Saturday, September 19, 2015

Political Lies and Lying Politicians - 2015

If there is one thing we can almost always count on during the political season, it is that the politicians are going to stretch the truth, distort the truth and downright lie ... not occasionally, but almost continually.  In the fall of 2015, here are some of the lies we have been hearing, and I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceburg.

Carly Fiorina's Misleading Claim Against Planned Parenthood

During the September 17, 2015 Republican debate on CNN, Carly Fiorina looked straight into the cameras and gave a convincing and graphic description of an aborted fetus she claimed to have seen on a hidden camera video taken at a Planned Parenthood clinic.  The problem is that there are NO scenes such as the one she described on any of the hidden camera videos that were taken in Planned Parenthood facilities.  It just didn't happen.  It is possible that she confused it with another video of a miscarriage in a facility that had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood, but no one is sure.  FactCheck.org verified that this scene was not related to Planned Parenthood and, so far, the Fiorina campaign has not refuted it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-carly-fiorina-donald-trump-hewlett-packard-perspec-0920-20150918-column.html

Hilary Clinton and Top Secret Emails

Hilary Clinton has been widely criticized for using a server in her own home as her email provider during the term she served as Secretary of State.  She has insisted that there were no Top Secret emails that were transmitted using her personal email.  However, she apparently overlooked a few.  While the vast majority of her emails were not labeled Top Secret, the special panel that is reviewing her emails did find at least two that were labeled Top Secret at the time she sent them.  Oversight ... or a lie?

http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/08/special-review-confirms-hillary-clintons-email-had-top-secret-information/

Trump Criticized Gov. Scott Walker for Having a Huge Deficit in Wisconsin

While Trump may have believed that Wisconsin had a $2.2 billion deficit while Scott Walker was governor, as he claimed in the CNN Republican debate, in truth the state is required by law to have a balanced budget and the state actually was able to provide tax cuts to its citizens.

Trump Lied About Not Wanting Casino Gambling in Florida

During the CNN debate, Jeb Bush brought up the fact that Donald Trump made a $50,000 donation to his gubernatorial campaign and sent lobbyists to Florida in an attempt to get casino gambling approved in Florida.  Bush insisted that he could not be bought and Trump was not successful in his attempt to get casino gambling.  Trump claimed that Bush was wrong and he had not tried to get casino gambling in Florida.

However, it is a well-known fact that Trump actively pursued a deal to put casinos on tribal land in Florida, but he failed, partially because Bush did not support him in this quest.

Donald Trump vs. Dr. Ben Carson on Vaccines

Donald Trump repeatedly made the claim while running for office in 2015 that vaccines cause autism.  Dr. Ben Carson, who is a pediatric doctor and also a presidential candidate, disputed the claim, referring to a number of large studies that have proven there is no relationship between vaccines and autism.

Eventually, Trump backed down and simply said that it would be better if inoculations were spread out more.  Dr. Carson agreed and they seemed to compromise on the issue, but it was only after Trump had spread this misinformation around the country.

Other Trump Exaggerations and Errors

While nearly all the politicians who are running for president seem to be stretching the truth, Donald Trump has made the most statements that could be considered exaggerations, at the very least.  Here are a few of those statements, along with the truth:

"Our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent."  PolitiFact tried to reproduce his numbers.  The highest recent formal unemployment rate is 10.6 percent and even when they used alternative methods and stretched it as much as possible, they could not get it past 16 percent, and that seemed a "considerable stretch."

"Last quarter ... our Gross Domestic Product ... was below zero."  In truth, our GDP is in the trillions of dollars, nowhere near zero.  Growth in GDP is sometimes below zero, but that is not unusual to have happen in a quarter.  In fact, it has happened 42 times in the past 68 years.

To be fair, observers are uncertain whether Trump has intentionally lied about some of these issues or if he simply did not understand the information and, consequently, misinterpreted it.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/sep/17/fact-checking-second-gop-presidential-debate/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jun/17/fact-checking-donald-trump/

There are sure to be more political lies in the coming months, so look for more articles on this topic during the 2015-2016 political season!

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