The first story that caught my eye today comes from The National Enquirer.
What we know: David Pecker is a longtime friend of Trump's. He is one of the members of the National Enquirer parent company’s four-person board and he used to be the chief financial officer of Trump's casino business.
What we don't know is whether Trump was consulted before the rehash of Michael Cohen information was published.
Even if Trump wanted to throw Cohen to the wolves and was using the tabloid to send this message, the headline itself assumes that the pro-Trump readers of the Enquirer think it’s perfectly acceptable, perhaps laudable, for the president to have had a fixer.
Hell, he has many of them today. The reprehensible wormlike Devin Nunes certainly fits that bill.
The biggest story, if true would be bigger even than Bruse Willis' marriage story. It was that Trump passed a lie detector test proving there was no Russian collusion.
Of course, had Trump actually taken an expert administered polygraph and passed that would have been the top story...
This is what USA had to say:
….a Florida lie detection expert named Michael Sylvestre, at its request, analyzed a recording of a press conference Trump gave in December in which he proclaimed there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russians, declaring, "That has been proven."
Sylvestre, the tabloid says, "subjected those very words to the keen and unbiased judgment of the world-renowned DecepTech Voice Stress Analysis Machine."
The machine, and Sylvestre, in the past have found that Hillary Clinton, former FBI director James Comey and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch have fibbed bigly.
The verdict on Trump: "HUGE" anger — but no dishonesty." Sylvestre tells the magazine that Trump "was being truthful" when discussing the collusion question.
"I believe he was angry and not deceptive when he spoke about the millions of dollars the investigation has spent," Sylvestre concludes.
Case, presmuably, closed.
I had to look this up. Here’s what I found.
by Kelly R. Damphousse, Ph.D.
In summary:
Does VSA actually work?
According to a recent study funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), two of the most popular VSA programs in use by police departments across the country are no better than flipping a coin when it comes to detecting deception regarding recent drug use. The study's findings also noted, however, that the mere presence of a VSA program during an interrogation may deter a respondent from giving a false answer.
This raises the question about the accuracy of what we usually consider the typical lie detector machine. Here’s what the American Psychological Association has to say.
The Truth About Lie Detectors (aka Polygraph Tests)
Most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies.
Findings
Lie detector tests have become a popular cultural icon — from crime dramas to comedies to advertisements — the picture of a polygraph pen wildly gyrating on a moving chart is readily recognized symbol. But, as psychologist Leonard Saxe, PhD, (1991) has argued, the idea that we can detect a person's veracity by monitoring psychophysiological changes is more myth than reality. Even the term "lie detector," used to refer to polygraph testing, is a misnomer. So-called "lie detection" involves inferring deception through analysis of physiological responses to a structured, but unstandardized, series of questions.
The instrument typically used to conduct polygraph tests consists of a physiological recorder that assesses three indicators of autonomic arousal: heart rate/blood pressure, respiration, and skin conductivity. Most examiners today use computerized recording systems. Rate and depth of respiration are measured by pneumographs wrapped around a subject's chest. Cardiovascular activity is assessed by a blood pressure cuff. Skin conductivity (called the galvanic skin or electrodermal response) is measured through electrodes attached to a subject's fingertips.
..
Significance & Practical Application
Polygraph testing has generated considerable scientific and public controversy. Most psychologists and other scientists agree that there is little basis for the validity of polygraph tests. Courts, including the United States Supreme Court (cf. U.S. v. Scheffer, 1998 in which Dr.'s Saxe's research on polygraph fallibility was cited), have repeatedly rejected the use of polygraph evidence because of its inherent unreliability. Nevertheless, polygraph testing continues to be used in non-judicial settings, often to screen personnel, but sometimes to try to assess the veracity of suspects and witnesses, and to monitor criminal offenders on probation. Polygraph tests are also sometimes used by individuals seeking to convince others of their innocence and, in a narrow range of circumstances, by private agencies and corporations.
The development of currently used "lie detection" technologies has been based on ideas about physiological functioning but has, for the most part, been independent of systematic psychological research. Early theorists believed that deception required effort and, thus, could be assessed by monitoring physiological changes. But such propositions have not been proven and basic research remains limited on the nature of deceptiveness. Efforts to develop actual tests have always outpaced theory-based basic research. Without a better theoretical understanding of the mechanisms by which deception functions, however, development of a lie detection technology seems highly problematic.
For now, although the idea of a lie detector may be comforting, the most practical advice is to remain skeptical about any conclusion wrung from a polygraph.
So even if Trump took a polygraph test the results would be useless. Besides, since he often believes the lies he spins even if an infallible machine existed, it would be useless with him.
Yesterday’s story:
Previous stories (diaries)
Monday, Apr 30, 2018 · 6:13:42 PM +00:00
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HalBrown
On yesterday’s story about nobody “getting” Michelle Wolf’s Aunt Lydia reference comparing her to Sarah Sanders, Heather “Digby” Parton got it:
End this charade: Donald Trump, Michelle Wolf and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
So now we have much clutching of pearls and rending of garments among members of the press, demanding apologies from Wolf for allegedly insulting Sarah Huckabee Sanders' looks (which Wolf did not do) and for comparing her to Aunt Lydia in "The Handmaid's Tale," which is as spot-on as you can get. (As New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum pointed out on Twitter, "her job is *exactly* like Aunt Lydia: she is the frowning female enforcer for a fascist patriarchal society, punishing those who resist her lies.")
As did New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum.