Waste, fraud, abuse… and the politics of power

By: Rev. Earle Fisher

Outlets: Tennessee Lookout

Published: July 16, 2026

Words: 895

Last Updated: 5 days, 18 hours ago

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One of the oldest tricks in politics is knowing when to use a number and when to use a percentage.

If you want something to sound enormous, you use the raw number. If you want it to sound insignificant, you use the percentage. Politicians, statisticians and public relations strategists know this. Every citizen should understand it because statistics, by themselves, are neither objective nor dishonest. They are rhetorical. They frame the story before the …

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