PANTS ON FIRE: Fear Mongering Trump Lies that Hamas is ‘Pouring Into Our Once Beautiful USA’

In the week since Hamas launched its terrorist attack on Israel, Donald Trump has managed to take positions that alternately praised the terrorists as “smart” and insulted President Biden as complicit with the terrorists. It has been the sort of typically incoherent, self-serving ramblings that characterize Trump’s anti-American brand of asininity.

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Donald Trump, Woman, Fear

However, not content with merely disparaging America, alienating our allies, and emboldening our enemies, Trump has also been directing his diatribes toward our fellow citizens here at home. On Friday Trump posted a video on his failing social media scam, Truth Social, wherein he sought to frighten his cult disciples with nightmarish tales of an impending doom that only he can save them from. Which is a deranged decree that he has delivered many times before.

SEE ALSO: Self-Appointed Pseudo Messiah Trump Decrees that ‘Nobody Else’ But Him Can Keep Israel Safe

In Trump’s latest video he outdid himself with brazenly bald-faced lies. And the fact that he was exploiting the tragic suffering and loss in Israel for his egomaniacal glorification makes it all the more repulsive. Here is what he said with all the sincerity and credibility of a poison-laced snake oil salesman…

“The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA through our totally open southern border at record numbers. These are the same people, many of them, that did a number in Israel, a sneak attack. Same people we have pouring into our country by the thousands. Are they planning to attack within our country?

“Crooked Joe Biden and his boss Barack Hussein Obama did this to us. We cannot let this happen. They may be planning something very very bad. Don’t forget, I’m not making this as a prediction. But there’s a phrase out there: Trump was right about everything. We have to be very careful. I don’t want to be right about this. But people are pouring in from the Middle East into our country, largely males, strong young males. What’s going on over here? Are we going to be raided like Israel was raided?”

Needless to say, not a single word of that bears the slightest resemblance to reality. It is entirely intended to stoke the most severe fears and anxieties of the glassy-eyed cultists who worship him. There have been exactly zero Hamas, or any other Middle East terrorists, crossing our Southern border, which is most definitely not open.

What’s more, Trump’s frequent assertion that Obama is controlling Biden is just a manifestation of an obsession that continues to occupy his feeble brain seven years after Obama left office. And his repetitive warnings of an attack by imaginary Muslim terror cells is only going to fuel further prejudice and potential violence against innocent people.

For the record, PolitiFact addressed these remarks by Trump and found them to be “Pants on Fire” level lies…

“Terrorism experts told us that there is no evidence that Hamas, a terrorist group in Gaza, has militants crossing the Mexico-U.S. border, much less in record numbers. And a DHS spokesperson said there is no credible intelligence to signal a threat to the U.S. from Hamas.”

Furthermore, PolitiFact’s analysis of Trump’s statements over time reveal that 75% of them have been determined to be “Mostly False” “False,” or “Pants on Fire.” To anyone who has been paying attention for the past several years, that won’t come as much of a surprise. But it is nevertheless alarming that such a grotesquely dishonest, sociopathic, aspiring authoritarian is still leading the Republican Party’s race for their 2024 presidential nomination. It says all you need to know about today’s GOP, that can’t even manage to elect a Speaker of the House.

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After Goofy Lawsuit Against CNN, Trump Threatens More Suits, Including the January 6th Committee

The pathologically litigious former reality TV game show host, Donald Trump, has revealed his latest legal lunacy. In a typically amateurish 28 page filing, Trump announced that he is suing CNN, claiming defamation and seeking punitive damages of $475 million.

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Donald Trump, CNN

That’s right. Trump is suing the network that he has defamed hundreds of times as “fake” and “the enemy of the people” for defamation. His new complaint comes less than a month after another lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, and nearly fifty other people who the suit describes as “her cohorts,” was laughed out of court. The judge ruled that Trump was just “seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him.”

