Tag: PolitiFact

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Politifact: Donald “I Will Never Lie To You” Trump Lies 70% Of The Time

Donald Trump pointedly told the crowd at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Thursday that he would never lie to them.

“I’ve traveled all across this country laying out my bold and modern agenda for change. In this journey, I will never lie to you.”

Funny thing is the Pulitzer Prize winning website Politifact has fact-checked many of the Trumpster’s statements over the course of this past year on the campaign trail. And the results don’t support his “I will never lie to you” statement.

As a matter of fact, Politifact’s Trump scorecard reads “70% Mostly False, False, and Pants on Fire.” His statements have been so untruthful that Trump’s statements were awarded PolitiFact’s “2015 Lie of the Year.”

Check his Politifact Scorecard below. Click image to enlarge.

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Politifact Ranks Presidential Candidates On Their Truthfulness

Click pic to enlarge

Fact checking website Politifact shares this graphic which shows the “Truth-O-Meter” scorecards of each of the remaining presidential candidates as of March 18, 2016.

You can learn about the scoring methodology as well as check on updates to each score card by clicking here.

The candidates are ranked by polling average.

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Pulitzer Prize Winning Website Politifact Names Donald Trump “Lie Of The Year’

Pulitzer Prize winning fact check web site Politifact honors GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump as the collective “Lie Of The Year.”

PolitiFact has been documenting Trump’s statements on our Truth-O-Meter, where we’ve rated 76 percent of them Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire, out of 77 statements checked. No other politician has as many statements rated so far down on the dial.

In considering our annual Lie of the Year, we found our only real contenders were Trump’s — his various statements also led our Readers’ Poll. But it was hard to single one out from the others. So we have rolled them into one big trophy.

To the candidate who says he’s all about winning, PolitiFact designates the many campaign misstatements of Donald Trump as our 2015 Lie of the Year.

When it comes to inaccurate statements, the Donald was on fire:

• “I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down,” he said at a Nov. 21 rally in Birmingham, Ala. “And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.” Pants on Fire. There is no video of thousands of people in Jersey City cheering. Weeks later, Trump continues to stand by his claim but has not been able to point to evidence to back it up. Public safety officials on the ground in New Jersey say it never happened.

• “The Mexican government … they send the bad ones over.” Pants on Fire. There’s no evidence to show the Mexican government encourages criminals to cross the border. Most illegal immigration comes from people seeking work. Recent estimates show illegal immigration from Mexico dropped off dramatically during the recession and has remained low.

• “Whites killed by whites — 16%. Whites killed by blacks — 81%,” said an image he shared on Twitter. Pants on Fire. Most people are killed by someone they know, and someone of the same race. The correct number for whites killed by whites was 82 percent in 2014, while the number of whites killed by blacks was 15 percent.

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PolitiFact Rates Donald Trump “Thousands Cheered In New Jersey” Statement – PANTS ON FIRE

It comes as no surprise that the Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact has researched Donald Trump’s now infamous claim that “thousands and thousands” cheered in New Jersey when the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11.

Trump said he “watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering” as the World Trade Center collapsed.

This defies basic logic. If thousands and thousands of people were celebrating the 9/11 attacks on American soil, many people beyond Trump would remember it. And in the 21st century, there would be video or visual evidence.

Instead, all we found were a couple of news articles that described rumors of celebrations that were either debunked or unproven.

Trump’s recollection of events in New Jersey in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks flies in the face of all the evidence we could find.

We rate this statement Pants on Fire.

Bolding is mine.

If you go to the link, you can read the extensive digging the folks at PolitiFact did to try and give Trump even a smidgen of leeway. But there was none to be found.

Trump even admitted to Bill O’Reilly on last night’s “O’Reilly Factor” that he doesn’t bother to check facts before he tweets or retweets things.

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Another time Bryan Fischer was caught lying

Speaking on July 18th about the downed Malaysian Airlines flight, President Obama mentioned the many HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates headed for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Australia who were on the plane.

At the time, Obama said “the United States of America is going to continue to stand for the basic principle that people have the right to live as they choose.”

Hate group leader Bryan Fischer decided he didn’t like that. Fischer said that Obama’s statement was meant to “politicize” their deaths in order to legitimize gay relationships.

Fischer added, “We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men not to have sex with men.”

Well, we all know that’s not true. But let’s let the folks at PolitiFact break it all down for us, shall we?

About 70 percent of all people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, about 24 million people. This region is also home to the most children living with HIV whose infections originated during pregnancy, childbirth of consuming breast milk, according to AIDS.gov.

Globally, the dominant form of transmission is heterosexual sex, said Sophie Barton Knott, UNAIDS spokeswoman. Nearly half of people with HIV are female, and most were infected through heterosexual sex. Most of the 50.9 percent of men with HIV got it through heterosexual sex, too, she said.

The highest rates of AIDS among 15- to 24-year-olds is among women in many parts of the world, said Seth Faison, spokesman for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. And in Eastern Europe, the highest transmission rates of AIDS are among people who inject drugs.

“Men who have sex with men are a high-risk group, but not the only one,” he said.

The bottom line?

Preventing men from having sex with men will not end AIDS.

Faison said the criminalization of same-sex activity actually can increase transmission rates. Being gay is a crime in at least 76 countries, and in those places, gay men are less likely to receive treatment, testing and prevention.

The CDC also says stigma and homophobia are likely one factor behind the rise in HIV infections among young gay men in the United States.

“In effect, efforts to ‘persuade men not to have sex with men’ is counterproductive,” Faison said. “It will not stop AIDS.”

PolitiFact gives the statement it’s worst rating of “Pants On Fire.”

(h/t JMG)