Tag: Donald Trump

Politifact bias check: Democrats and Nazis

Politifact has ruled on Don Jr’s claim that the Democrat platform was similar to the Nazi platform of 1930.  Their ruling?  Pants on fire.  How could it be anything else?  Politifact is frequently biased towards the Left.  In this case the result is no different and we give them an 80% bias rating in their analysis.  Let’s examine it.

First, for reference, here is our fact check of Donald Trump, Jr’s claim.  Unlike Politifact who skimmed the Nazi platform, we went point by point and showed the similarities.  Politifact started by restating Don’s claim incorrectly, then pointing out all the ways he was correct, and finally by splitting hairs and using technicalities to get to their rating.

What Donald Trump, Jr said: He didn’t say the Democrat platform was Hitler.  He didn’t say they were identical.  In fact, the points he made are really what Politifact should be looking into.  People keep calling the Republicans Nazis and saying that Trump only won because of Nazi support.  What quoted was this:

“You see the Nazi platform from the early 1930s … look at it compared to the DNC (Democratic Party) platform of today, you’re saying, ‘Man, those things are awfully similar’ to a point where it’s actually scary. It’s the exact opposite of what you’ve been told.”

What he also said was “I’ve been out hearing the left talking about all these things, fascism, Nazism on the right, and when you look at the actual history of how these things evolved, and when you actually look at that platform versus the platform of the modern left, you say wait a minute, those two are really heavily aligned and, frankly, contrary to the right.”

Here’s the actual interview.  Politifact links to it, but it’s worth watching because the context of his statement is that the Left are the ones out there calling Republicans Nazis, and it’s simply not what lines up with the facts.

Politifact then goes on to ironically quote an academic historian who says Democrats have absolutely nothing in common with the Nazi party.  This is at the top of the article, not halfway down where they admit there were many similarities.  But then they make their first huge error.

Politifact argues that Hitler did not run on the Nazi platform and that the platform was a compromise, not what Hitler wanted.  But he didn’t say the Democrats were Hitler.  He said their platform was like the early Nazi platform.  At this point Politifact is no longer factchecking what Donald Trump, Jr actually said.  They are now factchecking a caricature they have created based on their misunderstanding.

“Some points sound similar”

Here’s the funny part of the Politifact article.  They name six points in the Nazi platform that are, just as Donald Trump, Jr said, similar to the DNC platform.  We found more, but Politifact is charitable to the DNC.  In fact, they go on to say they feel that ending war profiteering, nationalizing certain corporations, ending land speculation, and oppression of media that is contrary to the state are not goals of the DNC.  But even if we leave Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez out of this, these were high priorities of the Obama administration.

In fact, many of the new regulations after the 2008 crash were to prevent land speculation, Obama nationalized portions of the auto industry, and Democrats have spent the last 60 years fighting against war profiteering. Dinesh D’Souza who made the film Don Jr went to see was pardoned by the Trump administration after Obama threw him in jail for a slap on the wrist campaign finance crime.

In Politifact’s summation, they admit that there are similarities.  They try to say that of the six similarities they will admit to, they are also in the Republican platform.  Although, according to their article only half of those six are similar to Republican platform points.  Then rather than ruling half true, partly true, or even mostly untrue, they slap a pants on fire rating.  We believe Donald Trump, Jr’s claim deserves a half true rating at the bare minimum.  When you throw in the diversity of DNC candidates who will affect future platforms, including rising star Ocasio-Cortez, this claim would be mostly true if it weren’t for the technicality that this next year’s platform hasn’t been written yet.

Forget Russia, Let’s Talk About Germany

After Comey’s testimony, the Russia Trump collusion story has been downgraded to Birther level controversy.  Comey vindicated Trump, saying in fact that Trump was never even under investigation.  Comey has also said that Russia did not alter a single vote in the US election.  On the administration side, it seems as though the biggest issue is General Mike Flynn’s work with Russia and failure to disclose the payments he received. Yes Trump asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, but Trump also fired Flynn.

What did Russia do then?  Russia did not collude with the administration.  Russia did not change the votes.  They did not hack the electronic voting machines. Apparently it’s possible that Russia released Podesta’s emails, but the incriminating statements there came directly from Podesta and other DNC staffers.  At this point, it appears that Russia’s biggest sin was printing negative press and sometimes fake news about Hillary Clinton.

Russia did not print negative news about Hillary Clinton in order to elect Trump.  Unlike the Clinton’s campaign work to influence the GOP primary and make sure Trump won, Russia simply didn’t like Hillary Clinton.

Russia’s actions have been called an act of war.  Even some on the GOP side have called Russia’s actions an attempt to destroy our constitutional process and democracy.  Is this a valid accusation?  Does foreign media printing negative stories equate to election hacking?  Should we be sanctioning Russia because they printed negative stories about Hillary Clinton?

