nonsense. She's blatantly lying here. She's for gun confiscation and just doesn't want to lose the votes she knows she will if she admits it.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/23/wsj-no-hillary-heller-decision-not-endanger-toddlers/

I'm sorry but the divide in the credibility gap is just too great with her and all of your protestations to the contrary ring hollow. I don't think we'll ever close this distance so we may have to leave it there, or somewhere in this proximity.

If Donald Trump is playing everybody and he does exactly the opposite of everything he's saying all that means is that a vote for him is no different than a vote for Hillary so there's nothing lost anyway.

[AI Wessex]

I'm sorry but the divide in the credibility gap is just too great with her and all of your protestations to the contrary ring hollow. I don't think we'll ever close this distance so we may have to leave it there, or somewhere in this proximity.

I'm not actually trying to convince you, since I think you are swimming in kool-aid that is way over your head.  I just hope you won't pull out your arsenal after Trump loses and the Senate goes to the Democrats.  Just remember that it ain't rigged just because you lost; you lost because most people who voted don't agree with you.  That's called Democracy.

If Donald Trump is playing everybody and he does exactly the opposite of everything he's saying all that means is that a vote for him is no different than a vote for Hillary so there's nothing lost anyway.

Wow, that's like saying you don't want to be treated for a disease that will kill you because you're going to die one day anyway. 

[Greg Davidson]

Thousands and thousands was truthful hyperbole but I believe he saw enough. Perhaps instead of saying thousands he should have left it at swarms.

Cherry,

You believe in the crazy. And you use Breitbart as a source. And you have a clear pattern of being unwilling to acknowledge when you promote falsehoods - that's the real meaning of "truthful" hyperbole, you are evidently fine with promoting any falsehoods that feel true to you.

The right wing's sick fantasy about American Muslims celebrating 9/11 shows far more about them than anything about the rest of us. The main role that American Muslims had in 9/11 was as victims. And it is grotesque bigotry that blames Muslims for the acts of the extremists who murdered them.

That's why Donald Trump and the bigots of the Republican Party have no answer to rebut the story of Captain Khan. This soldier, and his parents, are better Americans than Donald Trump or anyone else who spreads the same malicious xenophobic hatred.

Go ahead and watch this, and see if you can understand why most of America is fleeing in disgust from the evil ideology promoted by Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCqFCCgU1xk

[D.W.]

Well if you didn't defend Bill Clinton's perjury and you thought he should have been removed from office after impeachment for his lies under oath then that's fine but plenty of other people including almost everyone on the Democrat side now supporting Hillary and opposing Trump made the case that some lies matter and other lies don't. Now all of a sudden All Lies Matter.

I didn’t defend him, but I also don’t think for a second he should have been removed from office.  I mean, if he screwed another world leader’s wife or young daughter and started a war while on a state visit?  OK, THEN I care who he has sex with.  Otherwise I care just a little less than who my favorite movie stars are sleeping with.  That is to say, almost none at all.

And seriously, who supports Hillary, AND opposes Trump, that can with a straight face say that all lies should be judged with the same criticism?  I mean, do they actually have to say the asterisk out loud when they add, “But I am voting for her anyway.”? 

For me it breaks down on what types of lies I’ve come to expect and accept from politicians and which ones I cannot.  I don’t trust Hillary in the slightest, I DO believe I have a good idea of how she will run the country and I’m fairly comfortable with that projection both in terms of reliability and acceptability.  Trump I also have no trust in.  His wholesale rejection of the truth and (apparent) belief in his version of reality is what makes him terrifying to me.  Now, maybe it’s a show.  Maybe he’s made the calculation that this “act” is what it takes to win the election and motivate a large enough portion of America to vote for him.  If that is the case… I hate him all the more for forcing me to see our population in a much more ugly and depressing light than I did before.

