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Fact-Checking Obama's State Of The Union Speech
We already did our post-mortem of last night's teleprompted annual evangelizing of Barack Obama's "straight to folks" propaganda that would make both Goebbels and Dzerzhinsky blush. So instead of repeating ourselves, here is AP with its own fact check of what can only be dubbed lie after lie, courtesy of the president of the "free world" and the head of the "most transparent administration ever."
* * *
AP looks at some of Obama's claims, and the facts and the political climate behind them:
OBAMA: "At this moment - with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry and booming energy production - we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth."
THE FACTS: By many measures, the economy is still recovering from the deep scars left by the Great Recession.
Job growth has been healthy, but fueled in part by lower-paying jobs in areas such as retail and restaurants, which have replaced many higher-paying positions in manufacturing and construction. Part-time jobs also remain elevated: There are still 1.7 million fewer workers with full-time jobs than when the recession began in December 2007.
And the faster hiring hasn't pushed up wages much. They have been growing at a tepid pace of about 2 percent a year since the recession ended 5 1/2 years ago. That's barely ahead of inflation and below the annual pace of about 3.5 percent to 4 percent that is typical of a fully healthy economy.
That has left the income of the typical household below its pre-recession level. Inflation-adjusted median household income reached $53,880 in November 2014, according to an analysis of government data by Sentier Research. That is about 4 percent higher than when it bottomed out in 2011. But it is still 4.5 percent lower than the $56,447 median income in December 2007, the month the recession began.
Booming energy production is indeed a reality, but that's a phenomenon many years in the making, with the development of cost-effective extraction from fracking and other means playing into the rise of the U.S. as an energy production giant.
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OBAMA: "I am sending this Congress a bold new plan to lower the cost of community college - to zero."
THE FACTS: Zero for qualifying students; an estimated $60 billion over 10 years to the treasury.
Obama confronts a Republican-controlled Congress that can be expected to be wary of a new program costing that much. Moreover, the proposal requires states to contribute about a quarter of the money, and getting them to go along is bound to be tough. Many states refused to expand Medicaid under the health care law, for example, even though Washington is picking up the entire cost in the first years.
On the other hand, community college is an issue close to home for state government, perhaps more appealing than partnering with Washington on the health law, so the idea could have a fighting chance if it can get through Congress. Educators are divided on its merits, with some worrying that aid for a community college education could divert students and scholarships away from four-year schools.
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OBAMA: "We've set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history."
THE FACTS: Waters is the key word here. Before expanding the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument last year from almost 87,000 square miles to more than 490,000 square miles, Obama had protected far fewer acres than his four predecessors, including President George W. Bush.
Expansion of the massive Pacific islands monument puts Obama on top. It's nearly all water, however, and the move has limited practical implications. While it bans commercial fishing, deep-sea mining and other extraction of underwater resources, little fishing or drilling occur in the mid-ocean region now.
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OBAMA: "Thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives. Wages are finally starting to rise again. We know that more small-business owners plan to raise their employees' pay than at any time since 2007."
THE FACTS: A survey of small businesses by the National Federation of Independent Business does show that a rising proportion plans to raise wages. But plans to raise pay aren't the same as actually raising them.
Average hourly earnings rose just 1.7 percent in December from 12 months earlier, according to the Labor Department. That's about half the rate that is typical of a healthy economy and actually lower than the previous month. Economists generally expect wage gains to accelerate this year, as unemployment continues to fall and businesses are forced to offer higher pay to attract workers. But there is scant evidence that it is happening yet.
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OBAMA: "In Iraq and Syria, American leadership - including our military power - is stopping ISIL's advance. Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group. We're also supporting a moderate opposition in Syria that can help us in this effort."
THE FACTS: The U.S. also has been slow to set up long-promised training for the moderate Syrian opposition, and has yet to begin the actual vetting of the rebels. Also, despite persistent pleas from the rebels, the U.S. hasn't sent the more lethal weapons they want. U.S. officials have expressed concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of insurgents.
