Donald Trump Connects President Obama to Orlando Shooting

Donald Trump seemed to suggest that President Barack Obama had an ulterior motive concerning how he addresses and handles terror attacks, because he does not say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.”

Trump said Monday morning on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends”:

We’re led by a man who is very — look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can’t believe it.

 

People cannot believe, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and he can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.

Asked earlier why he had tweeted that Obama should resign because he wouldn’t say the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump said:

He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable.

A Trump spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an explanation of what Trump meant. But asked on NBC’s “Today Show” about the comments, Trump said that “a lot of people” thought Obama does not want to understand terrorism.

Well, there a lot of people who think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it. I happen to think he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it, he doesn’t want to see what’s really happening.

And later, speaking to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Trump offered yet another explanation when questioned about what he meant.

I can’t define it. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody knows why (Obama) doesn’t have more anger, more competitive zeal. It’s almost like he’s falling asleep.

Trump has been on the defense since tweeting Sunday that he did not need congratulations for being “right” about the Orlando nightclub shooting. On Sunday, Trump tweeted that Obama should resign for not using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Obama dubbed the shooting an “act of terror” and an “act of hate” in his response Sunday afternoon.

Reality

So instead of thinking diplomatically on foreign affairs and having a tangible policy, Trump instead turns to an old baseless conservative political smear from 2007 that Obama is a covert Muslim extremist.

For those who may be too young or have forgotten, Fox News was famous for their political smears against the then-Senator Obama saying things like:

None of these hand any kernel of truth. So it came to no surprise when Fox News defended Trump, writing:

The Washington Post story featured comments Trump made earlier in the day on Fox News, when he made a made a vague statement about Obama interpreted by some as a reference to his sympathies.

Interpreted by some? Excuse me? If Donald Trump was not trying to infer the right-wing conspiracy theory that President Obama does not act because he is an undercover Muslim, can Fox News please try to come up with a plausible explanation of what Trump was actually talking about?

Fact is, this is not the first time Donald Trump has pushed the Muslim Obama conspiracy theory:

Finally, Trump took the opportunity to bring up the old conservative trope that Obama refuses to acknowledge terrorism, and until he does we’ll be vulnerable to terrorists… or something. However there is a very good reason why President Obama, and before him George W. Bush, will not speak the words “radical Islamic terrorism” when referring to terrorist groups like ISIS. They may sound like small words to Republican critics like Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, but they have big meaning. The members of ISIS and other terrorist groups are desperate for legitimacy. This is why ISIS calls themselves the “Islamic State.” They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam. And they propagate the notion that America, and the West, is at war with Islam. For a President of the United States to infer that we are at war with the Islamic religion, it would have immediate consequences from our Muslim allies in the middle-east as well as give terrorist groups the legitimacy they exactly desire.

Media

Fox and Friends:

NBC Today Show:

O’Reilly Factor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJUYeRfC4cw

 

Trump Tells California ‘There Is No Drought’

Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring, “There is no drought.”

California is, in fact, in midst of a drought. Last year capped the state’s driest four-year period in its history, with record low rainfall and snow.

Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea “to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

(h/t SF Gate)

Source

Donald Trump’s California drought conspiracy theory comes straight from lunatic Alex Jones’ InfoWars in an article 3 days prior titled, “Environmentalists Caused California Drought to Protect This Fish.

The theory that California’s water shortage is all the fault of the Environmental Protection Agency is, like most conspiracy theories, grounded in an actual fact. The EPA has, in fact, caused 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to be flushed into San Francisco Bay to maintain its marine ecosystem. The program, however, dates to the early 1990s, and California’s water system, all told, manages over 40 million acre-feet a year. The practice that Trump describes so darkly involves 2 percent of that—and an economically vital 2 percent at that. California fisheries produce jobs in the hundreds of thousands. But not in Fresno.

Reality

California is now in its fifth year of drought, which has taken a heavy toll on agriculture in particular. Despite an El Niño event that saw an increase last year in snowpacks that supply about one-third of California’s water, 86 percent of the state is still considered to be in drought.

