The anticipated barrage of misleading ads about Kamala Harris has begun. Expect nasty racist and sexist tropes as well as inflammatory exaggerations both on campaign ads and from candidates.
FactCheck.org is a nonpartisan group at the Annenberg Center for Public Policy in Philadelphia. It reviewed J.D. Vance’s latest claims about Kamala Harris.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How many voters fact check? How many voters only follow one site for news?
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Good questions… With many people, we may not be dealing with matters of fact as much as we are with whether facts matter.
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What a great turn of phrase, Nashville!
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Just had a tRump cultista/MAGA/CONVICTED FELON supporter ask: “Who checks the fact-checkers?” My response was “You can, so get back to us when you have fact checked the fact-checkers.” Needless to say he didn’t do any fact checking.
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Fact checking Republicans is pretty easy since there’s no à priori reason to believe anything they say … which I don’t unless I get a whole lot of à posteriori confirmation … fat chance …
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Vance is a sexist pig. He and Trump belong together.
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Vance is a very unusual sexist pig. He met his wife in law school and was smitten with her intelligence and personality along with her physical attractiveness. He supported her legal career at a high-powered law firm that she just resigned from after his nomination for VP. Most of the single women I know would love to be with such a sexist pig.
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Whatever he wants for his wife is irrelevant.
For all other women, he wants them to get married, have children, give up their right to control their own bodies, be barred from getting an abortion even if they are a victim if rape or incest. Stay married even if their husband is abusive and violent. He wants a national ban on abortion. He scoffs at women who are childless. He opposes IVF, even though it enables childless couples to have children. He is a misogynist.
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Plus, when the direct quotations of what Harris said is compared to what Vance claims she said, it is clear that Vance is a liar and distorter of truth. The man cannot be trusted.
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I watched a joint interview of these two. I can sum up Vance during this interview in one word:
creepy
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cx: direct quotations are compared
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This is what Harris said in response to the whole “defund the police” movement in 2020.
“We have confused the idea that to achieve safety, you put more cops on the street instead of understanding to achieve safe and healthy communities you put more resources into the public education system of those communities, into affordable housing, into home ownership, into access to capital for small businesses and access to health care regardless of how much money people have.”
I would hope that Democrats would help to “put more resources into public education,” and Democrats have provided some additional funding to this end. Democrats could help defend public schools by eliminating the $400 million in federal slush funds that encourage more charter school expansion since expanding privatization results in simultaneously taking money and resources away from public schools while transferring them to private organizations. Privatization enables the plundering of public school budgets, and it results in fewer, not more resources, for public schools. The federal government should not be underwriting schools that often discriminate. The privatization of public education is harmful, inequitable public policy that Democrats should consider rescinding in this election year.
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She is one smart lady.
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On this blog and in almost all of the news media, any criticism of Harris will be labeled racist and sexist. “Fact-checking” is overwhelmingly a partisan left-wing enterprise. Think of all the “fact-checking” that claimed that Joe Biden had no cognitive impairment – until June 27 showed the opposite, that almost all political journalists were in on deceiving the public.
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Where do you get your ‘news’? Biden didn’t show any more cognitive decline than Trump. Trump has the vocabulary of a fourth grader and he can’t stay on one topic. He is suffering from dementia and is a pathological liar.
Fact-checking Trump’s speech accepting the GOP nomination
The former president made false claims on a variety of topics, from taxes to crime to foreign policy, in his address at the Republican National Convention.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-checking-trump-republican-convention-speech-rcna162656
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‘Overwhelming’ evidence Donald Trump has dementia as he shows ‘confusion about reality’ 22 Mar 2024
A top psychiatrist says there is overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump has dementia – and if he became president it would mean he would have to be removed from office…
Dr Lance Dodes, supervising analyst emeritus of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and retired Harvard Medical School professor, recently said: “Unlike normal aging, which is characterised by forgetting names or words, Trump repeatedly shows something very different: confusion about reality.” This was in reference to Trump confusing Barack Obama with Joe Biden.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/overwhelming-evidence-donald-trump-dementia-32414488?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
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Unlike 99+% of this blog’s readers, I access a genuine diversity of information sources. Several liberal journalists have recently admitted that most of the media covered up evidence of Biden’s cognitive decline for many years. I don’t doubt that Trump also has cognitive decline – that does not change the reality about Biden’s condition.
Extreme partisanship blinds people to obvious realities.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/conspiracy-of-silence-to-protect-joe-biden.html
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People here are STILL denying the obvious. Totally baffles me.
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Neither Biden nor Trump had any business running for the presidency in 2024.
333 million people in the United States and we have to choose from these two?
Nuts. Freaking nuts.