RELATED: Trump’s Loopy Lawsuit Against Hillary Clinton and ‘Her Cohorts’ Reads Like Sleazy Pulp Fiction

Trump’s filing begins with a paragraph that is wholly saturated with political, rather than legal, arguments. He starts off saying that “The Plaintiff, President Donald J. Trump, has been a long-time critic of the Defendant, Cable News Network, Inc. (“CNN”)” So what? What does that have to do with any rational assertion of defamation? He continued…

“The Plaintiff, President Donald J. Trump, has been a long-time critic of the Defendant, Cable News Network, Inc. (“CNN”) — not because CNN does a bad job of reporting the news, but because CNN seeks to create the news (“fake news,” as the Plaintiff has characterized it in public statements). Beyond simply highlighting any negative information about the Plaintiff and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence— purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source—to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically. […]

“CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler.’”

First of all, Trump’s description of CNN as having “massive influence” is a contradiction of his repeated insults over the years calling CNN a failing news enterprise with terrible ratings that nobody watches.

More to the point, the crux of Trump’s complaint is that CNN’s use of labels describing him as a “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and comparable to Hitler are defamatory. Apparently his lawyers have not advised him that the truth is a solid defense against allegations of defamation. And there is abundant evidence that CNN’s labels are accurate. It should be interesting to see the court proceedings as that evidence is presented.

Trump’s announcement of this lawsuit was made on his floundering social media scam, Truth Social. In his tedious and infantile fashion, Trump whined that…

“A lawsuit was filed today against CNN, the once prestigious news channel that has devolved into a purveyor of disinformation, defamation, and Fake News, at a level which the American Public, and indeed the World, will not even believe is possible.” […]

“In the coming weeks and months we will also be filing lawsuits against a large number of other Fake News Media Companies for their lies, defamation, and wrongdoing, including as it pertains to ‘The Big Lie,’ that they used so often in reference to their disinformation attack on Presidential Election of 2020.”

Trump didn’t bother to identify any of the other media companies that he is threatening to sue. But Trump’s animosity toward the press will surely provide him with a long list of what he regards as offending enterprises. We can assume that it won’t include Fox News, which has been documented to have disseminated more lies, disinformation, and propaganda than any other “news” organization. If Trump’s suit against CNN were successful, Fox News better look out. Then he continued…

Likewise, we may bring appropriate action against the Unselect Committee of January 6th because, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence, they REFUSED to investigate the massive Presidential Election Fraud which took place, but only investigate and harass the people and Patriots who complained and asked questions about it. The rigging and stealing of our Presidential Election was perhaps The Crime Of The Century, and look at what is happening to our Country now!”

So Trump thinks he can sue Congress because it isn’t investigating the people he wants them to investigate. Never mind that there isn’t a shred of evidence to support any of his allegations that there was any “rigging and stealing of our Presidential Election.” But he still wasn’t finished…

“The Unselect Committee has refused to acknowledge, as was done by the Biden Inspector General at the Department of Defense, and others, that days ahead of January 6th, I recommended and authorized thousands of troops to be deployed to ensure that there was peace, safety, and security at the Capitol and throughout the Country. That offer of the national guard was rejected by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Mayor Bowser of Washington, D.C. – The law requires their request, they failed to make one, and in turn failed the country.

This charge that Speaker Pelosi was responsible for the January 6th insurrection has been debunked repeatedly. PolitiFact’s detailed analysis documented that there is no record of Trump authorizing 20,000 National Guard troops, no evidence that Pelosi denied such an authorization, and that she doesn’t have the authority to do so in the first place.

It’s also curious that Trump’s bogus complaint is essentially that Pelosi didn’t sufficiently protect the Capitol from his violent supporters. He’s admitting that he knew his cult followers posed a risk significant enough to require thousands of National Guard troops to suppress.

Trump’s filling also contains this morsel: “CNN has been given the dreaded ‘Pants on Fire!’ designation by PolitiFact for its stories comparing Trump to Hitler.” He’s referring to segment wherein a guest on CNN said that Trump “may be responsible for many more million deaths” than Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong.”

Setting aside the fact that this was a position taken by a guest and not CNN, Trump should be careful about citing the “Pants on Fire” designations by PolitiFact. For the record, he has 116 of them. Overall, his statements reviewed by PolitiFact include 83% that are “Half True, Mostly False, False,” or “Pants on Fire.” Only 14% were rated “Mostly True” or “True.” That’s not exactly something to brag about.

