Why is this legal?

[humbleman]

Politicians get away with far too much, considering they are public employees. Things that are illegal in some, or all, industries are not illegal when it comes to politics.... since politicians make the laws, this may not be so surprising... but makes it even more of an outrage.

Ground rules for discussion:

There are three topics that do not belong in this thread (plenty of other threads have numerous posts on these topics. Visit those, if you wish to post about the following).

1) no discussion of Gun Ownership laws... visit another thread for that.. its been talked to death, but feel free to run in circles elsewhere.
2) no discussion of Abortion Rights.... see above.
3) no discussion of Religious Freedom... see above.

If you are still interested, let's begin....

What is not illegal, related to the running and maintenance of government, that should be illegal?

I see nothing but hypocrisy in politics.. Institutionalized dishonesty. There are two things I think should be illegal, for the betterment of society...

1) It should be a crime to knowingly spread false information in pursuit of political gain.

The common negative response to this is "being wrong should not be a crime". My response is that "being wrong" is not the issue... being INTENTIONALLY wrong is... The most blatant of lies about points of fact. As Obama said recently to Letterman, "If you watch Fox news then you are living on a different planet than someone that watches NPR".
The US cannot have a healthy government and political system if we are living on different planets.
Politicians should be legally accountable for every word that comes out of their mouths. Lying during a campaign should carry mandatory jail time and blacklisting from any government job anywhere.
If it is reasonable that a politician misspoke and did not intentionally lie, then the correction must be ASSURED to reach as many people as the original misstatement... i.e. putting a little note at the bottom of an article saying it was retracted is insufficient.. If a politician addresses the nation on a news program, then they must revisit that program at the same timeslot for the same duration making it clear what was said that was wrong, why it was wrong, why they did not know it was wrong, present their evidence that they could not have known better, present the correct information clearly and accurately, and offer an apology for their failure.

2) It should be a crime for any politician or political candidate to accept money or gifts from ANYONE.
Offering money to a politician should be illegal and treated as bribery. Using personal funds to support a campaign should also be illegal... the point being to level the playing field to a set amount of taxpayer-supported funds for each candidate, and remove the special interest groups that are manipulating the process today.

What do you think of these two thoughts?

What are some of your own examples of things that should be illegal that aren't, in the world of politics and government?

Government agencies rise up their budgets "automatically" rather than doing it by real needs.

The Fiscal year starts on October.

Any agency, lets say police department in any county of any state, finds out that the received funds have not been used fully, then, about July, the department "finds out" that it needs new police cars replacing the "older ones bought two years ago" because the new ones will have such and such new technology included. It will find out that new bullet proof vest must be upgraded from last year, they find out that some offices must be remodeled, etc.

They will desperately find the way to spend the whole funds received in that fiscal year..

The motto in the whole government agencies is to ask for a greater budget every year.

I can bet that even the White House does the same. And no, the president in charge has nothing to do with this kind of budget.

Reason of why government agencies rise up automatically their budgets every year:

By experience, "sometimes", in one year in special, the asked budget funds didn't cover emergencies that happened between Octobers, and the agency wasn't capable to supply the needs. But, this is one rare case, it doesn't happen every year.

The rising up of budget by government agencies is practically illegal, buying new computers replacing 4 year old ones, making unnecessary remodeling, painting the inside of buildings every year, hiring contractors for simple tasks which can be performed by the agency staff, and more.

This is one example: An company was hired to run 50 feet of 3/4" pipe and run a circuit for a new machine. The contract says the job to be made and completed in a "week" (5 days). Under regulations, an inspector must check the premises before and after installation.

The job itself takes one morning. However, the electrician doing the work was told to run 10 feet per day. So, the worker went to the place, installed the ten feet of pipe with two clamps on the wall, which is the length of the pipe sold everywhere, and took a 7 plus hours break. This was repeated the entire week. On the last day, beside the last ten feet of pipe, he run the wiring and installed the electric boxes and receptacles.

The budget asked by the government agency had enough funds to pay the week of work plus materials asked by the hired contractor. This is the way the asked funds in their budgets are justified.

It is not "illegal" but it should be considered as such.

 

[Malintent]

Hmm, I think politicians harm me more when they pass certain laws than when they say things that aren't true.

Perhaps. But politicians do not make laws, they influence litigators that make laws. False statements that politicians make lead to laws based on false premises.
Like prohibition of marijuana... false statement making the premise for the law: Blacks get violent when exposed to it

But, that aside, you're saying that anyone who lost their doctor in the wake of Obama saying "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor" should be able to sue Obama personally?