Thanks be to all the gods that we now have a great alternative.
And a note for the future: an amoral opportunist like J.D. Vance should not be allowed anywhere near the White House.
And Trump should be in an institution for the criminally insane where he cannot share any more of our nation’s military and intelligence secrets.
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People in the cult of Trump are blind to all of his glaring flaws, including that he is too lazy to ever be well-informed about any serious public policy issues. Extreme partisans on the Left have been blind for many years to Biden’s cognitive decline. A very human weakness: believe what we want to believe, and avoid all evidence to the contrary.
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Well said, Dot.
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While I agree that partisan blindness is a disease that is common to the two parties, I have a hard time seeing the modern left as very extreme. I remember the weather underground and the real left of that time. I have studied the old left of labor uprisings and battles with mine owners.
What’s so left about democrats today?
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Just for the record here, Bob’s statement that “people here are STILL denying the obvious” (about Biden and “cognitive decline”), is an extreme over-generalization and an example of cherry-picking of the arguments–complete with assumptions about next-step applications (e.g., Biden would have lost, done deal) –that have occurred here and, as such, spills over into misinformation and even falsity.
I won’t repeat the threads here but refer you to them in Diane’s archives.
Not only did Bob (a) portray his own speculation as factual knowledge of something that has not occurred yet (yet another dogmatism) but he (b) continually fails to understand or even acknowledge broader fields of meaning (besides optics and stereotypes) that voters commonly draw from when deciding to vote.
To portray people who don’t fail in those two points as “in denial” is not only totally wrong-headed and simplistic, it is also insulting to those who portrayed nuance and, in my view, needed caution about making judgments, that apparently HE sees no value in (is in denial about?) and so does not agree with, but then goes on with the “wait for it” over-reach to claim they/we are “denying the obvious.”
Shame . . . Bob has so much to offer, then throws such wrenches into sometimes good information and arguments. CBK
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That Bob. He’s such a pill.
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Diane: yes, Bob is a pill. And he proves once again that the art of projection is not reserved only for Trump, MAGA, or the GOP in general (referring to his references to how other people present their arguments, i.e., think). I never doubted that Bob supported Kamala, however. Perhaps I wasn’t reading close enough, but I never caught onto the Gaetz thing either.
On the other hand, when can anyone deny some similarities of thought at some point? especially where politics are concerned. Cherry picking and broad brushing is where the tilting starts. Bob still has a place at my dinner table, so to speak. CBK
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Same, Catherine.
In what sense am I “projecting”? This comment makes no sense to me. On second thought, please don’t explain. I have zero interest in what would be a specious argument, and I’m sure that no one else here, except PSP, would either. She, of course, would quite it verbatim, at length, in order to gloat about it.
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Bob: I gave the reference to where you were projecting in my note which I thought (wrongly) was in response to Diane about your being a pill. (Her picture is at the top of notes, so I mistook it as being from her.) CBK
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Biden definitely showed signs of slowing down which is typical of anyone ageing. There is no evidence to my knowledge of any verifiable cognitive decline. He still applied sound judgment and had the capacity to make sound decisions. Biden passed his last physical that included a neurological exam of some type in February.
We’ll never know all the facts. What we do know is that the polls were not good and the donors were not sending money. I wish the Dems had made a less public display of the whole episode. Biden deserved better than that, IMO.
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“There is no evidence to my knowledge of any verifiable cognitive decline.”
It was there for all to see, intermittently. The frequent and glaring lapses in memory. The staring off into space, trying to remember what he was saying, with a frustrated look on his face. The forgetting, mid statement, what he was talking about and subsequent non sequiturs. One day he would be fine. The next he would be having enormous difficulty. Probably related to how much rest he had gotten and of what quality.
And there was the evidence of the reactions of people who interacted with him personally–other Dems like Jefferies and Schiff and Clooney.
It wasn’t just Obama or Jill having to lead him offstage. It wasn’t just physical decline in evidence. If it had been, we would not be where we are. But all this is for the greater good. Kamala Harris has a very good chance of winning. Joe Biden had a very good chance of losing. And for that reason, the precautionary principle applied, as those around Biden came clearly to see.
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“Fact-checking” is overwhelmingly a partisan left-wing enterprise.
No, it isn’t: it is a basic responsibility of any credible journalist. Nice–but insane–try. Facts are ideologically neutral. That’s what makes them facts.
Are you sure you understand the difference between a fact and an opinion? If not, please educate yourself before leaving such ill-informed comments here.
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Most of the “fact checking” is done by partisan journalists pushing a party line. That’s what happened with the lies of commission and omission regarding the cognitive decline of Joe Biden.
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Nope. It’s clear that you don’t know what a fact is.
