Misleading or False Claims by Trump

[D.W.]

That is a question that on it's face seems to insist on transparency.  I tend to agree with that sentiment.  However rightleft22's point about such nakedness being viral is a problem.  When blatant disregard for the niceties becomes contagious it makes me question that sentiment. 

[TheDrake]

Others were just better at cloaking this. Would you rather this be true and hidden, or true and exposed?

I'd prefer a Nixon to a Trump, if that makes it clear. Nixon was a bare knuckle brawler, full on racist, vindictive to his enemies, paranoid, and nowhere near as divisive to the country because he closed the door first.

[Fenring]

My question wasn't really about which you'd like more if given the choice. It's more that Trump has openly exposed what I think has been the case for a while, that politics has devolved into a WWE wrestling match where you create a persona, flex your muscles, and have the audience root for you the loudest.

Dunno if you remember Doc Brown's amazing line from Back to the Future, where when told that Reagan is President he says something like "Of course! Once politics is televised it makes sense that actors would be elected." Although that hasn't been literally true all the way since Reagan (that people whose profession is acting win in politics) for the most part, with exceptions in California and Minnesota, it has roughly been true that elections are now mostly theatre where you're voting for the best character. Trump is the absurdist version of that, where the audience voted for the 'troll character'. But the audience mustn't be blamed for this: it's not them who turned it into a circus, but once it is a circus, who's to blame them voting for the clown?

[rightleft22]

"Don't see how this applies only to Trump"

Of course it doesn't only apply to Trump however I'm not a fan of the "well Johnny does it to" defense.
The difference with Trump is that he is a master of manipulating reality in order to "win".     

[Fenring]

"Don't see how this applies only to Trump"

Of course it doesn't only apply to Trump however I'm not a fan of the "well Johnny does it to" defense.

No, you missed the point. It has nothing to do with pointing a finger at another politician who does the same. I'm talking about the structure of politics in general at this point.

[rightleft22]

Well then I guess I would rather they hid it and maintained a pretense of civility

[cherrypoptart]

Trump said soybean prices have gone up. They're near decade-lows.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-said-soybean-prices-gone-171400339.html

I don't think I can be accused of cheeky frivolity on this one seeing as how they did a whole story on it that ended up on the front page of my internet. Just another one of Trump's many lies. How is he not impeached already? (Alright, that part was cheeky.)

[Crunch]

But checking NASDAQ, soybean prices have gone up.

https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/soybean.aspx

From Farm Future:

Soybean prices gained more than 1% Friday with weather-related harvest delays imminent in some key production areas, and with plenty more rain in the forecast. November futures climbed 9.75 cents to $8.69, while January futures gained 9.5 cents to $8.8250. For the week, November futures were up 2.8% and found six-week highs in the process.

Currently at 6 week highs.  Are they near decade lows? Maybe, I don’t know. But they have been going up and the futures prices are going up as well.

[TheDrake]

A dead cat bounce is not "going up". In the context of describing the impact of his policies, Trump can't reasonably mean that an end of September phenomenon is caused by his policy, which had its impact in June causing a 20% drop. If you just zoom your chart out to a six month time frame you'll have a better picture.

He in fact knew that his policies were hurting soybean prices because he supported a bailout package for them in July. In August, this solidified into 3.6 billion for the soybean producers.

Now he could mean soybean prices + the $1.65 per bushel he's going to hand them.

[TheDeamon]

A dead cat bounce is not "going up". In the context of describing the impact of his policies, Trump can't reasonably mean that an end of September phenomenon is caused by his policy, which had its impact in June causing a 20% drop. If you just zoom your chart out to a six month time frame you'll have a better picture.

He in fact knew that his policies were hurting soybean prices because he supported a bailout package for them in July. In August, this solidified into 3.6 billion for the soybean producers.

Give it a couple more months, China has already nearly exhausted nearly every other source for soybeans available in the global market and it isn't anywhere near enough to meet their domestic demand for it. They're going to have to "suck it up" and either contend with significant domestic inflation on food prices because of their tariff on American Soy, or lower the tariff.