Trump appeared to be referring to disputes over water that runs from the Sacramento River to the San Francisco Bay and then to the ocean. Some farmers want more of that flow captured and diverted to them.

Politically influential rural water districts and well-off corporate farmers in and around California’s Central Valley have been pushing back against longstanding federal laws protecting endangered fish and other species, saying federal efforts to make sure endangered native fish have enough water is short-changing farmers of the water they want and need for crops.

Water authorities say they can’t do it because of the water rights of those upstream of the farmers, and because of the minimum-water allowances needed by endangered species in the bay and by wildlife in general.

The three-inch Delta smelt is a native California fish on the brink of extinction. The smelt has become an emblem in the state’s battles over environmental laws and water distribution.

The farm lobby, a heavyweight player in California’s water wars, also is seeking federal and state approval for billions of dollars in new water tunnels, dams and other projects.

Trump promised that, if he’s elected, he would put their interests first. “If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive,” he said.

California is the country’s No. 1 agriculture producer. The state’s drought is raising the stakes in water disputes among farmers, cities and towns, and environmental interests.

Media

Trump Acknowledges Climate Change — At His Golf Course

Donald Trump says he is “not a big believer in global warming.” He has called it “a total hoax,” “bullshit” and “pseudoscience.”

But he is also trying to build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from “global warming and its effects.”

The New York billionaire is applying for permission to erect a coastal protection works to prevent erosion at his seaside golf resort, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare.

A permit application for the wall, filed by Trump International Golf Links Ireland and reviewed by POLITICO, explicitly cites global warming and its consequences — increased erosion due to rising sea levels and extreme weather this century — as a chief justification for building the structure.

The zoning application raises further questions about how the billionaire developer would confront a risk he has publicly minimized but that has been identified as a defining challenge of this era by world leaders, global industry and the American military. His public disavowal of climate science at the same time he moves to secure his own holdings against the effects of climate change also illustrates the conflict between his political rhetoric and the realities of running a business with seaside assets in the 21st century.

“It’s diabolical,” said former South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis, an advocate of conservative solutions to climate change. “Donald Trump is working to ensure his at-risk properties and his company is trying to figure out how to deal with sea level rise. Meanwhile, he’s saying things to audiences that he must know are not true. … You have a soft place in your heart for people who are honestly ignorant, but people who are deceitful, that’s a different thing.”

Neither Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, nor Alan Garten, the general counsel of the Trump Organization, the umbrella company for Trump’s business ventures, responded to requests for comment.

For years, owners of seaside assets, investors, and industries like reinsurance have been busily adapting to and hedging against climate change – a reality widely acknowledged by the world’s top business leaders.

“If you’re being responsible you are protecting your property and investing in these things,” said Cynthia McHale, director of the insurance program at Ceres, a nonprofit that works with businesses and institutional investors to promote sustainability. “It’s certainly best practice.” But McHale added that many commercial developers of seaside properties fail to account for climate change in their decisions because they are focused on short time horizons.

Trump snatched up the golf resort from a distressed buyer in February 2014, after a winter in which an unusual number of severe storms hit the west coast of Ireland. The businessman immediately took an active hand in advancing and promoting his Irish investment.

In April of 2014, Tony Lowes, director of Friends of the Irish Environment, said Trump called him to offer the group help in opposing a proposed offshore wind project in a nearby, environmentally sensitive area. The group, which has since come out against Trump’s proposed wall, declined the businessman’s offer.

The next month, Trump gave an interview about the golf resort, also known as Trump Doonbeg, on Irish radio, vowing to invest up to €45m in the property. “If I didn’t have confidence in Ireland I would never have made this big investment,” he said. He also promised to “reshape it and make it one of the greatest golf courses in the world.”

But Trump has encountered obstacles to that vision. Days before he concluded his purchase, a single storm eroded as much as eight meters of frontage in some parts of the golf course. Since acquiring the property, Trump has been trying to build coastal protection works to prevent further erosion.