Military leaders, however, agree that coalition airstrikes and the military effort in Syria and Iraq have stopped the momentum of the Islamic State group, or ISIL, made it hard for the insurgents to communicate and travel, and hurt their oil revenues.
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Why is ZH dealing with such low-hanging fruit? Spending effort finding falsehood in the SOTU is like spending effort making sure the prostitute enjoys herself.
Sorry Tyler, this article is a waste. All of us here @ ZH know that SOTU is prime-time BS
All lies baby
"It's not a lie if you believe it."
-George Costanza
I don't believe I've ever heard that before, so it's true or not?
Yeah, this is kind of like fact checking that there is no gambling going on at Rick’s Café.
It's amazing how many dumb fucking liberals are wetting themselves all over this liar's bullshit this morning. They really deserve another Obama.
Liberals: getting raped and loving it!
"Free" community college...the only reason he's doing this is to jab at Congress and Senate who are now fully controlled by the so-called "Right", because he knows they will be against it and it will cause another divisive fight where he can claim the "Right" hates the little people and doesn't want them to succeed and be "rich", while the Left takes the other side....yadda, yadda, yadda. More bullshit games in the WWF style CON-gress where behind the scenes all these sociopaths are actually on the same side of big government and authoritarian central control over everyone. Bunch of fucking scumbags and traitors working together against the rest of us.
One of the greatest evils perpetrated on our children is the teacher's unions. The passing along of children, without being grade knowledgeable, is a crime against humanity. Also, ask yourself why teacher's go to work while sick? Answer: Because they add their sick days to their retirement, which boosts it enormously over the course of their lifetime. Have a "relative" (teacher) who last year went to work deathly ill in order to "save" for retirement, those sick days.
What should be done is that during flu season Every principle of Every school should be requiring the teachers to check in with the nurse and be cleared for teaching. Expoising our youngest and most vulnerable to sick teachers (selfish, self-centered, jerk offs who don't teach) is a crime, especially given the current death rates for the flu ravaging the country.
NO SICK TEACHERS AT SCHOOL!
Of course it's the fault of the teacher that children get passed along. Their parents have no say in the matter, no, not at all. It's all the teachers who want to pass your dumb fuck children along...
And it's "principal," not ""principle." Seems like you might have been one of those children who go "passed along."
FACT: If Obama said it, it's probably a lie.
IF Obama could not tell lies, call names, or blame others he would be silent.
How about both the teachers and parents take the blame?
You came up with this in sixteen weeks and one hour.
Brilliant...
Liar, liar, pants on fire (preferably gasolene soaked)
Ironic that this very quote has been attributed, repeated, yet cannot be sourced.
The actual quote from 'Mein Kampf': "...the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily".
So yes, the quote is not strictly true, but in essence it is.
"Wages have been growing at a tepid pace of 2 percent a year. That's barely ahead of inflation."
Ha! That's a good one that inflation is less than 2%. How many times will they keep repeating this blatant lie while food packaging keeps shrinking to microscopec sizes?
I wonder if the President of Yemen was watching, through his blindfold.
I wonder if President Assad was watching! The misrepresentation of how evil Syria's president is, and how we need to support "moderate" rebels in his country, is infuriating. We should immediately end US opposition to the Assad regime, end our support for "moderate" rebels, aka jihadist fanatics, and get on board with the Syrian government, which, under Assad, has been pretty damn effective in controlling these Muslim fanatics within her borders.
POTD
Okay, I know I am gonna get junked to high heaven for this, but, at this point, what difference does it make?
After junking me, sit quietly and ponder that for a moment.
We know the goverment lies to us.
At this point, would it matter if they told the truth, and more importantly, how would you know the difference?
pods
There are lies well told and lies poorly told. Obama doesn't even TRY to tell good lies any more. It's like showing up at church drunk. Yes, at least you're there, but it's poor form. We expect the leader of the free world to keep up appearances at least, even if he has no clue what he's doing.
The poor man has learned to read from the teleprompter without turning his head like a snake, now he has to learn to read it with comprehension. He puts his pauses in the wrong places.
I blame the teleprompter, Skynet has turned on its masters.
