Slashdot Mirror

US population would still have grown without immigration. One source: https://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/apr/18/don-beyer/don-beyer-wrongly-says-us-population-would-be-shri/

Shes not that bad. Republicans abused their offices and drug her through the mud for years with the fake Bengazi bullshit and all of the conspiracy theories bullshit, just like the propagandists they are. They lied, and smeared her, and their half brain dead base ate it up. You think she's bad because you've heard so many complete fucking idiots parrot the same bullshit for so long. Goebbels came up with that playbook; not surprising that right-wingers are still using it.

Time spent by congress investigating these embassy murders: 0 seconds.

On 15 December 2001, gunmen killed a Nepalese security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu.

On 22 January 2002, an attack on the American Center in Calcutta killed five policemen.

On 20 March 2002, a car bomb exploded across the street from the U.S. Consulate General in Lima, Peru killed nine Peruvians.

On 14 June 2002, a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi, Pakistan killed 12 people (one U.S. Marine was injured).

On 28 February 2003, a gunman killed two policemen at the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi, Pakistan.

On 30 June 2004, a suicide bomber killed two people (including himself) at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

On 6 December 2004, Islamist militants attacked the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing nine security guards and staff.

On 29 January 2005, a rocket attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad killed two Americans working there.

On 2 March 2006, a car bomb exploded outside the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi, killing at least four, including a U.S. diplomat and his driver.

On 12 September 2006, Islamic militants attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing a Syrian security guard.

On 9 July 2008, gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, killing three policemen.

On 17 September 2008, members of al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen with vehicle bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, killing 12 Yemeni guards and civilians (including one U.S. civilian).

On 27 November 2008, a car bomb went off about 200 yards from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing at least four.

Yet $14 million (or more, by the end) spent investigating Bengazi after 8 investigations had already shown there was none of the (stupid fucking conservative) conspiracy theories correct. http://www.politifact.com/trut...

You think Hillary is bad because of a partisan hack job by republicans abusing their power for years.

Hopefully this helps you think more critically:
http://www.politifact.com/geor...

Well hold up there.

Trump is doing an OK job

Trump is dismantling the EPA and FCC. Taking away all their money, power, and authority to do anything. I think that sucks. But there is a legitimate political viewpoint that we don't need the government to limit pollution or to regulate communications. I think that viewpoint is bullshit. But they've been squaking about this long enough and loud enough that it's a political issue and... hey, they got a candidate in the white-house. Let them try. At WORST, we will have 4 years of disruption in systems that take FAR more than 4 years to steer. We will be able to point at all the god-damned bullshit that happened under his system and... make political statements. Point out how full of shit the opposition is. That they had their chance, we tried it their way, and it didn't work.

And... these two aspects aside, there are a lot of racist asshats who want to throw all the immigrants in a box. They think he's doing great.

And give credit where credit is due. He's made progress with N. Korea. There's a CHANCE he won't bungle it. I think the guy's just a bully and he managed to bully Kim into action. A nuclear game of chicken. The sort of game where you only really have to worry if the other guy is completely crazy. Which oh look, we've got that guy. If reunification happens, it's going to be WEIRD. There will be statues of Trump as a man of peace.

the economy is rosy

Um... It is. The current state is good. The stock market is up, unemploymenet is down, bonds are down but that's a bigger problem than Trump. There was a definate and clear "trump bump" at the end of 2016. Stocks surged. Stocks are more rocky in 2018, but they're not down. But unemployment is down so low that it's a problem for companies. The gig economy is shrinking because people can go get real jobs (hurrzah).

The prognosis is more like "We're shitting bricks over the prospect of a trade war with.... EVERYONE". Literally self-imposed sanctions. It's ridiculous. A republican pushing for tarrifs. What kind of bizarro world is this? (It's one where the poor working-class republican voting masses got a leader elected as opposed to rich republican businessmen. Tariffs help local production despite being massivly harmful to the economy.) And so stocks are skittish, but that hammer hasn't dropped yet.

and he is keeping all his campaign promises to them

Pft, WHICH campaign promises? The guy bullshitted off the cuff and spoke out both sides of his head. And half of that was so ridiculous no one believed they were real. And then he did a few of those, to our collective facepalm.

