Election 2020

[David Garner]

OK. If that's what you think, then stop talking about it.
One closing word to Mr. Garner, How is it "spin" to report accurately and precisely the very words he speaks?
Going away for a while now. Mental health break.

It isn't.  That also has not one tiny thing to do with why people think the media is biased.

[Julio]

OK. If that's what you think, then stop talking about it.

Just wondering out loud... Rev. Austin if you took your own advice above, how would it affect your posting style?

[Brian Stoffregen]

Brian's comments may - if we think carefully - also help us understand some (not all, but some) of the complaints about "bias" in mainstream media.
   They report the facts about what he said, what he did, what the people around him said or did, what actions he suggests (whether or not they are possible), how his actions compare with those of other presidents. They report how people respond to his actions and how experts in various fields critique his words or proposed actions.
   I think, or hope, we can admit that This President speaks in a unique way, uses a good bit of inflammatory language (which provokes the same from other perspectives), and does not always seem to be in command of governmental realities. Rapid staff changes, unconfirmed cabinet members, indictments of close collaborators; these things are true.
   But merely reporting on these things is seen as bias.
   Concerning the election and the corona virus, much of what The President has said is simply not true and what we learn from his statements back in February is certainly disturbing, even if one supports him. Then there are the many, "smaller" day-to-day untruths that come out of the White House.
   In the 1948 presidential campaign, a supporter of Harry Truman yelled "give 'em hell, Harry!" Truman responded "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's hell."
   It can be that - for those supporting a certain politician no matter what, or because they see that candidate as better than the opposition - telling the truth seems like bias.

As with theology, so it is with politics. You and I inhabit different worlds.

I happen to think yours is fantastical. You probably think the same of mine. But from the confines of the world I inhabit, what you write above is utterly delusional.

That is, if you are not simply dishonestly gaslighting. Which is what your fellow travelers do.

How do you determine facts in your world? Is it possible to state as a fact, "President Trump said ... ," and show a video of him saying it; and not have it interpreted as a bias statement (either for or against the president)?


Granted, it is possible to take a video clip out of context to have it imply something that the speaker never intended, such as Trump's use of a clip of Dr. Fauci.


There is also an issue, which I'll raise in another discussion, between what words are said and the meaning(s) of those words in that particular context. One can say things ironically, where the intended meaning is the opposite of the words.

[David Garner]

Brian's comments may - if we think carefully - also help us understand some (not all, but some) of the complaints about "bias" in mainstream media.
   They report the facts about what he said, what he did, what the people around him said or did, what actions he suggests (whether or not they are possible), how his actions compare with those of other presidents. They report how people respond to his actions and how experts in various fields critique his words or proposed actions.
   I think, or hope, we can admit that This President speaks in a unique way, uses a good bit of inflammatory language (which provokes the same from other perspectives), and does not always seem to be in command of governmental realities. Rapid staff changes, unconfirmed cabinet members, indictments of close collaborators; these things are true.
   But merely reporting on these things is seen as bias.
   Concerning the election and the corona virus, much of what The President has said is simply not true and what we learn from his statements back in February is certainly disturbing, even if one supports him. Then there are the many, "smaller" day-to-day untruths that come out of the White House.
   In the 1948 presidential campaign, a supporter of Harry Truman yelled "give 'em hell, Harry!" Truman responded "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's hell."
   It can be that - for those supporting a certain politician no matter what, or because they see that candidate as better than the opposition - telling the truth seems like bias.

As with theology, so it is with politics. You and I inhabit different worlds.

I happen to think yours is fantastical. You probably think the same of mine. But from the confines of the world I inhabit, what you write above is utterly delusional.

That is, if you are not simply dishonestly gaslighting. Which is what your fellow travelers do.

How do you determine facts in your world? Is it possible to state as a fact, "President Trump said ... ," and show a video of him saying it; and not have it interpreted as a bias statement (either for or against the president)?


Granted, it is possible to take a video clip out of context to have it imply something that the speaker never intended, such as Trump's use of a clip of Dr. Fauci.


There is also an issue, which I'll raise in another discussion, between what words are said and the meaning(s) of those words in that particular context. One can say things ironically, where the intended meaning is the opposite of the words.

Of course it's possible to state that as a fact.  It's also possible to ignore other things the president said that give context to that.  It's also possible to ignore similar things said by prominent Democrats.  It's also possible to bury the lede on stories of public interest because it doesn't fit an agenda (Google "Kermit Gosnell" for an example of this -- the major media ignored that story for months until Mollie Hemingway basically dragged them all kicking and screaming to cover it, and then they spun it as a story about why abortion rights are so very important). 

"Facts" are not truths in and of themselves.  They can be ("water is wet").  But they often are simply pieces we use to determine truth.  Most people know this and act accordingly. 

