Trump's Truthiness

Nine out of Ten Americans know...

President Trump’s truthiness makes history as betting site pays out bigly

Before the president’s address on border security Tuesday night, Bookmaker.eu put the over/under on the number of lies he’d spew at 3.5. For bettors, it was a no-brainer, as hundreds of thousands of dollars loaded up on the over.
...
Lester explained that no matter how much he adjusted the odds, hardly anybody seemed interested in taking the under. Smart move, considering the Washington Post found that there were at least six false statements during the address.

“We knew the President would be prone to exaggeration to support his need for Democratic support to fund his wall,” Lester said. “However, we hoped the 8-minute time constraint coupled with the unlikelihood of the President going off-script would keep the total number of false statements low.”

Trump and the Brexiters must own the mess they lied us into (Guardian)

Finally, their cheap rhetoric and empty promises are butting up against hard realities

>1 2wonderY: >2 John5918: Lol

Was it 300? 1000? More than 1000? Inflation in the time of Trump.

Trump’s tweet about “hamberders” illustrates just how effortlessly he lies

This little stretching of the truth could be posted in a few threads, but I think it belongs here:

Discussing the partial government shutdown, Trump said Americans "want to see what we're doing, like today we lowered prescription drug prices, first time in 50 years," according to a White House pool report.

Trump appeared to be referring to a recent claim by the White House Council of Economic Advisers that prescription drug prices fell last year.

However, as STAT pointed out in a recent fact check, the report from which that claim was gleaned said "growth in relative drug prices has slowed since January 2017," not that there was an overall decrease in prices.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/24/688168774/trump-seeks-actio...

Trump Lied About Getting Special Permission From El Paso Fire Dept, Says Fire Dept

President Donald Trump told the crowd at his rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday that he got special permission from the El Paso Fire Department to let 10,000 people inside the El Paso County Coliseum.

El Paso Fire Department spokesman Enrique D. Aguilar told The El Paso Times that not only did the fire department not give Trump special permission, but the Coliseum had about 6,500 people in it during the president’s rally. Aguilar says that number was at capacity and well within its standard allowance.

Trump’s Habit of Inflating Trade Deficits
Lori Robertson | February 22, 2019

When asked whether he would impose tariffs on cars imported from the European Union, President Donald Trump, as he regularly does, used an inflated figure for the trade balance between the U.S. and the EU...

Trump, for years, has been using the goods-only figures for the U.S. trade deficit, instead of the goods-and-services deficit, to justify his trade policies...

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/02/trumps-habit-of-inflating-trade-deficits/

Joshua A. Geltzer | @jgeltzer | 2:35 PM - 5 Mar 2019:
Remember when @realDonaldTrump tweeted on Xmas Eve that he "just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall"? (That's a long contract, by the way!) A govt lawyer said in court last week "there is no such contract." @aaron_leib:

No Evidence Trump's Wall Contract Exists, Gov't Atty Says
Law360, Boston (February 27, 2019, 4:42 PM EST)
https://www.law360.com/articles/1133285

Report: Trump Is a Habitual Cheater at Golf

New book by Rick Reilly, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.
…
(Samuel) Jackson, who aired Trump’s golf habits during the campaign, told Reilly that “he clearly saw Trump hook a ball into a lake … and his caddy told him he found it!” LGPA pro Suzann Pettersen says that Trump must collude with his caddy ahead of time, for “no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there.” The president also allegedly tampers with the game of others in his party: former ESPN football announcer Mike Tirico recalled that Trump’s caddy told him that Trump took a ball Tirico hit onto the putting green and threw it 50 feet away into a bunker.

Daniel Secia @dsec1 | 5:31 AM - 2 Apr 2019
He's a genius, but you can't see his grades;
he's a billionaire, but you can't see his taxes;
he's innocent, but you can't see the report;
he's got a great healthcare plan, but you can't see it till after the election.
I'm noticing a pattern here.

It's the emperor in his new clothes every day!

>9 2wonderY: continued

In an extract from his book on Donald Trump and golf, Rick Reilly explains why the president’s game can tell us more about him than a roomful of psychologists

Final score on the “18 club championships”: Lies 16, Incompletes 2, Confirms 0. By this time, Trump’s nose has grown so long he could putt with it.

The whole thing bugged me so much I started to itch. I wasn’t offended as a voter. I was offended as a golfer.

Is there any detail that Trump does not lie about eventually?

Trump wrongly claims his dad was born in Germany — for the third time

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/02/trump-wrongly-claims-his-dad-...

Most surprisingly he had a perceived reason for the lie each time. I mean, other than somehow promoting his own grandiosity, which is usually the reason. It disturbs me that with so many lies out there we might now have to seek to think somewhat like him to determine the reasons for many of them.

I don't care what the White House says. I saw the clip (with no explanations or expectations) and clearly heard him say "oranges" meaning "origins", not once but several times.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/833032/white-house-bafflingly-claims-trump-actual...

Yes, though anybody can make a slip of the tongue and say something that sounds off or weird, the repetition here suggests a larger disconnect, which has nothing to do with ideology.

President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims
Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly | April 29, 2019

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.

As of April 27, including the president’s rally in Green Bay, Wis., the tally in our database stands at 10,111 claims in 828 days...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/29/president-trump-has-made-more...

Fact check: Trump's Orlando rally featured more than 15 false claims over 76 minutes
Daniel Dale | June 19, 2019

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump kicked off his formal reelection campaign Tuesday night with a rally in Orlando. His 76-minute speech featured more than 15 false statements, many of them ones that he's repeated frequently in the past...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/19/politics/fact-check-trump-orlando-rally/index.htm...

ETA_______________________________________________________________

Fact-Checking Trump’s Orlando Rally: Russia, the Wall and Tax Cuts
Linda Qiu | June 18, 2019

President Trump officially began his campaign for re-election on Tuesday at a rally in Orlando, Fla., touching on themes and promoting accomplishments that are likely to be staples of his appearances from now until Election Day. Here’s a fact-check of his remarks.

Russia
“Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump.” This is misleading....

“In September, just before the election, the F.B.I. told President Obama about possible Russian interference and he did nothing because he thought that Hillary Clinton, crooked Hillary was going to win that’s why he did nothing. He did nothing.” False...

The wall
“We are building the wall. We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year.” This is exaggerated....

The economy
We enacted “the biggest tax cut in history.” False...

“We are taking billions and billions of dollars in and — remember this, and you know it as well as I do — we have never taken in 10 cents from China. We would lose $500 billion a year with China.” False...

“Since the election, we have created six million new jobs. Nobody thought that would be possible. They said it wouldn’t be possible.” This is exaggerated...

“We have lifted more than six million Americans off of food stamps.” True...

“The unemployment rate is the lowest rate it’s been in over 51 years. Think of that. And as I said before about African-American, I now say also about Hispanic-American and Asian-American unemployment have reached the lowest rates in the history of our country” True...

The military and veterans
“V.A. choice for the veterans. They’ve been trying to get that passed also for about 44 years.” This is misleading. ...

“We are rebuilding the U.S. armed forces with $700 billion last year and $716 billion this year, far more than ever before.” False...

We are “starting to remove a lot of troops” from the Middle East. This is misleading. ...

Health care
Terminally ill patients would “go all over the world looking for a cure. Because the F.D.A. would not approve what we call Right to Try. What a beautiful name, right to try. After 44 years, I got it approved.” This is misleading. ...

“For the first time in half a century, we’ve reduced the price of prescription drugs.” This is misleading....

Energy and Environment
“We’ve ended the last administration’s cruel and heartless war on American energy. What they were doing to our energy should never be forgotten. The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.” This is misleading. ...

“We have among the cleanest and sharpest — crystal clean, you’ve heard me say it, I want it crystal clean — air and water anywhere on Earth.” This is exaggerated...

On Trump's Bullshit

It is not merely that Trump is ignorant of issues about which one expects the president of the United States to be at least somewhat literate—though that is clearly the case. By promising a plan in four weeks, or baiting Bay Area liberals, Trump is attempting to hide his ignorance in the face of questions he does not understand.
…
Another of Trump’s tells for bullshitting is the promise of a forthcoming plan in some short, defined period. In 2017, Axios compiled a list of Trump promising to do things in two weeks’ time, often in response to questions for which he was unprepared.
…
Harry Frankfurt explains why being able to label this behavior is more than idle taxonomy:

"Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

Of course, Trump is both the liar and the bullshitter, defying this binary. His lies have garnered a great deal of attention, even though voters are accustomed to the idea that politicians are dishonest, because of their brazenness and frequency. If Frankfurt is right, however, the greater peril comes not from Trump’s lies. His bullshit is the bigger enemy of the truth.

Fact Checker Analysis
President Trump accuses Rep. Omar of supporting al-Qaeda
Salvador Rizzo | July 17, 2019

With no evidence, Trump accused a Muslim member of Congress of being an al Qaeda supporter. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

...Four Pinocchios (= whopper)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/07/about-fact-checker/

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Extra protection sought for certain lawmakers after Trump's comments about 'squad'
Chad Pergram, Frank Miles | 7/16/2019

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., was seeking extra protection for members of Congress on Monday after President Trump’s tweets and remarks about the progressive “squad.”

...In the letter for House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger, Thompson argued that the Capitol Police Board should meet to “analyze the current threat environment and set thresholds for enhanced safety of Members.”

Thompson asked for a meeting within 48 hours and a classified readout of the meeting.

The letter was addressed to Stenger because he has headed the Capitol Police Board this year.

...Thompson said security officials should set “thresholds for enhanced security for certain targeted Members, and evaluate threat streams with law enforcement partners in Member districts. Being proactive in this instance is vital to the safety of not only these targeted Members, but all Members of Congress.”...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-squad-tweets-extra-protection-house-exclu...

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Extra Security Requested for Members of Congress After Trump’s Attacks on Omar, Allies: Report
Zachary Stieber | July 16, 2019

...The letter was not released publicly...

https://www.theepochtimes.com/extra-security-requested-for-members-of-congress-a...

Who yah gonna believe?

Trump says Modi asked for US mediation on Kashmir, India denies
7/22/2019

The US president, in meeting with Pakistan PM Imran Khan, says Narendra Modi asked for mediation, a claim India rejects.

US President Donald Trump has said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him to mediate on the decades-long Kashmir dispute with Pakistan, a claim rejected by New Delhi.

"He actually said, 'Would you like to be a mediator or arbitrator?' I said, 'Where?' He said, 'Kashmir.' Because this has been going on for many, many years," Trump said at the White House, where he was hosting Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday.

"If I can help, I would love to be a mediator," the US president said, a statement that signalled a shift in long-standing US policy that the Kashmir issue must be solved bilaterally.

In response, Khan, who is on his first trip to the US, told Trump he will have "the prayers a billion people in the Indian subcontinent" if he is able to resolve the Kashmir issue...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/trump-offers-mediate-india-pakistan-kashm...