But here you go. From politifact, who is sadly not nearly as unbiased as they used to be. If his haters only think he's broken 7%, while half are in the works or kept... Trump supporters might have point. Even Obama took most of his two terms fighting for health care reform, and had some shitty compromises in the process.

Also, who are the poor bastards that have to go through his campaign trail transcripts and try and pin down what his actual statements were?

I'm not sure the US can survive another 4 years of him.

Do not think the USA is so weak and fragile that Trump is an existential threat. No matter how bad a job he does with his policies, we will survive. This is like terrorism. No matter what a group of people do out in a desert on the other side of the globe, it will not end the USA. 3000 corpses and some lost real-estate, with no disrespect to the dead, wasn't the end of us. The only thing we had to fear is fear itself (and we holy shit we flubbed that one and allowed ourselves to be terrified). Trump would have to initiate global thermonuclear war to actually bring down the USA. He's got that button, and he's pointed at it a couple times, but the odds of him actually pushing it are slim. Even then, the world's nuclear arsenal isn't what it used to be. I think most governments would go, but it wouldn't be an extinction event.

Imagine an illegal immigrant first has to get past boarder control

It is a popular myth that most undocumented immigrants cross the boarder illegally. Visa overstays have been the majority since 2007. Also, 60% of undocumented immigrants have been here for more than a decade. 40% came here by air. Think about this when you hear chants about building a wall.

when we have stuff like this in America? Seriously, If I didn't know for a fact that that link is real and that somebody in a position of power made an argument against teaching critical thinking I'd have chalked it up to Poe's law.

What I'm saying is our education system and our society's values (at least in regards to critical thinking skills) failed these people. These aren't like climate change deniers for flat earthers or some such. They aren't choosing to be ignorant and dumb. They were either born that way or made that way.

The correct response isn't to laugh at them, it's to take pity and try to lift them out of their ignorance. Hell, you should do that even if it wasn't the right thing to do. These guys are dumb, yeah, but if you can talk them into giving up their Uber passwords imagine what a demagogue can talk them into. Where do you think dictatorships come from?

> That is under debate.

No, it isn't. If you think it is then you're not a real American by any definition that's had in the last century.

> That is provably incorrect. In fact, the entire reason for it is the consent decree Reno v Flores. The rule was codified in 1988

Smell like a bullshit talking point

> It didn't take long for someone to throw that card. You know they have no valid argument now.

Sometimes it actually is racist, though. When you combine the rhetoric with the policies that crack down on both illegal and legal immigration (but only for very specific demographics) a very clear pattern emerges.

> If the "migrants" show up at a proper crossing point and request asylum there this problem is eliminated.

They are literally being arrested before they get that far. You show up at the boarder control checkpoint, ask for asylum and if you don't have the right paperwork you get arrested for entering the country illegally, because just walking onto the building property is technically entering the country.

Do you really think they're picking these people up in the middle of a field as they crawl under a fence somewhere?
=Smidge=

I can't imagine anyone with an IQ over 90 could honestly think that Fox News doesn't lie. Are you intellectually disabled, or just a shill? I ask because if you do 5 seconds of searching you can find abundant evidence of Fox News lying, even if you don't watch it to see for yourself.

Cite the statute please - and show where it requires intent to be enforced. She broke her own State department rules. And in fact she violated her own dictates in using her private server and illegally handling classified, secret, and top secret communications.

You are lying. She sent classified emails, including TOP SECRET ones from other agencies.

Sending classified materials over an classified connection was illegal, and she knew it (she signed off on her NDA, employment contract, and training that said so).

You are lying. She sent classified emails, including TOP SECRET ones from other agencies.

Sending classified materials over an classified connection was illegal, and she knew it (she signed off on her NDA, employment contract, and training that said so).

I don't recall making any mention of race, in fact I didn't even say anything about the past administration other than to simply present links of comments by your liberal gods that show the massive hypocrisy of your side. You all cheered and agreed with what they said then but now you're the ones that are horrifying and whining and you refuse to admit it. But why is it anytime someone says anything about the worst President to ever occupy the Oval office you immediately jump to race? How do you even know what my race is? Typical leftist playbook, don't address the facts, instead call names.

But seriously "ran America better"? Did the worst economic recovery in history show you that? Did the record number of people on food stamps show you that? Or maybe it was when the Obama administration altered the formula for determining the unemployment number to drop all of those who stopped looking, while today even according to the NYT since Trump's has reversed or halted many of Obama's policies we're at statistically 0 unemployment.