You can keep your doctor. You just couldn't keep your same insurance plan. But, sure... OK. Let's just say that this proposed law was in place THEN... would Obama have chosen his words more carefully? Perhaps... For so many reasons, no law can be retroactively applied. The intent is to change behavior, not redefine what we think of past behavior.

Why do you keep trying to move this discussion from "every politician should be held accountable for their statements" to "what would this mean if it was applied retroactively" It is a little weird. For the purposes of this thread, lets just say my response to all of you future ".. but whatabout.." responses is "he'd be held accountable". OK?

 

[Malintent]

I think that this suggestion is best left alone. I agree with dismal. Political speech has to be the freest speech. Otherwise, it is a guarantee that the party in power will use this law against political lying against the opposition party exclusively.

The right has created a massive propaganda machine, but at some point it won't be enough, they will need a law such as this one being proposed to shutdown the truth. Don't hand them such a law.

I think that we just have to trust the system and that the majority elected by a minority current administration and Congress will be crushed under the weight of their demonstrated incompetence.

I could only hold this view with you if my impression of the competency of the American public was extremely higher.
I am of the opinion that the American populace is too undereducated, overfed, and lazy to be trusted with the task of determining what is true or false. I am also of the opinion that we do, in fact, need laws that prevent lies from being intentionally used to manipulate the easily manipulated people.

We have warnings on packages that say don't eat the package... Yea, I think we might need little rubber floaties on our arms while navigating the waters of the political landscape. for fucking sure, yea.

 

[Malintent]

According to Snopes, Obama said "57" instead of "47" due to being overtired during campaigning.

How do snopes know that?

they quote his words during an interview... right there in what I quoted.

Anyway, is this another loophole? A politician is allowed to spread false information if they are sufficiently tired? Your commitment to truth seems to have a lot of outs.

I think the issue is that the word "illegal" means to you "goes to jail for the rest of their lives". I am calling for accountability that compels correction of error in at least equal breadth as the platform upon which the falsehood was made. If a falsehood is made during a speech, a new speech in similar venue must spend equal or greater effort to correct than that of the original falsehood.

Do you disagree that an intentional lie that can be shown to be an intentional lie for the specific purpose of manipulating the outcome of an election should hold legal consequence? Alternatively, are you then saying that politicians should never be held accountable for anything they ever promise, claim, or say?

If Trump promised a border wall that he would ask for 20 billion dollars of tax-payer money to fund, would as many people have supported him? Would he have won the electoral college with that platform? We now know for a fact that Trump knew for a fact that under no circumstance would Mexico pay.. explicitly told to him, on a recorded phone line, by Mexico's president himself... yet he continued. You support protecting that type of 'speech'?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

1) Did Obama say he had been to 57 states? (I think the answer is "Yes")

Yes.

2) Is what he said objectively not true? (Again, yes)

What does it mean for something to be "objectively not true"? Does it differ from "not true"?
If what you mean is that there is an objective fact of the matter as to whether he went to 57 states and he did not, sure.

3) Does this mean he spread false or misleading information? (Yes)

No. That he made a false statement does not mean or imply that he spread false information.
In fact, plenty of people in the audience were laughing, it was widely reported as a gaffe, and it is not probable than anyone believed him.
This, however, is a side issue. My objections would be pretty much the same if the evidence supported the assessment that some people believed him, so let us assume for the sake of the argument that he did.

4) Is he thus guilty of some crime? (I'm going to go with "it depends" on how you define the crime the chicken bone waving people here are wanting to enact. You seem to assume there will be some "out" for intent. )

No. There is no such law. But if something like the proposal in the OP were the law, then the answer would be no (even if people had believed him), because the OP said " 1) It should be a crime to knowingly spread false information in pursuit of political gain.", and Obama did not knowingly spread false information.

It's not that I "assume" that there is some "out" for intent. I assessed on the basis of the evidence available to me at the time that being aware that the information is false was central to the matter at hand. Now (after the post I'm replying to) Malintent seems to have changed the proposal and it is unclear what he tries to do, but my assessment was proper on the basis of what he had stated before, in the OP. I will continue to address your points on that basis.

5) If there is an out for "intent" does that require someone to gauge what someone's intent was? (Yes. Seems tautological.)

Well, in this case, what one needs to assess is whether he was aware of the fact that the information was false, not whether he intended to spread it. But that would not be a good objection either way.