__________________________________________________

Raveesh Kumar @MEAIndia (Official Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, India) | 2:28 PM · Jul 22, 2019

We have seen @POTUS's remarks to the press that he is ready to mediate, if requested by India & Pakistan, on Kashmir issue. No such request has been made by PM @narendramodi to US President. It has been India's consistent position...1/2

...that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are discussed only bilaterally. Any engagement with Pakistan would require an end to cross border terrorism. The Shimla Agreement & the Lahore Declaration provide the basis to resolve all issues between India & Pakistan bilaterally.2/2

Trump made 61 false claims last week
Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam | July 23, 2019

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/politics/weekly-trump-fact-check-july-2019-61-fal...

You'll never believe what Donald Trump just said about 9/11

... on Monday morning, in a speech to first responders and others impacted by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he took his fantastical memory of himself to new and not-at-all-appropriate heights.

"I was down there also, but I'm not considering myself a first responder," Trump said. "But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you."

… And according to a Newsday report on September 14, (2001) Trump had been spotted at Ground Zero the previous day:

"The sight of Donald Trump, every hair in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit, pressed white shirt and red tie, walking into the plaza with his cellular phone to his ear.

"'No, no. The building's gone,' he says into the phone."

Another broken promise: Job creation under Trump trails Obama by 800,000
Igor Derysh | July 9, 2019

There's no way to make Trump's job record look good — and economists think he's driving the economy into recession

...During the first 29 full months that Trump has been in office, from February 2017 through June 2019, the economy created 5.61 million jobs, or about 194,000 per month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During Obama’s last 29 full months, from September 2014 to January 2017, the economy added 6.42 million new jobs, or about 221,000 per month.

Altogether, job growth under Trump is about 810,000 jobs short of what it was under Obama during the final part of his presidency.

...numerous trends suggest that, if anything, his policies are hurting the economy

...manufacturing had fallen to its lowest point since the Great Recession

...farmers in the Midwest are filing for bankruptcy at record rates

...51 coal plants have closed and eight coal companies have filed for bankruptcy.

...Even banks...are getting nervous.

...According to a Duke University survey, nearly 70 percent of American corporate CFOs now expect a recession to hit by the end of Trump’s first term.

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/09/another-broken-promise-job-creation-under-trump...

ETA:
"Under Obama the unemployment rate goes from 10 to 5.
Trump comes along and sees it go from 5 to 4.
And he's like the rooster in the morning that thinks he's the one that made the sun come up."
— @PeteButtigieg

"Trump's inability to mouth appropriate platitudes and to lie convincingly has inadvertently revealed a lot about the GOP coalition and destroyed a lot of its most useful pretenses, e.g., crime, not race, is the concern, or mental health is the culprit of gun violence. This myth-busting is a 'progress' of a sort, which the GOP will come to regret after Trump is gone and no one knows what it stands for besides racism and upper income tax cuts. Aligning with Trump is a faustian bargain, and the bill will come due. But by demolishing useful, deflective GOP myths, Trump is accelerating that reckoning."

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Robert E Kelly @Robert_E_Kelly (Republican-leaning international security expert) | 1:37 AM · Aug 8, 2019:
https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly

The last few weeks of the Trump Show have been more awful than usual but also inadvertently revelatory @ Trump's coalition.If you've paid attention, you've suspected this stuff for a long time,but bc T says the quiet parts out loud,a lot of GOP masks have definitively dropped: /1

1. Gun rights advocates now clearly think that routine massacres are an acceptable price to pay for access to long guns. The president's teleprompter speech was so forced & hackneyed, & his desperation to blame anything - video games, mental health, the culture, hate - except /2

easy gun access, was so transparent, that no one serious will ever buy that stuff again. That doesn't mean gun control will happen - Fox and empty-state senators will see to that - but at least the 'debate' is over. The insincerity of these arguments is now undeniable. The NRA /3

& co. now clearly prioritize gun ownership over public safety, and they will say anything to defend a capacious reading of the 2A.

2. A lot of Trump voters are racist. Again, this wasn't too hard to figure out before; the tea party pretty clearly wasn't motivated by limited /4

government. But Trump has ripped the mask off, just as he did with his blatantly fatuous speech on the shootings. Journalists have danced around calling the president racist for 2 years and have hedged for decades on racism as a motivation despite stuff like Willy Horton and /5

the Southern strategy. Those days are now over. 'Economic anxiety' is the standard talking point to deflect this. That is impossible to invoke after 'send her back' caused no drop in Trump's approval rating. It is apparent now that Trump wants the GOP to be like theNat'l Front /6

3. Evangelicals couldn't care less about personal virtue. Here's another Trump 'silver lining': Trump's personal behavior is so appalling - spiteful, mean-spirited, selfish, adulterous - that evangelical support for him auto-demolishes any ethical/virtue argument they make. We /7

never need to take moralistic arguments from religious conservatives seriously again. They're just another interest group now, with no principled belief in elevating our debased politics. I find this sell-out the most disappointing. There is something noble in the notion that /8

politicians should strive for personal virtue. But evangelicals sold their soul to Trump for judges & access.

4. It's all about the tax-cuts and judges. Trump is woefully unfit for the office. Lots of retired GOP officials, like Boehner and Ryan, pretty clearly see that. But /9

they swallowed all the racism, misogyny, narcissism, norm-busting,& so on just for that juicy 2017 tax cut to their donors. Again,you probably suspected plutocracy before. W's 2001 & 2003 tax cuts were upwardly redistributive too. But Trump is so awful that the Congressional /10

GOP's willingness to stand with him anyway has starkly revealed its donor class preferences.

5. Budgetary restraint is for Democratic presidents only. Trump's keynesianism, exploding deficits, & bullying of the Fed for low interest rates to help him get re-elected are now /11

so obvious as to be undeniable. Again, you kind of already knew this, but maybe the tea party was serious and Romney and Ryan really did think we were becoming Greece. Well that story is gone now too. Trump deficit spends with such abandon, that this GOP plank is revealed as /12

insincere also. Kinda makes you wonder what's left?

Trump is woefully unfit & a terrible president, but his inability to lie convincingly is weirdly useful, ideologically at least. Yes, Trump lies and flim-flams all the time, but he when he does, he almost always signals his /13

insincerity via his body language. He says the right stuff for a moment - at Charlottesville or after the shootings - but in such a fake, reading-from-the-teleprompter manner that you can easily decipher his true beliefs. This inability to mouth appropriate platitudes, to lie /14

convincingly, has inadvertently revealed a lot about the GOP coalition and destroyed a lot of its most useful pretenses, e.g., crime, not race, is the concern, or mental health is the culprit of gun violence. This myth-busting is a 'progress' of a sort, which the GOP will /15

come to regret after Trump is gone and no one knows what it stands for besides racism and upper income tax cuts. Aligning with Trump is a faustian bargain, and the bill will come due. But by demolishing useful, deflective GOP myths, Trump is accelerating that reckoning. END

My theory to add to the plethora of conspiracies that someone like the Clintons or Prince Andrew managed to get the suicide watch lifted. How about this? Our beloved orangehead used one of his many minions in the Justice Dept. to do it for him. Why? Because of all the papers they removed from Epstein's house which may include incriminating evidence of himself. Lucky he got Barr in when he did, huh?

>26 mamzel:

Since you've mentioned conspiracy theories and the British royal family in the same sentence, have a look at this little clip from the British comedians Mitchell and Webb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4meFC1ee7Q&t=7s

I think a lot of those old styled republicans are still trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Reagan and McCain are dead and not only literally. In about every way possible. Their party was hijacked by the flag waving tea partiers who were in turned kidnapped from the Koch brothers (who bankrolled that movement) by dipshit Trump. People like Bill Kristol and George Will and Joe Scarborough and John Kasich all of a sudden found that their political party was no longer their political party--that it was now something other--kind a zombie army for hire for any demagogic asshole who comes down the pike and along came the Donald.

I'm not here to sing hosannas for Obama. I though he was going to be great in 2008 and he turned out a major disappointment--a center/right corporatist IMO but this tea party movement that came about in the wake of his presidency was fueled by irrationality and racism.

I'll add this little bit. Most of the republican party are fine with the Donald using the oval office as his own personal pulpit to spread his bullshit and lies and I'm not a religious personal at all but this guy kind of fits the description of the anti-christ.

>27 John5918: These conspiracy generators keep crawling out the the mud. It's so prevalent that one can't keep them straight from those who parody them. I can't have conversations with my son any more because of the crap he reads on the internet. He never misses an opportunity to dismiss MSNBC, CNN, NYT, and even PBS and BBC for slanted reporting. (Which I admit but the higher a mountain rises the steeply slanted all sides get.)

>29 mamzel:

I don't get the mountain metaphor. However, I too dismiss those outlets, or rather, their liberal, rah-rah-capitalism, centre/centre-right perspective. They desperately want it to be 1992 still, and it's not. They are bullshitters as much as Fox and other fachos. Slightly more presentable to mum & dad, don't slur their words and don't drag their knuckles on the ground so much.

But in effect as/almost as useless in improving our lot as the fachos.

>30 LolaWalser: I don't get the mountain metaphor.

Something about Sisyphus trying to push an ever-shrinking nugget of truth up an ever-rising mountain of bullshit?

I am, though, interested to know — if you're willing to share — what news sources you do follow.

>31 librorumamans:

I can't say I follow any sources in the sense that people of some definite political bent used to ("my paper from cradle to grave"). I scan the headlines on dozens of large national sites (not necessarily all of them on the same day) primarily to get a sense of "what happened", and also--only a little less important--to know what other people would have seen. But I have to add that as I have no stomach for absorbing the facho press more than is inevitable via its echoes, what I see other people seeing, as far as the POV goes, is mostly liberal pap (US, Canada, UK...), and somewhat more "real" left in Europe (especially by subscription to newslists by small leftist orgs).

Democracy Now is the only American news site I really like and respect: https://www.democracynow.org/

It seems to me that CNN but particularly MSNBC want to sell us on Joe Biden and maybe he's a nice guy to have a beer with but his past is replete with some pretty ugly skeletons nonetheless and he wants to take us back to that past again where nobody's going to worry about climate change and where we're suppose to take for granted that the democratic version of trickle down economics is more benign than the republican version. I really don't understand how or why he has so much support among the black community--particularly older black voters. The crime bill that he fought tooth and nail for IMO should make him a non-starter.

The newer version of the democratic party--the Omar's and the AOC's is a lot more to my taste. They have a unifying message for all people and aren't bought up by the wealthy or special interests. Green New Deal, Medicare for all and pro labor.

Biden is absolutely the media favorite and it's a lot to overcome. Yet again: Sanders should throw his lot in behind Warren.

>32 LolaWalser:

Thank you, Lola!

Nearly Half of Donald Trump's Twitter Followers Are Fake Accounts and Bots
Ryan Bort | 5/30/17

Anyone can amass an exorbitant number of Twitter followers. You don't even have to be famous. All you have to do is pay for them.

...Trump currently has 31 million followers and, sure enough, if you browse through them you will find an unusual number of tweet-less, picture-less accounts that joined the service in May 2017. If you're still curious, you can enter Trump's handle, @realDonaldTrump, into Twitter Audit, a service that assesses the authenticity of one's followers, and find that only 51 percent of Trump's are real.

