Trump's inauguration ceremony had one of the largest crowds ever

You know what's funny, when the media was showing the early morning images of Trump's inauguration while people were still gathering comparing them to Obama's actual inauguration, they were giddy with excitement. Then Trump slammed them with a tweet confronting the claim. Later Sean Spicer slammed them again for distorting the facts. All of a sudden they changed the tune: "Trump shouldn't concentrate on the size of the crowd, it's just so not presidential". Really?

@Bushranger The title of this thread has a "one of the largest" in it. I never said it was DEFINITELY larger than Obama's crowd. It was in the same ballpark.

 

Just one more thing. This is from the PBS News Hour. Watch carefully how quickly the crowd is gathering in this timelapse video. Watch it to the end, the video is rather short. You will see that in the video the crowd is significantly larger than in the garbage images the media tends to show. Also note, when the producers of the video (may not necessarily be associated with the PBS News Hour) realized that the crowd was going to appear larger than life they stopped filming and then they did a quick rewind just to make sure the crowd looks smaller:

 

LoL Guys, you keep telling yourselves that.

And Mexico will pay for the wall. All that involves is Americans paying 20% more for Mexican goods eh.. Mexico will pay, out of YOUR pockets... lol

 

You said similar things about Trump's actions during the campaign and pointed to these actions as clear reasons why anyone with intelligence knew that he could not win the election. My advice is that you sit back and watch and learn something about Trump. Forget about the cartoon caricatures that the lamestream media has tried to paint of him for a long time now and watch what he does. He is moving quickly.

 

I think that the OP used this as the most current example, at the time, of the lamestream press' distortions. To me, the real issue is that and that is what I have been commenting on throughout this thread. The press has absolutely tried to minimize the size of Trump's crowd; they are the ones obsessed by it. Trump has taken the stand that he is going to challenge all fake news, no matter the importance, because it is important to continue to expose the lies. Some may disagree with that strategy, but he has been clear about it from the beginning and it has gotten him into the Oval Office.

 

That is so true! They frequently leave out key elements or take words out of context to push their own agenda. I take everything with a grain of salt.

 

If the accused doesn't sue then it's very likely true.

 

LOL, oh really? This helps me to better understand how you arrive at your leftwing political beliefs.

Here in the U.S., we have the First Amendment which protects just about all speech, including fake news. In fact, if you are a politician, celebrity, or otherwise a public figure, the courts have ruled that you are a fair target for just about all free speech, except the most blatant, provable falsehoods in which specific malice can be proven. That is why so few victims of the lamestream media bother going to court.

But you can keep believing your fake news based upon your misguided yardstick of truth.

 

Good that you agree. Maybe there is some hope. Mind you, it doesn't have to be blatant, just a provable lie will do it. Slander is illegal everywhere. Free speech does not mean freedom to lie. Of course that doesn't stop the weasel wording.

I can legally say 'rumours abound about you & mel gibson having it off behind the shed' or 'I believe Donald & Hillary had an affair the night before the election' but take off 'rumours abound' from the first or 'I believe' off the second and I would be open to suing.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it, as my dear old mother always said.

 

I absolutely do NOT agree with your statement that news is "very likely" true if there is no lawsuit. As I point out above, the standard of "malice" for public people to have to prove in court to be successful is so difficult to meet, most cases of slander/libel are never even brought after discussion with legal experts.

You also need to educate yourself a bit about slander/libel. While it may be illegal "everywhere," the definition of slander/libel varies tremendously around the world. The U.S. and the U.K., for example, have really different slander/libel laws. The U.K. is much more protective of the victim of free speech and that is why a few American celebrities fought and won such lawsuits in the U.K., while not bothering to do so in the U.S.