Val's not typing the (m)ad libs fast enough.
The "free world," you say?
he excels at reading the scripts written for him on the teleprompter.
then he plays golf until the ZWO need the mascott to read more scripts to the donkeys
it was the "hate of the union address"
RE
Bingo.
Why is this guy suddenly all "to the left"? Because he has "no more campaigns to run". He's freerolling. I won't even go thorugh all of the campaign promises he's renegged on, all of the "behind the scenes" shit he's done to prop up the police state, deregulate Wall St, cut taxes for corporations, etc.
THESE ARE JUST WORDS. ACTIONS ARE NOT WORDS.
EXAMPLE: WORDS DID NOT END SLAVERY; ACTION DID.
Also, he (ahem, the Wall St donors who bankroll his party as well as the other side) KNOWS none of these reforms he's proposed will pass.
This is all just nice fluffer for liberal twitter to retweet and pass along memes that this guy actually cares about those at the bottom, and provide an opportunity for counter points by your asshole Republican uncle to write 200 run on sentence rants about Obama's "socialism" on Facebook. A real "feel good" high fiving from all 34% of the assholes who "vote" and fall for this dumb shit every year, every election cycle, every talking point. The 34% participation rate is also reflective of this "recovering, booming" economy (apparently, retail is a middle class job now), because I feel as if the economy only benefits around 35% at the top. If we were truly in a Revolutionary French "99 v 1" situation, cities would be buring right now.
Pundits opine, FoxNews whines, all while America continues to decline.
This country is so fucked, man.
"That asshole would lie even if telling the truth served a better purpose."
- My Grandfather
That is literally the definition of a pathological liar. Which Obama is.
And a sure sign of how fucked (terminal) things really are.
So is my daughter's mother. Who, of course, has custody. Because she's a woman.
Barry gets custody of an entire branch of the Federal Government. Reality is stranger than fiction.
Well, the bigger question is did Micheal tongue punch his fart box yesterday night, after he came back to the African American House, tired from the SOTU addrexxx?
Ben Finkenbinder does that these days, so I hear
"He'd rather climb a ladder to tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth."
- My Grandfather
Here's cliffs of the SOTU speech:
http://www.nfl.com/videos/new-england-patriots/0ap3000000456283/Flacco-H...
Read it earlier. The thing that stuck out from all the lies about the WOT and "foreign relations," aka murder and mahem, was no mention that the PARTICIPATION RATE has been a PRIMARY variable for the "unemployment rate."
Obola's bullshit is epic.
OBAMA: "We've set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history."
^^^ That shit has got to stop. We've got enough protected lands for christs sake. Stop these bullshit federal takeovers of land that should belong to American citizens who will USE IT.
I'd be more impressed by this asshole making the land available for useful purposes...while taking care of it. And, yes, we do that at my house. We take out the bigger trees for milling for construction around the farm or for firewood, which allows the little trees around it to become big trees themselves.
Dumb ass tree huggers. Hug a human instead.
I have a friend who had some extended family who owned their own island in the U.S. (not Hawaii). They weren't simply letting it rot, and it was plenty big enough for a ranch. So, yeah, they had a ranch on it. They raised livestock and sold it to Americans.
F-ing treehuggers came in, convinced TPTB that we needed a new national park in that area, and long-story-short, they took their land for pennies on the dollar. Now it's one of the least-visited national parks IN HISTORY. Good job you elected fuckers in power, you destroyed a family's livelihood for your political gain.
RE
Yes, so the feds can sell them to private interests to pay for debt that has been accrued by the military state for their illegal wars.
Also, fracking is at an all time high up until the oil crash a few weeks ago. What's also at a high? Earthquakes.
This will end well.
Actually, it seems that most of that "preserved land" was underwater and not used for anything by anybody. 89,000 square miles, IIRC.
His "preservation" of real land has been less than George W. Bush.
But the earthquakes will continue until morale--and the oil market, after a FED bailout of fracking debt holders and crackers--improves.
Of course Obama preserved lots of underwater 'land'. He was helping a large part of his constituency, the bottom feeders.
