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Does Anyone Fact-Check the President?
powerlineblog.com ^ | March 7, 2015 | John Hinderaker

Posted on 03/07/2015 1:23:18 PM PST by PROCON

Over the years, we have been struck repeatedly by how often President Obama is wrong. Not how often we disagree with him, but how often he is just plain wrong, on matters of history, science and so on. Obama has a blithe willingness to assert false propositions of fact, apparently without fear of correction. I suppose that is because the Democratic press has little incentive to point out his errors.

Let’s note two instances from a single town hall appearance in South Carolina yesterday. The first related to climate. Obama, while defending his Keystone veto, said:

The pattern overall is that the climate is getting warmer. That’s undeniable.

Far from being undeniable, the claim that “the climate is getting warmer” is false. Satellite measurements show that there has been no warming for around 18 years, a fact that has caused great consternation among climate alarmists:

In 2009, Kevin Trenberth, one of the leading alarmist scientists, wrote in an email: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Is Obama ignorant of the facts, or is he a deliberate science-denier? You be the judge.

During the same town hall, Obama lamented his inability to get gun control legislation through Congress:

Increased gun control measures would go a long way toward cutting down on America’s homicide rate, President Obama said during a town-hall event on Friday.

“Our homicide rates are so much larger than other industrialized countries, by like a mile,” he said during a speech at Benedict College in South Carolina.

“Most of that is attributable to the easy, ready availability of firearms, particularly handguns.”

There are two things wrong with Obama’s claims. First, the homicide rate in the United States is relatively low, and falling. The World Bank has compiled homicide rates by country; most are higher than ours, some many times higher. To be sure, some “industrialized” countries have lower rates than we do. Norway, for example, has a murder rate that is only a fraction of ours. But the reasons are entirely demographic: I would wager that the homicide rate among Norwegian-Americans is even lower than Norway’s.

Obama is also wrong in asserting that America’s homicide rate is attributable to the “ready availability of firearms, particularly handguns.” In fact, our homicide rate is only half what it was during the Clinton administration, even though handgun ownership has exploded over that time period. More guns have been associated with less homicide, and less crime generally. Further, international experience shows that there is zero correlation between gun laws and homicide rates. To take one obvious example, Venezuela’s socialist government has banned the private ownership of firearms and ammunition. Nevertheless, according to the World Bank data, Venezuela’s homicide rate is more than ten times that of the United States.

Barack Obama is not the only Pinocchio in political life, but more than any other public figure I can think of, he seems to think he is entitled to make up his own facts. That sense of entitlement probably results from the press’s unwillingness to point out his many errors.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: banglist; globalwarming; lyingpospotus; mediabias; msmenablesociopath; noaccountability; obama; psychopath; sociopath
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Yes, we here at FR shake our heads in collective disbelief every time we hear another lie come out of Obama and the MSM is silent about it.

Truly pitiful.

But that's why we call him the liar-in-chief.

1 posted on 03/07/2015 1:23:18 PM PST by PROCON
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To: PROCON

An Impossible Job


2 posted on 03/07/2015 1:26:30 PM PST by molson209 (Blank)
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To: PROCON
the silence between lies doesn't coun in his favor???

does he also lie in his sleep???


3 posted on 03/07/2015 1:31:06 PM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: PROCON

Is questioning Obama’s “facts” racist?


4 posted on 03/07/2015 1:31:56 PM PST by Robwin
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To: PROCON

Of course not. That would be racist, homophobic, anti Islamic, biased and sexist. Next question.


5 posted on 03/07/2015 1:32:47 PM PST by albie
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To: Robwin
Is questioning Obama’s “facts” racist?

Heh, Heh, you and your rhetorical questions....

6 posted on 03/07/2015 1:33:33 PM PST by PROCON (Always Give 100% --- Unless you're donating blood.)
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To: molson209

The presidential fact checkers have all died of exhaustion. :-)


7 posted on 03/07/2015 1:34:27 PM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: PROCON

Ass wipe.

We are in the bottom 30% of per capita murders and we drop to near dead last, when you remove criminal on criminal culling.


8 posted on 03/07/2015 1:37:04 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: PROCON

Yes, Senator Robert Menendez fact checks Obama.


9 posted on 03/07/2015 1:38:00 PM PST by Dogbert41 (All the days of my life were written in your book before there was one of them!)
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To: PROCON

His whole life is one big lie, and since the PTB don’t give a rip about it, why would they or anyone else question what he says? Just assume it’s all BS and you’re golden.


10 posted on 03/07/2015 1:39:25 PM PST by fivecatsandadog ("Islam is Islam. There are no modifiers. It's a political movement masquerading as a religion.")
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To: PROCON

It is always a safe assumption that any creature involved in this administration is automatically lying, concealing or distorting any statement they may make in the performance of their official duties. It is their nature, their essence their very being to live and love the lie.


11 posted on 03/07/2015 1:42:08 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS
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To: PROCON

Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts!


12 posted on 03/07/2015 1:47:49 PM PST by AFreeBird
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To: PROCON

There are presidential fact-checkers but they are totally overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of facts to correct out of POTUS’ mouth.

Give them 20-30 years to catch up.


13 posted on 03/07/2015 1:48:28 PM PST by Zack Attack
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To: MeshugeMikey

Reminds me a little of Max Headroom.


14 posted on 03/07/2015 1:48:44 PM PST by AFreeBird
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To: PROCON
When a person tells so many lies to purposefully make it a full time job to fact check them all,
who will step up to the job? It's overwhelming and no news station could survive by
constantly proving the President wrong, and makes him out to be a victim.

It takes one 15 min speech to cost any station devoted to this effort at least a week
to do all the fact checking, and due diligence on that. This IMO is why Obama will
lie constantly in order to undermine our journalistic 1st Amendment process of vetting.

And no, it doesn't work both ways with todays arrogant Democrat owned media.
It has become as bad as the early 1900's where the Newspapers did exactly
what is happening in todays media. Full circle. Yes there is a history and they really
are repeating it, they know what they're doing.

15 posted on 03/07/2015 1:50:18 PM PST by MaxMax (Pay Attention and you'll be pissed off too! FIRE BOEHNER, NOW!)
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To: PROCON

Why would anyone need to do that? If Obama says something, it’s a fact, and the media will report it as fact.


16 posted on 03/07/2015 1:58:19 PM PST by Paleo Conservative (Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not really out to get you.)
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To: PROCON
Does Anyone Fact-Check the President?

Not any more. Based on his past record I save time by believing that he is lying all the time.

If he ever speaks the truth other then by accident I will go back to fact checking.

17 posted on 03/07/2015 1:59:00 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: PROCON

Mmmm, wouldn’t that be a bit racist???


18 posted on 03/07/2015 2:11:29 PM PST by gov_bean_ counter (Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools)
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To: PROCON
Leftist ideologues always play fast and loose with the “facts”. In fact, they're big fat liars.
19 posted on 03/07/2015 2:21:55 PM PST by Bullish (Not even a smidgeon of integrity or sanity in this whitehouse.)
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To: PROCON

Zero is a truly-believing, America-hating Marxist ideologue. His whole worldview revolves around that. “Facts” take a distant backseat to The Ideology. Reality is just a bourgeois construct used to oppress the masses, you know.


20 posted on 03/07/2015 2:35:33 PM PST by Campion
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