Oh and of course there's always the signature ACA legislation where if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor and how they admitted to having lied to stupid Americans to get it passed. And now of course we see that there really is no affordable in the ACA, but that rates are skyrocketing and it is taking the deficit with it.

Please list the accomplishments of which you speak. Considering he was in office for 8 years and Trump has only been in office 500 days I'm sure you can find many more instances of his successes than the current President.

And I won't even get started on foreign policy like Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.

Democrats generally want more ILLEGAL aliens they can later TURN INTO voting residents who are dependent on "the system" through never-ending amnesty programs.

That's silly. There aren't any "never ending" amnesty programs, there are no amnesty programs whatsoever that turn illegal aliens into voting residents,period. These don't exist.

The last time there was an amnesty program was under President Reagan, who provided amnesty for 3 million illegal immigrants. That was back in 1987, over thirty years ago. (that was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, followed by Reagan's executive action to give legal status to more illegals not covered by the Immigration act the year following that.)

No, no, no - he only lies about 70% (or more) of the time: http://www.politifact.com/pers... .

I'm sure she will somehow succeed in convincing someone to hand over millions of dollars, especially if venture capitalists like Tim Draper (an early Theranos investor) are still out there saying the stories by Carreyrou were wrong (they weren't), and that Holmes was on the precipice of saving the world (she wasn't) before the media came after her.

People don't like (or want) to admit were/are wrong -- themselves or about others. example

Would that be the same policy that Obama oversaw without a single sound from the SJW crowd who are now wailing like banshees? Obama created the policy but... but.. but... drumpf drumpf drumpf!!

Actually, nope, that is all Trump's baby.

Ok, you could technically blame Jeff Sessions.

Sorry, but we did check out your claims.

TRUMP caused the deaths of countless millions of Americans in the military overseas.

The quality of Trolling on Slashdot has dropped considerably with the influx of Millennials.

The most shocking thing is more people have been killed in American schools than American personnel in combat zones

http://www.politifact.com/flor...

> The DNC did not at any time turn over the affected servers to the FBI or anyone else, as one might expect for such a serious crime as was alleged.

The DNC coordinated with the FBI and federal intelligence agencies and provided everything they requested, including copies of DNC servers," Watson said. She added that the copy contains the same information as the physical server.

So it is technically correct the DNC didn't turn over the physical hardware, but they provided a image of everything on the servers. "Everything Requested."

Donald Trump a man who is notoriously thin skinned and believes he knows more about everything than experts do.

You're projecting Hillary Clinton's shortcomings onto Trump.

You may disagree with Reagans policies but he was not ignorant he understood his own beliefs and why he believed they were right.

I have seen no indication that that is any different for Trump. If anything, Trump has been more consistent about implementing his campaign promises than other politicians: reduce regulations, tough negotiations with the Chinese on trade, get illegals out of the country, try to reverse ACA, cut corporate and personal taxes, appoint conservative judges, charter schools and school vouchers, etc. Those are traditional, rational, moderately conservative views.

Let me help you out with a piece of advice: google is fucking easy to use.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

http://observer.com/2018/04/tr...

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...

https://angrybearblog.com/2018...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://fortune.com/2018/03/29/...

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

https://www.independent.co.uk/...
http://www.politifact.com/pund...
https://www.rt.com/usa/374292-...

So, why couldn't the Clinton campaign counter that by, I don't know, having policies that people liked and cared about?

Because the idea that policies matter is a liberal fantasy. And I say that as a liberal who really cares about policy.

What matters most is whether people like the candidate. Remember all that bullshit about which politicians people would like to have a beer with? Who gives a fuck? Turns out waaaaay too many people care about that kind of shit than they do about policies.

One example: Support for gay marriage in the black community. When Biden first said he supported gay marriage somebody did a poll immediately afterwards and among the results were that roughly 70% of black people opposed it. Then a week or two later Obama announced his support for gay marriage. Within the next month another poll was conducted and now roughly 70% of black people supported gay marriage. Policy preferences are overridden by leader preferences.

Clinton had all kinds of good policies. Seriously, she is a policy wonk and her campaign website had tons of detailed stuff. But a combination of right-wing outrage media doing things like lying about her policies for helping coal miners and the subsequent pick-up of those lies by the mainstream media reporting 'both sides of the controversy' made it seem like she had abhorrent policies.