Let’s talk about Germany.  Harvard recently performed a study on various news outlets to see whether Trump was getting fair coverage.  The result is that Trump is getting more negative coverage than any of his predecessors.  Remember, negative press from foreign sources equals an act of war and destruction of our constitutional process.  So we should probably be concerned about Germany’s ARD news network’s 98% negative reporting rate on Trump.

Britain is another hacking nation that has declared war on the US through their media outlets.  Financial Times was negative about Trump 84% of the time, BBC 74% of the time.  When it comes to using media to influence US opinion, both Britain and Germany are just as guilty as Russia.

There’s one other problem worth mentioning.  The assault on the US and our constitutional processes is not being led by Russia or Germany.  It’s being led by the US. If unbalanced coverage and fake news equals everything the left and John McCain say it does, then we should be more concerned about CNN and NBC reporting negatively about Trump 93% of the time.  CBS was 91%, New York Times 87%, Washington Post 83%. Comey’s testimony discredited all of these US news outlets, forcing them to print retractions of fake news they had recently reported.

If the whole Russia thing boils down to their state media operations, I hope we can find a way to laugh at ourselves and move on with our lives. And to think, Obama kicked the Russian ambassadors out of our country over this.

The Jill Stein Recount Scam

As of press time, Jill Stein has raised almost $5 million from sad Clinton supporters who actually think her recount plan is a thing. Stein has set her goal now at $7 million.  So the obvious question is can money buy a recount?  The answer is maybe.  The more important question is would it make a difference.

In 2004, the Green Party demanded a recount in Ohio which resulted in Kerry picking up another 300 votes.  Nothing changed.  Stein is looking for recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  Trump won by 36 Electoral College votes, so all three states would have to flip.

Flipping the election to Hillary would require a change of about 27,000 votes in Wisconsin. To give you some perspective, Stein’s total vote count in Wisconsin was only 30,000. Michigan would have to flip 10,000 votes; and the prize, Pennsylvania, would have to go 68,000 votes in the other direction for Hillary to win.  Jill Stein could give Hillary her 48,000 votes in Pennsylvania and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Stick a fork in it, the 2016 Presidential election is done.

Stein’s claims of election hacking stem from a New York Magazine article suggesting that electronic voting could have been hacked.  But the experts cited in that article clarified later that there was no actual evidence that it had been hacked.  If we are looking for a hack, it might be better to look at Jill Stein herself who seems very concerned about helping Hillary Clinton win.  In particular, let’s look at where the money goes when this recount silliness never happens.

According to the Washington Post, which acknowledges that a recount will produce no changes, much of the funds could go toward recount efforts.  However, the $7 million goal and $5 million raised so far exceeds the original cost estimate of $2.1 million.  So that’s a lot of extra dough. In 2004, the Green Party only raised $150,000 to do the Ohio recount.

Stein’s website states that they “cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting.”  The “surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”  That broad category could make the funds available for other Green Party recognition efforts.  In the name of promoting voting system reform, the Green Party could run ads, print billboards, and engage in other marketing efforts all branded with their party name.  That could give them a pretty good jump on 2020.

Just to add one last bit of perspective: Jill Stein’s recount effort has already eclipsed the total of $3.5 million she raised for her 2016 campaign.

 

How Trump won and Clinton lost

The question has been asked and answered several times.  In an attempt at self-diagnosis, the media has theorized about why the perfect, most qualified candidate in history lost to a racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic deplorable.  They are still missing the correct answers.  Here are five facts and perceptions the media continues to overlook.

The Black Vote

One of the biggest aspects of Hillary Clinton’s loss that the media is only now recognizing is the million or so African Americans who stayed home.  Barack Obama won 93% of the black vote in 2012, Hillary received 88%.  That was the lowest percent in this demographic since the last white Democrat to run and lose in 2004.  An inconvenient truth for the DNC is that after losing two elections in a row against Bush, about 1 million new African American voters came out to vote for the first African American candidate. Then they disappeared. It was the largest demographic shift from 2012 to 2016. Nothing significant has changed in the DNC platform in 20 years.  Obama successfully played the race card, Clinton had no such luck with the gender card.

A Flawed Candidate

Part of the reason the gender card did not work is that Hillary Clinton was not what many women wanted to be representative of the historical first female President.  Clinton was flawed from the start.  Anyone looking at the email scandal could see that she had violated the law.  Democrats could justify voting for Clinton because the FBI refused to recommend an indictment, but even then Comey’s statement was basically that Clinton was too incompetent to be a criminal or hold a government job.

