More Reports on the Dishonesty of the Trump White House, and Calling a Lie a Lie

Watch out, girl, your face might just freeze like that. . .
Image from source, NYT.

It can't be said often enough. For a candidate and campaign that tried to use "liar" as the main criticism of their opponent, and "truth teller" as a description of their own candidate, Donald Trump and Company continue to show themselves as the gang who can't go a day without lying. It's endless and blatant. They lie about things that don't matter. They lie about hugely important things. They lie about things that are easily and instantly disproven. They even lie about things that have already been admitted to be untrue. That's actually a hallmark of the far right, the resurrection of lies that have been long debunked. It was one of the biggest tools used against Hillary Clinton in the campaign, the Zombie Lie, as Bill Maher has called it.

But this many lies don't come without consequence. I mean just look at Kellyanne Conway's face, if you don't believe the toll it can take. And only a week in, we already have the press being more and more willing to call lies for what they are. Here's a story that goes into how these things are talked about and why. I've got to think that the more heat that Trump puts into demonizing "the media," the more willing they're going to be to say, "screw access," and just start calling his lies lies.

[Excerpt]

In a Swirl of ‘Untruths’ and ‘Falsehoods,’ Calling a Lie a Lie

Words matter.

And from the moment he became president, Donald J. Trump has unleashed so many of consequence that the public has barely had time to parse their full implication. Words about the dishonest media, the end of Obamacare, the construction of that border wall with Mexico — this is an abbreviated list, and he hasn’t even completed his first week in office. . .

Read more at: New York Times

Donald Trump's Lies in His First Week As President

Surreality, thy name is Trump. Image from source, Boston Globe.

Before we get to the meat of this story, I want yo to look at this picture. This is the picture that would accompany a news report in a sci-fi story about time travel gone horribly wrong. Or about a parallel Earth "over there," where things are not quite as they are "over here." It's an image you might expect if a crucial historical figure died (or lived) when they weren't supposed to, causing a ripple-effect in the time stream, resulting in bizarre news reports where the Nazis won World War II or New York City was bombed in the Cuban Missile Crisis. You could even expect it in a self-contained fictional universe, like Marvel's Cinematic Universe, or the DC Comics "Arrowverse." But we somehow ended up here, and I'm frankly still a bit outside myself wondering how.

How indeed. The man is clearly--especially now, having witnessed his first complete week--unfit to be President of the United States. He's still "candidate Trump," still bleating asinine statements on Twitter, still floating ridiculous policy statements and retracting them. Still making enemies of other countries and world leaders. Still lying his ass off on a daily basis. But now, it matters.  It's horrific, it's alarming, and it's basically unsustainable at this rate. I quite simply can't imagine this going on unabated for four years without huge damage to our country and to the world. And we thought Barack Obama had a lot to mop up. Who is going to want to come in after Donnie, and squeegee up the mess?

[Excerpt]

Fact checking Trump’s inaccurate statements

Regular readers know that candidate Donald Trump had difficulty with facts. Now that Trump is president, he continues to make misleading statements, based on incomplete information, inaccurate statistics or flights of fancy. Here’s an accounting of his public statements in the first seven days as president, not counting his error-plagued inauguration speech (which had eight problematic claims). . .


Read more at: Boston Globe

The Ben Carson West Point Story, Fact or Fiction?

Image from source, Esquire

I love deductive reasoning, puzzle games, investigative journalism, forensic evidence gathering, the lot. If the CBS slate of programming can be used as evidence, most Americans do as well. But it doesn't seem to be applied to much more than procedural dramas, certainly not much in real life.

That's why I love it when someone actually puts brain to task, and puzzles out, what is true and what is not true in a given story. You get at that by finding out what can't possibly be true, what is undeniably true, and then fitting in the plausible connective tissue, and disregard the fantastic and the dubious. When this is done, the Ben Carson West Point story comes down to this: Ben Carson lied.

Did Politico do a bit of shoddy journalism? Looks that way. But they weren't wrong.