She also had the likeability problem that faces all successful women in serious jobs - when men are successful their likeability increases, but when women are successful their likeability decreases. Note that it only applies to people who don't work for those women, which in the case of an election is basically the entire electorate.

We did that back in 2016; Trump is more "naturally" intelligent by a mile than Obama ever was.

Citation?

Here is the only comparison I could find: Trump's own twitter feed, which is obviously a reliable source, since we all know that Trump is not prone to overstatements

. What we know for sure is that he speaks at fourth grade levels We can all agree that there are very clever fourth-graders, but they are not 71 years old.

I hate to defend Trump on anything, but why are we blaming or crediting him at all, when he didn't make the list? The list was the list of "countries or areas of concern" created by the legislature in 2015 and signed by president Obama years before Trump took office. It simply has nothing to do with him.

The "ban" wasn't bad because the country list made no sense, and it wasn't bad because it targeted Muslims. The ban was bad because it provided no due-process of law, and prevented people from re-entering the country when they already had travel visas and booked flights to return home to the US. Some people found out about the ban only when they landed and were turned away. It was stupidly written, and even his own cabinet admitted it.

P.S. I had to confirm that before daring to post it, so here are my sources:
http://www.politifact.com/wisc...
and
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...

Exactly, both sides do it. How is this any different than what Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said about Trump?
http://www.politifact.com/wisc...

This is bizarre. I wonder if anyone involved in this has READ the Hatch Act.

Yes, they probably even read further than the Wikipedia entry!

I'm definitely not an expert but was curious so I checked a few sources on the matter.

As near as I can tell only the POTUS and VP are completely exempt from the law. The provisions you pointed out don't mean that positions subject to Senate confirmation are exempt from the entire act, just portions of it.

Here I don't think the problem was that he was an FCC commissioner appearing at CPAC (though I think that breaks the spirit of the law). But that speaking as an FCC commissioner he advocated for Trump's candidacy.

If he had been appearing at CPAC just as himself he'd probably be fine.

WRONG!

The biggest line item on the Federal budget is not the military. It's going to entitlements. IE public system pensions, social security, and welfare.

Want better funded services? Stop wasting money on bloated public pensions and end social security.

Read until you get to the 2nd graph, not the first http://www.politifact.com/trut...

the only people left on UBI are people who DONT WANT TO WORK

So between 20 to 90 million Americans. The 20 million number is obviously too lower because there are several 16-17 year olds who work, people in college who work, and people past 65 who work. Meanwhile, the 90 million number is obviously too high because clearly there are people retired, who don't have the time to work in school or college, etc. What I'd find interesting is if you introduce UBI, how many couples would have one spouse quit their job because the combined UBI would offset the gains of working (as couples who work and have children either have to work different shifts and hence spend little time together or they have to have a babysitter--another lost job, possibly). It's also disingenuous to argue that people who take care of raising their children aren't working at all, even if they're doing unpaid work.

I think the real flip side is, is the 20 - 90 million who don't work do so because they don't want to work or because an 8-37% increase in unemployment (so 12-41% total) would mean a oppression of wages and there simply aren't enough jobs to go around? You see, the threat of automation making people jobless is already here. Even working minimum wage isn't cheaper than robots. Even working at below survivable wages isn't cheaper than robots.

False:
http://www.politifact.com/flor...

Cite your source. I pulled one of out the air... its not hard. I am aware of per district spending across the US. You are not.

Do you know what is the highest spending school district per capita in California? Bet you don't.

Do you know which portion of Connecticut spends the least? Bet you don't.

Your position is based on ignorance. I've seen more than enough information which I've gone through in depth to know this for a fact.

But because you are making an ignorant statement and presuming to be in the know... I think you're going to have to be put in a position where your ignorance is obvious... even to you.

So... in service of what I believe is the only constructive course of action in this argument... please cite a source.

And know that when you do, you'll still be ignoring that spending on education has no correlation with achievement. Something which you're attempting to evade by citing other countries when it clearly is irrelevant. Within the US alone we can see there is no correlation. Changing the subject and refusing to acknowledge that money =/= performance in education is frankly dishonorable in this discussion. You are showing a lack of integrity.