Clinton was the chosen one.  But unlike Obama, she knew it and ran on it.  Obama at least bothered to have a message.  Even during the debates, Hillary seemed to be scared to stray from memorized platitudes and applause lines.  It didn’t help when she experienced public health issues or lashed out at critics.  Throughout the whole thing she acted as though she was entitled to the Presidency and offended if anyone didn’t agree.

Of course, most people who would be discouraged to vote for her because of her criminality or entitlement were already #neverhillary.  Cheating in the primary, controlling the media, and all of the filth that came out of the Podesta emails swayed independents more than the blind DNC is willing to admit.  Even when Sanders came out and endorsed Clinton, it was not enough to change the fact that she had canceled the revolution.  More people stayed home in 2016 than voted.  The crowds that belonged to Bernie Sanders did not follow Hillary Clinton.

Third Parties Failed

The Clinton campaign has lashed out at third party voters since the end of the campaign. But Gary Johnson voters did not have a significant effect on the election.  If you think Gary Johnson’s 3% was anything significant, I would remind you that third party votes have been 2-3% since the last Clinton era when third parties took 10% in ’96 and almost 20% in ’92.  2016 should have been the best opportunity for a third party to make an impact because nobody liked the two main choices.  Consistently in polls, Gary Johnson pulled from both parties.

Gary Johnson was a flawed candidate.  A liberal Republican pretending to be a Libertarian, Johnson was joined by liberal Republican Bill Weld who spent more time praising and defending Clinton than advancing Johnson.

Gary Johnson himself was a clown who demonstrated often that he had no foreign policy intelligence and was probably high during the entire campaign.  Libertarians selected Johnson and pressed forward with no intention of winning, but hoping and praying that someone would realize they existed.  2020 may change their fortunes, but 2016 can objectively be seen as nothing other than a massive failure.  They gave it a Ralph Nader effort and walked away with the same result.

Not All Republicans Are Alt-Right

When Hillary Clinton labeled a large portion of Republicans as “deplorables”, I called that her “47%” moment.  Democrats made a huge miscalculation when they tried to substitute substance with sectarian attacks.  The problem is most Republicans do not believe that they are racist, sexist, bigoted, and many do not even consider themselves homophobic. That is probably because they aren’t.  Sure, some are.  The KKK, who Trump denounced 14 times, are all those things.  But the vast majority of Republicans view the KKK through the historical lens of their past involvement with the Democrat party.  The vast majority of Republicans feel no connection to the KKK and are offended when they are lumped together.

The vast majority of Republicans are also smarter than the media thought.  When Trump said Mexico was sending rapists and murderers, Republicans understood that he was talking about illegal immigrants and simply making the point that scientists, doctors and engineers are not crossing our border illegally.  Republicans also read through his poor communication skills to understand that he was talking about illegal immigrants and not Mexicans in general.  When celebrities called Trump Hitler, many Republicans rolled their eyes remembering they said the same thing about Romney, Bush, and others.  Trump was the beneficiary of generation so over inundated by superlatives and hyperbole that it has lost any affect.

When Democrats even today toss out insane metaphors and analogies, most recently how Trump’s cabinet selection has been Stalin-esque, sane people roll their eyes.  That is a big part of why Trump won.

The “Alt-Left” and Right Anger

What do you call it when someone refuses services to a particular group based on their beliefs?  What do you call it when one group that hates another group takes to the streets and destroys private property whenever they don’t get their way?  What do you call it when it is OK for one group to discriminate, but not the other?  These are the perceptions that drove the angry vote.  When celebrities, professors, and Wall Street try to marginalize conservatives or label them as dangerous, that drives conservatives to the polls.

The anger vote has been a narrative in the media since Trump won the primary.  The anger vote was significant, but the causes have been misdiagnosed.  The media narrative seemed to equate the anger vote with white supremacists and fringe members of the Right.  Even now, leftists like Jon Stewart and Michael Moore are correcting the Left’s perception on what drove rightwing anger.  It wasn’t simply a case of a bunch of racists not wanting a black or female President.  It had very little to do with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage.  It had far more to do with reaction to destructive policies hurting our country and the “Alt-Left”, AKA SJWs.

Republicans voted for Trump mainly because of failed policies.  Obamacare drove insurance rates through the roof.  After 8 years of reported national recovery, people were still waiting for their own recovery.  Hillary Clinton listed two litmus tests for Supreme Court justices. They amounted to invalidating the 2nd amendment and legalizing all forms of abortion at all stages of a pregnancy.  We lost ground in every foreign engagement we involved ourselves in, including making ridiculous deals and ransom payments to Iran, consistently being embarrassed by Russia and China, losing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rushing head first into messy entanglements in Syria, Libya, Egypt, and wherever else we could arm terrorists.