Earlier this month, after failing to win special approval from the national government for the structure, Trump re-submitted a planning application with the Clare County Council seeking permission to build the wall, which would consist of 200,000 tons of rock distributed along two miles of beach. As part of the application, Trump International Golf Links submitted an environmental impact statement — prepared by an Irish environmental consultancy — which argues that erosion is likely to accelerate as sea levels rise more quickly.

The statement acknowledges one Irish government study that assumes a steady rate of erosion through 2050, but argues that the study fails to account for the effects of climate change: “If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland. In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring. … As a result, we would expect the rate of dune recession to increase.”

The bigger problem, though, according to the impact statement, will be the erosion caused by larger, more frequent storms. “As with other predictions of global warming and its effects, there is no universal consensus regarding changes in these events,” it states. “Our advice is to assume that the recent average rate of dune recession will not alter greatly in the next few decades, perhaps as far into the future as 2050 as assumed in the [government study] but that subsequently an increase in this rate is more likely than not.”

Later, the statement argues that rising sea levels make taking action unavoidable. “A Do nothing/Do minimum option will have the least impact on [natural] processes but the existing erosion rate will continue and worsen, due to sea level rise, in the next coming years, posing a real and immediate risk to most of the golf course frontage and assets,” states the conclusion of an analysis of various options for responding to the erosion.

Trump’s company has warned not only the county council of the perils of climate change, but also local residents. An appendix to TIGL’s planning application includes a scan of a brochure that the company has distributed to residents to make the case for building the proposed coastal protection works. The heading of one page — emblazoned with a “Trump Doonbeg” logo — is “Need for Coastal Protection.” The page lists four bullet points, the last of which is, “Predicted sea level rise and more frequent storm events will increase the rate of erosion throughout the 21st century.”

The statements in the filings contradict positions publicly held by Trump, who has weighed in repeatedly on climate change in recent years – mostly to dismiss it outright. In 2012, he tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” though he has since insisted the tweet was a joke. In 2013, he tweeted, “We should be focused on clean and beautiful air-not expensive and business closing GLOBAL WARMING-a total hoax!” In January 2014, he tweeted, “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”

In some recent comments, Trump has continued to defy the widely held scientific consensus about man-made climate change, but his statements have become more complicated, if not entirely clear.

“I’m not a believer in global warming. And I’m not a believer in man-made global warming,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in September. “It could be warming, and it’s going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling.”

That same month, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and said, “I consider climate change to be not one of our big problems. I consider it to be not a big problem at all. I think it’s weather. I think it’s weather changes. It could be some man-made something, but you know, if you look at China, they’re doing nothing about it. Other countries, they’re doing nothing about it. It’s a big planet.”

Asked by a Washington Post editorial writer in March, “Don’t good businessmen hedge against risks, not ignore them?” Trump responded, “I just think we have much bigger risks. I mean I think we have militarily tremendous risks. I think we’re in tremendous peril. I think our biggest form of climate change we should worry about is nuclear weapons.”

The Pentagon, however, describes climate change as “an urgent and growing threat to our national security.”.

Earlier this year, Trump tapped North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer, who also does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change but has expressed support for a modest carbon tax, as an energy adviser. Next Thursday, Trump is scheduled to travel to North Dakota to address a gathering sponsored by an oil industry group, an audience that will likely be receptive to climate skepticism.

But Trump — who recently vowed to “at a minimum” renegotiate December’s Paris climate deal — finds his position at odds with the two-thirds of the American public who described themselves as a “great deal” or “fair amount” worried about global warming in a March Gallup poll.

The New York billionaire has not been shy about abandoning past positions on issues like gun control and abortion as his views and his political considerations have evolved. And as he pivots to the general election, his stated position could come into line with the position taken by his business.

“It’s conceivable that he might swing around on this,” Inglis said. “Of course it would be a smart political move for him or for anyone because that’s where the public’s already going. That’s where millennials are going. That’s where the future is.”

[Politico]

Trump Brings Up Debunked Vince Foster Conspiracy Theory As “Very Fishy”

Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster suicide.