Don't believe me (ahem, Dan)? Check it out.

[Excerpt]

Ben Carson Debunked: Inside His Made-Up West Point Story

Let's re-cap what has happened in the last few days since that first explosive story came out in Politico…and was observed here by our own Charlie Pierce on Friday. To wit, the Tale of Cadet Ben Carson. On Friday, Politico posted a sensational, but sadly incomplete, evaluation of some of Dr. Carson's claims about his past. Specifically their story asserted that Carson had not been given a "scholarship" to West Point, as he claimed in his book(s) and in multiple accounts of his past in speeches and interviews since 1990, when his first co-written autobiography appeared. . .

Read more at: Esquire

What Happens in NEAR Vegas : Cliven Bundy' Claims to "Ancestral Land" Bunk

1800s, huh? Sure, dude, whatever. The longer this story goes on, and the more I learn, the more I think the supporters of Cliven Bundy are just mental cases. What exactly is the claim of "freedom" here?

Tell us another one, Clive. Image from source,
8NewsNow

[Excerpt]

I-Team: Bundy's 'ancestral rights' come under scrutiny

Federal authorities remain silent about their next plans to confront Cliven Bundy at his Bunkerville ranch. Both sides are fighting over history, with federal courts denying Bundy's claims of "ancestral rights" on the Virgin River valley. The I-Team dug into century-old records to examine Bundy's claims. . .

Read more at: 8NewsNow

Mitt Romney Claims He Didn't Make "47%" Comment

By now, we're not surprised by a politician who denies saying what he plainly said. Meet the Press not to mention The Daily Show have long made hay pulling old speeches out to prove a candidate is wrong or has lied. But when the statement in question is one of the most glaring, most obvious pivot points of the race? What point is there in lying about it now? I mean, I know that Mitt Romney had a truth-telling problem (especially for a Mormon), but this one really takes the cake.
 

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Anti-Gay Parenting Study Was Manipulated to Influence SCOTUS

The now infamous Mark Regnerus,

from ThinkProgress

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is a badly named group dedicated to the sole purpose of preventing marriages: those of gay people. They purport to be only about "protecting marriage"--the word itself, and/or the concept, and/or "holy matrimony"--but the more you follow them, the more evident their real mission is. They want to prevent gay people from being seen as equal in society. It's about far more than marriage, but they realize that once that is achieved, the rest of the battle for them is lost. Particularly now, with support surging for marriage equality.

Because other arguments have failed, NOM and their affiliated groups have latched onto the argument that marriage is for children, and the natural bio-mom, bio-dad, 2.5-child nuclear family. Period. Though this very argument has failed pretty spectacularly in court, they've decided this is their best hope, and they've put all of their effort into pushing it. Amazingly enough, a study came out that actually made their argument seem stronger, by painting the parenting skills of gay couples as suspect.

Surprising no one who has been paying attention, the study has been found to be not at all what they claimed it to be. So, while NOM and their attendant groups claim to have a Biblical case against marriage equality, they seem to have no problem whatsoever with bearing false witness. And to the Supreme Court, no less.

[Excerpt]

Documents Reveal Anti-Gay Parenting Study Was Manipulated To Influence Supreme Court

Mark Regnerus has admitted his “family structures” study didn’t actually measure gay parenting, comparing the children of separated parents who had same-sex relationships with those of married opposite-sex parents. An internal auditor of the journal that published the Regnerus study last year concluded its findings were “bullshit” because this false comparison doesn’t adequately measure same-sex parenting. . .

Read more at: Think Progress

Keep On Lyin' Mitt Romney (Rocky Mountain Mike)

This Rocky Mountain Mike instant classic is a parody of Steve Miller Band's Rock'n Me, and takes on Mitt's habit of blatantly lying, this time about President Obama and Medicare. Good job, Mike!

