希拉里·克林顿和唐纳德·特朗普聚焦“超级星期二”
时间：2018-12-08 作者：英语课 分类：2016年VOA慢速英语(二)月
AS IT IS 2016-02-29 Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump 1 Look to Super Tuesday 希拉里·克林顿和唐纳德·特朗普聚焦“超级星期二”
Did you know that U.S. General John Pershing shot 49 terrorists with bullets covered in pig’s blood?
No?
But presidential candidate Donald Trump told that story to at least 2,000 people at a campaign rally recently.
The story is nothing more than Internet rumor 2, according to Snopes.com. It found “nothing that documents” the story about General John Pershing in the Philippines more than 100 years ago.
Trump’s story on General Pershing is one of a large number of untrue or unconfirmed statements from the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Is this an unusual campaign season?
There is no “scientific way” to know if more lies are being told in this campaign than any other, according to Dartmouth College political scientist Brendan Nyhan.
“With that said, I think it is fair to say Donald Trump is” going beyond “norms for inaccuracy among top presidential candidates,” he said.
Long history of telling a lie in politics
Telling a lie or falsehood is not new to American politics. Even the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, known as “Honest Abe,” did not always tell the truth.
He did not tell members of Congress about negotiations 3 to end the Civil War in 1865, according to a 2014 James Conroy book on Lincoln. It is called, “Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and The Hampton Roads Peace Conference Of 1865.”
A newspaper backing John Adams for president in 1800 said that if his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, was elected, terrible things would happen.
“Murder, robbery, rape 5, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced,” the newspaper said. That information comes from the Miller 6 Center at the University of Virginia.
Telling a lie in the 2016 campaign
PolitiFact.org is a news site that studies and rates the accuracy of claims from government officials and political candidates.
Among leading Republican presidential candidates, Politifact reviewed 93 statements from Trump and rated 77 percent of them as false. It rated 59 percent of Senator Ted 4 Cruz’s 79 statements and 42 percent of Senator Marco Rubio’s 136 statements as false. Cruz is from Texas, and Rubio from Florida.
On the Democratic side, the site rated 28 percent of Hillary Clinton’s 150 statements and 32 percent of Bernie Sanders’ 64 claims as false.
The website also has a “Pants on Fire!” rating for the most inaccurate 7 claims from the candidates. Trump again leads all candidates in that rating.
During his victory speech in New Hampshire in February, Trump called the 5 percent unemployment rate reported by the government as “phony.” He said, "The number's probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent." Not true, according to PolitiFact.
Trump rejected PolitiFact’s criticism. He said the group is a “left-wing group” and treats him unfairly. PolitiFact said it holds conservatives and liberals to the same fact-checking standards.
During a January debate in Iowa, Senator Cruz claimed that President Barack Obama’s health care program is the nation’s “biggest job killer 8.”
Not true, Politifact said. “Not only has the number of jobs gone up, but the number of unwilling 9 part-timers has gone down.”
In January, Senator Rubio said to the Meet the Press news program that he would not negotiate prisoner exchange with Iran. The Republican candidate said, “When I become president of the United States, … it will be like Ronald Reagan, where as soon as he took office the hostages were released from Iran."
Not true. Politifact wrote, “The Carter administration negotiated the deal months before Reagan’s inauguration 10, without involvement by Reagan or his transition team. Rubio’s claim is an imaginative re-reading of history.”
PolitiFact labeled false Hillary Clinton’s statement: “We now have more jobs in solar than we do in oil." And it also called false this statement by Bernie Sanders: “Not one Republican has the guts 11 to recognize that climate change is real."
Lou Jacobson, a senior correspondent for PolitiFact, said some voters want candidates to tell the truth and do not like it when they do not. Other voters, however, “do not always trust or believe” reports that “their candidate” is not telling the truth, he said.
Trump is not only delivering more false statements than his top competitors for president. He has been a victim of a few, as well.
FactCheck.org said this about a Ted Cruz advertisement ,saying Trump bulldozed the home of an elderly widow to build a parking lot for his New Jersey 12 casino:
“The ad leaves the false impression that the widow lost her home, and she didn’t,” FactCheck said. What did happen was that a government agency, acting 13 on behalf of Trump, tried to obtain the home. But the courts blocked them.
Words in This Story
rumor -- n. information or a story that is passed from person to person but has not been proven to be true
inaccuracy – adj. not correct
adultery – n. sex between a married person and someone who is not that person's wife or husband
incest – n. sexual intercourse 14 between people who are very closely related
inauguration – n. to introduce a newly elected official into a job or position with a formal ceremony
transition – n. a change from one government to another
bulldoze – v. knock down
widow – n. a woman whose husband has died
- He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
- The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。
- The rumor has been traced back to a bad man.那谣言经追查是个坏人造的。
- The rumor has taken air.谣言流传开了。
- negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
- Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。
- The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
- She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。
- The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
- He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。
- Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
- The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。
- The book is both inaccurate and exaggerated.这本书不但不准确，而且夸大其词。
- She never knows the right time because her watch is inaccurate.她从来不知道准确的时间因为她的表不准。
- Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
- The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。
- The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
- His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。
- The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
- Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。
- I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
- Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
- They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。
- Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
- During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。
- The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
- There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。