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PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year: The January 6th Insurrection Disinformation By Trump and Fox News

Eleven months ago a mob of anti-American, democracy hating subversives stormed the United States Congress with the intention of overturning the will of the people who voted in the 2020 presidential election. They were fueled by the flagrant falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and their Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News.

Donald Trump, Fox News, Lies

What occurred on January 6th, 2021, was a violent insurrection against America and its Constitution. The participants were the forward flank of an attempted coup by authoritarian forces led by Trump and his treasonous confederates. Now, nearly a year later, the lies and treachery have been documented by communications between Republican conspirators, boastful confessions by right-wing defectors, and hundreds of hours of contemporaneous video.

Fittingly, PolitiFact has announced that they have chosen Lies About the Capitol insurrection as their annual “Lie of the Year.” The justifications supporting their decision were detailed in a lengthy article that included numerous references to those most responsible for the torrent of blatant and dangerous dishonesty. Not surprisingly, that turned out to be Donald Trump and Fox News hosts such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson. In fact, Trump is a multi-year recipient of the dishonor. PolitiFact’s assessment noted that “In the days that followed” the insurrection, Trump, the GOP, and Fox News, among others, “offered a deluge of justifications, excuses and conspiracy theories,” such as…

  • They said Jan. 6 was instigated by undercover left-wing activists who were part of antifa. That was proved false.
  • They said the rioters hadn’t used force and one Republican congressman likened the events to “a normal tourist visit.” Video proved that wrong.
  • They claimed the attack on the Capitol had nothing to do with race, even though white supremacists and far-right militia groups were among the most active participants, and many rioters wore racist t-shirts.
  • They suggested the whole affair was staged by the government, a false flag operation. Others suggested it was entirely a peaceful protest. All of that was wrong.
  • They said that the rioters were political prisoners and shouldn’t face serious charges. A host of federal judges and courts have held otherwise.

Among the most heinous misrepresentations of reality were Trump’s ludicrous claim that Right from the start it was zero threat.” And then there was Tucker Carlson’s lie-riddled crocumentary “Patriot Purge,” that preposterously asserted that the insurrection was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by the FBI and other agents of the “Deep State.”

In addition to the tribute conferred on the insurrection liars by PolitiFact, they also had a “Lie of the Year” readers poll wherein a huge majority (75%) voted for Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. Which is, of course, related to the lies about the insurrection because it was Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him that triggered the assault on Congress.

PolitiFact could just have easily chosen the lies that Trump won the election, or the lies about the COVID vaccine either not working or causing harm, for their “Lie of the Year.” Both of which are also attributable to deliberate dishonesty by Trump and Fox News. But PolitiFact chose the insurrection lies because “the attack was historically important,” and because “the events of Jan. 6 were widely broadcast…So efforts to downplay and deny what happened are an attempt to brazenly recast reality itself.”

In other words, Trump, Fox News, and the other liars were so despicable that they tried to pretend that the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812 didn’t happen. And they were so shameless that they tried to convince people not to believe their own eyes. Of course, that has been the modus operandi of Trump and Fox News all along. But what is truly disheartening is that, despite the abundant evidence, there is still a small but worrisome contingent of willfully ignorant believers.

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Fox News and Trump Tool, Kayleigh McEnany, Says She Never Lied Because … God

The audacity of Donald Trump and his cadre of confederates never ceases to amaze. When they aren’t inciting their cult disciples to vigilantism or insurrection, they’re manufacturing “scandals” to malign President Biden, Democrats, or anyone else they perceive to be enemies.

Kayleigh McEnany

So much of the right-wing playbook is focused on projection and lying that it’s become a routine part of their daily blather. And on Sunday Trump’s former press secretary – and current Fox News co-host of Outnumbered – Kayleigh McEnany, delivered a speech before the ultra-rightist college organization, Turning Point USA. In the course of her remarks she reminded everyone of her most notable skill: Straight-faced lying:

“And then there was the question, ‘Will you ever lie to us?’ And I said without hesitation, ‘No!’ And I never did. As a woman of faith, as a mother of baby Blake, as a person who meticulously prepared at some of the world’s hardest institutions, I never lied.”

