Trying something.

Wordpress offers an apparently flawed means of previewing posts. In practice, that means that a preview shows the code of an embed instead of the embed's finished appearance.

So this is to see if the code works.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Getting to meet the members of the ⁦<a href="https://twitter.com/PolitiFact?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PolitiFact</a>⁩ ⁦<a href="https://twitter.com/NYPolitiFact?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYPolitiFact</a>⁩ chamber at ⁦<a href="https://twitter.com/TheBuffaloNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TheBuffaloNews</a>⁩. <a href="https://t.co/y2eisuuFFn">pic.twitter.com/y2eisuuFFn</a></p>&mdash; Louis Jacobson (@loujacobson) <a href="https://twitter.com/loujacobson/status/1501955118689832971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Denied again in the same thread as last post

Gary,

What source am I supposed to go to, Gary? The "Stop government subsidies to oil companies" page at Facebook? Yahoo! Answers? The Huffington Post?

What we find is a list of sources that generally fail to describe what those subsidies... consist of. And that's the point.

This source was on the first page of hits. Maybe you should read it.

http://lewwaters.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/oil-companies-tax-cheats-or-boogieman/

I'm deleting it to try again with a shortened URL.

The new version worked.  That's a big clue toward solving the PolitiFact Matrix.

Mention of Clinton cut to capital gains rate--Denied!

The latest casualty of Facebook censorship at PolitiFact's page:

@ Brian Conway

You want them to pay the same percentage as you on their income or on their capital gains? Because they would like to pay the same income tax as you do (lower rate!).

If you made taxation the same on all income including capital gains, then you're making investment a much riskier proposition, resulting in fewer private jobs created. Is that seriously what you want?

Remember the good ol' days with President Clinton? That guy was so good for the economy (cut the federal tax on capital gains)!

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/apr/29/capital-gains-taxes-demystified/

Hard to see why a spam filter would catch that one, isn't it?

What if people learned that the U.S. prints its own money? (Updated)

Disaster!  Somebody at Facebook or PolitiFact should do something to make sure that doesn't happen.

In other words, I've got another example of a post that failed to get past the censors at PolitiFact's Facebook page.  But first, the genius of Jeff Hussain, whose misinformation is apparently exactly the sort of thing PolitiFact wants published in its discussion area:

Jeff Hussain I am all for decriminalizing drug and eliminating the DEA. Not only would we save billions annually we would generate billions in revenue. As far as the deficit is concerned... until our gov't creates its own currency, instead of borrowing money at interest, our debt and deficit problems will never go away.

If I remember correctly, Jeff D. of Bewz Newz 'n' Vewz and PolitiFact Bias pointed out essentially the same statement from Hussain in a different spot a few weeks ago.  Of course it's absurd because the U.S. government does, in fact, print money as part of its efforts to manage the economy.  But clearing up Hussain's misinformation, at least for a supposedly non-real person, or an alien-head avatar or something, just isn't that easy these days.  The censors wouldn't let this one pass:

Bryan White

Jeff H. wrote in part

"... until our gov't creates its own currency..."

As there's no suggestion of sarcasm, it seems safe to say that Hussain possesses a substantial degree of ignorance about economics.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed01.html

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/aboutthebep.html

That one wouldn't publish.  What could I publish, I wondered?  The next post did appear in the public view:

Bryan White
What a surprise. Another ReThuglican who can't tell the truth (just experimenting to see what kind of content I'm allowed to post).

It's sure good to know that "ReThuglican" won't get me censored. I'll have to remember that one.


***

I've yet to absolutely confirm any instance in which I had a post fail to appear initially and then appear in the general public view right away.  This suggests some sort of automatic filtering process rather than censorship by an individual judging on a case-by-case basis.  The criteria remain mysterious.


Update:

I've bypassed the censors.  I wonder how long it will be until jackbooted thugs show up at my door?



Same URLs, just shortened with a popular Twitter-associated Web tool.

Hiding the truth about Obama's Strategic Oil Reserve promise

Note:  Censorship of my remarks at PolitiFact's Facebook page has turned so ubiquitous that I am dispensing with screen captures except where it seems necessary to establish context.