There’s no such thing as a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump will not believe.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump called the circumstances surrounding former Clinton Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster’s death in 1993 “very fishy,” saying the aide had “intimate knowledge” of events surrounding the Clintons.

I don’t bring [Foster] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.

Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Donald Trump didn’t want to discuss the Foster conspiracy theory… by discussing it? How is that statement not dishonest?

Vince Foster’s death in 1993 was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries/investigations conducted by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, CNN, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who was not a fan of the Clintons. The idea that Vincent Foster’s death was anything other than a suicide flies in the face of all available evidence, including Foster’s own suicide note. But yet this never stops wingnut conspiracy sites like WND, Breibart, and The Daily Mail from keeping fiction alive.

This is not the only false or unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Donald Trump subscribes to. Some examples are:

Trump Warns of Another 9/11-like Attack from Syrian Refugees

"The Green Line" podcast.

Donald Trump again warned of another 9/11-like attack on the United States if refugees are continually allowed into the country.

In an interview on the National Border Patrol Council podcast “The Green Line” the presumptive Republican nominee said:

Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in.

Trump also suggested ISIS is paying for refugees’ cell phone plans.

They all have cell phones so they don’t have money, they don’t have anything, they have cell phones. Who pays their monthly charges, right? They have cell phones with the flags, the ISIS flags on them.

When asked if he thought it would take an attack similar to 9/11 for the country to “wake up about border security,” Trump agreed.

Bad things will happen; a lot of bad things will happen. There will be attacks that you wouldn’t believe. There will be attacks by the people that are right now coming in to our country.

Trump also spoke about Hillary Clinton’s agenda for immigration reform and his own plans for border control, including his proposal to build a wall at the Southern border. The National Border Control agents’ union made its first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate when it backed Trump in March.

(h/t CNN, Vox)

Reality

The reference to Syrian refugees with ISIS phones appears to be from an article first reported by the Norwegian newspaper The Netavisen, where a few of the refugees had cell phone images with horrors of war, as well as images of flags, symbols and characters that can be linked to the terrorist group ISIS and other terrorist groups. The article was then floated on the conspiracy site Infowars and the British tabloid the Daily Mail that “hundreds” of refugees in Norway were found with photos of ISIS flags on their phones. And finally we have Donald Trump claiming “thousands.” Just like a game of whisper down the alley the reality is it was not “thousands of people” like Trump claimed.

Conveniently omitted from Donald Trump’s claim was the statements from the Norwegian officials in charge of investigating these incidents who say the images are most likely documentation of ISIS’s presence and what the individuals have witnessed, rather than a statement of support. Also the refugees had images of ISIS flags which they could use when passing through ISIS controlled areas as to avoid suspicion.

Trump had proposed a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” in a December press release, but just this week flip-flopped and said the ban was “only a suggestion.”

Media

[spreaker type=standard width=100% autoplay=false episode_id=8510508]

 

Trump Taps Climate Change Denier as Energy Adviser

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is seeking to build out his policy proposals as he pivots from campaigning for his party’s nomination to a likely general election matchup with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Among those he has asked for help is U.S. Republican Representative Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, one of the country’s most ardent oil and gas drilling advocates and climate change skeptics. North Dakota has been at the forefront of the U.S. shale oil and gas boom.

Trump’s team asked Cramer, who has endorsed Trump, to write a white paper, or detailed report, on his energy policy ideas, according to Cramer and sources familiar with the matter.

Cramer said in an interview that his white paper would emphasize the dangers of foreign ownership of U.S. energy assets, as well as what he characterized as burdensome taxes and over-regulation. Trump will have an opportunity to float some of the ideas at an energy summit in Bismarck, North Dakota on May 26, Cramer said.

The senator was also among a group of Trump advisers who recently met with lawmakers from Western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling, a lawmaker who took part in the meeting said.

A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not comment.

Environmental groups, and Clinton’s campaign, quickly attacked Trump for tapping Cramer.

