Discussion: AP: Fact Checking Claims In The VP Debate

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AP: Fact Checking Claims In The VP Debate AP: Fact Checking Claims In The VP Debate Back to article
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THE FACTS: Clinton also doesn’t have a plan that is materially different than what President Barack Obama is already doing.

FACT: THAT’S A PLAN!!!

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There were several instances of Moderate Media Bias in this article. You mentioned one. Another is that Kaine said that Clinton’s plan was ‘like’ Reagan’s. “Like” implies that it is similar but different. Which it is.

Trump, on the other hand, has no plan which would actually work.

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Yeah, that one was a definite case of bullshit “fact checking”

1: that is what we in the real world call “a plan”

2: Trump has a “secret plan” that he won’t tell anyone
 re. “Not a plan”

So yeah, Kaine was correct.

The rest of the examples on Kaine were quibbly nonsense like “well, he was right but he didn’t word it perfectly”, like the immigration one where “well, it doesn’t mention workplace enforcement!!! NOT THE SAME!!!” That’s not “fact checking” that’s “nit picking”. Pence, on the other hand, bold faced LIED several times and he got less ink here

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Good job AP! You listed a few of the many glaring errors in Pence’s statements while sifting through Kaine’s statement with a fine mesh sieve to find the nuggets that could have had better phrasing. Goddess forbid that you actually just reported the lies instead of striving to push the false equivalency bullshit all the time.

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Got to give HuffPo a little shout out for their header today:

#Liar, Liar ___ Pence on Fire

Well done!

Also loved Borowitz’ comment that: Pence worked harder than a magician could to make Trump disappear.

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Chicago Tribune header today:

#Pence fights — and lies — to keep the stench of Trump off him

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The fact checker pretty much establishes that Pence is a liar and Kaine mostly told the truth. When you go into the weeds you discover that the differences were starker than the fact checker was willing to say in the article.

The one point Kaine didn’t make as well as he could last night is Trumps tax plan explodes the deficit by 4-5 Trillion Dollars and doesn’t give America a damn thing. If we just have to spend 4 trillion extra, we ought to get something for it like new bridges, roads, airports, railroads and communications infrastructure. Just giving money to billionaires isn’t going to put anybody to work.

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Well, the “secret plan” strategy worked for Nixon in '68. Why not try it again?

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I thought 'Quint’s description of Pence in Speilberg’s “Jaws” was spot on:

:laughing:

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And 
 Just a reminder of who Mike Pence really is:

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And for repetition, they follow with “It’s also the case that Trump has not laid out a clear plan”

So Hillary has a plan to continue the Obama administration approach. Trump has nothing. But the AP says that both do not have a clear plan, equating Trump’s lack of a plan with the AP’s opinion that Clinton’s plan is not clear.

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Why is “fact checking” so difficult?

If Kaine says “Trump has no plan” why do you instead fact check a different statement, “We have a plan” (and then do so poorly)?

Why do you bother fact-checking a general statement like "“We’ve seen an economy stifled by more taxes, more regulation, a war on coal.” by Pence?

Why do you ignore the obvious things like Pence denying that Trump said things that he clearly said?

There are actually some thoughtful and nuanced analyses in the AP report (re the emails and the Foundations), so why muck it up with stupid stuff?

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That and the direct appeal to southern white racists, including ‘law and order’ talk. The only missing slogan is ‘silent majority’.

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REPUBLICAN MIKE PENCE: “The fact that under this past administration, we’ve almost doubled the national debt is atrocious. 
 Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine want more of the same.”

THE FACTS: As a share of the total U.S. economy, the national debt has gone up 35 percent; not a doubling.

Still, the debt has ballooned to $19.6 trillion. This largely reflected efforts by the Obama administration to stop the Great Recession.

Is it too much to ask that when discussing how much debt was added under Obama’s administration that fact checkers would remind folks that due to accounting shenanigans under W, most of the costs for the Iraq adventure were off the books until an adult was in charge?

