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Tag: right wing lies

  • Right-Wing Lies (XI): Donald Trump says…

    Right-Wing Lies (XI): Donald Trump says…

    There’s something that’s starting to scare me about Trump and his supporters. I mean, is it really inconceivable that he will win the Republican nomination for president?

    Here’s a doozy of a Tweet posted by Donald Trump:

    Leaving aside the racist imagery, Trump’s numbers aren’t even close to being true.

    Here are the (approximate, but true) numbers (which, like Trump, omits hispanics):

    Blacks killed by whites: 11%

    Blacks killed by police: 4%

    Whites killed by police: 10%

    Whites killed by whites: 84%

    Whites killed by blacks: 15%

    Blacks killed by blacks: 89%

    Can people really believe that 4 in 5 murdered whites are killed by blacks? Or is just something the fearful Right wants to believe? Either way, such a belief, with no basis in truth, is somewhat between ignorant and terrifying. (Also, there is no “Crime Statistics Bureau — San Fransisco”)

    When the leading Republican candidate for President has behavior entirely consistent with fascist thuggery, I think he needs to be called out. Whether it’s Trump’s thinking that it might be good for his white mob to rough up a minority protester, his openness to the concept of registering all Muslims in America, him calling Mexicans rapists, his lies about Arabs in Jersey City cheering the fall of the World Trade Center, or his overall tone of lies and fear mongering.

    I don’t know if trump is a fascist. I think he’s more just an attention whore than an ideologue. But maybe he really does believe what he’s saying. Certainly his followers love it. America has a long and ugly history of Nativism. And while not all Nativists are fascists, there is a bunch of overlap.

    Source: (an actual real one) UCR, 2010-2013. Yearly police-involved shootings extrapolated from the Washington Post. Hispanics in the Post are reclassified as 86 percent white and 12 percent black. This is to be consistent with the UCR, which does not count Hispanic as a race.

    Update #1.

    Update #2:

  • Right-Wing Lies (X): Obama has never honored cops

    Right-Wing Lies (X): Obama has never honored cops

    This is the tenth (or so) in my occasional series of “Right-Wing Lies.” Now I know there are some left-wing lies, too. (It’s not true that 1 in 5 college women are raped, for instance. Nor is it true that black teens are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white teens.) But among my friends, I find there are many more simply false statements coming from my dear conservative brethren.

    One of the recently forwarded picture/meme involving Obama’s supposed disrespect for police officers.

     “794 law enforcement officers have fallen in the line of duty since
    B.H. Obama took office, with no special recognition from the White
    House. A man robs a convenience store and assaults a cop; the White House sends three representatives to his memorial service.”

    (Never seen this before? Then you, my liberal friend, really need to have a more diverse group of friends.)

    Of course the above is not true. At least not the part of Obama never offering recognition to fallen police officers. From politifact you can get six quick links to special proclamations. Obama has said things like this:

    Every American who wears the badge knows the burdens that come with it
    — the long hours and the stress; the knowledge that just about any
    moment could be a matter of life or death.  You carry these burdens so
    the rest of us don’t have to….

    The rest of us can never fully understand what you go through. But
    please know that we hold you in our hearts — not just today, but
    always. We are forever in your debt. And it is on behalf of all of us,
    the entire American people, that I offer my thoughts, my prayers, and my
    thanks. May God shine a light upon the fallen and comfort the mourning. May he protect the peacemakers who protect us every day.

    It’s kind of touching, to be honest. Politifact goes on to conclude, in part: “Archived information about these events was easily available to the
    public on the White House website, meaning that the meme’s creator was
    reckless in not taking them into account. We rate the claim Pants on
    Fire.”

    But… if you believed the lies when you first read them, my bet you will continue to believe them, facts be damned. Because well, if you hate Obama, then something like this just should be true. Even if it’s not.

    (Also, the number 794 isn’t right either, but whatever.)

  • A story about Obamaphones

    Not they Obamaphones have anything to do with Obama. From the Times.

  • Right Wing Lies (IX)

    Right Wing Lies (IX)

    Turns out Obama was a cross-dressing teenager who turned gay tricks for coke! This one must be true. Why? Because I read it on the interwebs!

    Man, I wasted far too much time today responding to comments from people who still comment about what a shame it is that the government provided “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to a murdered two-bit drug-dealing father-of-many married-to-none black man, Larmondo “Flair” Allen. This single post got 4,000 hits yesterday (and all from google searches, which is the tough way to find something. Usually massive spikes are due to some prominent site posting a link). That’s about 3,500 more than an average day.