The only “lie” from Hillary that truly bothers me is more of an implication.  That she is “on the working class’s side” against the excesses of Wall street.  Now I think she would protect the people of America against the most extreme abuses by big business and she does believe in some regulation.  I just think that her rhetoric on this topic does not match her beliefs or trust in the standard quo business engine of the country.  But… NOW my only choice is between her with more of the same, or someone who rolls back what little protections we have and turns us from debt ridden sharecroppers into full fledged slaves.  Wheeeee.     Who needs illegal foreign workers when you can exploit most of your own country?

[Wayward Son]

Thousands and thousands was truthful hyperbole but I believe he saw enough. Perhaps instead of saying thousands he should have left it at swarms.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/12/02/trump-100-vindicated-cbs-reports-swarms-on-roofs-celebrating-911/

Trump said he saw on the TV the thousands and thousands celebrating.  He said he saw it on TV.

I scrolled through the TV clip that Breitbart had.  I didn't see anyone celebrating.  Not one.

And yet Brietbart says this TV story "100% Vindicated" Trump.  Because somebody said they saw it.

It wouldn't have vindicated Trump even if the person who said he saw it was Trump himself, because he still wouldn't have seen it on TV!

He didn't see thousands and thousands.  He didn't even see a swarm.  The best you could say was that he misremembered.  Closer to the truth would be that he heard about it, and in his addled mind he remembered actually seeing it on TV.

But he didn't see sh!t.

You know, it's probably not a good idea to use an Truthful Hyperbole article to prove that something wasn't a Truthful Hyperbole.

[AI Wessex]

One night last week I had two drinks on an empty stomach.  I was seeing swarms, so I can understand how that could have happened to him.

[rightleft22]

More and more I hear the re-frame that you can’t trust the media.

I get it discerning the difference between news, editorial, conjecture… can be very difficult, especially that more often than not talk about a news event becomes the news event being talked about.

When I asked a friend who often makes that statement that the media can’t be trusted where he gets the information that he does trust he points to social media and second hand accounts. For some reason he does not include social media platforms as part the media that can’t be trusted... unless the social media reported information that went against what he already believed in which case he labeled it as biased and not be trusted. I asked if he ever question if he had a biased and he looked at me as if I was crazy.

So now we have a man running for president who uses media to inform his followers that the media can’t be trusted and is biased. We have a man who tells his followers that it doesn’t matter what he says or how he says it because “he's just saying it like it is”, and that they should listen to him and trust him to be their voice.

I don’t get it.

[cherrypoptart]

If we can't trust Greta Van Susteren then there is no one we can trust.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=chr-greentree_ff&p=trump+9-11+celebrate#id=26&vid=8fd91ca6649715353352acde0ec988a1&action=click


"Trump partially right about Muslims celebrating 9/11

New investigation finds some Muslims in NJ were celebrating the 9/11 terror attacks, but in the dozens, not thosands as Trump claims. Reporter Mark Mueller..."

I think this is a great example of truthful hyperbole. There is more truth to it than liberals want to admit, but it's also full of hyperbole as well.

[AI Wessex]

Funny, I watched the video and the reporter clearly said that Trump was full of *censored*.  In other words, what Trump said happened never happened.  He says there were "two small celebrations" which were not recorded, so it's an anecdotal report that can't be verified or examined to see what the people were actually doing. 

It somehow reassures you that what Trump said was "mostly true" even though the report you link to says that was he said was categorically false.  He never saw a video, there weren't thousands of people celebrating, but maybe there were a few dozen having private celebrations that he knew nothing about.

You are a constant source of amazement to me.

[Wayward Son]

If we can't trust Greta Van Susteren then there is no one we can trust.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=chr-greentree_ff&p=trump+9-11+celebrate#id=26&vid=8fd91ca6649715353352acde0ec988a1&action=click


"Trump partially right about Muslims celebrating 9/11

New investigation finds some Muslims in NJ were celebrating the 9/11 terror attacks, but in the dozens, not thosands as Trump claims. Reporter Mark Mueller..."