Seriously? McEnany is actually lying about her lying. And if she expects God to corroborate this blatant dishonesty, she might be in for a surprise bolt of lightening.

McEnany began her tenure as Chief White House Liar within fifteen minutes of her first briefing. And she delivered boatloads of lies throughout her brief turn as Trump’s fourth press secretary. Among some of the gems were…

McEnany said the Mueller report was a “complete and total exoneration” of Trump.
Except that the Mueller report explicitly states that “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” It laid out 10 instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice.

McEnany said Trump doesn’t use the racist term “kung flu” to describe coronavirus.
Except that he did so many tines, and it’s all on video.

McEnany said that Trump’s tax returns are under audit and can’t be released.
Except that Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has admitted that the tax returns are not under audit. And in any case, there is nothing preventing someone from releasing returns even if they are being audited.

McEnany said there is “ample evidence of fraud” when it comes to the absentee system and vote by mail.
Except that there actually is no evidence whatsoever, as was documented by the Chair of the Republican Party and even Trump’s own top election security official (whom he subsequently fired). What’s more, Trump and company lost over sixty court cases, failing to provide evidence.

And in a grand example of dishonest hubris, McEnany famously said that “No. I don’t believe the President has lied.”
Except that Trump has been documented to have lied more than 30,000 times in his one-term presidency.

And let’s not forget that McEnany was Trump’s primary proponent of the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. That led to the deadly Capitol Hill insurrection, which McEnany also lied about. She claimed “everyone felt just completely condemning the actions of that day.” But the reality was described at the time by former Trump aides who said that “Trump enjoyed watching the events unfold. He was ‘loving watching the Capitol mob.'” Trump himself, in reluctant remarks made hours after the riots began, told the rioters that “We love you,” and that “You’re very special.”

Finally, McEnany callously lied about the estimated number of deaths from the coronavirus, and what Trump’s responsibility was.

For the record, PolitiFact has compiled McEnany’s remarks and categorized their truthfulness. She scored 56% as either “Mostly False, “False,” or “Pants on Fire.” There were only 14% “Half True,” 28% “Mostly True” and 0% “True.” But sure, she says that, with God as her witness, she has never told a lie.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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PolitiFact Lie of the Year: Trump Wins an Unprecedented 4 Years Running

The announcement of PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” for 2020 was bound to be somewhat anticlimactic. After all, Donald Trump has already been documented to have told more than 25,000 lies since his inauguration. That’s an average of 50 lies per day. And that isn’t even counting his lies since the election on November 3rd. With a catalog that enormous the odds have been with Trump all along.

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Trump Lies

It doesn’t hurt either that Trump is the defending champ with the three previous Lies of the Year under his prodigious belt. Trump has been “honored” for disgorging “fake news,” for his collective campaign misstatements, for his repeated denials of Russia’s election interference, and for his false assertions that “the whistleblower got my phone conversation with Ukraine all wrong.”

Now the 2020 Lie of the Year went to Coronavirus Disinformation.” While that’s a catch-all designation, it’s clear that Trump and his deliberate falsehoods on the subject dominate the category. And PolitFact makes that clear in their article and accompanying video (see below):

“President Donald J. Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci as an unreliable flip-flopper.”

“But the infodemic was not the work of a single person. […] Influential TV and radio opinion hosts told millions of viewers that social distancing was a joke and that states had all of the personal protective equipment they needed (when they didn’t). It was a symphony of counter narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president.”

It’s notable that where PolitiFact stipulated that “the infodemic was not the work of a single person,” they illustrated that point with two examples from Fox News. So we could give Fox an honorary mention as an accessory to Trump’s prevaricating victory.

For good measure, Trump is also the leading contender for PolitiFact’s readers poll. The proposed lies in this poll are 1) Coronavirus downplay and denial, 2) False claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump won re-election, and 3) False claims that celebrities and politicians are child molesters (QAnon). Readers could also write in their own preferred lies. But each of these strongly suggest fabrications by the Fibber-in-Chief who is the primary disseminator of these blatant untruths.

