Trump lies

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Yea, right. Trump is actually highly profitable for Twitter..

President Trump attacked Twitter on Friday for allegedly removing “many people from [his] account and doing “something that makes it much harder to join” Twitter. “Twitter has removed many people from my account and, more importantly, they have seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join - they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all,” Trump tweeted on Friday morning. “A few weeks ago it was a Rocket Ship, now it is a Blimp! Total Bias?”

It’s unclear what type of removal and other actions by Twitter the President referred to. Archived versions of President Trump’s Twitter page from earlier this month, August and September only show the President’s follower count steadily increasing by around 1.5 million in a two-month span. SocialBlade analytics also show Trump’s follower account steadily increased since Oct. 13.

It is possible that Twitter’s recent purge of automated accounts, or bots, may have affected the President’s follower count. Twitter announced on Thursday that it lost 9 million users in the third quarter of this year, largely in part to its crackdown on bot accounts.

Trump complains of allegedly decreased Twitter followers, accuses bias | TheHill

And then..

Twitter is defending its policy of removing fake accounts after President Trump attacked the tech company for removing “many people from my account.” The social media giant said it was seeking to remove fake accounts so that people would know their followers are actually real people and argued that this was for the better. “Our focus is on the health of the service, and that includes work to remove fake accounts to prevent malicious behavior," a spokesperson for Twitter said in a statement to The Hill. "Many prominent accounts have seen follower counts drop, but the result is higher confidence that the followers they have are real, engaged people.”

Twitter defends removal of fake accounts after Trump criticism | TheHill

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The catalog of inaccurate claims ranges from the weighty to the head-scratching. He has asserted that construction has begun on his border wall (it has not), that he is one of the most popular American presidents in history (he is not), that he “always” opposed the Iraq war (he did not), that the stock market reopened the day after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (it did not), that his tax cut was the largest in history (it was not) and that the United States is the only country that guarantees citizenship to those born here (it is not). 

As he embarks on a final eight-state, 11-rally blitz before Tuesday’s midterm elections, Mr. Trump has hammered Democrats — not just for their actual policy positions but for some they have not taken. He accused them, without proof, of helping to orchestrate a caravan of Central American migrants; complained that Democrats had opposed opioid legislation when in fact they universally voted for it; and asserted that they would not protect patients with pre-existing conditions — even though that was the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care program.

Here are 15 of Mr. Trump’s most egregious falsehoods since Oct. 22, fact-checked by category.

Inside What Even an Ally Calls Trump’s ‘Reality Distortion Field’ - The New York Times

See article for the lies. Amazing stuff..

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During a Q&A session with reporters on Friday, President Donald Trump was asked about White House press secretary Sarah Sanders’s decision to tweet out a doctored video that was manipulated to make it look like CNN reporter Jim Acosta karate-chopped a White House intern’s arm. Sanders used the manipulated footage to justify banning Acosta from the White House. Trump responded by denying that the video, which appeared to originate with the far-right conspiracy site Infowars, was in fact distorted. “Ah, the taped video of Acosta? What are you talking about?” Trump said. “Nobody manipulated it — give me a break. See, that’s just dishonest reporting. All that is is a close-up. See, that’s just — that is just dishonest reporting.”

Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer who examined the clip at the request of the Associated Press, detailed how whoever manipulated the video intentionally sped up parts of it and slowed down others to make it look like Acosta was physically aggressive with the intern.
From the AP:

The tweeted video also does not have any audio, which Shapiro said would make it easier to alter. It’s also unlikely the differences could be explained by technical glitches or by video compression — a reduction in a video’s size to enable it to play more smoothly on some sites — because the slowing of the video and the acceleration that followed are “too precise to be an accident,” said Shapiro, who trains instructors to use video editing software.

Trump insists doctored Acosta video isn’t actually doctored - Vox

Press freedom in the US under Trump:

• They ban Jim Acosta from doing his job as a White House correspondent
  
• As justification, they use a doctored video from Infowars (which is banned from all social media)
  
• And then the President flat out denies it's doctored and accuse the press of "dishonest reporting"
  

Imagine Obama had done anything remotely similar..

[Admin]

More obvious lies (see also here)

President Donald Trump keeps insisting he doesn’t know the man he seemingly hand-picked to take over the Justice Department. In a pair of tweets sent early Saturday morning from Paris, Trump claimed — again — that he had “no social contact” with Matthew Whitaker, his pick for acting attorney general following his Wednesday firing of Jeff Sessions. Repeating claims he made on Friday that he didn’t know or speak to Whitaker about the Mueller investigation, Trump tweeted that he hadn’t previously known his new Cabinet-level official, “except primarily as he traveled with A.G. Sessions.” As Vox’s Andrew Prokop pointed out Friday, this is easily disprovable. Multiple sources — from the Washington Post to the New York Times — report that Trump was frequently briefed by Whitaker, whom he considered his “eyes and ears” in the Justice Department, because he preferred not to talk to Sessions..

Trump continues Whitaker denials in early morning tweets - Vox

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The White House must return CNN reporter Jim Acosta's permanent press pass to him after a federal judge granted the journalist's request for a preliminary injunction. Judge Timothy J Kelly — an appointee of President Donald Trump — granted the motion on Friday after hearing nearly two hours of oral arguments in the case earlier in the week, which was brought against the White House by Mr Acosta and his employer. Mr Acosta's permanent press pass, known as a "hard pass", was taken from the journalist after the White House accused him of "placing his hand on a young" intern during a press conference with the president soon after the 2018 midterm elections last week. Mr Acosta has denied that he did so.