[Dan Fienen]

As an example of quoting out of context and selective quoting, the continuing "fact" that President Trump in August, 2017 said after violent protests in Charlottesville, VA during which a protester was run over and killed that, "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." Thus, "With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it," as candidate Joe Biden recalled, April 25, 2019.

It is a fact that Pres. Trump did say those words in commenting about that event. But in saying that was he in fact assigning a moral equivalence between violent white supremacist protesters, one of whom murdered a young woman, and the peaceful protesters who opposed them? The way the facts where typically reported, it sure sounded that way. A woman was killed by a protester on one side of those protests. Pres. Trump said that there were "fine people" on both sides.

Some context. On August 12, Trump commented briefly about that event during a signing of an unrelated bill. He said,""But we're closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Va.. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America. What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives. No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society. And no child should ever be afraid to go outside and play or be with their parents and have a good time." Many complained that was inadequate.

On August 15, during a press conference for an unrelated matter, Trump uttered the much criticized words. Drawing from a much more complete transcript from the press conference in which Trump made the comment, a different picture emerges. The transcript comes from an April 26, 2019 article by Angie Drobnic Holan in Politifact.

During this news conference Trump was questioned about the events and spoke at greater length. Concerning the violent protests he unequivocally condemned violence from the right and the left. He said, for example:

Trump: "Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at -- excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

"Let me ask you this: What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I'm concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day. Wait a minute. I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake news. That was a horrible day --

" I will tell you something. I watched those very closely -- much more closely than you people watched it. And you have -- you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now. You had a group -- you had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent."

Trump: "Those people -- all of those people – excuse me, I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee."

Reporter: "Mr. President, are you putting what you're calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?"

Trump: "I'm not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I'm saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs -- and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch.

"But there is another side. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left -- you just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is.

That does sound like he was putting those who committed violence whether on the right or the left as morally equivalent.

Reporter: (Inaudible) "... both sides, sir. You said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides. Are the --"

Trump: "Yes, I think there's blame on both sides. If you look at both sides -- I think there's blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say."

Reporter: "The neo-Nazis started this. They showed up in Charlottesville to protest --"

Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn't put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

Trump on that date, not a later walk back, clearly condemned violence, condemned the murder of the protester, and condemned violence from those who were there protest the removal of the statue as well as violence from those who demanded that the statue of Robert E. Lee be torn down. He also stated that there were fine people who were there protesting to demand the removal of the statue and others protesting its removal. Trump did not, except in the imagination of some who selectively quoted to support their position, make a moral equivalence between peaceful protesters demanding removal of the statue and violent white supremacists who murdered a woman.

[Dan Fienen]

Should we draw a moral equivalence between violent and at times murderous neo-Nazis/white supremacists and peaceful protesters who protest the removal of statues from public places? Are they the same?

[Charles Austin]

Democracy, freedom, lack of leadership, China, our economy, the catastrophic sin of American "individualism," (another word for selfishness), and why we are dying under Trump - a sad, thoughtful Thomas Friedman column:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/opinion/trump-china-coronavirus.html

[peter_speckhard]

I don't think there is a better symbol of the state of American politics than having two competing town hall meetings on different networks at the same time instead of one debate.

[David Garner]

I don't think there is a better symbol of the state of American politics than having two competing town hall meetings on different networks at the same time instead of one debate.

Yep.  The only thing better would be to have one on Facebook and the other on Parler.

[Mike Gehlhausen]

I don't think there is a better symbol of the state of American politics than having two competing town hall meetings on different networks at the same time instead of one debate.

Yep.  The only thing better would be to have one on Facebook and the other on Parler.

The most incredibly ironic thing is that Trump's town hall is on NBC which is no friend to the president.   Fox, I'd understand, but NBC?  I'm hoping we don't see fistfights as slanted questions meet delusional propaganda.  The fact-checkers will have a long night tonight.

[pastorg1@aol.com]

Remember, "All we are saying is give peace a chance"?
Where are all the peaceniks that protested the endless wars in the 60's, 70's, 80's?

Our President is bringing our troops home from sand and death, while he honors the military's dutiful sacrifices, and helps the Mid-East peace struggles all the while keeping Iran and North Korea in check.

But no big sigh of thanks and relief from the citizenry at large about this recent outbreak of peace.

And you know why?
No draft.

Literally no "skin" in the game of America. The Pledge of Allegiance becomes theoretical. All created equal becomes
malleable to race/gender/identity politics.

We are enjoying American life and becoming effete.

Peter (I know I triggered some Agnew memories) Garrison

[JEdwards]

I don't think there is a better symbol of the state of American politics than having two competing town hall meetings on different networks at the same time instead of one debate.

It is sad, but it still might be better than the last "debate" in that each candidate will be able to (and therefore be expected to) give an uninterrupted, coherent answer to a question that is important to a regular voter. Evading the question or complaining about its unfairness won't be a good look.