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Actually, there were several points Kaine didn’t make (and tough to do in a heated debate) including that he should have nailed the Trump Foundation to the wall. Yes, FLA Bondi fine, but NY AG cease and desist, money going to pay Trump’s personal expenses, fines, “artwork”, political causes, etc.

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DEMOCRAT TIM KAINE, on fighting the Islamic State: “Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan.”

THE FACTS: Clinton also doesn’t have a plan that is materially different than what President Barack Obama is already doing.

What a bunch of bulllsh

Oh, I see this has already been covered. Carry on, then.

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DEMOCRAT TIM KAINE on immigration: “Our plan is like Ronald Reagan in 1986.”

THE FACTS: There are similarities for sure but Clinton’s proposal would have far broader impact. The estimated population of immigrants living in the United States illegally is now roughly 11 million. In 1986, the so-called Reagan amnesty bill legalized the immigration status of about 3 million people.

There are also some notable differences between the law signed by President Reagan and Clinton’s proposal. The Reagan law included a provision that made it illegal for businesses to hire workers who don’t have the legal right to work in the United States. Enforcement of that provision has never fully materialized. Clinton’s plan as laid out in her campaign website does not address workforce enforcement.

Leaving aside that “like” and “similar” are synonyms so your opening line basically admits that what Kaine said was true, how is the Clinton plan not addressing the enforcement of laws against hiring undocumented workers a “notable difference” from Regan’s plan when you admit that while Regan might have added said laws his plan never actually addressed enforcing those additions?

DEMOCRAT TIM KAINE, on fighting the Islamic State: “Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan.”

THE FACTS: Clinton also doesn’t have a plan that is materially different than what President Barack Obama is already doing.


It’s also the case that Trump has not laid out a clear plan, though he claims to have a “secret” one that he won’t detail.

So the fuck what? Kaine never said that she had a different plan than Obama, he said Trump didn’t have a plan, which you admit is true even as you try and pass the statement off as something in need of a fact check.

Finding nit’s to pick with one side to “balance” the lies you are calling out on the other isn’t fucking fact checking, it is the same bull shit false equivalency the media is always indulging in. Calvin Woodward and Josh Boak are what is wrong with America today and they should be fucking ashamed for it.

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There’s PolitiFact a fact checking organization and a politifact or a fact established by the fact checking organization. In the never ending game of “balancing” shit we’ve seen a lot of politifacts from PolitiFact. Clinton never said he plan was “significantly different” than Obama’s. PolitiFact did. There’s a lot of politifacts noted by posters in this thread. If PF keeps this shit up they will cease to be of value.

That debate was cut and dry. Pence was there to pass off talking point bullshit and Kaine was there to point out that bullshit. Pretty obvious that Kaine’s mission was to make Pence confront Trump’s crap and equally obvious that Pence’s avoidance of it was tantamount to acknowledging it. Make a liar lie to the camera. Mission accomplished Kaine.

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"Still, the debt has ballooned to $19.6 trillion. This largely reflected efforts by the Obama administration to stop the Great Recession."

No. It’s Iraq and Afghan war spending and the fact that tax rates are lower than they were in early 2000. 90% of our federal economic woes lead back to these two things - waging a costly and unnecessary war in Iraq and lowering federal income tax across the board. Period. The Obama administration Keynesian deficit spending was minuscule compared to the reduction in tax revenues over the last 15 years.strong text

THE FACTS: There’s no serious argument that the Bush tax cuts brought on the recession. The recession was driven largely by the bust in the housing market.

True only, again, because the Iraq war and tax cuts meant that both the government and the Fed had almost zero flexibility to deal with the meltdown. Remove these two things, and the Great Recession wouldn’t have been so great.

THE FACTS: Clinton also doesn’t have a plan that is materially different than what President Barack Obama is already doing.

One final response. FUCK YOU AP! The plan we have is working as ISIL loses more territory by the week. Unless you want to go to war with both the Syrians and the Russians, we’re doing all that can be done.

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