This isn't the first time someone has pointed out that a good portion of Trump's Twitter following is fake, but what's interesting is that its fakeness seems to be increasing. In January, journalist Yashar Ali ran an audit on Trump's Twitter account and found that 68 percent of his then-20 million followers were real. Now he's at 30 million followers, but only 51 percent are real, which means of 10 million followers Trump has gained since January (Jan-May 2017), about 8.3 million are fake.

...it can't sit well with the president that there are currently 31 accounts with more followers than his. One of those accounts is that of Barack Obama, which boasts a whopping 89 million followers, good for third-most in the world behind Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.

In case you're wondering, 79 percent of Obama's followers are real.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-twitter-followers-fake-617873

Trumpo is forever going on about his supporters being "incredible". Who knew that was literally true!

At this point, why would ANYONE believe this man??

Trump made up those 'high-level' Chinese trade-talk calls to boost markets, aides admit
August 29, 2019

On Monday morning, President Trump told reporters in Biarritz, France, that "China called last night" and said they want to resume trade talks, later elaborating that two "high-level" Chinese officials had called to try and restart stalled negotiations. He turned to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for backup, and Mnuchin said there had been "communication," later amending it to "communications."

Well, "aides privately conceded the phone calls Trump described didn't happen the way he said they did," CNN reported Wednesday. "Instead, two officials said Trump was eager to project optimism that might boost markets, and conflated comments from China's vice premier with direct communication from the Chinese."...

https://theweek.com/speedreads/861872/trump-made-highlevel-chinese-tradetalk-cal...

Donald Trump's Hurricane Dorian Map Appears to Be Doctored With a Sharpie to Include Alabama

This is beyond belief. Even by this guy's standards for cheap lying, this is off the charts, across the floor, down the storm drain, into the river, and long gone off up the gulfstream.

Amazing, isn't it?

>39 2wonderY:

Fake Weather!!!

I knew it — another leftie plot.

>39 2wonderY: One of the articles I read on this had Trump "justifying" his claim using a map that was days old with just the various possible storm track lines on it. Some crossed over a small south eastern corner of Alabama.

Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto (CNN) | 4:37 PM · Sep 10, 2019L
New CNN POLL:

Do You Trust Most of What You Hear
From the White House?

Yes 28%

No 71%

When truth trumped propaganda in wartime (BBC)

An interesting article which suggests that, in Britain in the days of World War II, telling the truth actually worked better than propaganda. Whether modern governments can be convinced to follow the same path is a different question.

Mia Farrow @MiaFarrow | 2:00 PM · Sep 16, 2019:

Saudi Arabia lies.
Trump lies.
Also Wm Barr lies.
Pompeo lies.
The White House lies.
Press Sec lies.
Pence lies.
Mnuchin lies.
Wilbur Ross lies.
Mattis is gone.
They ALL LIE.
So in a crisis- or at any time- how can we believe anything they tell us

Fact check: From Iran pre-conditions to the weather in North Carolina, Trump made 87 false claims last week
Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam | September 18, 2019

The most revealing false claims: Victory in North Carolina

Here's this week's full list:
Foreign affairs
The Iraq War
NATO spending
Previous presidents and NATO
Venezuela's wealth
Meeting with Iran (the most egregious false claim)
Payments to Iran (two claims)
The war in Afghanistan

Democrats
The Green New Deal
Democrats and energy
A quote from Democratic Rep. Al Green
Democrats and borders (three claims)
Democrats and illegal immigration
Democrat Dan McCready and borders
Dan McCready and sanctuary cities

Hurricanes and weather
Hurricane Dorian and Alabama
Weather in Fayetteville (the most absurd false claim)

Glasgow Prestwick Airport

Wind power and air quality
The reliability of wind
Where wind turbines are made
Air quality

Special elections
Polls in the North Carolina 9th District
Polls in the North Carolina 3rd District

Accomplishments and popularity
Right to Try laws
VA Accountability
Manufacturing jobs, part 1
Manufacturing jobs, part 2
Republican approval
Popularity among African Americans
Pete Buttigieg and Texas polls
Remains from North Korea
Judicial vacancies
Judicial appointments
The decline in overdose deaths (three claims)
Before Right to Try
Veterans Choice
Trade
USMCA and unions
The USMCA and Canada
Trade deficit with China (four claims)
The history of tariffs on China
China's agricultural spending
China's economic performance
A quote from CNBC

Immigration
Migrants and court
Building the wall (five claims)
Immigration laws
Overdose deaths and the border

Economy
Inflation
Asian American unemployment
Women's unemployment (three claims)
Energy production (three claims)

The Mueller investigation
phony & fraudulent Witch Hunt

CNN's financial state

Voting fraud in California

The Washington Post
A Post article
Post/ABC polling, part 1
Post/ABC polling, part 2
Post/ABC polling, part 3

Ilhan Omar condemns Trump for spreading 'lies that put my life at risk' (Guardian)

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has accused Donald Trump of putting her life at risk after the president retweeted a post that falsely claimed she partied on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks...

This is relevant to various other threads on LT where some people claim that what you say has no physical impact. When people receive death threats as a result of careless (or more often deliberate) lies, that is dangerous. While the person making the threat might not intend to physically harm someone, it normalises violence, attempts to shut down the conversation, and experience has shown that there are heavily-armed disturbed young men out there who are being radicalised towards actual violence by these sort of lies and threats.

Peter Baker @peterbakernyt | 2:31 PM · Sep 25, 2019:
Trump says Europe hasn’t done enough to support Ukraine.
US aid from 2013-17: $1.3 billion plus $600 million in security assistance.
European Union aid since 2014: $16.5 billion.

Per master fact-checker @Lindaqiu

Trump’s Misleading Defense for Withholding Assistance to Ukraine
Linda Qiu | Sept. 24, 2019

The president, facing calls for impeachment over his pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rival, inaccurately accused European countries of not providing aid to Ukraine.

...Countries outside of Europe have assisted Ukraine as well, with Canada providing $785 million and Japan $468 million...

...Michael Emerson of the Center for European Studies, a research institute in Brussels...Asked whether Mr. Trump had a point about European contributions in comparison to the United States’ funding...suggested a reformulation: “U.S. assistance pales in comparison to that of the E.U.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/us/politics/trumps-misleading-defense-for-wit...

>48 margd: NPR makes that point as well as another that weakens Trump's other excuse.

Pentagon Letter Undercuts Trump Assertion On Delaying Aid To Ukraine Over Corruption

Earlier this week, President Trump cited concerns about corruption as his rationale for blocking security assistance to Ukraine. But in a letter sent to four congressional committees in May of this year and obtained by NPR, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood informed lawmakers that he "certified that the Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption and increasing accountability."

The certification was required by law for the release of $250 million in security assistance for Ukraine.

ProPublica got hands on some loan and tax documents for several of Trump's properties and asked experts to compare them. Surprise!

Never-Before-Seen Trump Tax Documents Show Major Inconsistencies

Trump’s claim the Saudis will pay ‘100 percent of the cost’
Glenn Kessler | Oct. 21, 2019

“You read where we’re sending some troops to Saudi Arabia. That’s true. Because we want to help Saudi Arabia. They have been a very good ally. They’ve agreed to pay for the cost of those troops. They’ve agreed to pay fully for the cost of everything we’re doing over there. . . . Saudi Arabia is paying for 100 percent of the cost, including the cost of our soldiers. And that negotiation took a very short time — like, maybe, about 35 seconds.”

— President Trump, remarks at the White House, Oct. 16

...After years of listening to Trump, we suspect that there may be a grain of truth here but that it’s highly exaggerated. It’s certainly fishy that no one in the administration appears willing to explain what, if anything, has been negotiated. And we certainly can’t accept it based on the president’s rhetoric, which has proven so wrong about his deals with Saudi Arabia in the past.

Based on the available evidence, we are going to label this with Three Pinocchios*. If more information is eventually forthcoming, we will update this fact check and possibly the Pinocchio rating as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/21/trumps-claim-saudis-will-pay-...

* Three Pinocchios
Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions. This gets into the realm of "mostly false." But it could include statements which are technically correct (such as based on official government data) but are so taken out of context as to be very misleading. The line between Two and Three can be bit fuzzy and we do not award half-Pinocchios. So we strive to explain the factors that tipped us toward a Three.

Michael McFaul @McFaul | 11:08 PM · Oct 21, 2019

Whenever you hear Trump use the the phrase, "people say" or "people are saying",
you know whatever comes next is completed invented.

Replies

@RPMMAS:
He also refers to himself as Sir in every made up story.

...

(etc. https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1186479509605769216 )

Aaron Rupar @atrupar | 4:57 PM · Oct 23, 2019:

TRUMP: "We're building a wall in Colorado. We're building a beautiful wall. A big one that really works."
😳

0:32 https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1187110831915450370

Trump More Than Doubles Jobs Figures From His Own Administration In ‘Fuzzy Math’ Boast
Mary Papenfuss | 11/02/2019

The Trump administration’s own Labor Department reported that a higher-than-expected 128,000 jobs were added to the U.S. in October, even as the nation’s jobless rate edged up to 3.6%.

But the numbers weren’t good enough for Trump. So he tweeted that the nation added a “blowout” 303,000 jobs.

...The White House...arbitrarily pumped up the numbers with 60,000 jobs that officials claimed were lost directly or indirectly to the General Motors strike. Then, for good measure, it added in jobs adjustments from previous months (though did not subtract any downward adjustments from earlier months). It also added in 20,000 temporarily hired Census workers who are no longer working.

“The statement makes little sense and is not tethered to any empirical reality,” Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at international accounting conglomerate RSM...

“The financial media should prepare for a lot more gas-lighting on the employment data next year when the Census Bureau is going to hire greater than 500,000 to conduct the decennial census,” Brusuelas warned. “Economists, like me, will always interpret the topline change in employment excluding the census, but given what I observed today, I do not expect that out of the White House.”...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jobs-report-inflation_n_5dbcd39be4b0...

The Donald's finding religion. First he named his new spiritual advisor. That would happen to be Paula White who believes in this thing called 'prosperity theology'. The idea behind that is God rewards good people with lots of money and the gooder you are the more God rewards you. It's a sign of his blessing---though OTOH other religious leaders consider that belief to be heresy. Basically I think it's a scumbag idea for those who screw others to bask complacently in the glow of being holier than thou.......not all that far apart from billionaires giving a scintilla of their wealth to charity and then suggesting they shouldn't have to pay their fair share of taxes because of all the good works they do for others.

Second we're having prayer sessions in the oval office--commented dryly on by Kellyanne's husband George:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/george-conway-donald-trump-hush-money-prayer-circle.h...

This guy (as in Donald) is so full of shit it's gone way past his eyeballs. You could drench him in buckets of perfume or industrial cleaner and still not get away from the stench. Phonies sure have a knack for finding each other.

>55 lriley: Paula White...