[Crunch]

A dead cat bounce is not "going up". In the context of describing the impact of his policies, Trump can't reasonably mean that an end of September phenomenon is caused by his policy, which had its impact in June causing a 20% drop. If you just zoom your chart out to a six month time frame you'll have a better picture.

He in fact knew that his policies were hurting soybean prices because he supported a bailout package for them in July. In August, this solidified into 3.6 billion for the soybean producers.

Now he could mean soybean prices + the $1.65 per bushel he's going to hand them.

You don’t know if it’s a dead cat bounce or not - that’s merely opinion. The fact remains, prices are increasing just as Trump claimed. Maybe they’ll decline, maybe not. Maybe they’ll just circle this price. We don’t know.

You can try all the spin you want but the bottom line is Trump is telling the truth at this moment in time.

[D.W.]

Is that an actual economics term?   
(DCB)

[TheDrake]

So if Pelosi were talking about how healthcare costs had gone down in the past couple of weeks, after a massive jump a few months earlier....? I'm sure you'd get right behind that characterization.

[Crunch]

So if Pelosi were talking about how healthcare costs had gone down in the past couple of weeks, after a massive jump a few months earlier....? I'm sure you'd get right behind that characterization.

Did she?  Have they? Hey, now that you mention it, how have healthcare costs done since ObamaCare fixed everything?
 

[Crunch]

Is that an actual economics term?   
(DCB)

It’s more of an investment term when discussing stocks:

In finance, a dead cat bounce is a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock. Derived from the idea that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height", the phrase, which originated on Wall Street, is also popularly applied to any case where a subject experiences a brief resurgence during or following a severe decline.

[TheDrake]

You can try all the spin you want but the bottom line is Trump is telling the truth at this moment in time.

So what's the limitation on describing that trend - anything at all? Couple of days? Hours? The kind of standard you seem to be setting is what is known as quibbling rather than lying in various honor codes, especially military ones. It involves setting up a technicality where you could claim you are not lying in order to get away with misleading statements.

It's like a story I heard attributed to Pravda about a bicycle race and said that Russia came in second while the US came in second to last. All true on a technicality in a two country race, but most people would describe the US as winning if they are being forthright.

[Crunch]

You can try all the spin you want but the bottom line is Trump is telling the truth at this moment in time.

So what's the limitation on describing that trend - anything at all? Couple of days? Hours? The kind of standard you seem to be setting is what is known as quibbling rather than lying in various honor codes, especially military ones. It involves setting up a technicality where you could claim you are not lying in order to get away with misleading statements.

It's like a story I heard attributed to Pravda about a bicycle race and said that Russia came in second while the US came in second to last. All true on a technicality in a two country race, but most people would describe the US as winning if they are being forthright.

The limit is whatever you want I suppose. If you don’t like that he’s saying something true, pick any arbitrary timeframe you want that gets you a version you prefer.

Over the lasr few weeks, prices were rising. Trump truthfully said they were. Sorry that pisses you off.

[TheDrake]

I'm sorry that you can't see my point. We'll come back to this the next time somebody you dislike says something misleading that is technically true.

[Crunch]

Really?  I’ve pointed out exactly that many times in many forums. I’m applying the rules of the left to things, sorry that pisses you off.

[TheDrake]

I don't know why you think I'm angry, I don't think I used any microaggressions. I just think you are wrong, and I've attempted to clarify why. You don't have to worry about pissing me off. I invite you to call me out if I defend a misleading statement as technically true. I reserve the right to argue why I don't think something is misleading.

[Fenring]

I don't know why you think I'm angry, I don't think I used any microaggressions. I just think you are wrong, and I've attempted to clarify why. You don't have to worry about pissing me off. I invite you to call me out if I defend a misleading statement as technically true. I reserve the right to argue why I don't think something is misleading.

Whoa, there. Calm down!