Please address the lack of correlation and concede. Its been checkmate since the first post.

the US economy is doing great

Was already happening during the Obama administration.

illegal immigration is down

Was already on a downward trend before the current President took office.

jobs and employment are up

See the first response.

ISIS has lost 98% of its territory

While the current President has presided for two years over this operation, ISIS was already in decline from the past President's administration's actions.

North Korea seems to be on the verge of denuclearizing

Arguable. North Korea's leadership is less stable than Iran. Who's to say that they won't come back with another nuke program after they get what they want in this round of talks? We'll have to pay attention to what happens after the talks.

The people slamming Politifact as being leftist here clearly have a short-term memory.

Donald Trump claimed this, but it's actually not true.

and Obama made huge use of Facebook along with other data mining for two successful campaigns, which apparently was OK and widely lauded at the time. Just where do conservatives invite any blame for collection entirely run for and by liberals, that conservatives just happened to also make use of?

There were very big differences in what the Obama campaign did with Facebook and what Cambridge Analytica did with Facebook. It all comes down to transparency and explicit consent.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

The Obama campaign created a Facebook app for supporters to donate, learn of voting requirements, and find nearby houses to canvass. The app asked users’ permission to scan their photos, friends lists, and news feeds. Most users complied.

The people signing up knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. Their friends, however, did not.

The people who downloaded the app used by Cambridge Analytica did not know their data would be used to aid any political campaigns. The app was billed as a personality quiz that would be used by Cambridge University researchers.

Aleksandr Kogan, one of the Cambridge researchers involved in the project, sold the data to the upstart political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The company then sold its services not only to the Trump campaign, but to the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz and the senatorial campaign of Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., among others.

When Facebook discovered a developer had shared users’ data without their consent in 2015, it asked both the original app and the consultancy to delete the data. That didn’t happen.

I assume you will object to these facts because they are from a Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit who promotes checking facts. Let me know and I'll provide other sources, but you'll have probably have a problem with those too. Here is the transparency statement of that Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit so you can see who's paying for these facts, which you probably believe are liberal facts, which by your definition cannot be true.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

and Obama made huge use of Facebook along with other data mining for two successful campaigns, which apparently was OK and widely lauded at the time. Just where do conservatives invite any blame for collection entirely run for and by liberals, that conservatives just happened to also make use of?

There were very big differences in what the Obama campaign did with Facebook and what Cambridge Analytica did with Facebook. It all comes down to transparency and explicit consent.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

The Obama campaign created a Facebook app for supporters to donate, learn of voting requirements, and find nearby houses to canvass. The app asked users’ permission to scan their photos, friends lists, and news feeds. Most users complied.

The people signing up knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. Their friends, however, did not.

The people who downloaded the app used by Cambridge Analytica did not know their data would be used to aid any political campaigns. The app was billed as a personality quiz that would be used by Cambridge University researchers.

Aleksandr Kogan, one of the Cambridge researchers involved in the project, sold the data to the upstart political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The company then sold its services not only to the Trump campaign, but to the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz and the senatorial campaign of Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., among others.

When Facebook discovered a developer had shared users’ data without their consent in 2015, it asked both the original app and the consultancy to delete the data. That didn’t happen.

I assume you will object to these facts because they are from a Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit who promotes checking facts. Let me know and I'll provide other sources, but you'll have probably have a problem with those too. Here is the transparency statement of that Pulitzer Prize winning non-profit so you can see who's paying for these facts, which you probably believe are liberal facts, which by your definition cannot be true.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

Part of the reason California pays more and receives less than other states is that it has a relatively young and wealthy population. "Your average Californian makes more money than your average person from Kansas," Boilard added. "So, yeah, inevitably, those people will be paying more money into the system" in income taxes than they draw in federal retirement and health benefits."

http://www.politifact.com/cali...

You mean the money for military bases,

Deeply loved by Red States. Sacred even. Some of us remember BRAC.

Indian reservations,

Created by the insistence of Red Staters who wanted to take the lands of the various tribes, then neglect them. See the Trail of Tears, or even the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

bloated government healthcare,

What, you mean the VA system> that you want to privatize to enrich yourself like with Medicare?

and inefficient educational systems?

You mean the public schools run by the local school boards?

We heard that song close to 40 years ago. There's no national institution to blame, there's no Federal Commission setting standards or operating schools outside of the BIA, DOD, and State Department. Even DC schools are run by the local government.