Donald Trump's Spiritual Adviser Paula White Suggests People Send Her Their January Salary or Face Consequences From God
Harriet Sinclair | 1/9/18

...Paula White, who heads up the president's evangelical advisory committee, suggested making a donation to her ministries to honor the religious principle of "first fruit," which she said is the idea that all firsts belong to God, including the first harvest and, apparently, the first month of your salary.

"Right now I want you to click on that button, and I want you to honor God with his first fruits offering," she said in a video shared to her website, in which she encourages her followers to donate to her ministries to get blessings from God.

"If God doesn't divinely step in and intervene, I don't know what you're going to face—he does," she said...

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-spiritual-adviser-paula-white-suggests-pe...

White is all about enriching herself and religion is her con. Trump is a conman too--willing to jump on her train and play up to his very religious base even if he hasn't got a religious bone in his body. Part of this Prosperity Gospel/theology idea is if you're poor 'it's because you're sinful' in that your not working hard enough. That God has a contract with people and if they do the things he wants God rewards with health, well being, income and success. It's not really that far off from Ayn Rand's philosophy even if she were an avowed atheist. Fact is Rand as abhorrent as her philosophy was a much much more honest actor than characters like this. White and people like her want to put a religious face on their greed.

>55 lriley: prosperity theology

Prosperity theology, or the Prosperity Gospel, is indeed popular in the USA, and unfortunately it has spread to parts of Africa and Asia too. It primarily targets the poor and hopeless. It is abhorrent, and is largely propagated by conmen and conwomen. It is abhorred and disowned by all of the mainstream global Christian denominations.

The other day I was chatting to a protestant bishop in South Sudan and he informed me that he was about to go to a workshop led by one of the regional ecumenical bodies precisely on the topic of how to counter the prosperity gospel business.

#58--to me liberation theology has always been interesting and is quite the opposite of this prosperity theology b.s.--it instead is about uplifting the poor and the oppressed. At least as far as christian theology goes it is very much in line with following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ who pretty much disdained wealth and walked among the ordinary--not among the elites.

>59 lriley:

Exactly.

#60--personally I've long thought that there should be limitations on personal wealth. It's unhealthy for societies---it's even unhealthy for those most wealthy. We are all connected to each other and not just to our countrymen but globally. With connection comes responsibility. It's probably not necessary to make limitations to include every millionaire but they would need to contribute more than they do. There are no good reasons for there to be any billionaires at all. You build equitable societies by sharing wealth not by individual accumulation of it. Those who accumulate too much need to share.

Trump & truth = oxymoron

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/impeachment-hearings-live-updates/2019/1...

11:10 AM: White House says Trump isn’t watching, but he’s tweeting

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the president is not watching the impeachment hearing.

“He’s in the Oval in meetings. Not watching. He’s working,” she said.

Grisham said she had been with Trump in the Oval Office, and he had been there since 8 a.m.

No Marine is standing guard outside the West Wing, which usually happens when Trump is present.

Trump at his Turkey press conference today. "I'll be releasing more transcripts."

If Trump wants to appear credible in his own defense, he should stop releasing redacted aide de memoirs and release everyone who has been subpoenaed by the House investigating committees to testify.

Otherwise, what's a poor civilian to do -- he or she can only assume Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and trying to prevent the truth from coming out of the mouths of his appointees, lackeys, and lickspittles. The sure sign of someone having done something wrong is a demand for loyalty and a concomitant demand for silence from them.

MSNBC Rachel Maddow blog

Has no one told Trump we’re not ‘keeping the oil’ in Syria?

Trump Attacks Impeachment Inquiry and Accuses a Witness of Lying

President Trump unleashed a series of falsehoods on Friday in an effort to invalidate the impeachment inquiry and counter sworn testimony from officials in his own administration, after a week of damaging public hearings.

In a 53-minute phone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump accused David Holmes, a political counselor to the American ambassador in Ukraine, of fabricating a phone call between Mr. Trump and the American ambassador to the European Union. Mr. Holmes told impeachment investigators that he had overheard the president ask the ambassador, Gordon D. Sondland, about Ukrainian investigations into his political rivals, a consequential detail in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

“I guarantee you that never took place,” Mr. Trump said.
…
In the Fox interview, Mr. Trump hit on a theme that Democrats and witnesses have raised during the impeachment hearings — how was it that Mr. Sondland, with no foreign policy experience and who was not the ambassador to Ukraine, found himself leading the United States policy with Ukraine?

“But he was really the European Union ambassador, and all of a sudden he’s working on this,” Mr. Trump said on Friday. “Ask about that.”

That's crazy. If it's false, as Erump insists, both Sondland and Holmes have to be lying. In addition, there are two other witnesses to the event that haven't been deposed who will be able to attest to the event. 2 against Individual 1 can become 4 to 1, just by talking to them.

Wasn't sure where to post this clever piece of satire found on YouTube, but here it is:

Confounds the Science - (Parody of) Sound of Silence

>68 John5918:

Clever!!!

Trump posted a picture of himself as Rocky. No one knows what to make of it (Guardian)

this morning, the president himself posted a photo where his head was photoshopped on to something utterly surprising: the super-buff, bare body of the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa.

It was tweeted at 10.54am, with Trump offering exactly zero explanation – not even a caption. All we know is that the tweet was sent during a golf trip at one of Trump’s golf clubs in Florida, during his Thanksgiving holiday at Mar-a-Lago...

>70 John5918:

Donald Trump: is there anything sadder than a chump who thinks he’s a champ? (Guardian)

The president’s Rocky fantasy doesn’t project power – it just reveals his insecurities

Different Trump, same issue.

Triggered by Donald Trump Jr.

And of course there is the combustible mix of sex, skin color, wealth, and parentage that severely limits his range of permissible activity: “As the son of a rich white guy living in 2019,” he writes on page two, “I’m essentially not allowed to have an opinion anymore, let alone express that opinion in public.” The point is so nice, he makes it twice, returning to it on page 193: “As the son of a rich white man I know I’m not allowed to have an opinion, much less voice it these days.”

This is an exaggeration, of course—it comes to us in a book that is wall-to-wall opinions—but it’s an exaggeration of a special, Trumpian kind. Just as people often say “literally” when they’re speaking figuratively (“I literally inhaled that Baconator Double in, like, two seconds”), a Trumpian exaggeration is meant to get you to the truth by insinuation, without having to argue for it. The idea that Don Jr. is prevented from publicly expressing opinions is so obviously, transparently false that it has the perverse effect of making you wonder whether it’s an exaggeration of something that’s otherwise true. It isn’t, but fans of the Trumps surely take it this way. The untruth of the exaggeration, in other words, testifies to the underlying truth of what’s being exaggerated. The lie verifies.

>72 2wonderY:

I think what this poor little white child means is, "I'm no longer able to get away with saying grossly offensive lies about those whom I feel superior to without being frowned at, corrected, or slapped down."

Nothing to do with his freedom of expression. Everything to do with other people's freedom to criticize him for his piss-poor opinions.

Democracy Grief Is Real
Michelle Goldberg | Dec. 13, 2019

Seeing what Trump is doing to America, many find it hard to fight off despair.

...In the impeachment committee hearings, Republicans insist with a straight face that Trump was deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Republican Senators like Ted Cruz of Texas, who is smart enough to know better, repeat Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election. The Department of Justice’s Inspector General report refutes years of Republican deep state conspiracy theories about an F.B.I. plot to subvert Trump’s campaign, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the promoters of those theories, who pronounce themselves totally vindicated.

To those who recognize the Trump administration’s official lies as such, the scale of dishonesty can be destabilizing. It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events...

....This kind of political suffering is uncomfortable to write about, because liberal misery is the raison d’être of the MAGA movement. When Trumpists mock their enemies for being “triggered,” it’s just a quasi-adult version of the playground bully’s jeer: “What are you going to do, cry?” Anyone who has ever been bullied knows how important it is, at that moment, to choke back tears....

But despair is worth discussing, because it’s something that organizers and Democratic candidates should be addressing head on. Left to fester, it can lead to apathy and withdrawal. Channeled properly, it can fuel an uprising...Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/trump-democracy.html

One side effect of lying for four years about things
like dishwashers, the weather, the Boy Scouts and whether you were named man of the year in the state of Michigan is that
it can be hard for people to take your word when you say you have sensational secret information.

-Daniel Dale (CNN) @ddale8 | 12:11 AM · Jan 5, 2020

Trump Claims Credit For Drop In Cancer Deaths. No Way, Says American Cancer Society.
The president actually pushed for a major funding cut for the National Institutes of Health, which would take $1 billion from the National Cancer
Mary Papenfuss | 01/09/2020

...Trump tweeted “a lot of good news coming out of this Administration”...The rate of people dying of cancer dropped in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, for the 26th year in a row...29% from 1991 to 2017. The largest-ever single-year drop in cancer deaths, 2.2% — spurred significantly by a dramatic decline in lung cancer deaths — occurred from 2016 to 2017...

American Cancer Society CEO Gary Reedy told CNN that the findings — even for 2017, the sole year Trump was in office during the study period — are not connected to anything his administration did. Reedy attributed the improved mortality trends to “prevention” (such as declining smoking rates), “early detection and treatment advances from earlier years.”

...Trump unsuccessfully pushed last year to slash about $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health budget — which would have included a $1 billion cut for the National Cancer Institute...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-death-rate-american-cancer-society_n...

Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize not Abiy Ahmed (BBC)

US President Donald Trump seems to think that he was overlooked for last year's Nobel Peace Prize...

"I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war, I've saved a couple of them"...

>77 John5918: Trump says he deserves the Nobel prize, not Abiy Ahmed

Trump is confused.
PM @AbiyAhmedAli was awarded the @NobelPrize for his efforts to bring peace to the Horn of Africa,
not stalled negotiations about a new dam on the Nile.

If they gave the Nobel for deals that didn’t happen, the Pres. would have a shelf full of them.
#Ethiopia

-House Foreign Affairs Committee ✔ @HouseForeign | 10:27 AM - Jan 10, 2020
_________________________________________________________________

First snow of the year!
❄️
Image ( https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1216539112154521601/photo/1 )
-The White House @WhiteHouse | 8:55 PM · Jan 12, 2020

What???
The daytime high in DC today was 68F. I was wearing shorts this afternoon. When you sent out this tweet, it was still 20+ degrees too warm for snow.
Image ( https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1216546640481476613/photo/1 )

-James Fallows @JamesFallows | 9:24 PM · Jan 12, 2020

Eleven US Troops Were Injured in Jan. 8 Iran Missile Strike
Kevin Baron | 7:57 PM (Jan 16, 2020)

The troops were medevaced this week to Germany and Kuwait to be treated for traumatic brain injury after experiencing concussion symptoms.

Nearly one dozen American troops were wounded in Iran’s Jan. 8 missile attack on Iraq’s al-Asad air base. This week, they were medically evacuated to U.S. military hospitals in Kuwait and Landstuhl, Germany, to be treated for traumatic brain injury and to undergo further evaluation, several U.S. defense and military officials have confirmed to Defense One.