Romney Campaign Continues to Distort

Image from ThinkProgress

This is getting ridiculous. Are they seriously going to carry this campaign through to November with a series of ads that take their potential voters for fools? I mean I know there is a subset of the American public that is eager to believe any and every negative thing they hear about President Obama. But not everyone has Obama Derangement Syndrome, and not everyone is willing to be spoon-fed distortion and lies. Or at least I hope so.

[Excerpt]

New Romney Campaign Distortion: Falsely Claims Obama ‘Promised Today To Bail Out Every Industry’

The Romney campaign, which has apparently exhausted the selectively edited clip of President Obama saying “you didn’t build that,” has seized on a new soundbite to distort. The campaign sent an email blast Thursday afternoon featuring a video of an Obama rally in Colorado from earlier that day and falsely claimed that he wants the government to bail out every industry. “I Want To Do The Same Thing With Manufacturing Jobs … In Every Industry,” it read. . .

Read more at: Think Progress

And Mitt Romney Keeps Lying

Yeah, yeah, politicians lie. Usually, we use euphemisms like "spin" or "exaggeration," but good ol' Mittens seems to be hanging his entire campaign on a series of what can really only be considered lies. Especially when you consider that even when his points are debunked, he just keeps going with the ads, unheeded. Here's the latest.

[Excerpt]

The scandal behind Romney's new attack ad


First, a little background. Some Republican governors this year asked the Obama administration for some new flexibility on welfare standards -- the governors had some ideas about moving folks from welfare to work and needed the White House to sign off. Obama agreed -- existing work requirements would stay in place, but states, if they want to, can take advantage of new flexibility when it comes to experimenting with existing law. . .

Read more at: MaddowBlog

Rachel Maddow Asks Mitt Romney 5 Questions

I reference The Rachel Maddow Show frequently, I know. But this is a perfect clip to showcase for two reasons: 1) There is no preamble or lead-in, Rachel gets right to it; and 2) Rachel asks 5 pointed, direct questions that Mitt Romney has so far avoided answering. And for bonus points, a couple of them are not questions you usually hear from mainstream cable news. We're waiting for your response, Mr. Romney!

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MoveOn Ad Casts Romney in Nixon Role: "Tricky Mitt?"

But will it stick?

Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, Retroactive Retirement and Taxes

Laugh it off, Mitt! Image from source.

On Friday, I started noticing some chop-licking going on in left-wing world. "This could be big," was the general consensus, though everyone seemed to be holding back a bit. Nobody wants to do a big schadenfreude dance, and then have the rug pulled out from under them. I mean, we saw what happened when FOX "News" mistakenly said that "Obamacare" had been declared un-Constitutional, and right-wing world had egg on its face after celebrating too quickly. Yeah, that shit's embarrassing.

But the rub is, Mitt Romney has been saying forever that he quit Bain Capital--the outsourcing, evil, money-grubbing Death Star of capitalism--in 1999. He even told the SEC that. But it came to light he was President, CEO and 100% owner of the place! All the way to what, 2002? That would be just possibly Mitt having a senior moment (repeatedly). But what about the stuff Bain did after '99 that Mitt was trying to dodge? All that shipping jobs overseas business. The making money off of abortion business. Yeah. It doesn't look good. I'm not ready for my schadenfreude dance just yet. But it was entertaining watching the righties spin on the Sunday shows yesterday. And I'm thinking of popping some corn. . .

[Excerpt]


Romney’s Tax Man Cometh

Poor, poor Mitt. He and his dancing horse have been having a tough go of it lately. Turns out he may (or may not!) have lied to the SEC about the good times he had at Bain capital between 1999 and 2002, presiding over the disposal of dead fetuses unborn babies before retroactively retiring. Then a bunch of conservatives went on the teevee and demanded that he release more than two years’ of tax returns. . .

Read more at: Wonkette

Come On Baby, Mitt's a Liar (Rocky Mountain Mike Song Parody)

Sometimes, a song parody can be contrived; the lyrics a tight fit. Not this one! Using Light My Fire as a template, Rocky Mountain Mike (of The Stephanie Miller Show) has crafted a perfect little ditty.