[velcro]

The whole soybean argument is irrelevant.  There is some ambiguity as to the time scale, and it doesn't really affect anything.  Once again, cherrypoptart dilutes the thread by bringing trivial issues and calling them lies.

Here's an update on full-blown, verging on hallucinatory fabrication:

Trump, Oct. 2: This guy lied about his service. He didn’t just say, “Gee, I was in the service.” No. He said, “I was in the Marines. Da Nang Province. Soldiers dying left and right as we battled up the hill.” This went on for 15 years when he was the attorney general of Connecticut. I thought he was a great war hero. And then it turned out he was never in Vietnam. He was in the Reserves. And I watched him two days ago. I watched him saying, “We need the truth. If we don’t have” — and here’s a guy who was saying people were dying all around him and he was never there. And then he cried. When they caught him, he cried like a baby. … And the reason he got elected is because in Connecticut it’s impossible for a Republican to get elected. And I did well there. But you can’t. He actually gave up the race. You’d thought he lost. You remember that? He, sort of, gave — he stopped campaigning. It was over. And then he won by three points.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania said this was false.  Just to refresh your memory, that is one of the "best schools" that Trump attended.

Blumenthal never said anything remotely close to that.  He did not cry.  He did not give up the race.  He won by 12 points.

Crunch, you win on soybeans.  Now you can address this, and the multiple significant falsehoods and misleading statements on this thread.

[TheDrake]

The fact that he made up some random stuff about a political opponent is dull. Yes, it is a terrible set of lies about what happened in an egregious way. You win velcro.

[cherrypoptart]

Well I thought I defended pretty well against the dilution accusation this time because I referenced the story that was on the yahoo but I guess I failed again. This wasn't my opinion this time This was a real so called journalist, one of the people Trump is attacking and we citizens are supposed to be defending. Yeah to be honest I had my own suspicion it was kind of lame too but that's the Trump hating media to blame more than me in my opinion. It's their story, not mine after all. It is worth noting that even someone who doesn't seem to like Trump all that much agrees that it was pretty lame. That's something anyway and made the observation worth noting just for that at least to me. Basically the media is lame with bringing up trivial so called Trump lies and people on both sides agree. We've reached a little bit of common ground there. 

[yossarian22c]

The whole soybean argument is irrelevant.  There is some ambiguity as to the time scale, and it doesn't really affect anything.  Once again, cherrypoptart dilutes the thread by bringing trivial issues and calling them lies.

Do you just really like arguing with conservatives? Cherry has now pointed to two distinct lies that he sees. I think this should be encouraged. If conservatives see that Trump will lie or mislead about obvious things then they are more likely to view his other statements with suspicion. But instead of trying to agree with him and build on a common discussion framework you keep dismissing or disparaging his statements.

This one is about a key economic metric for many farmers. The reason why soy bean prices were so low is because of Trump's economic polices. So lying or misleading (however you want to characterize this statement) is not trivial or irrelevant. He is actively trying to mislead the American people about the cost of his trade policies.

Thanks Cherry for what I see as a legitimate attempt from a conservative to discuss Trump's lack of honesty.

[yossarian22c]

Fact check of Trump's op-ed.

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/10/656249981/fact-check-trumps-false-claims-on-medicare-for-all

I'll highlight #5 since it is the most unambiguously false.

5. Strength of Medicare: Trump writes that "Democrats have already harmed seniors by slashing Medicare by more than $800 billion over 10 years to pay for Obamacare. Likewise, Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care."

He is repeating a claim that was widely debunked during the 2012 election. The Affordable Care Act actually strengthened the solvency of Medicare, but it has since been weakened again by the GOP tax cut.

[TheDrake]

I'd say the medicare statement has always been true but misleading. Private medicare payouts were reduced by the amount claimed. Whether that led to any reduction in services is debatable, but unlikely.

two ways that medicare costs were reduced by ACA

[velcro]

The whole soybean argument is irrelevant.  There is some ambiguity as to the time scale, and it doesn't really affect anything.  Once again, cherrypoptart dilutes the thread by bringing trivial issues and calling them lies.