Senior military and Trump administration officials had said on Jan. 8 that 11 Iranian missiles had caused “no casualties, no friendly casualties, whether they are U.S., coalition, contractor, et cetera.”...

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/01/eleven-us-troops-were-injured-jan-8-i...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar | 12:03 AM · Feb 1, 2020:

Here’s Trump claiming today that Ivanka has “created over 15 million jobs” —
or more than twice the number of total jobs created in the entire country since he took office

0:28 ( https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1223471860374962176 )

Fox News guests spread 'disinformation' – says leaked internal memo (Guardian)

Fox News has a credibility problem. Most critics of the cable news network will be well aware of that, but in this case the admission is coming from Fox News itself.

An internal research briefing obtained by the Daily Beast names four regular contributors to the network for peddling “disinformation”, particularly when it comes to the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment.

Among those named in the lengthy document titled Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration, put together by Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S Murphy, are frequent guests Rudy Giuliani, John Solomon, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova...

An Eloquent Excoriation:

(Andrew Coyne's column is behind a paywall, so I won't bother with the URL)

. . .
Perhaps it was possible, very early on, if you had not been paying much attention, to see [President Trump] as a sort of necessary evil, a shock to the system – uncouth, sure, a bit rough around the edges, but a rock through the window, as it has been put, of official Washington, a signal that people were fed up with politics as usual.

But it is not possible now. It is not possible to look at all that Mr. Trump is and all that he represents – the pathological lying, the habitual corruption, the serial groping, the casual racism, the glorification of violence, the winking to Nazis, the laziness, the impulsiveness, the childish tantrums, the bottomless ignorance, the vanity, the insecurity, the vulnerability (so skilfully exploited by America’s adversaries) to flattery, the bullying, the crudity, the indifference to suffering, the incompetence, the chaos in the White House, the attacks on America’s allies and support for its foes, the contempt for experts and for expertise, for norms and conventions, for checks and balances, for limited government, for the very rule of law – it is not possible to be exposed to all this on a daily basis for four years and shrug it off or explain it away or accept it as part of the deal without there being something wrong with you.
. . .

— Andrew Coyne, "The virus of Trumpism and his infectious moral failings" in The Globe and Mail, Feb. 8, 2020, p. O2

Alexander Vindman lawyer attacks Trump over 'obviously false statements' (Guardian)

The lawyer for Lt Col Alexander Vindman condemned Donald Trump on Saturday for making “obviously false statements” about the decorated military veteran...

“The president this morning made a series of obviously false statements concerning Lieutenant Colonel Vindman; they conflict with the clear personnel record and the entirety of the impeachment record of which the president is well aware... While the most powerful man in the world continues his campaign of intimidation, while too many entrusted with political office continue to remain silent, Lt Col Vindman continues his service to our country as a decorated, active duty member of our military”...

#83--that will be just one more defamation lawsuit on his legal calendar post-presidency. He might as well get all his golfing in now--between prison time and court he's not going to have time for anything else let's say a year from now.

If Lisa Page doesn't have a defamation case by now, surely she will by the end of February?

CPAC Play Will Mock FBI Duo Strzok and Page (Feb 26-29, 2019)
Theodore Bunker | Friday, 07 February 2020

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/cpac-lisapage-peterstrzok-play/2020/02/07/id/9...

Sharp rise in brain injuries from Iran raid on US base (BBC)

The number of US troops suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBI) after an Iranian attack on a US base in Iraq in January has risen to 109, according to US officials... President Donald Trump initially said no Americans were injured in the raid...

"We should have won the election, but they had buses being being shipped up from Massachusetts. Hundreds and hundreds of buses" --
Trump pushes a completely unfounded conspiracy theory about massive election fraud costing him New Hampshire in 2016
0:18 (https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227025542114881536)

- Aaron Rupar @atrupar | 7:24 PM · Feb 10, 2020

In his proposed budget:

Trump Cuts Scheduled Federal Pay Raise, Citing “Serious Economic Conditions” in the Country

If you lived in a bubble where Twitter Trump was your sole news source, you’d be pretty fired up, which makes it odd that on Monday the very same Trump White House said it intends to slash a scheduled pay raise for civilian federal employees. Cutting the 2.5 percent raise set for 2021 to 1 percent for millions of federal workers seems a bit austere in the face of such self-proclaimed boom times. Even more absurdly, Trump is justifying ordering the cut on the grounds that the country is in the midst of a “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,” which the White House says authorizes the president to “implement alternative plans for pay adjustments.”

So which is it? The best economy in the history of economies or a national economic emergency? Either way, somebody’s lying.

>88 2wonderY:

It's perfectly possible to have your cake and eat it, too. Didn't you know?

Trump contradicts past denials, admits sending Giuliani to Ukraine (CNN)

Emboldened after his impeachment acquittal, President Donald Trump now openly admits to sending his attorney Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to find damaging information about his political opponents, even though he strongly denied it during the impeachment inquiry...

Trump had previously denied that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine...

Trump's 'Deep State' conspiracy theory just took a big hit (CNN)

President Donald Trump is deeply invested in the idea that there is a "Deep State" embedded within the government bureaucracy -- and centered in the Department of Justice -- which actively worked to defeat him in 2016 and then sought to undermine him once he won the presidency.

That conspiracy theory, which has never had much merit, suffered a near-fatal blow Friday afternoon when the Department of Justice declined to pursue criminal charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe...

Trump falsely declares himself 'the chief law enforcement officer' of the US (Guardian)

Trump is incorrect – attorney general is chief law enforcement officer...

With coronavirus, Trump’s lies and his reassurances backfire
Catherine Rampell | Feb. 27, 2020

...University of Chicago economics professor Austan Goolsbee has a rule for this phenomenon called the “pathological irony of crisis”: If you lose credibility, your statements begin to mean the opposite of what you say.

In other words: Entreaties to “remain calm” instead get interpreted as reasons to panic, even when calm might be justified.

...great former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker...said that the only asset you have in a crisis is your credibility. Hence this other rule of thumb: All normal, non-crisis time should be spent establishing the credibility you’ll need when a crisis inevitably hits...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-coronavirus-trumps-lies-and-his-rea...

________________________________________________

Fact-checking a presidential briefing on a possible pandemic shouldn't even have to be a thing.
Reservoirs of credibility are needed for these kinds of contingencies.
- Matthew Waxman @mattwaxman1 | 7:39 AM · Feb 28, 2020

Fact-checking President Trump’s coronavirus news conference
Glenn Kessler and Meg Kelly | Feb. 28, 2020

Here are five faulty facts from the president's Feb. 26 news conference on covid-19.

...“Because of all we've done, the risk to the American people remains very low.”

...“As most of you know, the level that we’ve had in our country is very low, and those people are getting better, or we think almost all cases, they’re better or are getting — we have a total of 15. We took in some from Japan, you heard about that because they are American citizens, and they are in quarantine. And they are getting better, too. But we felt we had an obligation to do that. It could have been as many as 42.”

...“The flu in our country kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. That was shocking to me. And so far, if you look at what we have with the 15 people and their recovery. One is — one is pretty sick but hopefully will recover.”

... “Over the last 10 years we’ve lost 360,000 — these are people that have died from the flu — from what we call the flu. ‘Hey, did you get you get your flu shot.’ And that’s something.”

...“We’re rapidly developing a vaccine and they can speak to you. … The vaccine is coming along well. And in speaking to the doctors, we think this is something that we can develop fairly rapidly, a vaccine for the future and coordinate with the support of our partners.”

...“Mike has been very good, very adept. Anybody that knows anything about health care, they look at the Indiana model. And it has been a very great success, it has been a tremendous model in terms of health care. And this is really an offshoot of that.”

...“I don't think it's inevitable. It probably will. It possibly will. It could be at a very small level or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens, we're totally prepared.”

...“Well, I really think the stock market, of something I know a lot about, I think it took a hit maybe for two reasons. I think they look at the people that you watched debating last night, and they say, if there's even a possibility that can happen, I think it really takes a hit because of that. And it certainly took a hit because of this. And I understand that also, because of supply chains and various other things, and people coming in. But I think the stock market will recover. The economy is very strong. The consumer is the strongest it has ever been. ”

...“This is a list of the different countries, United States is rated number one most prepared. United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Thailand, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, Finland, these — this is a list of the best-rated countries in the world by Johns Hopkins.”

...“When you have 15, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

...“We know all the good people. It’s a question I asked the doctors before. Some of the people we cut, they haven’t been used for many, many years. And if they — if we have a need and we can get them very quickly. And rather than spending the money — and I’m a business person. I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly. For instance, we’re bringing some people in tomorrow that are already in this, you know, great government that we have. And very specifically for this. We can build up very, very quickly and we’ve already done that. I mean, we really have built up. We have a great staff.”

...“With Ebola, we were talking about it before, you disintegrated. If you got Ebola, that was it. Coronavirus is like a flu, and this is a much different situation than Ebola.”

....“We can now treat Ebola. In that — at that time, it was infectious and you couldn’t treat it. Nobody knew anything about it. Nobody had ever heard of anything like this. So it’s a much different situation.” ...

https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/28/fact-checking-president-trumps-co...

>93 margd: Entreaties to “remain calm” instead get interpreted as reasons to panic

A bit like Lance-Corporal Jones in the long-running BBC comedy series Dad's Army, who would run around in a panic shouting, "Don't panic, don't panic!"

Donald Trump’s war on coronavirus is just his latest war on truth (Guardian)

The president is reacting to this disaster the way authoritarians always do – by covering up the facts and dodging the blame

Prezdent Germophobe declares Coronavirus a HOAX!

Isn't it about time Trump makes a trip to bring his bromance with Kim Jong-un back to the fore? Couple of hugs and a toast out of a shared teacup oughta seal their affairs.

Or, maybe he could travel to Iran and meet with whoever in its government is healthy enough to renegotiate an anti-nuclear proliferation treaty. Shaking hands all around should guarantee world peace.

There may be enough time in his schedule to call on Vladimir and do a meet and greet with people of Moscow. Then after he gets his orders, he can return to D.C. and debrief all his acting cabinet members and the Republican leadership. Plus Nunes. I imagine Mike Pence's prayer of thanksgiving will protect all the attendees from the possibility of infection.

To wrap up his whirlwind tour, Trump can exhibit his brand of Christian compassion by visiting the sick. Doesn't have to be waving through the glass at Coronavirus patients, just reassure their healthcare providers that he has the pandemic under control.

Within 14 days, there's a good chance Prezdent Germophobe will have proved that his hoax is a hoax.

This is just a lie. An out and out lie. And one that impacts your health.
- Ronald Klain @RonaldKlain | 7:55 PM · Mar 6, 2020

Quote Tweet
The Hill @thehill · 8h:
President Trump:
"Anybody right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They're there. They have the tests and the tests are beautiful."
0:30 ( https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1236070172106031104 )

>97 margd:

Once again, the Man Who Would Be President, is outclassed and out-gunned by a real billionaire who knows how to step up and get what needs to be done done..
"Gates Foundation-backed program will soon be issuing home testing kits for COVID-19 in Seattle"

The study, based on a nose-swab should be able to return results in up to two days and will be shared with health officials who can then notify people who test positive. Individuals who have been infected will then be encouraged to answer an online questionnaire to give health officials information about their movements so that those officials can identify and notify other people who may need to be tested or quarantined, according to the Seattle Times report.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/08/gates-foundation-backed-program-will-soon-be-i...

