Remember back when President Obama was awarded PoltiFact’s
Liar of the Year for the infamous “If you like your plan you can keep your
plan” pledge? Boy we sure had some fun
lamb basting him over that one didn’t we!
Then there was that time back in 2012 when he was given 4-Pinocchios by
the Washington Post’s FactCheck.org website for claiming that Romney was a
corporate raider who intentionally killed American jobs and outsourced them to
China. And how that other 4- Pinocchio
moment back in 2014 when FactCheck.org crushed his argument for his Executive
order on Immigration. Man that guy can
sure spin a tall tale can’t he?
And Hillary too, she’s managed to earn few of those quad Pinocchios herself, a couple as recent as the last two months with the false claims she has been making over the little email thing that’s been dogging her.
Yes, I guess you can say that we have had to deal with our fair share of dishonest politicians over the years, not just Democrats, we’ve got them on both sides of the fence. It grows more and more disheartening each time we learn that one of the folks we elect falls short of expectation. But we can only try to get it right the next time around by picking the guy or gal who, to the best of our knowledge, is most likely to be truthful and honest in their pledge to serve in the best interest of our nation.
Enter Donald Trump!
The really really rich businessman who, up until recently, was far better known as the host of his own reality television show and former owner of the Miss USA/Miss Teen USA Pageants, burst on to the political stage last June when he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. A business man by trade, name recognition and a few pseudo comments Donald Trump made during his announcement speech, made from his Trump Tower office, far outweighed what he lacked in political savvy. Specifically, his depiction of the people who Mexico was sending across their border into the United States coupled with a promise to build a great wall to keep them out was all Trump needed to secure the unchecked devotion of many disgruntled Republican voters.
Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed anti-establishment, politically incorrect, self-funded man who professed to have the answer to every problem of which everyone else was either too stupid or too incompetent derive, had arrived! But 14 million hastily made, un-vetted votes didn’t just bring the GOP its first non-establishment nominee since Ronald Reagan, it also brought us the most untruthful candidate the party has ever embraced.
Of the 174 statements Politifact judged from the start of Trump’s campaign until this past July 1st, they found a mere 16 to be true or mostly true. Of that same 174 statements, 70 were ruled to be false and another 34 astoundingly received their Pants of Fire award, meaning the claim was not only totally inaccurate but ridiculous as well. Since July 1st, Trump has placed an additional four Pants on Fire trophies to his shelf.
Trump has fared no better with the Washington Post’s FactCheck.org which has bestowed upon him 41 of their coveted 4-Pinocchio awards (8 added since June), the latest coming just this morning after the release of a campaign ad the makes the ridiculously unsubstantiated claim that illegal immigrants would receive social security benefits under Hillary Clinton’s plan. He must have read that from the same source that has him claiming Clinton wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment.
So how do Obama and Hillary stack up against the Donald?
In addition to Obama’s 2013 Liar of the Year award (Trump earned the same title for 2015), as of two years ago he had amassed a total of three 4-Pinocchio ratings. Obama seems to have cleaned up his act a bit in the big lie department over the past couple of years, manage to steer clear of FactCheck’s worst rating.
Hillary has not been quite as successful at avoiding the big untruths as her former boss has, racking up five 4-Pinocchio awards from the start of her campaign until mid-July. Of course, she’s snatched up a few more since that time with her continued efforts to convince voters that FBI Director James Comey didn’t actually say what he actually said in sworn testimony!
So how do they all compare? It looks to me that even when you combine Hillary and Obama’s 4-Pinocchio awards, Trump still has them beat nearly fourfold. OUCH!
But it’s not just Trump himself, it’s his entire campaign that has a lose relationship with facts and the truth. We just witnessed the departure of Trump’s former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, the only true campaign professional Trump had on staff, over a sticky situation he found himself over past political dealings with Russia. And then there is the crazed Queen of Conspiracy, National Campaign Spokesperson Katrina Pierson who, this past Thursday, made claim that Hillary Clinton is suffering from a rare brain disorder. Where did she come up with such an outlandish claim? From a fake medical records that surface earlier in the week of course. The fake record by the way was immediately identified as being such days before Pierson made her false accusation regarding Clinton’s health. Being a fake report mattered little to Pierson however, she ran with the lie like a boss!
This is far from the first time the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory supporting Pierson has knowingly engaged in spreading damaging untruths on a national stage and she does so with grand conviction. Personally, I don’t know how this woman sleeps at night. But in her defense, doing what she does is exactly why she was hired. Trump brought her on board because of her willingness to do or say anything, not because of her devotion to ethical behavior.
And with Trump’s recent hiring of the equally unethical Stephen Bannon as his new Campaign Chief Executive, Kristina now has a partner in crime. Bannon has zero experience running a political campaign but for the past four years, serving as Chairman of Breitbart News, he has turned the spreading of political lies and the spreading conspiracies into an art form.