    The problem, of course, is it’s not true. I mean the looser “Flair” existed, but he wasn’t living large sucking the government’s tit.

    Call me crazy, but if people believe an email that says some loser with nine kids gets $13,500 per month in free government cash (the real figure is closer to $550), how much of a lie does something have to be before idiots might reconsider something that goes against their world view?

    And how many people need to believe a lie before these people dictate social policy based on that lie?

    [For a more a real conception of who receives welfare, read this.]

    In many comments (and tens of thousands of page views) regarding “Flair,” not one person — not one — said, “Gosh, I guess since my facts were wrong, I’ve got to reconsider what I believe.” Not one. Turns out for some, the facts don’t matter. As a professor who enjoys a good political debate, I find that very frustrating.

    To hate something based on truth is one thing. But to hate based on lies? It’s the foundation of fascism.

  • Stop & Frisk: They Had It Coming

    Stop & Frisk: They Had It Coming

    A (cop) friend in Baltimore asked me with regard to stop and frisk: “What the hell is going on?” I emailed back:

    You know, leaving aside the decision was entirely predicable based on the judge not exactly being a friend of police, her decision is actually kind of mild. All she f*cking asks is for cops to stop making illegal stops. It’s really not too much to ask for.

    The idea that cops can stop and search (because we both know how frisks can turn into searches) somebody and not even have/be able to articulate reasonable suspicion is absurd (because we both know how easy it is to articulate reasonable suspicion). They have these stupid forms in NYC (called UF-250s) and all the officer has to do is check a box — no writing required, because the forms were made to be idiot proof, which helps turn some cops into idiots — saying “furtive gesture” or something. It is a little absurd.

    A few months ago she instructed politely, and the police department ignored her. The NYPD got what they were asking for. They refuse to rational engage/debate even with people who don’t hate cops. So now they get some smart-ass judge telling them what to do. Kelly had it coming.

    I think the NYPD could reduce stop and frisks by 75% without any impact on crime — because probably 75% are quota driven and not based on valid suspicion, but instead are based on the end of the work period, not having 5 UF-250s that month, and worried that the sgt will chew you a new asshole. So you stop the first young guy in baggy jeans that walks by (who happens to be black).

    What worries me is what will happen if the cops stop doing that last 25%, the stop and frisks that are actually based on reasonable suspicion. Then shootings will go up.

    I still haven’t gotten my head around the federal monitor, however. And I’m kind of excited about the pilot camera program. I can’t imagine it will work well, but if it does it should help police tremendously, despite what police fear. Ten years ago I was against cameras (I think), but technology has moved forward. Cameras are there whether cops like or not. So it’s good to have a camera with a police POV.

    [Update: this is worth reading, by John Timoney. On the plus side (though he presents it as a negative) look at all the overtime cops are likely to get!]

    Related, there’s an excellent piece in Salon by Brian Beutler, “What I learned from getting shot.” Walking down the street in D.C., Beutler was held up by two black guys in hoodies and then shot three times. He was very lucky to live:

    I didn’t buy a gun, though several well-wishers seemed to think that night would’ve ended better if I’d been armed and had initiated a saloon-style shootout in the middle of the street. Other well-wishers wondered — let’s not sugarcoat it — if the experience had turned me into a racist.

    Those emails were easy to respond to.

    [Kal] Penn got in trouble for touting the supposed merits of New York’s stop-and-frisk policy. To the objection that the policy disproportionately targets blacks and Latinos, he responded, “And who, sadly, commits & are victims of the most crimes?”

    But that’s a non sequitur. A false rationale. Take people’s fear out of the equation and the logical artifice collapses. Canadians are highly overrepresented in the field of professional ice hockey, but it would be ridiculous for anyone to walk around Alberta presumptively asking strangers on the street for autographs. When you treat everyone as a suspect, you get a lot of false positives. That’s why above and beyond the obvious injustice of it, stop and frisk isn’t wise policy. Minorities might commit most of the crime in U.S. cities, and be the likeliest victims of it, and that’s a problem with a lot of causes that should be addressed in a lot of ways. But crime is pretty rare. Not rare like being a professional hockey player is rare. But rare. Most people, white or minority, don’t do it at all.

    …

    Everyone who’s ever shot me was black and wearing a hoodie. There just aren’t any reasonable inferences to draw from that fact.