Fact check: Trump and his campaign promote dishonestly edited Biden video (CNN)

President Donald Trump and his campaign promoted a dishonestly edited video on Saturday that wrongly made it seem as if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had accidentally endorsed Trump...

Trump Caught Google Off Guard With a Bogus Coronavirus Site Announcement
Brian Barrett & Louise Matsakis | 03.13.2020

Google's not making a nationwide coronavirus testing website. And the company had no idea the president would say it was...

...President Donald Trump announced Friday that the US government’s coronavirus testing apparatus, which has lagged badly behind other developed nations, would soon get an assist from Google. The search and advertising giant will create a website, Trump said, that would help Americans figure out if they need a test for the virus, and if so where they can find one.

...A source at Google tells WIRED that company leadership was surprised that Trump announced anything about the initiative at the press conference. What he did say was also almost entirely wrong. There will be a coronavirus testing site, not from Google but from Alphabet sister company Verily. “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing,” Google tweeted in a statement. “Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”

Even that, though, was not the original plan. The Verge reported Friday afternoon that Verily had intended the site for health care workers only. After Trump unexpectedly publicized the effort, Verily decided it will let anyone visit it, but can still only provide people with testing site information in the San Francisco area...

https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-donald-trump-google-website/

Fact check: Trump falsely claims anybody who returns from Europe is being tested for coronavirus
Daniel Dale | March 13, 2020

...It's not true that Americans or others returning from Europe "have to be" tested for the coronavirus -- and no system is being set up to actually test these returning travelers.

Instead, they will be funneled to specific airports and put through an inspection known as "enhanced screening," which cannot prove whether someone has the virus. Previous US airport screening for the coronavirus has involved temperature checks, questions about travelers' health and travel history, and an inspection for symptoms like a cough or breathing trouble...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/12/politics/fact-check-trump-coronavirus-testing...

ABC and NBC, too?

CNN and MSNBC Staff Push Back on Airing Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Lies’
Lloyd Grove and Maxwell Tani | Mar. 25, 2020

...“These White House sessions—ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis—are in fact working against that end,” wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, summarizing such concerns. “Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members. They come in search of life-or-death information, but here’s what they get from him instead: Self-aggrandizement… Media-bashing… Exaggeration and outright lies.”...

...Going forward, ( staffers and managers at CNN and MSNBC ) said, they will be ready to cut away from the briefings when newsworthy facts and figures—usually shared by federal public-health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci—give way to unsupported presidential speculation and outright falsehoods.

“We might take it from the top and then cut away after the first lie, and return when the lies stop,” said one cable-network producer.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-and-msnbc-staffers-wary-of-airing-trump-corona...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · 9h
The only reason the U.S. has reported one million cases of CoronaVirus is that our Testing is sooo much better than any other country in the World. Other countries are way behind us in Testing, and therefore show far fewer cases!

----------------------------------------------------

Ted Lieu (US House candidate, CA-33) @tedlieu | 1:55 AM · Apr 29, 2020:
Dear @realDonaldTrump: You lie.
We’ve tested less than 1.8% of our population.
In terms of testing per capita, which is the relevant statistic, we are behind:
Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Ireland, Israel, Austria, Singapore, Qatar, Denmark ...

----------------------------------------------------

Eric Topol @EricTopol · 7h
There's much more to this that is being missed. It's not just how many tests, but when they got started.
A 2 month delay by the US (vs S Korea) Here's a graph that shows the difference.
Iceland, not on (Ted Lieu's) list, is the #1, started a month before there was a patient there.
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1255380305961259013/photo/1

Trump clings to his raw numbers as if by their presence, they enhance him personally. Numbers only are enhancing when they are contextual, as in percentage of change, or parts per 100,000.

He should leave raw data alone and stick to well done hamburgers.

Trump Offers Lie After Lie Under Lincoln’s Unblinking Gaze
‘IT’S ALL WORKING OUT’
Scott Bixby | May. 04, 2020

As the 16th president stared down at the 45th president’s socially distant town hall, Trump rolled out a series of astounding falsehoods.

Even by President Donald Trump’s historically low standards, the town hall on reopening the nation’s economy featured some astounding falsehoods on Sunday night: that he was never warned about the novel coronavirus until late January; that all 43,000 people who returned to the United States from China after the implementation of his travel ban were tested; that the American people will have a vaccine by Christmas.

But perhaps the biggest demonstrable lie told under the unblinking eyes of Abraham Lincoln was Trump’s repeated insistence that, despite the mounting death toll from the coronavirus pandemic and the collapsing national economy, “it’s all working out.”

...“They always said Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln,” Trump said. “I believe I am treated worse.”...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-offers-lie-after-lie-under-lincolns-unblinki...

____________________________________________

Um, Lincoln was assassinated. Trump's "town hall" was the

Second worst experience Lincoln’s ever had while watching something
- Rose of Texas @rose_of_tx | 7:45 PM · May 3, 2020

President Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days
Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly | April 14, 2020

When we last updated our database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims, it was on Jan. 19, the end of his third year as president. The president’s most frequently repeated false claim was that he presided over the best economy in the history of the United States.

The next day, the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus was reported in the United States. So, with this update through April 3, we’ve added a new category — coronavirus — that already has more than 350 items. Much has changed in the world, with stay-at-home orders, massive economic disruption and topsy-turvy securities markets, but one thing has remained constant — the president’s prolific twisting of the truth.

As of April 3, Trump’s 1,170th day in office, our database shows that he has made 18,000 false or misleading claims. That’s an average of more than 15 claims a day, though since our last update 75 days ago, he’s been averaging just over 23 claims a day. That’s slightly higher than the 22 a day he recorded in 2019...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/14/president-trump-made-18000-fa...

_________________________________________________________

Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany: "If it were any other President of the United States, the media would take him at his word."
1:07 ( https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1262775200724275216 )

- The Hill @thehill | 12:00 PM · May 19, 2020

Mika Brzezinski: TV host blasts 'sick' Trump's conspiracy theory (BBC)

A US TV host has furiously rebuked President Donald Trump for falsely suggesting her husband and co-presenter may have got away with murder. In tweets, Mr Trump has appeared to link MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough to the death of an aide two decades ago, a conspiracy theory debunked by police. "Donald, you're a sick person," anchor Mika Brzezinski said on air as she defended her husband...

A tale of two Trumps (Al Jazeera)

You have to admire US President Donald Trump's persistence. Almost 100,000 Americans have died under his watch in the last 100 days, and he is still boasting about his success and greatness.

Of course, the president is convinced he is not responsible for these deaths and that, in fact, he has done a "great job" and saved "millions of lives".

Trump also reckons "Trump is right" about the economy and he thinks there has never been a president like President Trump.

Surrealistic? Perhaps. But he believes it.

Trump, who so often talks about himself in the third person, has been living two lives, or arguably two lies - that of a populist outsider and an unfortunate White House insider...

Twitter labels Trump's false claims with warning for first time (Guardian)

Twitter for the first time took action against a series of tweets by Donald Trump, labeling them with a warning sign and providing a link to further information.

Since ascending to the US presidency, Trump has used his Twitter account to threaten a world leader with war, amplify racist misinformation by British hate figures and, as recently as Tuesday morning, spread a lie about the 2001 death of a congressional aide in order to smear a cable news pundit. Throughout it all, Twitter has remained steadfast in its refusal to censor the head of state, even going so far as to write a new policy to allow itself to leave up tweets by “world leaders” that violate its rules.

The company’s decision on Tuesday afternoon to affix labels to a series of Trump tweets about California’s election planning is the result of a new policy debuted on 11 May. They were applied – hours after the tweets initially went out – because Trump’s tweets violated Twitter’s “civic integrity policy”, a company spokeswoman confirmed, which bars users from “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes”, such as by posting misleading information that could dissuade people from participating in an election...

Widower asks Twitter to delete Trump's 'horrifying' lies about wife's death (Guardian)

Twitter says it won’t delete tweets in which the president spreads lie that Joe Scarborough was involved in Lori Klausutis’s death...

Trump's un-truthiness is getting fact-check label from Twitter over his lies about mail-in balloting being rife with fraud. Some people say,"3 years too late," to use a favorite right wing qualifier phrase. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/26/862797418/twitter-points-users-to-fact-checks-of-...

The Donald is irate at no longer being above social media regulated behavior norms, and threatens to "shut down" social media. His grifter campaign manager, Brad Parscale, attempts to play the victim card, claiming infringement of free speech and bias of liberal media. Gee, these right wing lapdogs can't remember satirist Steven Colbert coining the "reality has a liberal bias" meme. They always though he was a straight righty and took his word as literal truth because it suited their mental frame. Too bad proclaiming "victimhood!" for Trump's conspiracy theory-pushing lies isn't working.

Even older voters, one-time supporters of the Orange-Shitegibbon, aver that "I don't even listen to what he says anymore." Who's left that believes Donald Trump?

>109 Limelite:

Interesting that his reaction to his posts being flagged (but not blocked, as I understand it) is to claim it is an infringement of free speech while at the same time threatening to, er, infringe free speech by the "shut down" of social media.

>110 John5918:

Sorry, I'm unable to agree with you. Not because I don't like what you say (I do appreciate the hypocrisy you highlight), but because I am unable to find the OSG's behavior "interesting." It has reduced my thinking about it to strictly criminal and sociopathic.

>111 Limelite:

My apologies. "Interesting" was too diplomatic a term. Even "ironic" might not be adequate. "Unsurprising" would fit, but I can't disagree with "criminal and sociopathic".

Although it's worth mentioning that in the British tradition of understatement, to say, "That's interesting" often actually means, "That's bollocks and I think you're completely wrong". One of those little differences between US and British usage of English!

Trump is winning the political spin game (Al Jazeera)

Donald Trump has somehow survived an overwhelming flood of political scandals, legal battles, accusations, the Russia investigation, impeachment, and now, it looks like he is finding a way to spin the coronavirus pandemic into something that will rally his base...

Twitter accuses President Trump of making 'false claims' (BBC)

Twitter has accused the US president of making false claims, in one of the app's own articles covering the news. The move - which effectively accuses the leader of lying - refers to a tweet by Donald Trump about his first defence secretary. Mr Trump had tweeted that he had given James Mattis the nickname "Mad Dog" and later fired him. But Twitter's article says that the former general resigned, and his nickname preceded Trump's presidency...

Trump clashes with Fox News interviewer over false claim about Biden (Guardian)

Donald Trump has clashed with a Fox News interviewer after the president was challenged about a false claim that Joe Biden wants to defund police.

In a clip of Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday interview with Trump released on Friday, the president said his likely opponent in November’s presidential election supported the movement to defund police forces.

But in the interview, held on the Oval Office patio, Wallace intervened to say Biden did not support defunding.