6) Who will that person be? (Not you. Assuming this is a federal crime, Trump and Trump's appointees will have at a minimum have prosecutorial discretion over it. Perhaps a jury will ultimately decide. Let's hope it's not one of those juries of average citizens drawn from the voter roles who we don't trust to gauge whether politicians are lying though, right? )

In the US system, juries have to make decisions about matters involving both intent and awareness of the facts very often. The assessments are made under incomplete evidence. And the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. A juror who is being epistemically rational would not convict Obama, as there is not (and there wouldn't be) beyond a reasonable doubt evidence that he was aware that he had not been to 57 states when he said that (I say he very probably wasn't, though he may have realized that more or less shortly afterwards - I don't know how long after that. But surely there is no beyond a reasonable doubt evidence).

Of course, there may well be unreasonable jurors, and if all 12 of them are, Obama would be in serious trouble. But I think you're focusing on the wrong thing, since you're providing a rather obvious example of someone who would not be convicted by a jury working as intended under such law. Why not go for examples of people who likely would?

In any case, we can observe this "intent" test clearly takes us out of the realm of assessing objective facts.

What does it mean for a fact to be "objective"? Does it differ from plain old facts?
At any rate, assessing intent - and for that matter, assessing what a defendant knew, was aware of, etc. - is standard practice in criminal law. It's all over the place. In a murder trial, the intent of the defendant is key. But so is in a fraud trial. And so on.

We must divine someone's thoughts.

No, we need to assess, based on the available information, whether a person intended, knew, was aware of, etc., something.
Obama probably was not aware that he hadn't been to 57 states. Clinton certainly (i.e., beyond a reasonable doubt) intended to spread the false information that he hadn't had sex with Lewinsky when he decided to say he hadn't had an inappropriate relationship with her.

It seems like quite a loophole. I can make some totally outrageous, objectively false claim (like Nancy Pelosi saying not passing a bill would cost 500 million jobs per day) and when called on it just say "oopsie, I misspoke".

I don't know how objectively false differs from false if it does. But sure, you can make anything up. A defendant in a murder trial can also say he was trying to test the gun, and did not know there was someone on the other end. Jurors will have to assess, on the basis of the available evidence (or more precisely, the evidence introduced properly at trial) whether he intended to kill or to do something else. In some situation, probably people who shoot others in the face actually were targeting ducks or quail or something.

Did you really land in Bosnia under sniper fire Hillary? 'oopsie, I misspoke".

I vaguely remember that one, so I don't know whether on the basis of what's publicly available it's beyond a reasonable doubt she knowingly spread or attempted to spread false information.

Did you really not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky, Bill? "oopsie, I misspoke".

Nope, that one is beyond a reasonable doubt (that he intended to mislead the public about whether he had had sex with her, but maybe not that he knew that the relationship was inappropriate; who knows what sort of self-justifying beliefs Clinton has? Still, that's knowingly spreading false info for political gain).

Ironically, this defense seems the most applicable the more factually outrageous a claim is. Like when you think Guam is going to tip over.

There is no irony. The defense can be presented in murder cases, and all sorts of cases. The credibility depends on the info available to the jury (or available according to the rules of the process).

Here's some fun examples of spreading false information but in which there is no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (at least, as far as I can tell) that any of them did so knowingly:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...3/02/12/remarks-president-state-union-address

We must all do our part to make sure our God-given rights are protected here at home. That includes one of the most fundamental right of a democracy: the right to vote.

No, the right to vote is not a God-given right (no right is).

https://www.npr.org/2013/02/12/171841996/transcript-gop-response-to-state-of-the-union-address

But America is exceptional because we believe that every life, at every stage, is precious, and that everyone everywhere has a God-given right to go as far as their talents and hard work will take them.

Some people believe that, and others do not, but America is not exceptional in that regard.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...resident-obama-delivers-thanksgiving-greeting

This is also a holiday that captures that distinctly American impulse to give something of ourselves. Even as we speak, there are countless Americans serving at soup kitchens and food pantries; contributing to their communities; and standing guard around the world.

No, that is not a distinctly American impulse.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/02/01/transcript-state-union.html

We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS, or an infant with malaria, or a refugee fleeing genocide, or a young girl sold into slavery.

Some people might show compassion because of that belief, but the vast majority do not (even if they have that belief and they show compassion, it's not why they show compassion).