“Kevin Cramer has consistently backed reckless and dangerous schemes to put the profits of fossil fuel executives before the health of the public, so he and Trump are a match made in polluter heaven,” Sierra Club Legislative Director Melinda Pierce said in an emailed statement.

The Clinton campaign also criticized the move.

“Donald Trump’s choice of outspoken climate (change) denier Kevin Cramer to advise him on energy policy is just the latest piece of evidence that letting him get near the White House would put our children’s health and futures at risk,” said campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson.

Trump has been light on the details of his energy policy, though he recently told supporters in West Virginia that the coal industry would thrive if he were president. He has also claimed global warming is a concept “created by and for the Chinese” to hurt U.S. business.

Clinton, meanwhile, has advocated shifting the country to 50 percent clean energy by 2030, promised heavy regulation of fracking, and said her prospective administration would put coal companies “out of business.”

Reality

Climate change is real. It his happening. Humans are part of it. Fact.

If Donald Trump claims he is going to hire the best and brightest, why is hiring a man who is not a scientist but yet feels his opinion is stronger than a scientific consensus? To highlight the disconnect from facts let’s take a detailed look at Kevin Cramer’s claims during a recent radio show:

Kevin Cramer rejects the science that CO2 is a pollutant and a factor in global warming.

There is nothing in the scientific literature that can back up Kevin Cramer’s claim. On the contrary there is overwhelming scientific evidence that carbon dioxide [CO2] is a pollutant.

For anyone who disagrees with the empirical evidence that CO2 is a pollutant ask yourself; Would you ever think it is safe to breath in the exhaust from your car for an extended period of time? (Prius and Tesla owners pretend you have a Chevy.) You absolutely wouldn’t because tragically hundreds of people die each year from carbon monoxide [CO] poisoning. Along with carbon monoxide, cars release carbon dioxide [CO2], hydrocarbons [HC], nitrogen oxides [NOx], and other particulates which are all pollutants, contribute to climate change, and are harmful to your health.

Science has been aware that carbon in the atmosphere will retains heat for over 150 years. The year was 1859 to be exact, and it was scientist John Tyndall who made the discovery that carbon trapped heat. Then in 1896 Svante Arrhenius calculated that, based on this simple principle of physics, higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere would raise global temperatures. These discoveries are the cornerstones of climate science and in 150 years have yet to be disputed and instead continues to be confirmed by observation.

To explain further, the science, in short, says the following. CO2 lets through short wave light, the kind that passes through our atmosphere, but traps long wave radiation, the kind that is reflected and travels back into space. This experiment can be done in a laboratory, and should you have the time you could see it for yourself. The site at this link has compiled a list of just a handful of the published scientific papers of laboratory measurements of CO2 absorption properties, ranging from 1861 all the way up to 2008. Knowing this evidence, scientist reached a consensus a long time ago that CO2 is indeed a contributor to global warming.

Just to reiterate here, Kevin Cramer’s acceptance of science predates the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War, and the First Transcontinental Railroad. This is the equivalent trying to attack a state-of-the-art military drone with a Civil War era musket.

University of East Anglia Director Phil Jones admitted to falsifying temperature data

What Kevin Cramer is referencing here is the Climategate controversy, or more accurately, the manufactured controversy by climate deniers over leaked emails from scientists that turned out to be a whole lot of nothing. No really. There was 8 independent investigations into the allegations by the climate deniers and all 8 investigations found exactly 0 instances of fraud or falsification of records:

  1. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (UK)
  2. Independent Climate Change Review (UK);
  3. International Science Assessment Panel (UK)
  4. Pennsylvania State University first panel (US)
  5. Pennsylvania State University second panel (US)
  6. United States Environmental Protection Agency (US)
  7. Department of Commerce (US)
  8. National Science Foundation (US)

Kevin Cramer is simply repeating a long debunked conspiracy theory.

Temperature data collected by the University of East Anglia showed a downward trend

What Kevin Cramer is referring to is an email from University of East Anglia Director Phil Jones during the failed Climategate controversy where Jones mentions a “trick” to modify their temperature data.