Do you just really like arguing with conservatives? Cherry has now pointed to two distinct lies that he sees. I think this should be encouraged. If conservatives see that Trump will lie or mislead about obvious things then they are more likely to view his other statements with suspicion. But instead of trying to agree with him and build on a common discussion framework you keep dismissing or disparaging his statements.

This one is about a key economic metric for many farmers. The reason why soy bean prices were so low is because of Trump's economic polices. So lying or misleading (however you want to characterize this statement) is not trivial or irrelevant. He is actively trying to mislead the American people about the cost of his trade policies.

Thanks Cherry for what I see as a legitimate attempt from a conservative to discuss Trump's lack of honesty.

This thread was inspired by a comment on another thread, claiming that most of the 4000+ false or misleading statements by Donald Trump since his inauguration were really not false or misleading, or were extremely trivial.  The fact that some of the long list were not important was used to imply that none of them were important.

My purpose on this thread was to list just a few clear statements of relative importance that were unambiguously false or misleading, and ask Trump supporters to address those.

Cherrypoptart responded by calling Trump a liar, because Trump said we would get tired of winning, but we aren't tired yet. Yup, I am disparaging that statement for the obvious reason that it is snark, but also because it supports the false argument that all accusations about Trump's truthfulness are frivolous.

A Trump supporter has acknowledged that Trump "lied" about winning, but has yet to acknowledge false or misleading statements on anything substantive.  He can now say "even I admit that Trump lied about soybeans, but I still don't see him lying about North Korea, so it must not be because of my biases".

If you choose to interpret that as good faith argument, go for it.  When Cherrypoptart acknowledges the half dozen solidly proven false or misleading statements on this thread, I will treat him differently.

I don't just like arguing with conservatives.  I feel obligated to point out when people distort the truth, or do everything in their power to distract from facts  or ignore facts that prove that their conclusions are wrong.

[rightleft22]

“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.” – Donald Trump

For me Trump stated strategy of truthful hyperbole suggests that many if not most of his statements are intended to mislead and or manipulate. When we talked about this idea of truthful hyperbole in other threads it was argued that because a statement held some truth the statement was not a lie. And as the intention of the statement is to exaggerate such statements are not misleading because they are intended to be misleading... I don't know I got confused

My take away was that for anything that Trump says to be taken as a lie or misleading 100% of the statement must be a lie. So if trump said the sky is Blue and he is the richest self made man ever. Even if it is proven that he is not the richest man ‘ever’ as much of his wealth was given to him by his father, He did not Lie because the sky is blue, and in away he is self made…

We need two threads – one for misleading statements and one for solidly proven lies

[Fenring]

For me Trump stated strategy of truthful hyperbole suggests that many if not most of his statements are intended to mislead and or manipulate. When we talked about this idea of truthful hyperbole in other threads it was argued that because a statement held some truth the statement was not a lie.

This is basically the definition of advertising. I actually have a problem with advertising as it's currently understood in our culture, as I view it as fundamentally the sort of thing that upsets you about Trump: being being told something design to sway them through emotion, which is usually not exactly a lie but whose content is something non-rationale and will persuade you through innuendo and unstated but felt tactics. For example: advertising a product next to a beautiful woman. It's not a "lie" exactly, but the idea that buying this thing will have something to do with that woman is a clear deception of sorts. Selling usually involves a combination of this, along with making people have just enough psychological problems that they feel the need to sate it with the product. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the Presidency has boiled down to selling a much larger product, but that it involves the same principles.

We might argue that other areas of the economy can continue to use this model while somehow the Presidency has to be shielded form it. But I think the reality is that once it's understood that non-rationale persuasion tactics will work - probably better than rational ones will - then the conversation to be had is whether to re-assess the culture of advertising itself. If you can basically lie to people about what a product will do (satirized best in Old Spice commercials) then I see little difference in lying about everything else that matters too. Maybe lying should be stopped, instead of pretending that it can be restricted to products that 'don't matter.' Everything matters; people are trained by the entire culture. I see the last election as being a strong red flag that something is rotten in the state of trademark.