 

[Elixir]

If Trump promised a border wall that he would ask for 20 billion dollars of tax-payer money to fund, would as many people have supported him? Would he have won the electoral college with that platform? We now know for a fact that Trump knew for a fact that under no circumstance would Mexico pay.. explicitly told to him, on a recorded phone line, by Mexico's president himself... yet he continued. You support protecting that type of 'speech'?

Dismal is probably far too... uh ... dismal to even try to address that question, as it gets into the finer points of lie vs. false statement. Neo-cons can't/don't think on such a granular level.

 

[fast]

Using personal funds to support a campaign should also be illegal... the point being to level the playing field to a set amount of taxpayer-supported funds for each candidate, [...]

To level the playing field? Why in hell is fairness a concern?

 

[dismal]

How do snopes know that?


Anyway, is this another loophole? A politician is allowed to spread false information if they are sufficiently tired? Your commitment to truth seems to have a lot of outs.

I think the issue is that the word "illegal" means to you "goes to jail for the rest of their lives". I am calling for accountability that compels correction of error in at least equal breadth as the platform upon which the falsehood was made. If a falsehood is made during a speech, a new speech in similar venue must spend equal or greater effort to correct than that of the original falsehood.

Do you disagree that an intentional lie that can be shown to be an intentional lie for the specific purpose of manipulating the outcome of an election should hold legal consequence? Alternatively, are you then saying that politicians should never be held accountable for anything they ever promise, claim, or say?

If Trump promised a border wall that he would ask for 20 billion dollars of tax-payer money to fund, would as many people have supported him? Would he have won the electoral college with that platform? We now know for a fact that Trump knew for a fact that under no circumstance would Mexico pay.. explicitly told to him, on a recorded phone line, by Mexico's president himself... yet he continued. You support protecting that type of 'speech'?

The word "illegal" means something is a crime. If you want to enable citizens to sue politicians for their speech you are searching for the word "tort".

Traditionally in liberal democracies politicians are held accountable by voters. Not truth squads. That's what they do in totalitarian governments.

Trump's claim that he would get Mexico to pay for a wall is what is known as a "campaign promise". I suspect few politicians ever would escape jail if not carrying out campaign promises was a crime. Trump would be one if them at this point because a) his term is not over so he can't be prosecuted for not doing something in it, b) he's the current President. He sets the priorities for prosecution of federal crimes. He can pardon himself. If we empower Trump to go full on fascist with thought police, I think he'll have lots of other people to go after first.

Didn't Obama promise to close Gitmo?

Usually when people clamor for fascist powers we say things like "your guy will not always be President, is this a power you want a President XYZ to have"?

So it's odd to want to increase the police state powers when the current President is literally Hitler.

I guess I'm still allowed to say that without being sent to jail.

 

[SLD]

Ignoring for the moment the Supreme Court has found that false speech is protected speech, what exactly are you proposing?

You want Trump to appoint a Truth Commission to prosecute the purveyors of fake news?

Non-commercial false speech is protected speech.

Commercial false speech is generally considered fraud.

All we need to do is consider political speech a form of commercial speech.

This. This is well said, and represents what I was trying to get at.

No. Commercial false speech will knot result in a criminal prosecution. It might, MIGHT, get you sued in a court of law, but only by the individual who reasonably relied on your speech, and unless you actually lost money, you can not recover.

The problem with your premise is that you have no way to determine intent. As such the law you are proposing would have severe chilling effects on all speech. Imagine what would happen if Trump, using all of his powers came after CNN for libel as he has proposed. If he were able to even seriously threaten them, regardless of their intent or the truth, it would shut up journalists and other critics of politicians across the country and across the political spectrum. No one would dare criticize a politician for fear of getting sued.

Your second issue isn’t a real issue. You can’t give politicians a gift, absent a personal relationship it already is illegal. What happens and is legal are PAC's. Free speech means I can form a PAC that will buy ads to support or oppose a candidate. Business doesn’t need to buy politicians. It just talks about its PAC activity to them, and they fall in line. Public funding of elections isn’t going to stop that.

SLD

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This. This is well said, and represents what I was trying to get at.

No. Commercial false speech will knot result in a criminal prosecution. It might, MIGHT, get you sued in a court of law, but only by the individual who reasonably relied on your speech, and unless you actually lost money, you can not recover.

The problem with your premise is that you have no way to determine intent. As such the law you are proposing would have severe chilling effects on all speech. Imagine what would happen if Trump, using all of his powers came after CNN for libel as he has proposed. If he were able to even seriously threaten them, regardless of their intent or the truth, it would shut up journalists and other critics of politicians across the country and across the political spectrum. No one would dare criticize a politician for fear of getting sued.