Jim Acosta ruling: Trump forced to give White House press pass back to CNN reporter after intern incident | The Independent

Let's see:

• Jim Acosta asks questions that Trump doesn't like and Trump burst out with insults
  
• An intern tries to grab Acosta's microphone unsuccessfully
  
• The White House revokes Acosta's press pass, an unprecedented move
  
• They do so on the basis that Acosta supposedly laid his hands on the intern
  
• As "evidence" the White House uses a doctored video by Infoleaks, a notorious conspiracy theory website
  
• The White House denies the video is doctored
  
• Yet they didn't include the video, nor claims of Acosta laying his hands on the intern as evidence in the trial
  
• The Judge, one that Trump himself appointed, orders Acosta's pass back.
  

Amazing but hardly unique..

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CIA director Gina Haspel traveled to Turkey late last month to address the investigation into Khashoggi's death. She met with Trump when she returned to the US a few days later, and national-security experts said it was highly unlikely she didn't fill him in on what the agency had determined. On Saturday morning, Trump told reporters he had not yet been briefed on the matter. Ned Price, the former senior director of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, told INSIDER the odds that the CIA had high confidence in its assessment and yet did not brief Trump right away "are virtually nil." "Both of these things almost certainly can't be true," he added. Indeed, several Trump aides told The Post he had already been shown evidence of the crown prince's alleged involvement in Khashoggi's murder but was looking for ways to avoid blaming him for the journalist's death.

Will Trump trust CIA assessment that MBS ordered Khashoggi killing? - Business Insider

• CIA argues with high degree of certainty that the Saudi Crown Prince (and de-facto ruler) Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) ordered the killing of journalist Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
  
• Trump almost certainly has been briefed, but doesn't want to admit that as he's sort of cornered here.
  
• Does he ignore the issue and go back to business as usual (or instigate a few token sanctions) as MBS is a critical ally in the Middle East?
  
• The incredible truth in Saudi Arabia is that meanwhile those people who actually did the killing are now in prison, tried and could easily face the dead penalty, only to "absolve" MBS from responsibility (the latest version of the Saudi story is that it was a rogue operation of which MBS didn't know anything).
  

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to his adviser, who oversaw the effort to kill Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, around the time of Khashoggi's killing, according to a classified CIA report obtained by The Wall Street Journal. According to the excerpts of the assessment reported by the Journal, the crown prince told associates in August 2017 "we could possibly lure [Khashoggi] outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements," if the crown prince could not convince the dissident Saudi journalist, who was living in Virginia, to return to Saudi Arabia. .

CIA finds Saudi crown prince sent at least 11 messages to adviser who oversaw Khashoggi killing around time of his death | TheHill

But nooo, he didn't order the killing, nor wasn't aware of it, right?

[Admin]

The lying is genetic..

Ivanka Trump insisted her father had not authorised the use of lethal force on migrants at the US border. There was one problem: footage which showed him doing exactly that. The president’s daughter and adviser appeared visibly uncomfortable after being confronted with the video during an interview on ABC News. Watch more White House ‘approves use of lethal force’ along US-Mexico border Moments earlier she had described pictures of migrant families being tear-gassed by American forces at the US-Mexico-border as “devastating” and “heartbreaking”. Asked whether she was concerned about Mr Trump authorising troops to use deadly force if necessary, she told Good Morning America’s Deborah Roberts: “I don’t believe that that’s what he said, but his primary role as commander in chief is obviously to protect the nation’s borders. He has to protect our country’s security.

Ivanka Trump says father did not authorise lethal force against migrants, before being shown clip of him authorising lethal force | The Independent

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Amazing, conciliere to a murderer:

Jared Kushner advised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to resolve his conflicts in the Middle East and avoid further embarrassments, after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it has been claimed. The New York Times reports that a source from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia claimed they spoke on the phone after news emerged of the journalist's October 2 death inside the KSA Istanbul embassy.

The White House only recognizes one official talk between the pair after Khashoggi's killing – an October 10 chat where national security adviser, John R. Bolton, took part and American 'asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process'.

White House officials declined to comment specifically on one-on-one communication between the prince and Trump's adviser after the death of Khashoggi.

Jared Kushner 'told Saudi prince how to weather the storm' after Jamal Khashoggi murder | Daily Mail Online

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Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler is introducing a new rating inspired by President Trump’s repetition of false claims. In a column published Monday, Kessler announced “the Bottomless Pinocchio” to rate politicians “who repeat a false claim so many times that they are, in effect, engaging in campaigns of disinformation.” “Trump’s willingness to constantly repeat false claims has posed a unique challenge to fact checkers,” Kessler writes. “Most politicians quickly drop a Four-Pinocchio claim, either out of a duty to be accurate or concern that spreading false information could be politically damaging.”

Kessler writes that in order to receive the “dubious distinction” of a Bottomless Pinocchio, a politician will have repeated a claim at least 20 times — the claim itself must also have been previously rated three or four Pinocchios. Though the standard can apply to any politician, Kessler notes that, other than Trump, no other current elected official meets the standard — and 14 statements from Trump have already made the cut..

Washington Post fact-checker introduces 'Bottomless Pinocchio' rating to call Trump on repeated false claims | TheHill

Repeating lies often enough is simply deliberate misinformation