[Wayward Son]

Maybe you have somethinge there, Fenring.  Advertising got so out-of-hand that the FTC got tasked to enforcing truth in advertising standards, just to keep the lies in check.

Maybe we should apply the truth-in-advertising statues to politicians, too.

I think I could get behind that. 

[rightleft22]

The Lie or intentional misleading statement

"For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter)," Trump tweeted. "Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!" - Trump

True: The Trump Organization does not own any buildings in Saudi Arabia... But

By his own account
“I love the Saudis. Many are in this building.”  “Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” Trump Alabama rally on Aug. 21, 2015
In 1991, as Trump was teetering on personal bankruptcy and scrambling to raise cash, he sold his 282-foot Trump Princess yacht to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal for $20 million, a third less than what he had reportedly paid for it. Four years later, the prince came to his rescue again, joining other investors in a $325 million deal for Trump’s money-losing Plaza Hotel.


The statement is not a 'lie' but effectively obfuscated the issue of his business dealings with the Kingdom which he does not answer to. If it is not a lie is it dishonest?
Does Trumps base notice the manipulation or are they pleased by it "cleverness"?

[Fenring]

rightleft, I would suggest that in this case Trump's claim might not be spurious. I think "financial interests in Saudi Arabia" could be taken to mean direct ties to the government, or else a regular business venture that operates out of the country. It seems unreasonable to say that literally any rich Saudi person who buys something from Trump (like a boat) constitutes having a financial conflict of interest in that country. What would that mean, that if literally anyone from a country outside the U.S. buys personal property or possessions from you that you're conflicted as President with that whole country?

[rightleft22]

From what I can gather when it come's to the Kingdom almost all Rich Saudi are connected to the government.
Regardless the truth is that Trump has and continues to make a lot of money from the Kingdom, even if he has no financial interests in Saudi Arabia

[Fenring]

From what I can gather when it come's to the Kingdom almost all Rich Saudi are connected to the government.
Regardless the truth is that Trump has and continues to make a lot of money from the Kingdom, even if he has no financial interests in Saudi Arabia

Isn't that like saying that if someone sells their house to Jeff Bezos that they now have "financial ties to the U.S."? After all, he has some dealings with the government too. But the claim in this case would sound silly to me.

[rightleft22]

In this case I think people are questioning the amount and type of financial ties Trump has and as with who  (royals)

And perhaps there are other countries in which Trump has significant financial ties that should be question as well especially if there is a possibility of influence.

But it doesn't matter. Even if the Prince "invested" millions into Trump, its just business, Trump would never be influenced by that money.

[TheDrake]

So we're looking back on transactions that occurred around 25 years ago and saying he has financial interests based on that

Now other sources are describing an ongoing revenue stream. That is a financial interest. If you have a bunch of people who are regular customers for your goods and services, ones that might be predisposed to stop being your customers based on your policy decisions, that is a financial interest and a conflict of interest. But I tend to think that Trump probably doesn't even understand what a "financial interest" is, and thinks it implies he owns businesses in Saudi Arabia.

[velcro]

rightleft22 wrote

We need two threads – one for misleading statements and one for solidly proven lies

I was very careful to name this thread "misleading or false claims" to avoid that argument.  Lies can be defined as requiring intent, which is difficult to prove, so I left that out.  Your example of "So if trump said the sky is Blue and he is the richest self made man ever. Even if it is proven that he is not the richest man ‘ever’ as much of his wealth was given to him by his father, He did not Lie because the sky is blue, and in away he is self made…"

Maybe he lied, maybe he didn't.  Sure, in a way he is self made.  But the claim that he is the richest self made man ever would be undeniably false.  Full stop.

[yossarian22c]

So we're looking back on transactions that occurred around 25 years ago and saying he has financial interests based on that

Now other sources are describing an ongoing revenue stream. That is a financial interest. If you have a bunch of people who are regular customers for your goods and services, ones that might be predisposed to stop being your customers based on your policy decisions, that is a financial interest and a conflict of interest. But I tend to think that Trump probably doesn't even understand what a "financial interest" is, and thinks it implies he owns businesses in Saudi Arabia.

No we're talking about a business relationship that goes back 25 years. He has continued to sell properties to rich Saudi's (a.k.a. Saudi royalty). Also there was MSB's stay at one of Trump's hotels that boosted quarterly revenue for the hotel by 13%.

[Wayward Son]

And in case anyone has any doubts why Democrats are not cooperating with Trump: "I'll soon sign into the law the largest legislative effort in history to address the opioid crisis where just this year we got $6 billion from Congress — thanks to (Ohio Republican Sen.) Rob Portman and a lot of others — thank you, Rob — but Rob and so many others helped. Very little Democrat support."

The bill was introduced by both Republicans and Democrats.  Initial version passed the House 396-14; final version 393-8.  Initial version passed the Senate 99-1; final version 98-1.  (Only Mike Lee (R) voted against both versions.)

It doesn't matter if the Democrats cooperate or not.  Trump doesn't know or care, and just assumes they never do. 

[rightleft22]

It doesn't matter if the Democrats cooperate or not.  Trump doesn't know or care, and just assumes they never do

For Trump his language is always or never, good or bad/Sad - he has no between 

[velcro]

Trump, Nevada, Oct. 20: And we just passed — after 44 years, we just got it passed, I signed it two months ago, veteran’s choice, so that if they have to wait on line for 12 days or 14 days or 32 days, or much longer than that — can you believe it? …

They go immediately to see a doctor privately. We pay for their bill. …

But I thought it was so brilliant, I came back to my group, I said, I got the greatest idea, because I haven’t been doing this that long, so, you know, it wasn’t like high on my list, but it became high. I did know the veterans were never treated fairly. But I said, I have the greatest idea. We’re going to do this. If a veteran has to wait, we’re going to send them to a private doctor. We’ll pay the bill. What a genius — I said, I said, how good is that? They said, “Sir, we’ve been trying to get it passed for 44 years.” So I was good at getting things passed. That’s what I did.

Link

Completely false.  The law he is referring to was passed in 2014.

Now he did sign legislation that extended funding, but that was it.

So he either doesn't know the difference between funding a program and initiating it, or he is lying.

[velcro]

Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican.
Donald Trump, October 24, 2018

I don't think I even need to explain this, but if anyone thinks this is not blatantly false, let me know and I will go into detail.

Speaking of which, have Crunch or Seriati commented at all on this thread, either to attempt to defend the claims, or acknowledge the magnitude of the falsehoods?
 
Cherrypoptart has, but only to the extent of adding frivolous examples to dilute the purpose of the thread.

[Seriati]

Speaking of which, have Crunch or Seriati commented at all on this thread, either to attempt to defend the claims, or acknowledge the magnitude of the falsehoods?

I had not, honestly, thought it would be a waste of time.  Can do so.

[Seriati]

Finally, if Trump says something like "Democrats are for open borders", please don't claim that to be an opinion, and therefore immune from characterization as false or misleading.  He stated it as fact.  Opinions are "I like ice cream" or "Rugby is better than football", which can't be disproven.

I think this rule doesn't work.  "Some Democrats are for open borders" is a fact.  "All Democrats are for open borders" is false.  "Certain policies favored by the DNC are tantamount to open borders" is a conclusion or opinion, that can be justified or not to certain levels of satisfaction. 

Most things in politics are not capable of being proven or disproven because they are a mix of fact and axiom and involve a complex judgement of which factors have to be improving for something to be better.  "Open Borders" requires an agreement on what definitionaly that means - definitions are inherently not a matter of fact or proof but of agreement; it requires an agreement on what the results of a policy are and of which of those results are the intentional or material consequences.  So yes, "Democrats are for open borders" is an opinion, whether its also a fact or a false statement depends on a number of items that aren't directly capable of objective proof.
 

SEP 3 2018
“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff.”