After expressing disappointment in Obama’s SOTU speech, Angelina Jolie was overheard in a Karaoke bar, belting out Beyonce with a passion that shocked her husband, Brad:
To the left, to the left
To the left, to the left
Everything you said in the speech was to the left
In the Treasury, that's my stuff
Yes, I ‘built that’-- please don't touch
And keep talking at Congress, that's fine
But should we tax and spend at the same time ?
And it's my star that is on the flag
So get your golf bag, let me call you a cab
You must not know 'bout me, you must not know 'bout me
I could have another Prez in a minute, matter fact . . .
sorry, dup
sorry, dup
Problem I see is that people are too fucking stupid to comprehend the difference between lies and truth. All I hear around the water cooler today is how great his one liner about winning 2 elections was.
Its all fucking style over substance in this dying nation.
All part of the Idiocracy, listen for some autotune and sick bass drops at the next SOTU festival.
Hunger Games pageantry, malignancy and lies.
Hope people who see the movie recognize the scene. And I'm guessing most do.
I'd want my kids to see it.
My shits all emotional right now.....
Mr. Obama, Well, don't want to sound like a dick or nothin', but, ah... it says on your chart that you're fucked up. Ah, you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded. What I'd do, is just like... like... you know, like, you know what I mean, like...
why come no tattoo.....
What's that old saying about the emperor and his apparent lack of clothing..
You know how they lie.
"... shrinking deficits ..."
WTF???
Going from a $6 Trillion to an $18 Trillion Federal Deficit is "shrinking deficits"?
" A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic", Stalin
"A single lie is lying, a million lies and nobody notices", Obama
Orez...You wrote..
"... shrinking deficits ..."
WTF???
Going from a $6 Trillion to an $18 Trillion Federal Deficit is "shrinking deficits"?
Are you fucking kidding me? Your on zero hedge and can not comprehend the difference between debt and deficit? Really? The numbers you are talking about are the DEBT..not the deficit. The deficit has been shrinking...
DEFINITION OF 'FISCAL DEFICIT'When a government's total expenditures exceed the revenue that it generates (excluding money from borrowings). Deficit differs from debt, which is an accumulation of yearly deficits.
So that being said....the yearly deficit has been shrinking....but that is a JOKE in itself. We are still over spending at a rate that is increasing the debt. Also...the DEBT as well as unfunded liabilities will never be addressed.
My unfunded guess would be that accounting gimmicks and gimcracks are all that is making it appear the deficit is shrinking. Economy shrinking, spending increasing...just how in hell can deficit be shrinking under these circumstances???
We all know it is word games, cherry picking, etc. Most people are not fooled anymore. Most people just dont know how it affects them and what is coming in short order as a result.
My apologies for my "brain fart".
Yes, I do know the difference between "deficit" and "debt".
I attribute my posting to "post SOTUS stress syndrome".
Regardless, I am sefl imposing a one month posting ban at Zero Hedge as punishment.
I hope that you understand that a complete withdrawal from Zero Hedge would be "cruel and unusual punishment" for me.
I can not imagine coping with the financial madness that the Federal Government and the Fed have become without daily therapy at Zero Hedge.
Dude, your mispoken comment is so minor it doesnt even register on the Republocrat-Democan scale of Lies.
Dont punish yourself, just go have a couple of brewskis if you must and support the local economy, lol.
Understand your point, but that is not how the gooberment defines it. Currently we're adding about 1T/yr, but by their definition the deficit is 500B.
I am actually getting so scared of the truth that the lies we keep hearing are becoming like a big comfy safe barkerlounger in a saferoom in the middle of a hurricane.
My dog loves the barkerlounger.
I am convinced the American people actually enjoy being lied to by our politicians.
Stockholm syndrome
The post-game analysis is like listening to a critique of a theater performance. Did he seem authoritative, etc.
Post-modern life delivered mainly via electronic media is a mind-twisting cunt-lock.
I don't think any American people even watched the address.
That can be "fixed". If Diebold and Nielsen merged they could print as many viewers as they'd like...even dead ones.
