Kellyanne Conway's 'Alternative Facts'

[Guest]

We have officially broken ground on the office of Newspeak.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer's false claims about the size of the crowd at President Donald Trump's inauguration were "alternative facts," a top Trump aide said Sunday.

In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," host Chuck Todd pressed Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway about why the White House on Saturday had sent Spicer to the briefing podium for the first time to claim that "this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period."

"You're saying it's a falsehood. And they're giving -- Sean Spicer, our press secretary -- gave alternative facts," she said.
Todd responded: "Alternative facts aren't facts, they are falsehoods."

[_The CCC]

Yep.

[_Chap]

Wasn't there someone on this board who once memorably said something like "You're entitled to your own opinion. What you don't get is your own reality."

But now the guy in the Oval Office seems to think he can have his own reality. Hmm ... maybe there will be a First Amendment to the Declaration of Independence, made by Executive Order?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Oh, and anybody can insist that 2 + 2 =5 if that suits them better than the usual dull old answer. We mean, who's to say they're wrong? You win, you can do anything you want, people, believe me."

[Guest]

More than any policy or position, this is what scares me about Donald Trump: When facts do not suit his objectives, he creates 'alternative facts'.

Priebus blasted the media, getting into a heated conversation on "Fox News Sunday," where he accused members of press of trying to delegitimize Trump's presidency.

"The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempts to delegitimize this president in one day," Priebus said on "Fox News Sunday."

So Priebus feels the media harping on the issue of crowd size is an attempt to delegitimize the president in one day.

The thing is, the protest crowds were significantly larger than the inaugural crowds, and the crowds at Obama's Inaugurations were larger than the Trump crowd.

Those are the facts. The media reported the facts. Trump interprets the media's reporting of the facts as an attempt to delegitimize his presidency. But he never responds to the facts themselves, he simply creates a set of 'alternative facts', for example, where the white sheeting was responsible for making his crowd size look so small.

That's pathetic, and the media rightly jumps all over that statement. A reporter's job is to report what people say, but also report the facts. The denial keeps pouring gasoline on the fire, and Priebus says that's the media ganging up. In Trumpland, if you don't accept what they say at face value, you're a biased journalist instead of an objective one.

Priebus blasted the media, getting into a heated conversation on "Fox News Sunday," where he accused members of press of trying to delegitimize Trump's presidency.

"The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempts to delegitimize this president in one day," Priebus said on "Fox News Sunday."

"And we're not going to sit around and take it."

"We are going to fight back tooth and nail every day," he added.

Donald Trump places his opinions and his objectives above facts. This is why there is no humility in the man. He bows to no one and no thing.

God bless Chuck Todd: "Alternative facts, aren't facts, they're falsehoods." Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway should have those words tattooed on their foreheads.

[_Maksutov]

Also keep in mind that Trump and Alex Jones are buds.

[_MeDotOrg]

[_DarkHelmet]

It's a stupid topic anyway. Who cares if Obama had bigger crowds? Who cares if the media reports that Obama had bigger crowds? Aren't there more important things for Trump to be thinking about? But no, he sends Sean Spicer out there to tell a bunch of lies about who had the bigger crowd sizes between Trump and Obama, and then Kellyanne Conway says they aren't lies, they are "alternative facts". You can't make this crap up. The media should simply troll Trump for the next 4 years, completely distract him with stupid crap, force Sean Spicer to have to come out and tell easily verifiable lies over and over again about the most superficial issues, and force Kellyanne Conway to have to defend those lies with more orwellian newspeak.

[_MeDotOrg]

It's a stupid topic anyway. Who cares if Obama had bigger crowds? Who cares if the media reports that Obama had bigger crowds? Aren't there more important things for Trump to be thinking about? But no, he sends Sean Spicer out there to tell a bunch of lies about who had the bigger crowd sizes between Trump and Obama, and then Kellyanne Conway says they aren't lies, they are "alternative facts". You can't make this crap up. The media should simply troll Trump for the next 4 years, completely distract him with stupid crap, force Sean Spicer to have to come out and tell easily verifiable lies over and over again about the most superficial issues, and force Kellyanne Conway to have to defend those lies with more orwellian newspeak.

The thing about Trump is that he's obsessively, compulsively protecting his name as a brand: He polishes his victory as a trophy on his shelf. When you tarnish his victory, by stating the obvious fact (backed up by Metro Transit Figures) that more people were at the 2008 inaugural than 2016, you are, in the words of Priebus, 'delegitimizing' his presidency.

This effort at delegitimization is what gives Trump the moral authority to trot out his alternative facts. Why does he feel it is wrong to show those images, facts and figures for more than a brief second?

How can a legitimate government be de-legitimized by facts?

Donald Trump is, by nature and advocation, not a politician but a salesman. Donald Trump believes more in the power of perception than the power of truth and democracy. I'm starting to think about Roger Stone's DNA in all of this. (Alternative Facts? Let's just call it alt-truth). By casting the primary importance of these particular facts as 'delegitimizing', Trumpland begins the decent of facts into adjectives. This is the language of government by fear.

[_Kevin Graham]

It's a stupid topic anyway. Who cares if Obama had bigger crowds? Who cares if the media reports that Obama had bigger crowds? Aren't there more important things for Trump to be thinking about? But no, he sends Sean Spicer out there to tell a bunch of lies about who had the bigger crowd sizes between Trump and Obama, and then Kellyanne Conway says they aren't lies, they are "alternative facts". You can't make this **** up. The media should simply troll Trump for the next 4 years, completely distract him with stupid ****, force Sean Spicer to have to come out and tell easily verifiable lies over and over again about the most superficial issues, and force Kellyanne Conway to have to defend those lies with more orwellian newspeak.

It is a stupid topic. The problem isn't the topic but the fact that our new President is such a narcissistic and hypersensitive child that he preempted reality with claims that it was the "largest showing in inauguration history." He made up his mind before hand that it just had to be the biggest because he's the greatest ever. This he said before the news was reporting on actual crowd size, which is something the media does and has always done. Every time there is an event of this magnitude the media always estimates the number of those in attendance, but Trump lost his crap when he realized all the Media not named FOX wasn't going to succumb to his demands that they provide "alternative facts" just to kiss his fat pale arse. This is what we get with a billionaire asshole as President and it is just day one. We have four more years of this embarrassing BS.

[_beastie]

I apologize if someone's already shared this, but it's well-worth reading.

Trump's lies are best called ****ERY.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fuc ... b4a230a23f

They're not lies told in the hopes of convincing people. They're displays of power, which often happens in totalitarian governments. Basically, Trump is telling us he can say whatever the hell he wants and there's fuck-all anyone can do about it.