Biden frontrunner for 'Lie of the Year' award as many in media look the other way | The Hill
Category: News & Politics
Via: texan1211 • 2 years ago • 36 commentsBy: Joe Concha, Opinion Contributor (The Hill)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
by Joe Concha, Opinion Contributor - 08/14/22 12:00 PM ET The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
"I just want to say a number: zero. Today, we received news that our economy had zero inflation in the month of July. Zero percent. Here's what that means: While the price of some things go up — went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount. The result? Zero inflation last month."
That was President Biden speaking to the country last Wednesday. His administration has attempted to redefine what infrastructure means (it's not only about improving roads, bridges and power grids, but also about paid family leave and child care) and what a recession means (it's not two straight quarters of negative GDP growth anymore). But it just moved into the lead to win the "Lie of the Year" award with the claim that the U.S. economy is experiencing zero inflation.
The facts: Inflation still stands near a 40-year high and came in at 8.5 percent in July.
"Prices have risen across a wide range of goods and services, leaving most Americans worse off," the AP reported this week. "Average paychecks are rising faster than they have in decades — but not fast enough to keep up with accelerating costs for such items as food, rent, autos and medical services."
In other words, the money coming into the average household still isn't keeping up with the cost of everyday items. But the president and this administration decided to turn the most basic economic norms on their head for cheap political gain by arguing that since the inflation rate fell by six-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent in July compared to the same month of last year, that somehow means zero percent.
As a fun game to play on a summer weekend, imagine what would have happened if the previous president attempted to spin numbers with alternative facts in this fashion. The U.S. media would have screamed about the need for transparency and truth, and the fact-checks and scathing editorials would commence. Yet that didn't happen here with his successor.
A check of Politifact shows that the site has not conducted any fact-check of the president's zero inflation claim since he made it five days ago. They have fact-checked former President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) on three occasions this month, however.
Fact-checker Snopes also has not fact-checked Biden's zero inflation claim. And as for FactCheck.org, same result: Crickets on the president's economic argument.
How about the New York Times? Surely at least one columnist has put pen to paper to hold the Biden administration accountable on the issue that ranks as Americans' top concern.
To underscore this point, a recent Monmouth University poll shows that 63 percent of voters say either "inflation, gas prices, the economy or everyday bills/groceries is their family's top concern."
The Times has published a column on the latest inflation numbers, but it includes the kind of effusive praise for the Biden administration that one has come to expect from columnist Paul Krugman, who, with the Biden administration, consistently downplayed inflation concerns last summer.
"Finally, Some Good News on Inflation" is the headline. "When President Biden declared, accurately, that we had zero inflation in July, many on the right accused him of lying, because prices in July 2022 were 8.5 percent higher than they were in July 2021. Do they really not understand the difference?" scolds Krugman.
To understand this logic, let's apply a football analogy since the season is right around the corner.
Let's say Team X is beating Team Y 42-0 in the third quarter of a game. But in the fourth quarter, neither team scores, and the game ends 42-0.
Team Y's coach runs to the podium of a post-game press conference and declares his losing team tied Team X 0-0. Team Y's coach ignores the first three horrible quarters in making his argument and focuses on just one quarter in declaring the tie.
At the risk of overdoing the football metaphors, too many media pundits have moved the goal posts in judging how the Biden administration is performing on the economy.
"It's cynical. It's a destruction of the meaning of words, it's Orwellian at its worst," pollster and strategist Frank Luntz told CNBC on Thursday of the administration's inflation claims. "More than 70 percent of Americans have trouble making ends meet because of inflation."
To Luntz's point, all the spin from Democrats isn't going to change what people are experiencing. In an ABC/Ipsos poll, nearly 7-in-10 Americans, or 69 percent, "believe the U.S. economy is getting worse and headed in the wrong direction." That's not spin; that's reality.
Aided by a sycophantic media, the Biden administration continues to change basic definitions of the English language. Many more lies will be uttered over the next five months, especially as the midterm elections draw close. But at this point, President Biden must be considered the frontrunner for "Lie of the Year."
Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.
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Should we conduct our own internal poll here to determine how many lemmings believe this crap?
Here’s some more tidbits the lemmings are sure to believe. Inflation is putin’s fault, we are not in a recession, and the southern border is secure.
Yeah, even the word parsers here will have trouble explaining how the definition of words which have commonly been used have suddenly changed meanings because of Biden.
Lemmings are bound to follow.