Who DOESN'T like to be cuddled by their rapist...??
It's perhaps a subtle distinction, but I believe the American people are afraid of being told the truth more than enjoying the lies. Ignorance is bliss, the saying goes.
... If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes politics ...
There were facts to check?
10 Ways President Camacho Is Better Than Zero:
1). President Camacho can kick your ass.
2). President Camacho was willing to admit to the people when things were bad (I know shit's bad right now...).
3). President Camacho rode a kick ass trike with no helmet while drinking beer.
4). President Camacho was willing to listen to and be advised by the smartest man in the world.
5)...
Fact- Obama is a lying sack of traitorous Kenyan shit!
Fact check- 100% correct
In what it said. It was the omissions that were epic.
It wasn't exactly truth checking, imo. It was script-evaluation.
What it left out was most of reality.
That reveals AP filling the role of courtiers, rather than journalists.
Completely contrary to their marketing slogan about "Fact Checking."
So you're saying Obama is jenkem in a suit?
Somehow after reading that, those paint huffers don't seem so bad now. Leave it to the third world to impress you with their culture. Just like bath house Barry eating dog.
Now that's exceptional.
Two more years with the Nobel winner in charge.
Nitwit and Chief
Hey Barry. Henry Rollins has a song just for you buddy.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=awY1MRlMKMc
OT (my apologies) but so amazing I have to post it.
Home owner in OK shoots police chief 4 times during 4 am, no-knock raid. Both the chief and home owner survived and NO charges will be filed against the home owner. Confirmed by OK State Bureau of Investigation.
http://www.policestateusa.com/2015/dallas-horton/
Looks like I wasn't paranoid in buying shotgun to protect myself. Looks like a Mossberg 500 with collapsible stock. Same as mine :-)
"My only agenda for the next two years is the same as the one I've had since the day I swore an oath on the steps of this Capitol – to do what I believe is best for America. " Oboma makes this statement almost at the very end of his SOTU. If you scroll the video, you'll see that, by way of body language, he doesn't believe it at all. In Fact, watching his body language you can see that he intends as much evil and degradation for America as possible. It will be up to the Republicans to dig through the dross of his many-layered and seeded evil intentions and root them out. Much of this will be the govt employees he has seeded who have evil intentions towards the people of the US. Something evil this way comes.
It must be hard for the guy making up the teleprompter script. The spin and bullshit is epic.
"You Lie"......remember those words spoken during the SotU address? And he had to apologize for speaking them.
You Lie, again. And I won't apologize.
When the real President comes to town...
He knows when you've been sleeping....
He knows when you're awake...
He knows if you've been "bad" or "good"..
So be bad for goodness sake!
What are they babbling about? Real wages have fallen. Even the correction is bogus.
ahhh dam. ZH just fact-checked a folk.
"I cannot tell a lie. That is the teleprompter's job."
The banksters need to repay us.
+1 (ongoing for the tag line, btw, it's beautiful.)
Obama "jobs" # - net "population growth" < 0
This is one State of the Union that SHOULD have started with the phrase, "Once upon a time..."
The president seems live in a fantasy world devoid of reality and wants us to believe it is due to his economic prowess and political pursuation. Conviently absent from this utopian world view is mention the world's economic and polical turmoil. Why? Becasue such turmoil is inconsistent with Fairy Tales.
for some folks....their economy is in tatters..
Well, duh!
What kind of dummy thinks fact-checking is a bad idea?
If you never fact check anything, you never know for sure what if anything is true.
"And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." John, 8:32
Hmm.... either 7 nuclear submarines (@8.2 billion each) or ten years of free community college education.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-25/nuclear-submarine-may-cost-1-bi...
If even one or two of the nuclear submarines actually do what it's intended to do our world, as we know it ends....
The problem though is: Will it be structured such that people emerge with a 2 year degree really have gained anything?
If expected GPA is set high enough, and if CC programs are of good quality (machine technology, for instance) I think the college thing is a no-brainer.
If it's more nanny-state funding for loosers (those who do not know the difference between lose and loose) then it's simply pissin' into the wind.