That’s why it’s futile for anyone to attempt to unseat Trump as the annual Lie of the Year winner. It’s what he has worked for – and excelled in – his whole life. That said, next year there may be a new champ with Trump in civilian life, and hopefully in prison.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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Lie of the Year: Pathological Liar Trump 3-Peats as PolitiFact’s Foremost Fibber for 2019

Donald Trump likes to boast about imaginary achievements that he pretends to have accomplished. No, he has not built any new border wall. Nor has he presided over the best economy ever, or rebuilt a crumbling military, or completed any new trade treaties, or destroyed ISIS, or fulfilled any of the other fallacies he spews to his Deplorables. But there is one thing he can honestly brag about.

Trump Lies

For the third time, Trump has been awarded the un-coveted “Lie of the Year” from PolitiFact. It was a competitive year in which Trump was vying against … well, mostly himself. But he couldn’t possibly find a more formidable opponent. After all, he has the distinction of having been documented for telling more than 15,000 lies since he took office.

Trump previously won PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2015 for his collective campaign “misstatements.” Then again in 2017, for his repeated denials of Russia’s interference in the presidential election. In 2016 PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year went to “Fake News,” so you might say that Trump deserved a share of that as well. But the falsehood that took the dishonors this year was his brazenly untrue and incessantly repeated assertion that “the whistleblower got my phone conversation with Ukraine almost completely wrong.”

As the detailed analysis by PolitiFact shows, the whistleblower actually got Trump’s phone conversation completely right in every respect. Trump never even tried to cite whatever inaccuracies he purported to see. He simply cried “fake news” and relied on the willful blindness of his supporters to believe him.

However, the enormity of this lie is magnified by the fact that Trump himself actually admitted to doing what the whistleblower alleged. Responding to a reporter’s question about what he wanted from Ukrainian President Zelensky during the phone call, Trump said that “It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens.” What’s more, Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also confessed to a quid pro quo from the podium of the White House press office.

And if that isn’t enough, the transcript that Trump is constantly berating everyone to read quotes Trump plainly affirming the whistleblower by conditioning military aid on Zelensky’s help to smear Joe Biden. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution,” Trump extorted, “So if you can look into it.” Which is the core allegation by the whistleblower.

So the Trump provided “transcript,” his chief of staff, and his own words, attest to the accuracy of the whistleblower’s complaint. Nevertheless, Trump has denied that obvious truth more than 80 times. And his persistence has paid off, at least with the glassy-eyed members of his cult who faithfully attend his rallies. The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper proved that by asking the StormTrumpers if they had read the “transcript.” Not a single one said that they had. And even with repeated prodding, they couldn’t grasp why that was so hysterically hypocritical.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

BIG NOPE! Trump Posts Fox News Video Claiming that ‘He’s Delivered on All of His Promises’

The 2020 presidential election has begun in earnest with the first Democratic primary debate done and the second a little over a week away. On the Republican side the primary is being aggressively ignored despite the presence of a credible opponent to Donald Donald, former Massachusetts governor William Weld. But Trump himself is fully engaged in his battle to win reelection.

Donald Trump

There is nothing Trump likes better than campaigning. He prefers it over being president so much that he has never stopped doing it. He has held sixty-four (64!) of his campaign cult rallies so far, with the latest being his “Send Her Back” racist extravaganza last week in North Carolina. That works out to about one rally every two weeks. Add that to his time spent golfing, tweeting, and watching Fox News and you have to wonder how he has any time for presidenting. Which may be a blessing.

On Saturday morning Trump continued his campaign crusade by posting a video on Twitter of his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, cheerleading for Eric’s daddy and commending his alleged list of accomplishments. She says, without a hint of shame, that “He’s delivered on all of his promises.” There’s just one small problem. That list is a long scroll of blankness, unless you’re counting all the examples of harm Trump has thrust upon the nation. Let’s take a look at what Lara said, and what her sugar-daddy-in-law thinks is proof of his success.

PolitiFact keeps a running tally of the status of Trump’s campaign promises. They currently show that only 16 percent are graded as “Promises Kept.” The other 84 percent are distributed between “Compromise, Broken, Stalled,” or “In the Works.” That is hardly a record that anyone should be proud of.