The investigations were not "Obama era".

Trump is referring to the recent indictments of Reps. Christopher Collins (R-N.Y.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). He calls them "Obama era" probes but Collins was indicted for insider trading that allegedly took place on June 17, 2017; a video caught him making a call on Trump's White House lawn that was cited in the case. Hunter was cited for campaign spending violations by the Federal Election Commission in 2016 but there was also a House Ethics Committee investigation -- and it did not defer to the Justice Department probe until 2017. Both indictments were approved by a U.S. attorney picked by the Trump

So Collins indictment for that conduct took place while he was already under a probe by the office of Congressional Ethics for his role in the company.  There were apparently "overheard" calls of his that were being investigated in January 2017.  And questions on his conduct may have been arising from 2013 onwards.  Sessions was appointed in February. 

How likely is it that the investigation only began in June?  Certainly possible, but it doesn't appear that you did anything to show that the investigation didn't predate Sessions.  Sure the charges are based on Trump era conduct, but it's just as obvious that the investigation predated the conduct that was charged.  So slightly misleading, but possibly factually accurate.  Certainly the timing piece was accurate, but I agree that shouldn't matter, crimes are crimes regardless of the election coming up.

Hunters' indictment for taking over $250k in campaign funds for personal expenses includes numerous citations to conduct that occurred during the Obama era, looks like small drips and drabs from 2011 onwards, things that could almost be legitimate, or that could be explained in ways that make them appear as such (kind of like creative income tax deductions).

Some examples, charging shorts at a pro shop where he was at a political event; paying for plane tickets "primarily" to attend a family dance competition (no idea if he did legit campaign business there but everyone knows people who mix personal events into business trips); paying for tickets for funeral travel.  Petty stuff, but legitimate charges.

Not clear though how you'd establish that wasn't a long running Obama Era investigation, without showing when the investigation started, given that the conduct was long running and during the Obama Era.

[Seriati]

Next false or misleading statement:

Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!

Link

No evidence to support this claim has ever been found.

No evidence?  Really?  There are multiple convictions of persons for false registration of voters in each of those states.  The article you linked for NH showed that the most basic kind of database search identified people that may have fraudulently voted and listed out persons that had in the past.

In many cases ferreting out common forms of voter fraud is very difficult.  That we find it nonetheless is very telling.

I mean, I assume you have no problem believing that the vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported, which factors into every estimate of the crime rate.  Why do you think we'd "catch" voter fraud related to mail in voting?  Or voting for falsely registered people?  It'd only be by a truly unlucky coincidence for the fraudster.

In any event, I don't have a quibble with calling him out for claims about how much voter fraud occurs, and you can certainly believe he doesn't believe it, but claiming there is "no evidence" when not only is there evidence, there's convictions, and the scope is impossible to measure accurately under the current system is not a reasonable claim.  Especially against a backdrop where non-US persons have admitted to having been registered and even voting.

This is harmful because it causes people to lose faith in the election process for false reasons.  Mind you, there are plenty of reasons to lose faith, from gerrymandering to easily hackable electronic voting machines to voter suppression.  But by providing false reasons, many people are distracted from doing something about the real reasons.

I see, and what's the evidence for your "real" reasons.  I just saw an article two days ago that 80% of Americans support voter id and 80% support automatic registration of voters.   It also showed that there doesn't appear to be a statistically significant voter suppression, even among minorities, of voter id laws.  Pretty much the claim is bunk.

Gerrymandering is only a "problem" when the other side is doing it, and our laws specifically require that we gerrymander in some circumstances to protect the ability of minorities to elect representatives.  The fact that there is no agreement on how that's best implemented has caused endless problems.

How about the impact of politically motivated district challenges that always are brought up at times where they are intended to prevent the plans approved by the proper process from being used? 

Voter fraud should be taken seriously by everyone, there's really no legitimate reason that someone should oppose preventing it.  The disenfranchisement argument is bull, and can be easily addressed in connection with the rules.