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DIANE: Just saw a CNN fairly long piece (California time, circa 2:00 a.m. Friday night/Sat. morning) where they focused on what the Trump campaign was saying about Kamala and how ALL of it was FALSE. . . where Trump et al draw out huge exaggerations; for instance, her stance on abortion is her being okay with executing post-birth babies; or her being for gun control turns into banning all guns nationwide.
CNN even asked what people in China and other countries were thinking about Kamala, and there is a growing interest (“they all know about Trump already”) but most also like her happy smile.
The commentator said that the GOP had lots to say, but the problem was “they left out the truth,” then showed four arguments, each in a section on the screen and, with sound effects, stamped all of them, one at a time, with a big red “FALSE.”
How nice to see something from the national press acknowledging the difference between truth and falsity–as I live and breathe. CBK
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Dot Sanders,
If you are voting for Trump, then it does seem quite odd that you’d chide other people. If you place so little value on truth that you don’t see the harm in empowering someone who never tells the truth when a lie benefits him more.
There is no comparison between Trump and any recent politician — Trump is more like a con man. He conned working people out of their money to attend fake Trump University. He conned gullible Americans that he had proof that Obama wasn’t born in America. He conned people with little critical thinking skills into believing the election was stolen and conned the most violent of them to storm the US Capitol and attack police officers and threaten the life of Mike Pence.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
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NYCPSP,
I think that’s the right way to think of Trump: a con man. He’s always, all his life, peddled stuff to enrich himself and get out of town before the mark knows he has been fleeced. Trump bibles. Trump wine. Trump sneakers. Trump steaks. Trump hotels. Trump schlock. Trump merch, even his scowling mug shot. The marks never figure out it’s always about him.
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NYCpsp stated “Trump is more like a con man.”
If I may correct that thought. . . “Trump is a con man.”
There is no doubt.
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Right, Duane. I’m still waiting for him to sell 1” squares of the clothing he wore on the day he was shot in the ear. $1,000 a piece.
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NYCpsp stated: “‘The media never stops giving con man Trump credibility.”
The media never stops giving con man tRump free publicity and attention.
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See my comment above about “fact-checkers”
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It’s pointless to “fact check” a con man, or a pathological liar or a patient with severe dementia!
That is what drives me nuts about the ridiculous media attempts to fact check Trump. It actually gives a con man credibility to be “fact checked” the way people who make misstatements or get things wrong and correct them are fact checked.
The media never stops giving con man Trump credibility. It’s the equivalent of going into an asylum and fact-checking what someone with severe dementia is saying.
The proper way to fact-check Trump is to explain that nothing Trump says can be trusted, period. Whether he has moments of lucidity like a dementia patient might have is irrelevant because nothing Trump says can be trusted. Fact-checking him just presents him as someone who is normal.
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So, he should NOT be fact checked?
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TRUMP IS A SERIAL LOSER
During her campaign, Nikki Haley pointed out that TRUMP IS A SERIAL LOSER by pointing to his dismal record of loss-after-loss in elections:
Bottom Line: TRUMP IS A SERIAL LOSER and even his MAGA Minions don’t have sufficient numbers to save him from defeat after defeat.
Opportunist corporations and billionaires only linked up with Loser Trump for 2024 because it looked like even Loser Trump could beat Biden — but that has entirely changed now, and Loser Trump is going to lose again because LOSER TRUMP IS THE OLD MAN NOW who can’t keep a train of thought, leaves sentences unfinished, and is reduced to making up childish elementary school “name-calling”.
LOSER TRUMP HAS NEVER WON ANY PUBLIC ELECTION…EVER!!!
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I just read Trump I’d thinking of ditching Vance for Haley. Will she do it?
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Kamala Harris: Put a Grown-up in Charge
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Here is what Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois, has to say about Kamala Harris:
As Governor of Illinois, I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with Kamala and witnessed her courage and conviction. On reproductive rights, on worker’s rights, on voting rights, on civil rights, and all the issues impacting Americans.
She is ready to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and his mini-me J.D. Vance.
She is ready to fight for working families.
She is ready to protect our freedoms against an avalanche of hate and extremism.
I’ve never minced words about Donald Trump, and I won’t start now.
Donald Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated sexual abuser, and a congenital liar. He is a racist, homophobic, misogynistic grifter who attempted to overturn the results of a free and fair election to cling onto power. He is wholly unfit for the office of the presidency.
The Republicans already have resorted to lying, offending people, and hurling insults. They think they can win and implement Project 2025 if they denigrate their opponents.
Clearly, they have no idea who they’re up against.
Kamala Harris is a champion of American values and a fierce advocate for building up the middle class.
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