    And file this under Right Wing Lies (VIII). There’s an ad in the Greek-American paper, the National Herald, for John Catsimatidis. He’s a Republican running for mayor. The ad shouts: “DON’T BLINDFOLD OUR POLICE!” And there’s even a picture of a ranking officer violating rules by mis-wearing a uniform for a political ad (those are two separate violations). The ad is about The Community Safety Act, a not very significant anti-profiling bill passed by the New York City Council. Catsimatidis says, and it’s presented as a quote:

    The Community Safety Act is nuts

    and should be called the Community UNSAFETY Act.

    If somebody robs a bank in your neighborhood,

    You can’t say if the suspect is ASIAN, BLACK, WHITE, or HISPANIC.

    You can’t say if the person is MALE or FEMALE.

    You can’t say if the person is 20 OR 60 YEARS OLD.

    THIS MAKES NO COMMON SENSE.

    Leave Law Enforcement up to COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY

    and the professionals of the NYPD

    The problem, and I bet you can see where I’m going with this, is that those statements are bald-faced lies. The law is about police profiling. Of course you can describe a suspect. Shame on Cats, the lying Greek.

    But I can picture Greek grandmother in my neighborhood. She always suspected those Democrats loved crime and supported criminals. And now she knows it to be true because she read Yannis say it in the Herald.

  • Right-Wing Lies (VII) – Free Obama Phones for the Poor

    A while back I started hearing rumors about “Obama phones.” You know, Obama taking our hard-earned money to give free phones to undeserving poor people in the ghetto. Really? I keep hearing about this, so I thought there must be something to it. Take this facebook post from a Baltimore cop friend of mine:

    Beautiful day out and then I see the all to familiar free cell tent a block away from the methadone clinic. I am so happy I PAY my cell phone bill so the “disadvantaged” can get a free phone. WTF!! The best part is both clinic and tent had the same people in line!!

    Almost always (not in my friend’s case) these posts are racistly linkedto President “Hussein Obama”. OK. I know there are racists out there (not my friend, but it’s impossible to do online research into this matter without coming across a lot of them), but that’s not the point. What I want to know is, is this true?! Are there tents in poor neighborhoods giving away phones? If so, why? And is it an Obama plot?

    Let me put it in FAQ format:

    Q: Are they really giving out phones in the hood?

    A: Yes!

    Q: You mean they’re really giving out free phones? Like with minutes on them?

    A: Yes!

    Q: Is the government really taking our hard-earned money and giving poor people phone service?

    A: Well, Yes. More or less. Actually a charge on your phone bill rather than a straight-up tax. But whatever.

    Q: Why can’t I get one?

    A: You might be able to, if you’re poor enough to qualify for food stamps (gross annual income of less than $14,160).

    Q: What’s the cash value that these moochers get?

    A: About $10 a month.

    Q: Is this a secret Islamic Socialist Obama plot to take they money of hard-working white Americans and give it to poor ghetto drug addicts?

    A: No, you stupid schmuck!

    Q: But what about that video of the woman saying “Everybody got an Obama phone”?

    A: She’s an idiot. As is anybody who believes Obama gives out phones.

    Turns out this subsidized phone service for poor people (many of them rural whites) began under The Great American Socialist, Ronald Reagan.

    In 1996, when Clinton was president, people got the choice of using this subsidy for cell-phone service instead of land-line service. Fair enough.

    Then in 2005, the program was expanded during the liberal Bush administration.

    So go ahead and blame Obama. Why not? He is our president. Born in the Ol’ U.S. of A. He does happen to be African-American. So go ahead and blame Obama for whatever you want… but don’t blame him for phones subsidies for poor people! [You could, of course, blame him for saving the economy, killing Osama Bin Laden, getting out of Iraq, and keeping this country safe from a terrorist attack.]

    The actual cell-phone giveaways did start, by chance, in 2008, right before Obama was elected. Why then? Not because Sharia law was creeping over America, but because cell phone costs actually came down so much that right around then private companies could actually turn a profit by taking money from this program, even with the expense of giving away a phone.

    But you know what, maybe giving phone to poor people is actually a good use of government money. Crazy, I know. But think about it. Because you can’t get a job if you don’t have a phone! Certainly when I was a cop, most homes I went into did not have phone service. [Many didn’t have electricity, either. After a while I felt kind of silly asking for a phone number, much less a “work” phone number. Seriously, you don’t know what f*cked up poverty till you’re a cop in Baltimore’s Eastern District.] I seriously doubt people were poor because they don’t have a phone. But, should perchance you want one, it’s almost impossible to get a job if you don’t have a phone phone number to put on the job application so your future employer can call you!