Trump, hoping to prove his allegation, was then seen calling for a copy of a policy charter Biden agreed with Bernie Sanders and which was released this week. The document did not prove his claim...

Daniel Dale (CNN) @ddale8 | 10:50 PM · Jul 18, 2020:
Trump told his Michigan "tele-rally" tonight that he was named Michigan's Man of the Year 10 years ago,
though he has very obviously never been named Michigan's Man of the Year.

Jason Millet @Jason_Millet | · 9h:
Haven't you corrected this one before?-- quite a while back?

Daniel Dale @ddale8 | 10:52 PM · Jul 18, 2020:
Yes, this is one of my very favorite Trump lies. Here's an article about it.
https://cnn.com/2019/08/16/politics/donald-trump-michigan-man-of-the-year-fact-c...

Why Fox News' Harris Faulkner didn't stay quiet on Trump's tweet about looting and shooting (Yahoo)

When Fox News host Harris Faulkner went into a TV interview with President Trump last month, she didn’t plan to confront him about having used the phrase, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” in a May 28 tweet. But that’s what happened.

Faulkner, who hosts the network’s Outnumbered and Outnumbered Overtime during the week, even received kudos from fellow journalists for asking Trump directly why he chose those words. She then corrected the president when he cited the wrong source.

“My main thing was to have a conversation, which is always the goal, but in this particular time in our history as a nation, I thought it was really important to go back and forth about the things that matter in a way that’s in real time”...

Lyin' liar Trump is fake all the way down.
‘I don’t think I’m fake news’: Chris Wallace fact checks Trump as he melts down over COVID death rate

“I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates,” Trump argued in an interview that aired on Sunday.

“That’s not true,” Wallace pointed out. “We have 900 deaths on a single day this week. You can check it out.”
(SNIP)
“I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest mortality rate anywhere in the world,” Trump told McEnany, refusing to look at Wallace. “Do you have the numbers, please? Because I heard we have the best mortality rate.”

McEnany interrupted the interview to deliver a piece of paper.

“Number one low mortality rate,” Trump insisted, flashing the piece of paper at Wallace.

“I hope you show this because it shows what fake news is,” the president griped.
(SNIP)
. . .Fox News paused the interview to fact check the president.

According to numbers from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. ranks seventh in mortality.

As his remaining supporters would say, "What a moran!"

Donald Trump v Fox News Sunday: extraordinary moments from a wild interview (Guardian)

Nearly four years into his wild and unlikely presidency, Donald Trump managed to shock the world again.

An interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday included a claim not to care what the military has to say about renaming its bases, and an argument about whether identifying an elephant was strong evidence of mental stability.

Part of the interview’s shock value lay in which network broadcast it: Fox News, which has only recently seen its cozy relationship with Trump start to erode.

But Wallace is known as a Fox News outlier, comfortable breaking ranks to ask tough questions of the president and members of his administration.

His Trump interview, which was taped at the White House on Friday, was a textbook example. At one point, Wallace referenced “mean tweets” that Trump posted about him, and asked if the president understood his responsibilities as a reporter.

“I’m not a big fan of Fox, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said.

It was one of several surprising comments.

Wallace unveiled the results of a Fox News poll that showed Trump losing by eight points to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Trump was also behind Biden on the response to the pandemic, on race relations and on the economy. He trails in other polls too.

Trump said: “I’m not losing, because those are fake polls.”

Not only did Trump deny the hard data, he also refused to say if he will accept the result of November’s presidential election if he comes out the loser.

“I have to see,” he said. “Look … I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either”...

>118 Limelite: >"What a moran!"

Is someone really referring to a Maasai warrior from East Africa (a moran), or it a typo for "moron", or is there some other connotation in the USA which I am missing?

>120 John5918:

Famous US Internet meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/get-a-brain-morans

Improved version.

>121 Limelite:

Ah, thanks. And advertising Monty Python's "Life of Brian" in the same meme?!

>122 John5918:

Awww. . .I never thought Brian was a moran.

>123 Limelite:

He's not a moran, he's a very naughty boy!

I took a closer look at the cognitive test Trump claims to have aced (Guardian)

The test is called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and was created by the neurologist Dr Ziad Nasreddine in 1996. Talking to MarketWatch on Monday, Nasreddine stressed that the test “is supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment”, stressing that “this is not an IQ test or the level of how a person is extremely skilled or not. The test is supposed to help physicians detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.”

There are a few different versions of the test with small variations (such as the words to remember or animals to name), but the questions are generally the same. We can’t tell for sure which version Trump took, but as he said he did it recently, I’ve taken the latest MoCA test from their website.

Trump is right about the start of the test being easy. But when it comes to the last five questions, his claim that they’re “very hard” is unsettling (although not surprising) in what it reveals about his relationship with reality...

I took the cognitive test Trump 'aced' — and I have some bad news for the president (Independent)

Trump said he “answered all 35 questions correctly” on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which actually has just 30 questions. That means the president was giving himself credit for filling out the top five lines of the test: his name, education, sex, date of birth and the current date...

The Independent lifestyle reporter Chelsea Ritschel administered the test via FaceTime, watching as I methodically paired numbers with letters, drew a cube and named several animals... I did surprisingly well on the memory portion of the test (I say “surprisingly” because I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast most days), recalling the five words my colleague read aloud to me both times: face, velvet, church, daisy, red. Those words will stay with me for the rest of my life.

As we worked through the test, I found myself becoming increasingly excited about doing well on each portion. I had to remind myself that there are significant concerns about the validity of this brief test, and also that it was perhaps the easiest task I have ever completed in my life...

As it turns out, I’m a bigly genius: with my colleague as my witness, I, too, aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. I scored 30 points, the maximum amount available (unless you are the president).

Then again, Trump was wrong to claim the test proves anything in relation to one’s intelligence. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment and other similar exams are only administered to determine the potential presence of cognitive issues.

As Dr Ankur Dave noted on Twitter: “Docs don't give a cognitive test to measure intellect. We give it to assess cognitive defects. Trump calling questions on this test difficult should raise some red flags about dementia and inability to serve”...

What’s particularly concerning is how he claimed some of the questions were difficult. Which ones were difficult, Mr President? Was it finding the similarities between a train and a bicycle that stumped you? Did you find it difficult to sit through someone else saying an entire sentence while being forced to listen and repeat it back to them?

If solving the questions on this test is difficult for Trump, imagine how hard it’s going to be for him to grapple with things like the coronavirus pandemic, or systemic racism — if he ever gets around to confronting either of those issues.

For some reason it reminds me of the old joke where Trump, the pope and a ten year old boy are travelling in a plane (you don't need to ask why - it's a joke - and when I first heard it it was referring to Tony Blair rather than Trump, but jokes are adaptable to circumstances) when the pilot rushes back and says, "We've had engine failure and we're going to crash. There are only two parachutes - here they are" and he throws down a couple of parachute packs. "My co-pilot and I will sacrifice ourselves to keep the plane airborne long enough for you to jump, but you'll have to decide amongst yourselves which two of you get the parachutes. Hurry!" Immediately Trump declares, "I'm the cleverest and most important president in the world, so obviously I have to be saved!", slings a pack onto his back and jumps. The pope then says to the young boy, "Well, I'm an old man, I've had a good life, and my whole life has been devoted to helping others, so you take the parachute as you still have your whole life ahead of you." The boy replies, "No, Your Holiness, there's enough parachutes for both of us. The cleverest and most important president in the world has just jumped out wearing my school backpack!"

Telling, isn't it that a supposed adult who, as leader of what was before his term the most powerful country on Earth, and who is supposed to be higher functioning cognitively than the common cognitive functioner in the country he governs finds more than half of a test that is specifically designed to be EASY in order to detect early cognitive debilitation to be HARD for him.

"Covidiot" doesn't begin to cover it.

>126 Limelite:

I suspect the test appears easy just to people of average capacity. It's only when you're truly a stable genius — someone whom Wittgenstein would look up to with awe — that you can appreciate the difficulties, inscrutable to you and me, of such a test.

I'll admit, as a Floridian, I would have struggled to ID the pictorial representation of a certain reptile that (amazingly) was evident to Trump. Guess it takes a stable genius. The only thing I knew for sure is that it was not a gavial. None of the animal pictures was drawn to comparative scale, which made it difficult.

Alarm at Trump's unsubstantiated claim that Beirut blast was an 'attack' (Guardian)

Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the massive explosion in Beirut was a bomb attack has revived fears of the president’s potential to foment international crises.

In off-the-cuff remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Trump called the blast a “terrible attack”.

“I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that this was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event,” the president told reporters. “It was a bomb of some kind.”

Soon after, CNN quoted Pentagon officials as saying there was no evidence of any attack, raising the question of where Trump got his information. Lebanese officials were reported to have sought urgent clarification from US diplomats...

>129 John5918: CNN quoted Pentagon officials as saying there was no evidence of any attack, raising the question of where Trump got his information.

Yes. Whose generals exactly did he talk to, if they weren't part of the Pentagon?

General Delivery?

"Strongman" Trump runs in fear from female reporter's hard digging when he hears her tell him he lied to his face when claiming credit for Veteran's Choice health care bill. Trump said. "(Democrats have) been trying to get that passed for decades and decades and decades, and no president’s ever been able to do it. And we got it done.”

CBS reporter Paula Reid challenged the President on his discredited claim.

“Why do you keep saying that you passed Veterans Choice?” she asked.
(SNIP)
Mr Trump tried to call on a different reporter.

“OK, go ahead,” he said, pointing to someone else.

“It was passed in 2014. But it was a false statement, sir,” Reid continued.

At that, Trump's head snapped around to look over his shoulder offstage. He must have got the signal to wrap it up because he fled the stage. Yes, once again he ran away when challenged -- by a woman.

That's what cowards do when they only allow sycophants and bum-lickers to speak to him; they flee when they're exposed as naked liars by someone who isn't so easily intimidated as his male cabinet members, staff, and Republican senators with who he consorts.

Thus Trump proves he's nothing but a wuss.

Trump says Spanish Flu of 1918 ended WWII – a conflict that didn’t start until two decades later (Independent)

Donald Trump has inaccurately claimed that the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 ended WWII – a conflict that did not begin until two decades later. Speaking at a White House press briefing on Monday evening, the president also got the year the pandemic started wrong.

“The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic,” Mr Trump told reporters. “It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people, probably ended the Second World War,” he added.

The Spanish Flu began in 1918, with the first infections recorded around March that year. The pandemic lasted until 1920 and did, as Mr Trump alluded to, kill millions of people. But WWII did not break out until 1939...

Too much. This is a compilation of Trump's lies and misrepresentations from a single presser this week, lasting but a few minutes. Great read because Chris Cillizza debunks each one.

The 34 wildest lines from Donald Trump's wildly inaccurate coronavirus press conference.

'Do you regret all your lying?' White House reporter's question startles Trump (Guardian)

S.V. Dáte had waited five long years to ask Donald Trump one question: “Mr President, after three and a half years {of Trump’s presidency}, do you regret at all, all the lying you’ve done to the American people?”