I think this is a great example of truthful hyperbole. There is more truth to it than liberals want to admit, but it's also full of hyperbole as well.

Hey, if I can find a dozen or so right-wingers who celebrated the 9/11 attacks, does that mean we can talk about throwing all of them out of our country, too?

[Greg Davidson]

Even at the core of the falsehood was some people reporting that they heard some other people who they described as Muslims celebrating on 9/11. They could have been Sikhs or some other group. No real evidence that even these few people were celebrating because of the 9/11 attacks. For all we know, they could have been celebrating someone they knew getting out of the city alive, or some other thing that was going on that day.

[TheDeamon]

What nonsense.  The mess in the middle east wasn't created by the second Iraq war.  Nor was the war handled in a stupid manner.  At best, you could argue the post-war was bungled, but even that was no where near as bad as the decision by the Obama administration to completely  pull out - which you want to give a free pass on.

A lot of this can actually go back to a five letter word: Hitler.

While the Brit's were repatriating Jews to what became Israel prior to WW2(after they gained control of it after WW1), the BIG push for that didn't happen until after WW2. Without Hitler and WW2, there wouldn't have a huge impetus for "a Jewish state" and there possibly would have been no need for "a two state solution" as the Jews would have been more inclined to be partners rather than the dominant party in Palestine. This also isn't to mention "Nazi outreach" operations in the run up to World War 2, and during it. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood were very good friends with the Aryan Nation. So getting Hitler and the Nazi's out of the mix would have simplified things greatly.

Of course, the easiest solution to preventing Hitler and the rise of the Nazis(at least as they did) in Germany, would be to find some way to have prevented WW1, or at least found some way to considerably mellow out that abomination of an Armistice Treaty.

The Second thing to address:
The First (United States) Persian(/Arabian) Gulf war, and it's outcome. In case you forgot, Al Qaeda's initial, and largest, gripe with the United States was their having troops stationed "on the Holy Land" of Saudi Arabia. Troops which were present to serve as a combined deterrent and "trip-wire" should Saddam Hussein start feeling his oats and decide to invade the House of Saud. Yes they also complained about the U.S. supporting Israel, but without the U.S. Troops on the Arabian Peninsula, chances are very good that Al Qaeda would have largely left the United States alone.

Again, the real lesson of Iraq is that the United States has no ability to maintain a consistent foreign policy and no one should ever rely on us to do so.  At the best we are a hammer, and will never be anything else.  More often, we are a hammer, then a crowbar, then a hammer, then a wrecking ball, then a hammer again, and we can't understand why no one really wants us on their construction site.

Agreed.

[Seriati]

A lot of this can actually go back to a five letter word: Hitler.

  five letters?

The First (United States) Persian(/Arabian) Gulf war, and it's outcome. In case you forgot, Al Qaeda's initial, and largest, gripe with the United States was their having troops stationed "on the Holy Land" of Saudi Arabia.

I think statements like this are overstated.  American media "simplifies" international issues for Domestic consumption.  Al Qaeda's leaders had multiple reasons for what they did, that may have been a "last straw" or a motivator for some, but there were a lot more reasons than that.

[TheDeamon]

A lot of this can actually go back to a five letter word: Hitler.

  five letters?

Mental count fail, didn't recheck once typed out.

[TheDeamon]

The First (United States) Persian(/Arabian) Gulf war, and it's outcome. In case you forgot, Al Qaeda's initial, and largest, gripe with the United States was their having troops stationed "on the Holy Land" of Saudi Arabia.

I think statements like this are overstated.  American media "simplifies" international issues for Domestic consumption.  Al Qaeda's leaders had multiple reasons for what they did, that may have been a "last straw" or a motivator for some, but there were a lot more reasons than that.