    Meanwhile, on April 15, I was with all those middle-class home-owning folk lining up at the Post Office to get my Obama money. You know, mortgage interest-tax deduction. Thank you, Mr. President. I spent mines on booze!

  • Right-Wing Lies (VI) – Dutch Euthanasia

    “The problem is if they just start lying.” That’s how Erik Mouthaan (Holland’s RTL News) puts it. Or, put less eloquently, this is what I’d say to Rick Santorum, who recently lied about the Netherlands, which seems to be a popular pastime (see, for instance) among US prohibitionists and conservatives. Said Santorum:

    People wear differ bracelets if you are elderly. And the bracelet is “do not euthanize me.” Because they have voluntary euthanize in the Netherlands. But half the people who are euthanized every year–and it’s 10% of all deaths–and half those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older or sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country because there are afraid because of budget purposes, that they will not come out of that hospital.

    Mr. Santorum, have you no shame?

    What isthe Dutch policy on euthanasia? Here’s a good, and factually correct, summary. Basically euthanasia has been decriminalized–meaning it’s technically illegal but the government will not prosecute–if certain conditions are met. These condition include your ability to make such a choice. You also have to be in unbearable pain without prospect of improvement. A doctor has to sign off on these condition (or risk criminal liability). And so does a second doctor.

    And Dutch people are not afraid to go to the hospital (nor do they have to worry about the bill, if they do).

    In 2009 there were 2,636 people (just under 2% of all deaths) in the Netherlands who wanted to (and did) end their lives. 80% of these patients died at home.

    There is nobody in the Netherlands involuntarily euthanized in the Netherlands. They have a word for that in Dutch, “moord”. It means murder. Even in Holland, homicide is still a crime.

    Update:I’d love it for a Santorum fan to comment. Could you please tell me which is the following is most true? Seriously.

    1) You don’t believe me. That is to say, Santorum was telling the truth. Dutch hospitals really do kill sick old people who have to wear bracelets if they want to stay alive.

    2) You think Santorum simply made an honest mistake. He thought it was true it was true at the time. The fact the he is so incredibly ignorant than he could believe such a thing a true? No big deal.

    3) You believe Santorum knew he was lying. But again, no big deal. They’re all lying bastards, but at least Santorum is yourlying bastard.

    Cause I can’t figure out it. But that’s probably because I went to college (but that’s a whole ‘nuther issue).

  • Right Wing Lies (V)

    From the Washington Monthly(called out by them… not their lie):

    President Obama told business leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that U.S. policymakers have been “a little bit lazy” when it comes to attracting businesses to American soil. Republicans have taken this line and said the president called Americans “lazy.”

    The GOP attack is an unambiguous lie. It’s been independently fact checked repeatedly and exposed as a complete sham, caused by taking a comment completely out of context to change its meaning.

    But the point behind the dishonest smear is important. What Republicans are desperate for voters to believe is that President Obama, put simply, doesn’t even like Americans.
    …
    Mitt Romney, who’s only too pleased to exploit the borderline-racism behind these attacks, went so far as to argue this week that Obama called Americans “lazy” — even though he didn’t — because the president “doesn’t understand Americans.”

    There’s us, then there’s him.

    The “lazy” smear matters because it’s a lie.

  • Right Wing Lies (IV)

    Perhaps The Onionsays it best. It often does.

  • Right Wing Lies (III)

    Right Wing Lies (III)

    Fox News says an ever-increasing number of people are losing their jobs. 15 million alone in a 3-month period in 2010!

    That’s patently absurd. But it’s cited to the Bureau of Labor Statistics so it must be true.

    They “corrected” their graph to read: “total unemployed.”


    Straight up, I guess ever since Obama started handing out all that “Obama money.” And you know it must be true because this time they actually spelled out “Bureau of Labor Statistics”! The only problem is that unemployment is notgoing up. It’s been steady at 15 million since August, 2009.

    And then look closer at their chart. Now there’s no law that says you have to write “not to scale” when your draw a graph that isn’t to scale. But common courtesy and a sense of decency would implore you to mention that fact. Otherwise, you know, people could draw the wrong conclusions. Hmmmmm…. Looks like they already decided and didn’t really report.

    The line they draw is straight up and steady. But the numbers aren’t. The first increase is two million. The second increase is 4.5 million. The last increase is 1.5 million. The actually numbers look like this:

    But what are you going to be believe? The truth or Fox’s lying eyes?

    [Taken from Media Matters, which has more details. And discovered through Jay Livingston’s always good Montclair SocioBlog (the best blog I bet you don’t read).]