Confronted with Dáte’s question at Thursday’s White House briefing, Trump responded with a question of his own. “All the what?,” he said.

Dáte: “All the lying, all the dishonesties.”

Trump: “That who has done?”

“You have done,” said Dáte, who is the Huffington Post’s White House correspondent. “Tens of thousan–”, he began to say, before Trump cut him off and called on another journalist...

Trump stokes 'birther' theory about Kamala Harris (BBC)

President Donald Trump says he has heard Democratic running mate Kamala Harris "doesn't qualify" to serve as US vice-president, amplifying a fringe legal theory critics decry as racist.

Ms Harris was born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother in Oakland, California, on 20 October 1964.

But a conservative law professor has questioned her eligibility.

For years, Mr Trump promoted a false "birther" theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the US...

>136 John5918:

Has no one told him that loop tapes are obsolete?

What are loop tapes?

Perhaps I misused the term. What I had in mind was the technique from analogue recording technology of splicing a length of magnetic recording tape into a loop so that it would play continuously without needing rewinding.

Melania Trump really did just say America deserves ‘complete honesty’ from its president (Independent)

On yet another night of lies and conspiracy theory, the question is whether America is going to swallow all this again, and the answer is far from clear...

Here, America! I promise you a HUUUUGE tax break if I'm re-elected.

Social security will run out of funds in 3 years if Donald Trump implements payroll tax changes: government analysis

President Donald Trump claimed he would eliminate the payroll tax if he is reelected — but an analysis by the Social Security Administration found that such a move would cause the Social Security Trust Fund to run out of money by 2023.
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Only Congress can cut taxes, however, so the payroll tax savings would still have to be repaid by next year’s tax deadline — though (SNIP)
“If I’m victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax. I’m going to make them all permanent,” he said during a news conference at his Bedminster, N.J. golf course. “…In other words, I’ll extend beyond the end of the year and terminate the tax. And so we’ll see what happens.”

Trump said he would push to forgive the deferred taxes if he is reelected.

Trump’s push to defer payroll taxes could shrink paychecks next year, Treasury signals.

Donald Trump makes baseless claim that 'dark shadows' are controlling Joe Biden (Guardian)

Donald Trump’s appetite for baseless conspiracy theories scaled new heights on Monday when he alleged that people in “dark shadows” are controlling Democratic rival Joe Biden.

The US president made a mysterious claim about “thugs” in “dark uniforms” flying into Washington and also compared police brutality against African Americans to golfers cracking under pressure...

Trump was interviewed at the White House by Laura Ingraham, a host on the conservative Fox News network. “Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings?” she asked. “Is it former Obama people?”

The president replied: “People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows. People that –”

Even Ingraham, evidently sympathetic to Trump, interjected: “What does that mean? That sounds like a conspiracy theory. Dark shadows. What is that?”

Trump insisted: “There are people that are on the streets, there are people that are controlling the streets.”

The conversation then took an even stranger turn. “We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend,” the president said. “And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that.”

A puzzled Ingraham pressed for details. Trump deflected cryptically: “I’ll tell you some time. It’s under investigation right now.”

But he added that his witness, heading to the Republican national convention, had reported seeing “a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage”. Trump’s claim appeared baffling in the absence of further evidence...

>142 John5918: The poor man. When will these people put him in a home and let him enjoy his declining years? There's surely not very many of them left...

Failed Businessman, Trump, Creates Real Fake News with Kenosha Fake Business Owner Propaganda Photo

On Tuesday, the president repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that a man named John Rode III owned a camera business called Rode’s Camera Shop, which was set ablaze during protests last week. But Rode is not the owner of the camera shop, having sold the business years ago, according to local media. And the shop’s real owners, Tom Gram and Paul Willette, revealed to local media that they had refused to participate in what they both deemed a political stunt.

Local news outlets got Gram's and Willette's statements about the Liar-in-Chief's falsified "political stunt."

Gram, who told local news outlet WTMJ that the White House contacted him Monday to request he show off his now-destroyed shop alongside Trump, said the president’s past led to his refusal.

“I think everything he does turns into a circus and I just didn’t want to be involved in it,” Gram said.

Willette said that he refused the same request and that Trump was the sole reason.

“I said no, thank you — I didn’t want anything to do with President Trump,” Willette told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.“If it were any other president I would, but not this one. I can’t begin to describe my frustration with him. I politely declined coming down there. I didn’t want to be part of that fiasco.”

Don-boy, you're a weakling.

There's not a person in Washington, DC who doesn't tell bald face lies to their constituents and to the public in full. We (might) be the free country in the world but I also believe we are the most corrupt. They talk about China and Russia but I think they are babies compared to us. If we as citizens really knew what went on down there, we'd all leave.

>145 Barbara5822: If we as citizens really knew what went on down there, we'd all leave.

This sounds like utter nonsense to me. Do you know what goes on? If so, have you left? If not, how do you know that "we'd all leave"?

>145 Barbara5822: They talk about China and Russia but I think they are babies compared to us.

During the Soviet era the two official newspapers were Pravda (= Truth), the organ of the Party and Izvestia (= News), the government newspaper of record. Russians used to joke (discreetly) that there was no news in The Truth and no truth in The News.

My point being that in those two countries pervasive corruption and distortion were/are built into every aspect of the system and the society. The Chinese may have lied initially about SARS-CoV-2 but Anthony Fauci did not intentionally do so.

>145 Barbara5822:

Thanks, Barbara, and welcome to LT. It might be good if you were to catalogue a book or two, otherwise people might think you had only joined LT in order to jump in and post comments like this.

There's no doubt that there is corruption in the USA, as in most nations. The thing that many of us from outside the USA have always admired though is the attempts to investigate and prosecution corruption when it occurs - at least until the current president began suppressing such attempts and refusing to cooperate with them.

>145 Barbara5822: Bad Bot.

Russian government POISONS TO KILL its own citizens. And lies and denies about it. Why don't you go there?

Chinese government COMMITS GENOCIDE against its own citizens. And lies and denies about it. Why don't you go there? Blindfolded Uighurs Loaded Onto Trains To??? Women forced abortions and forced IUDs, hundreds of thousands penned in prison camps, families punished for having three or more children, and other abuses.

Retired Gen. John Kelly was cited in a story from The Atlantic about President Donald Trump making crude and derogatory comments about American soldiers.

During an extensive press rant on Labor Day, President Donald Trump was asked about the Atlantic story in which he was quoted calling fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.

If his remarks were defensible, or if he never said them at all, there are plenty of generals, active and retired, who could speak up and defend POTUS. John Kelly -- who claims he doesn't make political remarks -- has spoken out against Trump's idea of using the military against protestors.

“The troops hate it, they don’t see it as their job, they don’t want to be used in that way,” Kelly told Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director, during a livestreamed interview.
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“We have always attempted to be apolitical,” explained Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general. “And we think that’s important because the U.S. military serves the nation, all of its people, not a party, not a political persuasion, not an individual.”

Yet, Kelly remains mum. Why? If he knew Trump never said those things, wouldn't he -- a former Trump administration official -- want to defend him from false charges and "fake media"?

“I think we need to look harder at who we elect and I think we should start, all of us, regardless of what our views are of politics, I think we should look at people running for office and put them through the filter, what is their character like, what are their ethics and if elected, are they willing to represent all of their constituents and not just their base,” Kelly said. No wonder Kelly still remains mum.

So when CNN's Dana Bash asked Trump directly, "Why isn't John Kelly defending you?" Trump deflected away and cued his rant tape against the Atlantic report instead.

Pay attention, LT Trump supporters. Even Trump can't defend his own 'indefensible.'

One of These Is Not Like the Other

One claims he won the "Bay of Pigs Award"*, which is a lie because no such thing exists.
The other is an actual award winnning pig!

*Bay of Pigs Award. . .on second thought, hard to think of a more appropriate "honor" for this LOSER!

Snopes — one of the oldest and best-known online fact-check organizations — took a hard look at President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that he inherited a “depleted” military from President Barack Obama.

Their verdict: the president is not telling the truth.
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The Lies: . . the military wasn't "depleted" under Obama. The military never ran out of ammunition and never went "years" without funding. The budget for national defense during the Obama's term of office totaled nearly $6 trillion.
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In October 2019, for instance, Trump said: “When I took over our military, we did not have ammunition.”

This is not true.
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Trump said: “We’ve been trying to get money. They never gave us money for the military for years and years. And it was depleted.”

This, again, is false.
(SNIP)
May 22, 2020, (Trump said), “We’ve invested the $2.5 trillion in all of the greatest equipment in the world, and it’s all made here, right in the USA.”

This is not true.

From the Marine Times: Trump’s misleading claims on military readiness and veteran care

The military the president inherited from Obama was not depleted or facing a massive readiness crisis, which resulted from massive underfunding in the Obama years. In fact, according to Gen. David Petraeus ,who commanded our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan and also headed the CIA, and Michael O’Hanlon, there was no readiness crisis and in 2016, the year Trump was elected, the state of our military was “awesome.”

Trump also lied about what he has done for Veterans, claiming credit for passing the "Veterans Choice Act." The truth is, the law was passed in 2014 by the Obama Administration. Remember this little scene?

Trump was so upset when a reporter pointed this out at the press conference, where he bragged about what he had done for veterans, that he said she was finished, and he abruptly ended the press conference.

Cadet Bone Spurs, defeated by a woman who is capable of doing her job (unlike him), runs from the field of conflict. . .again.

>152 Limelite: Apparently we're not supposed to take what he says literally... so it's not lies, it's just, um, whatever you call it when you just say stuff without thinking too much about whether it's true or not. But not lies.

>153 kiparsky:

Misspoke himself several times a day for four years? That's a HUUUUGE slippery tongue. To match his ties, no doubt.

>153 kiparsky:

I think it's called 'stream of unconsciousness'.

>155 librorumamans: It's a stream of something, for sure. I think the technical term for it (thank you, Harry Frankfurt) is "bullshit".

>155 librorumamans:

Good one!

Defining Deviancy Down
William Kristol | October 14, 2020

The president retweets a story suggesting that Barack Obama had Seal Team 6 murdered.
And the world barely notices.

...the president of the United States brought to prominence an insane conspiracy theory that his predecessor, Barack Obama, arranged for four Americans to be killed at Benghazi to cover up an even bigger intentional blood-sacrifice of Navy SEALs—which in turn covered up the fact that Osama Bin Laden was still alive. Since it was a body-double who was in fact killed in 2011.

Or at least I think that’s the story Trump was amplifying. You’ll forgive me if I got some twists in the plot wrong...

https://thebulwark.com/defining-deviancy-down/

>158 margd: He was called out on this during his "thing" last night. He admitted only to be an inveterate retweeter, not really reading or agreeing with the tweets.
Yeah, right.

>159 mamzel:

Exactly. Yet he ALWAYS chooses conspiracy theory tweets over factual ones. If he doesn't read or agree with what he retweets, how does he explain his CHOICES?

>160 Limelite:
It's one of Jared's algorithms, I'll bet.