Even the non-partisan partisan ones.
Why would you compare a monthly rate to an annual rate and call the result a lie?
The math doesn't lie.
why would you accuse me of doing something I didn't do?
Damn straight the math doesn't lie.
The math doesn't lie, but Biden does.
Inflation is NOT at zero no matter how you and others attempt to sell us on it being zero.
Here is the quote:
I am willing to bet that these 63% wouldn't be lemmings and swallow the Biden swill.
That leaves 37% unaccounted for.
[Deleted] I will just say it is probably a large percentage over, say, 80 percent.
I just figured with the way some folks like to jump on lies, they would have been all over this one, but since it came from Joe, I suppose they just overlook it as senility or are waiting for the WH staff to 'clarify' his remarks.
Like naming the recent Bill as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Looks like the Democrats learned nothing from the last big-number bill they passed which helped lead to higher inflation.
Maybe they redefined “reduction” to mean “acceleration”?
Okay, folks, let's do this.
Just PM me with your response (true or false is ALL that is necessary) to the following statement:
If you have anything besides 'true' or 'false', this is the place, not in PMs to me.
Personally, I suspect the people who believe this to be true won't publicly or privately admit it.
You seem to be fascinated with alternate facts.
Is it cherry picking? Sure but all PoTUS are guilty of that.
And "fact checkers " called them lies.
The vast majority of media and social media "fact checkers" are aligned with the left.
Whatever happened to Biden's "Disinformation Czar" and committee?
look, it won't bother me at all if you choose to believe we are not experiencing high inflation, many of us know better.
Biden didn't say we weren't experiencing high inflation.
He correctly pointed out that the trend stopped in July.
Your article says it was a lie ( it isn't ).
and your comments mock those that believe the facts.
It could be the beginning of a good trend
or just a 30 day anomaly.
That remains to be seen.
Any trend downward is good for all of us, correct?
I look forward to 09/13.
still hoping Biden was right about inflation just being temporary.
I guess some folks really believed him, but that makes them suckers to me.
That is TRUE. He said we were experiencing ZERO inflation.
Ignoring or Biden-splaining what he said won't change his words.
Still swimming upstream to spawn and die on this particular sword?
After comment 1, why are you still denying the obvious?
Are you denying you made that comment or just ignoring
what you cut and pasted?
He said July, he meant July.
Period.
Your meager attempts at spinning Joe's words for him are falling flat.
Best leave it to the professionals at the WH to tell us what Joe really meant and said!
I don't think you are cut out for it.
July inflation numbers: Consumer prices rose by 8.5% year over year as the summer of inflation wears on (nbcnews.com)
July inflation numbers: Consumer prices rose by 8.5% year over year as the summer of inflation wears on (yahoo.com)
Inflation slowed in July, showing Fed's rate hikes are working - CBS News
July's inflation numbers point to a big Social Security benefit increase in 2023 | Fortune
Isn't it JUST a little strange to you that ALL of these credible sources say something other than what Biden did?
Should we expect his little agency in charge of lies to go after ALL of these sources and set them ALL straight?
Oh, is that when we find out we have yet another quarter of negative growth?
Gas is down a buck - yea Brandon.
Too bad there's still a drastic shortage of baby formula and food prices continue to soar.
We can import some Chinese melamine and water for the little rascals.
No, according to Joe, that simply isn't so. According to Joe, we had ZERO inflation in July despite all the reports saying otherwise.
Yea!!!! He drove oil prices up causing gas prices to increase!!!!!! Woo Hoo!
Biden lies constantly. Lying made him famous. But he has a D after his name, so the media lets him do exactly what they obsessviely attacked Trump for.
I mean, I’m slightly relieved that gasoline is back around 5 1/2 bucks per gallon, when it was 6 1/2 bucks a few weeks ago - but only because it hasn’t continued to go up.
But if you think I’m supposed to feel good about $5+ gasoline, you’re out of your mind.
Meanwhile, everything else continues to increase in price. But Biden wants to stand there and pretend he fixed something.
We have subsidized big oil for a century to keep gasoline cheaper than bottled water.
Has that ever made sense to anyone?
The world average is $5.52
The average price in Ft Worth is $3.26.
I just found a receipt last week in my car from March 2020 in NJ when gas was $3.38.
Disclaimer: for medical reasons my wife drinks Gerolsteiner which is about $21.00 a gallon.
With good reason, though. Every single manufactured good on the global market requires fuel to transport it - including bottled water.