What’s more, of the top five promises Trump has made, he has achieved precisely ZERO!. They include his failed promise to repeal Obamacare. While he has managed to cut into its effectiveness with executive orders that hurt millions of Americans, he has repeatedly fallen short in Congress and many of his executive orders were overturned by the courts.

Then there is his pledge to build a wall along the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. With his term more than half way over there is still no wall and nothing but ridicule from Mexico. Instead, Trump has been trying desperately to build a fence and make the American people pay for it.

He also promised to suspend immigration from terror-prone places. On that item he did push through an abhorrent and discriminatory ban on Muslim refugees. But he left many countries that are known to harbor terrorists off of the list. For instance, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. And since there weren’t any terrorists coming into the U.S. from the countries he listed, the only thing he accomplished was to prohibit legitimate refugees from seeking safety from terrorists.

Trump also said that he would cut taxes for everyone. Had he said “everyone who is wealthy or a corporation,” he might have been able to claim this one as a success. Instead, the fact is that most Americans did not get a tax cut, and many got increases. Which makes this just another Trump failure.

Finally, Trump promised to lower the business tax rate to 15 percent. However, he only got it down to 21 percent, which was still bad enough to produce a trillion dollar increase in the national debt. And it did nothing to benefit the workers at those companies.

Those are just the top five promises that Trump made. There are many more that he enumerated in his “Contract with the American Voter.” And with a few exceptions, those were mostly unfulfilled as well.

What Trump has succeeded in is dividing the nation, emboldening racist hate groups, cozying up to foreign dictators, fouling the planet, appointing corrupt government officials, suppressing voters, and advancing an economy that works only for corporations and the rich, while average Americans struggle. Congratulations, Donnie. You’ve delivered on all of your promises to your wealthy friends and foreign tyrants.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

President Pathological: Donald Trump Dominates PolitiFact’s 2018 Lie of the Year Readers’ Poll

If there is one thing that thrills Donald Trump more than anything else, it’s being “Number One” at whatever he is being judged for. So he will undoubtedly be writhing in ecstasy when he hears that the readers of PolitiFact have, once again, singled him out for tribute as America’s most unconstrained liar, even if he isn’t really very good at it.

Donald Trump

PolitiFact’s editors’ choice for Lie of the Year was the “Online Smear Machine” that viciously maligned the Parkland students who survived the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The story of the conspiracy theorists who invented horrific tales of “crisis actors” was surely worthy of being featured as the year’s worst lie. PolitiFact noted that:

“The students and the country were about to learn a hard lesson about participating in democracy in 2018. That you don’t have to be a politician to be on the receiving end of the internet’s worst hoaxes. That the lies don’t vanish after being debunked. That the same hoaxes will spread again after the next attack.”

However, the site’s readers had a somewhat different take. They clearly saw Trump as the undisputed fountain of untruths that he is now world renowned for. And this isn’t the first time Trump has been “honored” in this manner. He previously won the 2017 Lie of the Year award for repeatedly calling Russia’s election interference a “hoax.” He got an honorable mention of sorts in 2016’s Lie of the Year, “Fake News,” because he was such a frequent contributor to the fakery. And in 2015 Trump won his first Lie of the Year award for “The campaign misstatements of Donald Trump.” They were so numerous the fact-checkers couldn’t settle on a single lie.

However, in PolitiFact’s 2018 Readers Poll, Trump’s lies dominated the contest by taking five of the top ten spots. Here are those five flagrant and deliberate lies that Trump is even now continuing to disseminate:

  • “The Democrats want to invite caravan after caravan of illegal aliens into our country. And they want to sign them up for free health care, free welfare, free education, and for the right to vote.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 26, 2018, at a rally – False
  • A “horrible law” requires that children be separated from their parents “once they cross the Border into the U.S.” – Donald Trump on May 28, 2018, in a tweet – False
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 20, 2018, to reporters – Pants on Fire
  • “Democrats let him (cop killer Luis Bracamontes) into our country,” and “Democrats let him stay.” – Donald Trump on Oct. 31, 2018, in a tweet – Pants on Fire
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.” – Donald Trump on July 31, 2018, at a rally – False