I'd say they thrive.

So you're saying they're doing poorly now. Interesting admission. How do they groan under the boot of the same Federal government they ostensibly control by the cheering crowds of the people?

Receiving federal funds isn't a benefit, it's a liabilitiy.

That explains why they pant so handily after the money they can extract from the states that actually try to take care of their people.

I posted this in another thread the other day. Some similarities & differences between what the Obama campaign did and what Cambridge Analytica did.

The Obama campaign and Cambridge Analytica both gained access to huge amounts of information about Facebook users and their friends, and in neither case did the friends of app users consent.

But in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.

The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.

some less fantasy filled context here:

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

The Chinese currency is bound to a basket of currencies, not the usd specifically.

As there are Chinese forex controls there is an artificial shortage so the renminbi is probably overvalued rather than undervalued.

Chinese steel imports are 3.35% of total US steel imports by value http://www.politifact.com/trut...

Umm, there are a few differences in HOW Facebook and user data was used by Obama, Hillary and Trump.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

A relevant summary from that site:

"The Obama campaign created a Facebook app for supporters to donate, learn of voting requirements, and find nearby houses to canvass. The app asked users’ permission to scan their photos, friends lists, and news feeds. Most users complied.

The people signing up knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. Their friends, however, did not.

The people who downloaded the app used by Cambridge Analytica did not know their data would be used to aid any political campaigns. The app was billed as a personality quiz that would be used by Cambridge University researchers."

and another relevant bit of info from the same article:

"Obama operatives used Facebook data to get users to send their messaging for them, according to Eitan Hersh, a Tufts professor who wrote Hacking the Electorate, a book on Obama’s microtargeting strategies.

Facebook friends lists, tags and photos allowed Obama operatives to identify a person’s close friends, which they then matched with offline public records. (Was this person likely to vote for Obama, but unlikely to get out to vote?) They then told the app users which of their friends they should send campaign messages to.

Cambridge Analytica dialed up what Karpf called the creepiness factor. They combined the survey results with the Facebook data to create psychological profiles they then sold to campaigns. The idea was, if the firm could discover how these people thought, they could target ads toward them.

They then sent targeted ads to the users on the database. The friends of the app users weren’t being targeted by their friends, but by the campaign itself. In other words, the consenting middle man was gone."

So, the differences are significant, in that Obama was being open about it and getting people to contact their friends with messages, whereas Trump was being secretive (it was data from a personality quiz, not a political app) and using targeted advertising, not friends messages.

Go on, read the article. It's one of many that explain why Obama isn't copping the same flak.

So, no, it's not the ONLY reason, it's not even a reason.

Does that "and" compare to an economic crisis like the Great Depression?

The politifact link clarifies that "in US history" should actually be taken as "since 1929", which is one of the reasons why it got "mostly true". 1929 is the year starting from which US annual GDP (and growth thereof) data is available, and also coincides with both the Great Depression and the Hoover administration. Hoover went out of office in March 1933, and if you look at the raw data, you'll see that for the whole year of 1933 (so actually from begin 1933 to begin 1934), growth was a whopping 10%. Yes, this is all kinds of fscked up, but it is actually how you have to interpret the data to qualify Roscam's statement as "true". The 10% was of course a rebound effect of the great depression and a prelude to its resolution, as other economic indicators were still bad at the time; I don't think people would be very happy at all if, say, Trump were to give them that kind of 10%.

More generally spoken, the GDP made (to present standards) wild jumps up and down till about 1951, which made it pretty easy to achieve Roscam's artificial criterion of "a whole [calendar] year of 3 percent growth". After that there was a relative stability with average growth inching slightly lower every decade; eventually, someone was going to fall under that 3% threshold. Consequently, you can almost pick your president and adjust the 3% threshold to make him look "worse than any preceding president" ("almost" because of statistical noise).

TL;DR: with a lot of lawyering, Peter Roscam (R-Ill.) put together a carefully worded statement that would make Obama's economic record look quite bad when taken at face value, but that could easily be adapted to your president of choice and is therefore not all that meaningful. Politifact could't give it anything else than "mostly true" because the lawyering largely checks out, even though it's blatantly dishonest (and treading a thin line).

And you would have know all this if you'd given that politifact link an honest read.