Here's the latest bit of apparently partisan censorship, though a number have occurred over the past two days:

David Stockdale made a decent point (response reformatted to improve the blog presentation):

People cannot seem to get it through their heads that this is essentially an effort to stimulate the economy.

Mr. Stockdale put his finger on the missing piece in PolitiFact's fact check. In the original context, President Obama said he and VP Biden advocated the necessity of using the SPR because a condition of economic emergency exists.

If Obama receives credit for fulfilling that promise, it should be recognized that Obama is declaring a state of economic emergency--in the midst of "Recovery Summer" Pt. 2.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump.
http://fliiby.com/file/440161/eby8met0iv.html

The Jeff Hussain Follies

Okay, maybe I haven't got the Matrix nailed down as to its sinister workings.

In a very recent reply to misinformer Jeff Hussain at PolitiFact's FaceBook page, I limited myself to one short quotation of existing material and followed that up with three substantial paragraphs with three associated hotlinks.

No go, so far as publishing it to the general audience.

I tried republishing it minus the quotation of Jeff Hussain.  No go.

I tried republishing just the first paragraph minus the second two.  No go.

Of course, it may be that the spam filter counts my own semi-privately published posts against me in terms of reproducing existing material--that is, I'm a spammer for repeating myself even if nobody at all sees it but me.

Blue pill:

Red pill:

If that first post was caught in a spam filter then the spam filter is too sensitive by half.

The invisible dialog between Jeff and me might have helped inform readers at PolitiFact's FaceBook page.  I'll have to settle for reproducing it here so that it's visible to the Web.

Jeff's part first (bold emphasis added to contrast it to the following reply):

(I) just want everyone know that social security has billions of dollars sitting there but the amount decreases annually. why? for the past 10 years the govt has been running at a deficit so to cover the deficit they have been taking money from social security. why is the govt running at a deficit? when clinton left office the govt had a surplus but after the bush tax cuts and 3 trillion dollars spent on 2 wars you dont have to be a mathematician to figure this out. they are giving tax cuts to the rich and using social security to pay for it.

And my unfit-for-general-audiences reply:

Whether or not Jeff is personally confused, his statement is confused. The billions in the Social Security Trust Fund is spent money that the government has promised to pay back with interest. It does not change the fact that Social Security pays benefits with present-day contributions, it just means that there was a surplus left over after paying benefits. As for surplus from the Clinton era (with a Republican Congress, don't forget), that really has nothing to do with it at all. Social Security is off budget in the current era.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html

The so-called "Clinton surplus" was a budget surplus, meaning that the nation still ran a huge debt, but the debt came down a bit for a short time before proceeding to climb again. A climb would have occurred regardless of Bush's tax policies simply because of the economic slowdown that started during Clinton's last year.
http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

The FactCheck.org graph shows 2001 as part of Clinton's last budget (FY 2001). Bush was actually in office for the bulk of that fiscal year, and the effects of the economic slowdown are partly apparent in the way the budget surplus dropped in that year. Reduced economic activity produces lower federal revenues.

Bottom line, Jeff's just wrong to associate federal budget problems with Social Security's fiscal problems. Social Security has periodically faced solvency problems since its inception simply because of its method of financing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6827519/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/social-security-solvency-political-spin/

The Matrix solved?

I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on the workings of the PolitiFact Matrix.

FaceBook, the home base of the PolitiFact Matrix, has added spam filters to organization/business pages.  By appearances, repetition of already-posted material may trigger the spam filter.  I have yet to see a post dumped from the general public view where it did not feature a quotation from an earlier post.  Or at least I don't remember any.

Does this get PolitiFact off the hook for the accusation of or the appearance of censorship?

Not entirely.  Most of what I've read suggests that spam posts do not appear at all.  Yet my posts appear to my FaceBook friends whether or not they appear via the general public view at PolitiFact's FaceBook page.

In addition, spam posts go to a spam folder of sorts for the FaceBook page administrator to consider for publication.  I have yet to confirm the existence of a Matrixed post that was later made visible by the administrator.

For now, I'll simply rewrite posts with decreased amounts of quoted material to the point where they appear (at least initially) to all.

And we'll see what happens.  Maybe I've already posted the last of the blue pill/red pill images.