Despite the long leash that the First Amendment gives to the lamestream media's constant publication of fake news, I am in favor of our strong free speech culture, as are most conservatives in this country. It is the leftists who abhor free speech, as evidenced by the riots and violence that break out whenever a conservative speaker is booked at an American university (see Berkeley College for the most recent; but, no worries, there will be another one next week, I am sure.) They will not tolerate even the voicing of different ideas or beliefs than their rigid orthodoxies. Dissent of any kind is too threatening to their need to control, of course.

 

In one breath you admit provable falsehoods (lies) can be acted upon and in the next you're saying they can't. Cheese Louise, make up which side you're on and stick with it. Are you a Trump supporter by any chance?

Talking of Trump, what a hoot he's been so far eh? Laughing stock of the world, just as they warned he would be.

 

I realize that low information types cannot understand such complexities, but I will try to add some clarity to your thinking. U.S. libel/slander laws differentiate between private citizens, who are afforded more protection against media falsehoods, versus people in the "public domain" who have a significantly higher standard of proof, including the need to show that "malice" was involved on the part of the writer of the fake news. So, a public persona not only needs to prove that the "news" was false, but that the reporter/editor knew it and planned to hurt the person with the falsehood. That is why the lamestream media gets away with so much fake news.

 

All states except Arizona, Missouri, and Tennessee recognize that some categories of false statements are so innately harmful that they are considered to be defamatory per se. In the common law tradition, damages for such false statements are presumed and do not have to be proven.

Statements are defamatory per se where they falsely impute to the plaintiff one or more of the following things:
Allegations or imputations "injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession"
Allegations or imputations "of loathsome disease" (historically leprosy and sexually transmitted disease, now also including mental illness)
Allegations or imputations of "unchastity" (usually only in unmarried people and sometimes only in women)
Allegations or imputations of criminal activity (sometimes only crimes of moral turpitude)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law

According to that Hillary could sue a lot of people, you included I may note, but she didn't. However you're implying the fact she didn't sue doesn't mean the allegations are true and i'm implying the fact she doesn't sue anybody points to guilt.

 

Sigh. You need to dig deeper to understand what I have been trying to say throughout this thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact

"A major limiting factor to this concrete First Amendment exception are statements made against public figures. In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Court strongly suggested that even "deliberate lies" could not be punished if made against the government. Since that decision, many cases that have dealt with this rule have struggled to define the line of who actually is a 'public figure'. The Supreme Court has also extended this doctrine to non-political figures who are simply famous or well known in the media."

 

Well that's one crazy law, where you can accuse somebody of anything and get away with it. Now I understand how people like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck etc. get away with their shit and why you'd need to worry about fake news moreso than the rest of the world.

Only in America, as they say!

 

Yes, and it is the low information voters and snowflakes that are led around by the nose by the fake news of the leftwing, lamestream media. They have perfected the art of fake news over the past decades. Conservatives are keenly aware of fake news, having suffered under it and its exclusivity for decades. It has only been very recently that conservative voices started being heard (via radio and Internet, for the most part.) Unfortunately, a lot of international press simply repeats the lamestream media's fake news and that is what the rest of the world is exposed to, for the most part. Of course, like you, they have no understanding of the fake news industry here which has been raging for decades.

 

So what you need to do is read more sources. We for instance can't write shit or untruths and get away with it. I'd put a caviat now and that is, unless it's been sourced from America. Because we sue people who talk shit quicker than your mother can unbutton her overalls!

 

I have no problem discerning what is news and what is not, for the most part. What you need to begin understanding is that there is a wide spectrum of government positions regarding free speech and "the truth." The U.S. is probably on the far right of the spectrum with a very conservative approach to free speech. The socialist Utopias of North Korea, Cuba, and other such dictatorships are on the left spectrum with complete control of media and speech in which they get to decide what is "truth" and what is not, much like Orwell's Ministry of Truth. The rest of the world falls in between these two extremes. Most sheeple are content to let the government (be it leaders, legislatures and/or the courts) to decide what is truth or not. All of these systems are flawed, of course.