Plus, two others on the list are closely related to Trump and express views that he also holds:

  • “The Russian state has never interfered … into internal American affairs including election process.” – Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018, in a press conference – Pants on Fire
  • “The deficit … is coming down, and it’s coming down rapidly.” – Larry Kudlow on June 29, 2018. in an interview – Pants on Fire

In addition to those, PolitiFact also posted Trump’s Top Ten Falsehoods of 2018. They included some of those chosen in the Readers’ Poll above, plus these flaming whoppers:

  • Says 3,000 people “did not die” in two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico.
  • People “went out in their boats to watch” Hurricane Harvey.
  • “California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”
  • “In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say ‘oh that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.”
  • “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, so okay, they’re at a record level.”
  • “U.S. Steel just announced that they are building six new steel mills.”
  • Saudi Arabia has ordered $450 billion from the United States, “$110 billion of which is a military order,” producing “over a million jobs.”

The volume and frequency of Trump’s dishonest blathering is not exactly breaking news. The Washington Post has documented more 6,400 instances of his lying since his inauguration in January 2017. But it’s useful to have this compendium of his compulsive aversion to the truth for history’s sake. Plus, it gives him something to brag about since he’s to addle-brained to realize that this isn’t complimentary recognition. It won’t be long before he tweets “Take that Fake News. I’m #1 on PolitiFact.”

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump’s Lie-Riddled ‘Medicare-for-All’ Op-Ed in USA Today is Obliterated By Fact-Checkers

Not content with the 280 characters that Twitter gives him to dissemble incoherently every day, Donald Trump put crayon to paper for an Op-Ed in USA Today – or more likely, his minders wrote it for him. In his defense, it’s hard to squeeze more lies into the finite confines of a tweet than he has already done. So having the luxury of nearly 5,000 characters to lie within must have given him a sense of freedom.

Donald Trump

The subject of the editorial was Medicare-for-All and, needless to say, Trump is against it, just as he is against anything that actually helps people more than corporations. The lede for his falsehood-laden tirade says that “The Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this.” But while Trump’s opposition comes as no surprise, the rapid fire velocity of his blatant untruths was a little shocking, even for him. And that didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the press that values honesty and factual reporting. Just a few of the media fact-checkers that weighed in on Trump’s bucket of bullpucky included these:

  • The Washington Post: Fact-checking President Trump’s USA Today op-ed on ‘Medicare-for-All. Nearly every line of President Trump’s USA Today op-ed contained a false or misleading statement.
  • Vox Media: Trump’s USA Today op-ed on Medicare is an absurd tissue of lies
  • Newsweek: Chuck Schumer Fact Checks Trump’s USA Today Op-Ed with More Than a Dozen Corrections
  • Huffington Post: Wildly Inaccurate Trump Op-Ed On Health Care Receives Swift Backlash
  • NBC News: USA Today criticized for printing Trump op-ed despite inaccuracies
  • NPR: FACT CHECK: Trump’s False Claims On ‘Medicare For All’
  • Los Angeles Times: Trump’s USA Today op-ed on Medicare is full of lies — but does anyone really believe he wrote it himself?
  • PolitiFact: Fact-checking Donald Trump’s op-ed against Medicare for All in USA Today

The analyses from these actual journalists covered many of the same blatant lies that Trump espoused in his vanity rant. They included his charge that a single-payer system would eliminate private health care. It would not. Private plans are available for those who can afford more in every country that currently offers universal coverage. Trump also complained that Medicare-for-All would cost $32 trillion, but he failed to mention that the current system costs $34 trillion, so we would save $2 trillion.

Trump also reminded readers that he promised to protect coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions. However, his proposals actually eliminate that benefit. So then he sought to claim that under his programs premiums have been declining. In fact, they declined as a result of ObamaCare, but rose after Trump’s sabotage of it was implemented.

Trump tried to foist the lie that ObamaCare cut Medicare by $800 billion. The truth is that it moved that money from Medicare to ObamaCare, and then provided more benefits with the same funding. Also Trump claimed that Medicare-for-All would outlaw private plans, end of choice for seniors, and prevent people from seeing the doctor of their choice. None of that is true. Especially the last item because, without physician networks people could go to any doctor they want.