Your second issue isn’t a real issue. You can’t give politicians a gift, absent a personal relationship it already is illegal. What happens and is legal are PAC's. Free speech means I can form a PAC that will buy ads to support or oppose a candidate. Business doesn’t need to buy politicians. It just talks about its PAC activity to them, and they fall in line. Public funding of elections isn’t going to stop that.

SLD

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

 

[SLD]

This. This is well said, and represents what I was trying to get at.

No. Commercial false speech will knot result in a criminal prosecution. It might, MIGHT, get you sued in a court of law, but only by the individual who reasonably relied on your speech, and unless you actually lost money, you can not recover.

The problem with your premise is that you have no way to determine intent. As such the law you are proposing would have severe chilling effects on all speech. Imagine what would happen if Trump, using all of his powers came after CNN for libel as he has proposed. If he were able to even seriously threaten them, regardless of their intent or the truth, it would shut up journalists and other critics of politicians across the country and across the political spectrum. No one would dare criticize a politician for fear of getting sued.

Your second issue isn’t a real issue. You can’t give politicians a gift, absent a personal relationship it already is illegal. What happens and is legal are PAC's. Free speech means I can form a PAC that will buy ads to support or oppose a candidate. Business doesn’t need to buy politicians. It just talks about its PAC activity to them, and they fall in line. Public funding of elections isn’t going to stop that.

SLD

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

There’s no contractual relationship. The relationship between their damages and Trump's lies is too nebulous. Plus they weren’t being reasonable if they relied on him. Kinda like believing Joe Isuzu.

 

[Trausti]

This. This is well said, and represents what I was trying to get at.

No. Commercial false speech will knot result in a criminal prosecution. It might, MIGHT, get you sued in a court of law, but only by the individual who reasonably relied on your speech, and unless you actually lost money, you can not recover.

The problem with your premise is that you have no way to determine intent. As such the law you are proposing would have severe chilling effects on all speech. Imagine what would happen if Trump, using all of his powers came after CNN for libel as he has proposed. If he were able to even seriously threaten them, regardless of their intent or the truth, it would shut up journalists and other critics of politicians across the country and across the political spectrum. No one would dare criticize a politician for fear of getting sued.

Your second issue isn’t a real issue. You can’t give politicians a gift, absent a personal relationship it already is illegal. What happens and is legal are PAC's. Free speech means I can form a PAC that will buy ads to support or oppose a candidate. Business doesn’t need to buy politicians. It just talks about its PAC activity to them, and they fall in line. Public funding of elections isn’t going to stop that.

SLD

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

Think of all the damages Obama would owe for his falsehoods about the ACA.

 

[dismal]

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

Think of all the damages Obama would owe for his falsehoods about the ACA.

I figure he owes me $7000 or so. Per year. For the amount my insurance went up plus the $2500 he said it would go down but didn't. If he wants to settle I'll take $30,000. For another $10,000 I'll also waive future claims against him for saying he was going to stop the rise of the oceans.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

Think of all the damages Obama would owe for his falsehoods about the ACA.

An error is not fraud.

 

[beero1000]

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

Think of all the damages Obama would owe for his falsehoods about the ACA.

An error is not fraud.

But if you take away their stupid strawman tu quoques, they will have nothing left.

 

[dismal]

Wtf? It's almost as if people here are principleless partisan hacks.

If Obama promises my insurance premiums are going down $2500 (and they go up) how is that different than a corporation promising their weight loss supplement will cause me to lose 5 pounds when the reality if their customers tend to gain 10 lbs in trials?

 

[Malintent]

Wtf? It's almost as if people here are principleless partisan hacks.

If Obama promises my insurance premiums are going down $2500 (and they go up) how is that different than a corporation promising their weight loss supplement will cause me to lose 5 pounds when the reality if their customers tend to gain 10 lbs in trials?

Great question. glad you asked. Since I happen to work for one of the largest nutritional supplement companies in the US I have a lot of insight on that topic. "Claims" made by any manufacturer of products that are regulated by the FDA (and despite the BS the NY AG claims - there ARE extensive regulations, just like for pharmaceuticals) are required, by law, to be supported by defensible research and testing. A company cannot say they will help you lose 10 lbs unless they have performed scientific studies that support the claim.