[Charles Austin]

A wild night on NBC with the President's Town Hall meeting. It was a time of wide-ranging lies and exaggerations, uninformed statements and dangerous comments. The following is compiled from the fact-checking postings of the Associated Press, CNN and The New York Times. There are obviously more oddities in his comments tonight, but others will have to seek them out.

Trump retweets a QAnon idiocy: Osama bin Laden is still alive
NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie, moderating the Trump town hall, asked about the QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theory Trump had retweeted claiming Osama bin Laden was still alive and that the man killed in the raid was a body double. Trump defended his actions, saying, "That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody, and that was a retweet. I'll put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don't take a position."
The facts: This is a baseless claim with no evidence to back it up. The facts around the killing of bin Laden are not a debatable opinion. In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A DNA test was conducted, confirming it was bin Laden. He was buried at sea.

The Economy
He claimed again that our economy is in great shape and is the "greatest economy in the world." It isn't and it isn't.

Trump: 85% of people who wear masks get the coronavirus
"Just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it," Trump said.
It was a repeat of a similar claim he had made two times earlier in the day, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the source for that number.
The facts: Trump's claim is false. A CDC study released in September, did not say that 85% of people who wear masks get infected with the coronavirus. In fact, it did not even attempt to figure out what percentage of people who wear a mask get infected with the coronavirus.

False on Voter Fraud
President Trump made a litany of false claims about voter fraud during his town hall, even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud.
He claimed, falsely, that "thousands of ballots" cast for him had been summarily discarded, and repeatedly expressed anger as Guthrie, challenged him.
"They spied on my campaign and they got caught, and they spied heavily on my campaign, and they tried to take down a duly elected sitting president," Mr. Trump said, repeating a debunked conspiracy theory about spying. "When I see thousands of ballots dumped in a garbage can and they happened to have my name on it, I'm not happy about that."
There is no evidence that thousands of ballots have been dumped in garbage cans.
At one point, Ms. Guthrie pointed out that Mr. Trump's own F.B.I. director had affirmed how rare voter fraud was.
"Oh, really?" Mr. Trump responded. "Then he's not doing a very good job."

More on his refusal to denounce on the QAnon loonies.
President Trump denied knowing about the conspiracy theory QAnon — days after tweeting out the discredited claim by the group that President Barack Obama had staged the killing of Osama bin Laden.
"I just don't know about QAnon," Mr. Trump said when the moderator, Savannah Guthrie, pressed him on his tweet and explained that the far-right believers of the conspiracy baselessly claim Democrats are a satanic cult that practices pedophilia.
"Can you just once and for all state that is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety?" Ms. Guthrie asked.
"I do know they are very much against pedophilia, they fight it very hard," Mr. Trump said. Guthrie pressed him, asking him to respond to Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, who said that "QAnon is nuts."
Trump responded, "I just don't know about QAnon."
"You do know," she shot back, noting she had explained the group to him.

On his virus tests, more falsehoods.
Trump's town hall got off to a testy start, when Savannah Guthrie, the "Today" co-anchor, pressed him on whether he had been tested for the coronavirus on the day of the first presidential debate (he said he couldn't remember) and why he did not promote mask-wearing (he said, inaccurately, that 85 percent of people who wear masks catch the virus).
Mr. Trump on Thursday night continued to interrupt Ms. Guthrie and defend his own talking points about his handling of the pandemic, and make inaccurate projections about the virus being in the rear view mirror.
"We're a winner," he said. "We have done an amazing job. And it's rounding the corner. And we have the vaccines coming and we have the therapies coming."
"Relative to the rest of the world we have the worst death rate," Ms. Guthrie said.
"I have things right here that will tell you exactly the opposite," Mr. Trump claimed.
And the vaccines will be a long time coming.

His finances
He finally conceded, after denying it for weeks, that he owed $400 million to creditors, some of them foreign entities. "What I'm saying is that it's a tiny percentage of my net worth," Mr. Trump replied. "When you look at vast properties like I have, and they're big and they're beautiful and they're well-located, when you look at that, the amount of money, $400 million, is a peanut, it's extremely underleveraged," he added. "And it's leveraged with normally normal banks. Not a big deal." But he reluctantly admitted that much of the debt was owed overseas, and he implied that he would say who they are. And he consistently over-values his properties when seeking loans and undervalues them on tax documents. Even if he were to sell most of his properties, he might not have enough to cover all his debts.

Pre-existing conditions and coverage
He said Republicans would always protect people with pre-existing conditions, but the administration is vigorously trying to totally eliminate the Affordable Care Act, which does that. And under questioning in the NBC discussion, he still provided no details about plans to replace the Affordable Care Act.

[Julio]

A wild night on NBC with the President's Town Hall meeting."

A separate thread devoted to the October 15 Town Halls has discussion already in progress... here.

[Charles Austin]

I know. But I posted my comments in this thread of discussion. This is where they belong and this is where I hope discussion of them can take place. I do not appreciate having them hijacked over to another thread. I think I know the ruse, and I'm not falling for it.