Perhaps you forgot how the economy did just fine in the beginning of the Dubya years, and only imploded somewhere near the end. It kept on doing bad in the beginning of the Obama years, and only started improving somewhere near the end. I wouldn't be so quick to laud Trump's excuses for economic policy...

You are aware that Obama's the ONLY President in US history to never have a year the economy grew 3%, right?

That's not surprising, since I'm sure you remember Obama's statements about "remaking the US economy" and his "war on coal".

...Obama campaign for doing this same thing.

Both campaigns accessed users' friends information without consent. But there were several differences between what Obama's campaign did and what Cambridge Analytica did. A couple:

But in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.

The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.

That doesn't remotely excuse what O's campaign did, but it's not entirely the same.

Fucking PolitiFART is a bunch of weasels:

But in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign.

Note the use of that "direct user" weasel word.

Because Obama's campaign actually gained access to Facebook's entire social graph:

Data You Can Believe In
The Obama Campaign’s Digital Masterminds Cash In

The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ”

Yeah, I wonder if Facebook giving Obama that data was reported as a political contribution-in-kind...

Not only that, Obama strip-mined private details from cable TV boxes:

But Gershkoff had come upon a cache of data that all the strategists would come to appreciate. She had contracted with a relatively new firm called Rentrak that was competing with Nielsen and was buying up real-time, raw viewing data directly from cable and satellite companies that had nearly 20 million set-top boxes in eight million homes. When Gershkoff told Grisolano, he was thrilled. Rentrak’s huge new trove of data, he surmised, could help him find out with relative certainty what shows were being delivered to the homes of the roughly 15 million persuadable voters Wagner’s department had identified.

PolitiFART glossed over that entirely.

Note that article was written in 2013, and it was CELEBRATING how the Obama campaign abused privacy - along with campaign finance laws.

But that was all "for the cause", so it was OK four years ago...

...Obama campaign for doing this same thing.

Both campaigns accessed users' friends information without consent. But there were several differences between what Obama's campaign did and what Cambridge Analytica did. A couple:

But in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.

The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.

That doesn't remotely excuse what O's campaign did, but it's not entirely the same.

Oh, hey, another pack of lies from a hatemonger!

In fact, California is 42nd per capita in amount of money received from the feds per dollar spent in taxes:

http://www.politifact.com/cali...

Californians in fact receives roughly 22% LESS per capita than the national average.

One thing California is really good at is racking up debt, which is rather unbelievable considering the fucking taxes and cost of living you have to endure to live there.

Chew on that bullshit for a while as you justify California's existence.

Oh, hey, another pack of lies from a hatemonger!

In fact, California is 42nd per capita in amount of money received from the feds per dollar spent in taxes:

http://www.politifact.com/cali...

Californians in fact receives roughly 22% LESS per capita than the national average.

Who decides what are officially "facts" and what are not?

Consensus. Experts. Multiple reliable sources for information.

e.g.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

Obama's campaign app asked for the information directly, and prompted users to send campaign messages to particular friends. Cambridge Analytica's data was acquired from a personality quiz (in violation of facebook policies, but CA didn't delete the data when requested), and used to plant fear-mongering ads. The former is at least somewhat honest. http://www.politifact.com/trut...

What does affect elections is that it was done by a third-party on behalf of the campaign. The fair market value of the work that they did most certainly exceeded campaign contribution limits. So it amounts to a form of illegal campaign contribution.

Cambridge Analytica was paid nearly $6 million for their work, and their work was likely largely useless. Furthermore, this isn't being pursued as an "illegal campaign contribution" by anyone. So, your view there doesn't seem consistent with the facts.

The issue with the Trump campaign is that it coordinated (the world colluded has too much of a negative connotation for objective discussion) with other groups in illegal ways.

Well, you have failed to establish that for CA. Furthermore, just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it affects the integrity of an election. In fact, many election laws are designed to destroy the integrity of elections by giving incumbents an unfair advantage.

Now that may have happened on the Hillary side too and we're not hearing about it.

It most certainly did happy on the Hillary side: Silicon Valley was falling all over itself to provide free services and support to Hillary's campaign (same for the Obama campaigns); at my company, people disappeared for months on company dime to help out Hillary's campaign, amounting to hundreds of thousands in in-kind campaign contributions. However, that kind of sleazy and corrupt behavior is minor compared to the massive corruption in Hillary's campaign in other areas.