Likewise, if there is reson to make a political claim, then it can be made, even if it turns out to no have worked out as intended, and reasonably predicted.

It was reasonable for Obama to have said he intends to close Guantanamo, as one example. He attempted to do so. No one told him it was impossible (unlike Trump's wall claim). The reason Guantanamo was not closed was because the partisan opposition team against Obama (the GoP) refused to pass the associated bills needed to accomplish it. It was doable and reasonable, and desired... but opposed. Not a lie, not a promise broken, an unfortunate circumstance brought on by another branch of government.

What I propose to be "illegal" is not correcting "errors" made in speech. Not proposing that the error in speech itself would be illegal. Opposition is conveniently (to their position of "give me unlimited and unchecked power) ignoring that and creating a "thought police" strawman. It would be a "contempt of court" charge, as it would be within a legal venue that it is decided what needs to be corrected, based on objective facts alone.

 

[Malintent]

People who relied on his lies and voted for him then got screwed (say, the coal miners) certainly have damages.

Think of all the damages Obama would owe for his falsehoods about the ACA.

An error is not fraud.

An error made intentionally, to distort known facts, for the purpose of manipulating the voting public, is and should be Fraud in the highest degree imaginable.

 

[Malintent]

Do you never misspeak? There is a difference between misspeaking (due to being tired or whatever else) and deliberately spreading false information.

What's the difference to the audience? (Aka the victim)

In my proposition, the only difference would be the time and effort needed to correct. using the "57 states" example, since it was not used by Obama beyond that one speech, not used to attempt to give a false impression, but was simply a mistake. If it took him 3 seconds to say it, then he needs to spend another 3 seconds correcting it... "sorry, I misspoke, I meant to say 47... boy am I tired".. and actually, that is pretty much what he did during the interview I quoted from the Snopes article earlier.

If Obama had doubled down on his claim, and tried to weasel out of the mistake, claiming there are 57 sates, or that he did not say what was recorded as being said, etc... then this law I propose would kick in and a committee would present to court the facts and the court would decide of a correction is ORDERED.

Also, no criminal law ever made or ever would be made in the future would ever apply retroactively. You can't pass a law and then go arrest people that had engaged in the now illegal activity in the past. Therefore, adoption of this would (hopefully) do the intended - stop the lies... the intent is to STOP THE LIES... not lock up everyone possible. So, talking about how some person would be in jail for saying X is stupid... if the law was in place, he would not have said X. And that is the whole point.

 

[dismal]

Wtf? It's almost as if people here are principleless partisan hacks.

If Obama promises my insurance premiums are going down $2500 (and they go up) how is that different than a corporation promising their weight loss supplement will cause me to lose 5 pounds when the reality if their customers tend to gain 10 lbs in trials?

Great question. glad you asked. Since I happen to work for one of the largest nutritional supplement companies in the US I have a lot of insight on that topic. "Claims" made by any manufacturer of products that are regulated by the FDA (and despite the BS the NY AG claims - there ARE extensive regulations, just like for pharmaceuticals) are required, by law, to be supported by defensible research and testing. A company cannot say they will help you lose 10 lbs unless they have performed scientific studies that support the claim.

Likewise, if there is reson to make a political claim, then it can be made, even if it turns out to no have worked out as intended, and reasonably predicted.

It was reasonable for Obama to have said he intends to close Guantanamo, as one example. He attempted to do so. No one told him it was impossible (unlike Trump's wall claim). The reason Guantanamo was not closed was because the partisan opposition team against Obama (the GoP) refused to pass the associated bills needed to accomplish it. It was doable and reasonable, and desired... but opposed. Not a lie, not a promise broken, an unfortunate circumstance brought on by another branch of government.

What I propose to be "illegal" is not correcting "errors" made in speech. Not proposing that the error in speech itself would be illegal. Opposition is conveniently (to their position of "give me unlimited and unchecked power) ignoring that and creating a "thought police" strawman. It would be a "contempt of court" charge, as it would be within a legal venue that it is decided what needs to be corrected, based on objective facts alone.

All this parsing and deflecting to defend Obama's false statements almost makes it sound like you don't actually care about "truth" at all.

Fact: Obama said health insurance premiums for a typical family would go down $2500
Fact: they didn't

I can't imagine why your crusade for truth would ignore this outrage. Particularly since it's far more easy to quantify how much it has harmed me than, say, Trump not building a wall and getting Mexico to pay for it.

Here he is doubling, tripling, quadrupling, quintupling, etc, etc down on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o65vMUk5so