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Looks damning doesn’t it? Of course it does. That’s why those who latched onto the Climategate controversy use it as exhibit A as their evidence. The problem here however is that their evidence was not the entire comment and instead was deceitfully taken out of context.

climategate-phil-jones-email-nature-trick

It turned out that Director Phil Jones was speaking about statistical proxies and a well-known phenomenon called the divergence problem. There is nothing controversial here at all. A scientist talking to other scientist about well-known and well-understood observations. You may ask why are the scientists modifying the data in the first place? Seems strange doesn’t it? No it doesn’t. If you’ve taken a class in Statistics you would learn that raw data requires normalization and standardization to prepare that data for modeling.

If you would like more detail, here is a wonderful video by an actual scientist explaining why climate deniers are wrong here.

In Conclusion

So the conclusion here is that Kevin Cramer is being dishonest as he failed to state a single fact. Either he is inept by only , he is lying, or he is willfully ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence.

Here’s the thing about science, you don’t get to pick and choose what scientific facts you agree and disagree with based off of your own personal feelings.

For example, it is impossible to deny the scientific fact of gravity. You can read gravity-denalist articles all you want and believe in your heart-of-hearts that gravity is a conspiracy of gravity scientists. This will not change the fact that if you step off of a tall building you will surely fall to your own death. This is because the method that proves the scientific fact of man-made global climate change is the exact same method that proves the scientific fact of gravity.

Trump Campaign Spokesperson and Former AntiVaxxer Exec Lies About His Vaccine Beliefs

Donald Trump spokeswoman Elizabeth Emken, a former executive with the leading advocacy group Autism Speaks, was put in a difficult position Monday when asked about the frontrunner’s earlier statements linking vaccines and autism.

Asked on CNN about Trump suggesting a scientific link exists between childhood vaccines and autism during a fall 2015 presidential debate, Emken sidestepped a direct rebuke of Trump’s claims.

“The position of Autism Speaks has been for quite awhile that we need to find out what’s happening. We know there’s a genetic component and there’s an environmental trigger and until we get to the bottom of what’s happening, no one knows what causes autism. Anyone that tells you what does or what doesn’t cause autism is simply not basing that on facts.

“We don’t know, we need to keep looking,” Emken continued, saying she hadn’t discussed the issue with the GOP frontrunner. “But the bottom line is, look, vaccines are the most successful health program in the history of the world, so I don’t believe that’s at all what he was saying.”

(h/t Talking Points Memo)

Reality

Donald Trump spokeswoman Elizabeth Emken made 2 rather large fibs.

First she claimed that “we don’t know what causes autism,” but just before she made the misleading statement that “we know there is an environmental (vaccine) trigger”.

Second, she is lying about Trump’s stance on vaccines:

A little back story… way back in 1998 there was a Doctor called Andrew Wakefield who published a study in the well-respected medical journal The Lancet that linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Funny thing about well-respected scientific journals is, people in your field of study read your paper and try to duplicate the results, this is called peer-review. Nobody could duplicate the results so people became suspicious. Looking harder they found a sub-standard sample size of only 13 subjects, many subjects who already showed signs of autism at the start of the study, discovered data that was fraudulently modified, uncovered plans by Wakefield exploit the new market he created by profiting from his findings, and a discovered conflict of interest. Every single study that has been performed in regards to vaccines and autism continues to find no link between the two. In short Doctor Wakefield is now Mr. Wakefield and can never study medicine again and vaccines remain one of the greatest discoveries of human history.

According to ScienceBlogs, Emken used to be the Executive Director of Autism Speaks, an “autism advocacy” group that used to be very much into anti-vaccine pseudoscience. Indeed, after much foot dragging, it wasn’t until 2015 that Autism Speaks finally grudgingly admitted that there is no good evidence linking vaccines to autism after a large study was published showing no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism and a meta-analysis involving over a million children similarly failed to find a link. It’s not for nothing that Autism Speaks has been quite appropriately accused of speaking up too late on vaccines.