Perhaps the most Republican anger came at SJWs (Social Justice Warriors).  Again, these are just observations of the sentiments that were expressed by the Right.  The feeling was that professors created safe spaces to protect primarily liberal students from primarily conservatives students.  Conservative views were oppressed in Universities in demonstrable ways.  Anyone who disagreed with Obama or Clinton were too quickly labeled racist.  Eventually, the term “Alt-Right” was coined and used as a catch all to quickly dismiss anyone who was angry at the Left.

For every 100 sincere Black Lives Matters protesters attempting to bring light to police brutality, there were another 100 paid by George Soros to smash windows and set cars on fire.  In fact, many BLM protesters turned out to be Occupy Wall Street protesters recycled.

It seemed as though the entire race war was scripted.  While black protesters hugged police officers in the streets and people sought healing, bussed in groups of community organizers chanted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” and called for violence against police.  The angry Republicans were the ones sitting in their cars stopped on the highway by Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protesters.  Angry voters were driven by what should have been a charge of indifference, but was instead over-inflated into a charge of all historical racial and financial injustice.

Occupy Wall Street, the original Soros funded mob, was no better.  Americans across the country who still believe in the American Dream were being accused of hoarding and oppressing these liberal tent dwellers. Yet the movement collapsed in on itself and the DNC put forward a candidate who made $500,000 an hour giving speeches to Wall Street. It is no wonder American workers voted for Trump.

The Result

In the end, the election came down to two candidates who were so scary that neither side could afford to back down.  Trump didn’t win because half the country is racist.  He won because half the country was scared of Hillary Clinton, scared of her policies, and scared of how the SJWs already viewed them.  Desiring everything Hillary Clinton did not represent, and regardless of what Trump did represent, half the country voted #neverhillary and for the only viable alternative they had.  Trump wasn’t a great communicator.  He didn’t have to be.  All he had to say was “I’m going to make America great again, and I’m not Hillary Clinton”.

When the Left does it

What do you do when there is a class of Americans who are refused services, discriminated against in public, and made to feel unsafe in what are normally safe spaces?  If you are wearing a safety pin, you rush to their aid.  Right?  What do you do if you are a conservative?

Time for conservatives to put their money where their mouth is. When someone refuses to bake your cake or make your dress, you recognize that person for what they are and take your business elsewhere. We are Americans. We don’t need safe spaces, safety pins, or the government forcing people to serve us. If Sophie Theallet is too bigoted and hateful to take Melania’s money, why would she want to give it to them? There are plenty of dress designers in the world who will be happy to serve the First Lady of the United States.

All that aside, oh the irony. Sophie Theallet writes a letter about how she wants to overcome bigotry and prejudice because she is an immigrant to this country. Her method of overcoming? Being bigoted and prejudiced by refusing to serve an immigrant.

Another incident came last night when Mike Pence took his family to see Hamilton on Broadway.  If there is one thing the Hamilton experience has taught us, it is that we are far more alike than we thought.

The crowd booing Mike Pence demonstrated the sort of hatred that the alt right had of Obama.

Victor Dixon demonstrated the sort of ignorance that many right wing radio and cable commentators had about Obama bringing Sharia law to the US. The fact that he actually felt like he has to lecture Pence on their administration representing all Americans demonstrates the sort of bigotry and bias that Republicans have been accused of for the last 8 years.  

Funny side note, the thing that scares the Left the most about Pence is the Religious Freedom Act.  That could actually be used to protect Sophie Theallet if Melania decided to sue her for refusal of services.

Trump’s call for the theater to be a safe space is a reaction to their hatred and ignorance. But it’s also the same sort of snowflake behavior we have mocked the left for over the last 8 years. Republicans aren’t supposed to call for safe spaces and apologies. We’re supposed to put our big boy pants on and ignore it, stand up to it, or decide we don’t want to spend $1,000 a seat to be discriminated against and move on. Maybe we should give him a pass. He was a Democrat up until recently.

A theater in Broadway is going to be full of liberals. This isn’t a surprise to anyone.

The Hamilton incident was a great role reversal. I could picture the exact same thing happening in an all white church in the south in 2008. Obama and his family come to that church one Sunday morning. The parishioners boo him, they all voted for McCain. Most of them believe Obama is secretly a Muslim. All of them believe he is a racist.

The pastor gets up and admonishes them to stop booing. And then he turns to Obama and says this:

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our religious freedoms, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope this sermon has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.”

Obama leaves. The interaction is widely reported in the media. Vice President Joe Biden gets on his twitter account and types:

“Our wonderful President was harassed at an all white church in the South this morning. Church should be a special and safe place. The pastor was very rude to a very good man, Barack Obama. Apologize!”

So view this whole incident through that lens. And then ask yourself if you are one side of the same coin, or something different and better.