[Seriati]

nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters

This one is objectively a false statement, and any statement that he will release them is more than likely a flat lie. 

[Seriati]

Then there's Trump latest tweet:

The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!

Based on that statement, when would you think the last time this occurred?  Is it a rare event or something common?  How significant is it?

Naturally, the truth is completely different from what you'd infer from the statement... 

So why would he say such a thing?

So the answer seems to be that it was an error.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/sep/11/top-economic-advisor-says-trumps-tweet-about-economy-was-wrong-video  The "story" being that no one knows how Trump got told it was 100 instead of 10. 

So your choice is to believe Trump knew it was 10 and said 100 against a background of anyone with a computer being able to verify it, or he didn't know it.  In any event he doesn't seem like he personally corrected it.

[Seriati]

And, frankly, many countries [in NATO] owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up. It’s massive amounts of money is owed.

NATO countries pay for the costs of running NATO and implementing its policies and activities. As far as I know, they are all paid up.

NATO countries agreed that they would have a goal of spending 2% of their GDP on defense.  That goal was established in 2014, and is intended to be met by 2024.  But if Germany does not spend 2% of their GDP on defense now, it does not mean they owe the shortfall to anyone, least of all the United States. You might argue that if Germany spends less than 2%, it is more likely that we would have to spend more.  But that is not necessarily the case, there is no way to measure it, and there is absolutely no documentation that that is the case.  In no way could you say anyone owes us anything.

This is dangerous, because if Trump is aware of his misleading comments, he is using them to justify ill-will towards NATO and our allies. If he is unaware, then his ignorance is dangerous, because it is causing ill-will towards NATO and our allies.

Nothing you wrote showed this to be false or misleading.  You just mansplained that in your view the other members of NATO didn't "owe" their fair share to NATO.  Both sides of the "issue," yours and Trump's are more about preconceptions than objective fact.

So while you're accurate when you say, effectively, there's no debt on the accounting ledgers, Trump's just as accurate when he says they owe us for our contributions covering their failure to do their part.

In this case, I think your claim that he's being false or misleading, is a bigger harm and more false than his claim.  His is easily understood in contest and raises a material point, whereas yours relies on technicalities that actually ignore the most material part of the issue (whether other members have done their fair share compared to the US).

[velcro]

Some arguments were made that didn't actually refute the points. 

Briefly, no evidence for serious voter fraud was found.  Period. If you want to define "serious" as a college student voting in the wrong place, and one actual case of voting twice, knock yourself out.

The example of open borders was for illustrating that not everything can be an opinion and therefore immune from being labeled false.  But to smash your argument, one would just have to show that Trump had a very clear definition of open borders that was not met by Democrats.  Oh wait, already did that.

As far as the GDP and unemployment rate, I said it was not a big deal.  What is notable that the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers admitted the mistake, but Trump never did.  But again, not a big deal.

And finally NATO.  Does the US choose to spend more based on what other countries spend on their own defense?  Could be, but we don't know.  What we do know is that there is an explicit agreement on what defense spending goals are.  Every country is in compliance with that agreement.  Nobody owes anybody anything.  Period.  Not "my view", not preconceptions, not "understood in context".  Hard, cold, point of fact.  I really don't understand why an intelligent person devotes effort in trying to say that is not true.

Characterizing an investigation as "Obama era" has the unquestionable intent of casting doubt on its validity, to frame it as purely partisan.  Do you deny that?  Given that the indictable offense was after the Obama era, that characterization is misleading at best.  If you choose to interpret that characterization as neutral, knock yourself out.

But might it have started in the Obama era?  Sure, so I can't prove it is false, just misleading.

Still waiting on your response to
North Korea not being a nuclear threat anymore
completely misrepresenting polls
misrepresenting the $150K 9/11 grant
seeing people jump out of the WTC from 4 miles away
Puerto Rico death tolls
attributing statements to Richard Blumenthal that verge on hallucinatory
taking credit for passing a law passed in 2014
claiming Democrats will not protect pre-existing conditions

I'll work on some more once you address those.