The initial fatwa for Al Qaeda complained about the troop presence, it complained about the plight of the Iraqis under the sanctions, and further, the leader of the group was a Saudi himself, as was much of his leadership. I think it was very much about their homeland and their Sunni brothers-in-arms in Iraq. As much as Saddam Hussein was mostly secular and in fact seems to not have had ties to AQ. Saddam Hussein and OBL still were both (broadly) identified as Sunni Muslims.

Which brings us back to our handling of Iraq through the 90's being the main decisive factor for AQ.

[Seriati]

TheDeamon, I don't disagree with your read of the Fatwa, I'm just saying I think you're overemphasizing its importance.  This is an inherent bias problem in historians generally, what ever fragmentary records they have they overweight in importance because its all they have.  The people living there though were exposed to thousands of additional sources, over decades of life span with all kinds of unique build up in their minds as to who's wronged and by how much.

To give you an example, I once read an Al Queda critique on why Democracy was fundamentally incompatible with Islam and had to be opposed.  What struck me is that it was entirely reasonable from a religious point of view.  It was focused on how Democracies tend to replace the will of god with the will of man, they don't have to but they do, and governance is best left in their view to those who focus on god first.  What's interesting is that it was an argument that a devout but not radicalized person would agree with.  But it's not what was presented in the US media because it was too complicated a message and you know understanding more about the enemy might confuse us and lead us to make the wrong decisions on compromise.

Just saying, don't overweigh a single document, people are almost always motivated by whole network of things.

[TheDeamon]

Oh, I'm sure AQ would have eventually come up with other/different reasons for going to war against the United States. It just happened that the situation with Iraq was already there, was readily available, and provided a ready means to demonstrate the oppressive nature of the Americans by pointing to the plight of the Iraqis as being the fault of the Americans rather than due to Saddam Hussein. It's all alternate history from there, they wouldn't have picked up some of the recruits they did, or at least, not when they did, but they probably would still have picked up recruits, just possibly in smaller numbers as whatever their replacement reason would have been, it probably wouldn't have been as effective for recruiting.

Of course, if we weren't trying to contain Iraq during the 90's we may have become even more adventurous than we ultimately were during that decade. Which may have been a net win for AQ. Depending on what we stuck out nose into.

[rightleft22]

Al-Qaeda's origins
Al-Qaeda, meaning "the base", was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads.

The organization grew out of the network of Arab volunteers who had gone to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight under the banner of Islam against Soviet Communism.

During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.

Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 had put the Kingdom and its ruling House of Saud at risk.  Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahideen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow US and allied forces to deploy troops into Saudi territory

The deployment angered bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, he was banished and forced to live in exile in Sudan.

In the early 1990s Al-Qaeda operated in Sudan. After 1996 its headquarters and about a dozen training camps moved to Afghanistan, where Bin Laden forged a close relationship with the Taleban.

al-Qaeda in Iraq to become ISIS,
- Paul Bremer decision to disband Iraqi military without thought on were the disgruntle soldiers might go.
- Abu Ghraib prison acts as a networking tool bring like-minded individuals together.
- disaffection of Iraqi Sunnis who were sidelined and targeted by Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki after the American withdrawal.

 http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/the-rise-if-isis
 “This documentary lays out, in chilling detail, the buildup of unheeded warnings, failures, and missed opportunities that allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq to become ISIS,”

[rightleft22]

We create what we fear

[rightleft22]

Came across an article explain why facts don’t win arguments – the backfire effect

We read a news story that presents both sides of an issue, we simply pick the side we happen to agree with and it reinforces our viewpoint. But what of those individuals who don't simply resist challenges to their views, but who actually come to hold their original opinion even more strongly?

The "backfire effect" as a possible result of

The process by which people counterargue preference-incongruent information and bolster their preexisting views. If people counterargue unwelcome information vigorously enough, they may end up with 'more attitudinally congruent information in mind than before the debate,' which in turn leads them to report opinions that are more extreme than they otherwise would have had."

http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-backfire-effect-why-facts-dont-win-arguments

Trumps truthful Hyperbole creating the backfire effect is proving to be very affective. We should be concerned.