Then Trump segued completely away from health care to lob some unrelated and unprovoked insults at Democrats. He began by fuming that “the centrist Democratic Party is dead. The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela.” Which is, of course, total nonsensical babbling from a deranged mind. He railed at “Democrats’ absolute commitment to end enforcement of our immigration laws, and charged that “Today’s Democratic Party is for open-borders socialism.” Which he must have picked up from one of his white supremacist buddies like Tucker Carlson of Fox News.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Finally, Trump projected the Republican agenda to “slash budgets for seniors’ Medicare and Social Security” onto Democrats, who have always fought to preserve and improve those programs. Even now the Republican Congress is proposing severe cuts due to funding shortfalls caused by Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. That’s just another of the parade of lies that our Pathological-Liar-in-Chief is spewing in a never ending effort to break his own records for lies-per-minute. And on this matter alone Trump can actually claim to be winning.

Trump is a ‘Very Stable Genius’ Who Mindlessly Repeats What He Just Saw on Fox and Friends

The questions about Donald Trump’s apparent psychological decline are rapidly becoming more than partisan speculation. And the person most responsible for affirming the President’s mental infirmity just happens to be Donald Trump. The more he talks about his own cerebral frailty, the more feeble he appears to be.

Fox News Trump

On Saturday morning Trump thought it was necessary to defend himself against the allegations that have been made by politicians, pundits, and mental health professionals. But his comments were a pathetic mess of ego and delusion. He tweeted that:

It is notable that these tweets were posted less than ten minutes after a segment on this subject was aired on Fox and Friends. This is a pattern that is repeated frequently by Trump who obviously watches the program religiously, despite saying that he doesn’t have time for television. The message in the tweets is one that should be of concern to all Americans.

First of all, the investigation into his involvement in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election has not been proven to be a hoax. Quite the contrary. There have already been four indictments with two guilty pleas. The rest of what has been uncovered by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is still under wraps. And PolitiFact awarded Trump it’s Lie of the Year for repeatedly making this statement about the matter being a hoax.

Secondly, no one has ever recognized Trump’s two greatest assets as his “mental stability” or “being, like, really smart.” And if he wants to make that claim himself he probably shouldn’t sound so much like a “Valley Girl.” (fer sure). His true assets were actually having been born into a wealthy family and having the shameless lack of character that permits him to lie, cheat, and steal to get what he wants.

His boasts about education are a lame attempt to cling to some alleged glory from half a century ago. And it’s all the more irrelevant since he refuses to release his college transcripts. Also, Trump has never been a successful businessman. He would be far richer if he had just invested his inheritance in an S&P 500 indexed mutual fund. With at least four bankruptcies, he can hardly lay claim to any business prowess. And like his college claims, Trump refuses to release his tax returns to validate his alleged success in business.

Finally, Trump’s self-exalting assertions about his sanity and brilliance are downright surreal. When was the last time you heard “a very stable genius” say he was a very stable genius? Smart people are the last people to say that they are smart. Trump’s bragging is actually a sort of certification of his ignorance and instability. And he elaborated on that theme in brief remarks to reporters at Camp David when a reporter asked “This morning you were tweeting about your mental state. Why did you feel the need to tweet about that this morning?”

Whereupon Trump regurgitated his tedious refrain about having been an “excellent student” and becoming a successful businessman and TV star. Then he drifted off into a diatribe against Fire and Fury author, Michael Wolff, and his former top White House aide, Sloppy Steve Bannon. Watch this video and see for yourself if he ever approaches a coherent answer to the question regarding his mental state:

Remember, the question was “Why did you feel the need to tweet about [your mental state] this morning?” The answer was aimless blather about his perception of his own awesomeness and his perceived enemies. That isn’t the response of someone who is either stable or a genius. If anything, Trump’s response this morning affirms the broadly held assessment that he is unfit for the office he holds. His inability to maintain a focus on the topic is a symptom of cognitive dysfunction. It’s a cry for help that everyone – from his family to his Republican peers – is ignoring. And the peril this represents to the nation, and the world, cannot be overstated.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.