The frustration of lying and dishonest politicians clearly reached a boiling point with a large swath of the Republican electorate this election cycle and, in what many outside this group sees as more of an act of unchecked hope and desperation, have thrown their heart and soul behind what is clearly the most dishonest of them all, the political outsider Donald Trump. Oh the irony!
And Hillary too, she’s managed to earn few of those quad Pinocchios herself, a couple as recent as the last two months with the false claims she has been making over the little email thing that’s been dogging her.
Yes, I guess you can say that we have had to deal with our fair share of dishonest politicians over the years, not just Democrats, we’ve got them on both sides of the fence. It grows more and more disheartening each time we learn that one of the folks we elect falls short of expectation. But we can only try to get it right the next time around by picking the guy or gal who, to the best of our knowledge, is most likely to be truthful and honest in their pledge to serve in the best interest of our nation.
Enter Donald Trump!
The really really rich businessman who, up until recently, was far better known as the host of his own reality television show and former owner of the Miss USA/Miss Teen USA Pageants, burst on to the political stage last June when he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination. A business man by trade, name recognition and a few pseudo comments Donald Trump made during his announcement speech, made from his Trump Tower office, far outweighed what he lacked in political savvy. Specifically, his depiction of the people who Mexico was sending across their border into the United States coupled with a promise to build a great wall to keep them out was all Trump needed to secure the unchecked devotion of many disgruntled Republican voters.
Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed anti-establishment, politically incorrect, self-funded man who professed to have the answer to every problem of which everyone else was either too stupid or too incompetent derive, had arrived! But 14 million hastily made, un-vetted votes didn’t just bring the GOP its first non-establishment nominee since Ronald Reagan, it also brought us the most untruthful candidate the party has ever embraced.
Of the 174 statements Politifact judged from the start of Trump’s campaign until this past July 1st, they found a mere 16 to be true or mostly true. Of that same 174 statements, 70 were ruled to be false and another 34 astoundingly received their Pants of Fire award, meaning the claim was not only totally inaccurate but ridiculous as well. Since July 1st, Trump has placed an additional four Pants on Fire trophies to his shelf.
Trump has fared no better with the Washington Post’s FactCheck.org which has bestowed upon him 41 of their coveted 4-Pinocchio awards (8 added since June), the latest coming just this morning after the release of a campaign ad the makes the ridiculously unsubstantiated claim that illegal immigrants would receive social security benefits under Hillary Clinton’s plan. He must have read that from the same source that has him claiming Clinton wants to abolish the 2nd Amendment.
So how do Obama and Hillary stack up against the Donald?
In addition to Obama’s 2013 Liar of the Year award (Trump earned the same title for 2015), as of two years ago he had amassed a total of three 4-Pinocchio ratings. Obama seems to have cleaned up his act a bit in the big lie department over the past couple of years, manage to steer clear of FactCheck’s worst rating.
Hillary has not been quite as successful at avoiding the big untruths as her former boss has, racking up five 4-Pinocchio awards from the start of her campaign until mid-July. Of course, she’s snatched up a few more since that time with her continued efforts to convince voters that FBI Director James Comey didn’t actually say what he actually said in sworn testimony!
So how do they all compare? It looks to me that even when you combine Hillary and Obama’s 4-Pinocchio awards, Trump still has them beat nearly fourfold. OUCH!
But it’s not just Trump himself, it’s his entire campaign that has a lose relationship with facts and the truth. We just witnessed the departure of Trump’s former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, the only true campaign professional Trump had on staff, over a sticky situation he found himself over past political dealings with Russia. And then there is the crazed Queen of Conspiracy, National Campaign Spokesperson Katrina Pierson who, this past Thursday, made claim that Hillary Clinton is suffering from a rare brain disorder. Where did she come up with such an outlandish claim? From a fake medical records that surface earlier in the week of course. The fake record by the way was immediately identified as being such days before Pierson made her false accusation regarding Clinton’s health. Being a fake report mattered little to Pierson however, she ran with the lie like a boss!
This is far from the first time the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory supporting Pierson has knowingly engaged in spreading damaging untruths on a national stage and she does so with grand conviction. Personally, I don’t know how this woman sleeps at night. But in her defense, doing what she does is exactly why she was hired. Trump brought her on board because of her willingness to do or say anything, not because of her devotion to ethical behavior.
And with Trump’s recent hiring of the equally unethical Stephen Bannon as his new Campaign Chief Executive, Kristina now has a partner in crime. Bannon has zero experience running a political campaign but for the past four years, serving as Chairman of Breitbart News, he has turned the spreading of political lies and the spreading conspiracies into an art form.
The frustration of lying and dishonest politicians clearly reached a boiling point with a large swath of the Republican electorate this election cycle and, in what many outside this group sees as more of an act of unchecked hope and desperation, have thrown their heart and soul behind what is clearly the most dishonest of them all, the political outsider Donald Trump. Oh the irony!