Just like Mr. Trump, you probably have one friend, who is not a doctor or scientist, who has some story that might shed doubt in your mind that vaccines do cause autism. Think about this; That is just one story versus the vast body of evidence in well-performed scientific studies over decades of time, all publicly available to read, and all show absolutely no link. Know anyone with polio? Know anyone who died from smallpox? I’ll bet good money the answer is no. Thank you vaccines. And thank you evidence-based science.

There should be zero surprise that year after year we experience outbreaks of vaccine preventable disease in the areas that have the lowest vaccination rates where many adults and children die. We’re not at all implying that Donald Trump is responsible for these deaths. What we are saying is that when you are a leader and you go around promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, what you are doing is reinforcing someone’s deeply held beliefs and this makes it all the more harder for them to accept new factual information. It is very irresponsible and dangerous on the part of Donald Trump to propagate these false claims.

More info can be found in the links below.

Media

Links

Here is the journalist who helped shed light on Mr. Wakefield’s skullduggery.

Here is an explanation in pretty comic book form.

The original, now retracted, study in The Lancet.

Here’s a study that looked at half a million subjects with zero link found.

Trump Suggests That Obama Doesn’t Want to Get Rid of Terrorism

Michael Savage

Trump told radio host Michael Savage that Obama refuses to say the magic words “radical Islamic terrorism” because maybe he doesn’t want to stop the terrorists.

We have a president that won’t even use the words and if you don’t use the words, you’re never going to get rid of the problem. We have a — maybe he doesn’t want to get rid of the problem. I don’t know exactly what’s going on.

Savage seemed to know exactly what Trump meant.

“Ah ha. Now you’re going as close to the board as a hockey player can go without hitting the puck into the stands. I get it,” he said.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

Reality

Sending a dog whistle to the GOP’s anti-Obama base, Donald Trump has taken to saying that “there’s something we don’t know about” the president when it comes to issues like terrorism and the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

While Trump has never come out and said what that he thinks that “something” is, the GOP presidential frontrunner told conservative radio host Michael Savage that he believes Obama may actually be a terrorist sympathizer.

Donald Trump continues to propagate an old baseless conservative political smear from 2007 that Obama is a covert Muslim extremist hellbent on destroying democracy.

For those who may be too young or have forgotten, Fox News was famous for their political smears against the then-Senator Obama saying things like:

Media

Trump asks if Obama would have attended Scalia’s funeral were it held at a mosque

Twitter

Donald Trump on Saturday suggested President Barack Obama would have attended the funeral of Antonin Scalia had the late Supreme Court justice’s service been held in a mosque.

“I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a Mosque? Very sad that he did not go.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump inferred an old baseless conservative political smear from 2007 that Obama is a covert Muslim extremist hellbent on destroying democracy.

For those who may be too young or have forgotten, Fox News was famous for their political smears against the then-Senator Obama saying things like:

  • Obama had attended a radical Islamic madrassa when he was a child in Indonesia.
  • Obama supported the release of the “Lockerbie Bomber” Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
  • When Obama was a community organizer he was training for a radical overthrow of the government.

None of these hand any kernel of truth.

Trump Promotes Fake Fox News Theory With Fake Photo

Twitter

Real-estate mogul Donald Trump promoted a fake photo and a conspiracy theory in the middle of his Thursday-morning tweetstorm blasting Fox News and one of the network’s anchors, Megyn Kelly.

Trump tweeted someone’s photo that supposedly shows Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Alwaleed’s sister, and Kelly.

The text on the image stated:

“Most people don’t know that the co-owner of Fox News is Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia here with his sister and with host Mygan [sic] Kelly. In case you only watch Fox News and you missed it everywhere else. GOOGLE IT!”

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

We Googled the claim… which yielded multiple fact-checking websites declaring that it was mostly false. Snopes.com reported that the photo was a fabrication and found the original photo of Kelly.

Both Snopes.com and PolitiFact reported that the ownership claim wasn’t true, but the billionaire Saudi prince’s investment company owns a smaller amount of 21st Century Fox.

1 47 48 49 50 51