One thing I will grant him is that, whether through sheer dumb luck or some feral instinct for fascism, he’s created a persona that inoculates himself against all criticism in the eyes of his supporters. If he says an obvious lie, and the media calls it out as a lie, they’re the ‘liberal fake news’. If he says something transparently, howlingly stupid, or something vile and hateful, they say he doesn’t really mean it, he’s just ‘trolling the libs’.
And, also, they can and do insist, “he was talking figuratively, why do you need to be so literal?,” and “he was just joking, obviously.”
I will suggest this… if a person makes a statement of fact without bothering to see if it’s true, it’s a lie. They don’t get to shake that label via intentional ignorance.
Yep. There was a saying that originated during trump 1.0: “His detractors take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally”.
For man born on third base and coming home he has far to much anger towards anyone or thing other than him self ! I’m so thankful I’ve never needed to kiss up to the likes of a Trump!
This is a 10 Commandments concept that a lot of Christians get wrong. The proscription is against bearing false witness, not about lying. Regardless of intent, it puts some onus on the speaker to actually make some, perhaps just minimal, effort into making sure what they say is true.
As such, and if we take Trump and his supporters own claim he does practice Christianity at face value, he constantly violates that commandment, regardless of intent to deceive.
He constantly and continually bears false witness nearly every waking hour of his day, as do many of the people around him and many if not most of the millions who always give him a pass.
He routinely breaks almost all of them every single day…
- I am the Lord thy God. Thou shall not have strange gods before Me.
His Gods are money and power. - Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
I’m sure he emits a metric ton of ‘goddamits’ every single day - Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day.
Golfing does not count. - Honor thy father and mother.
This is – possibly – the only one he’s actually followed. Or at least, does lip service to these days.
And the rest-- well, duhhhh: - Thou shall not kill.
- Thou shall not commit adultery.
- Thou shall not steal.
- Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
- Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
- Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
Here’s a handy little 2 minute fact-check refutation of trump lies from his address last night, in a short from my YouTube feed:
This is Genius!
Yes, they get a check for $1,776, but the housing allowance that they genuinely need to get by, month-to-month? Gone.
The real kicker is that the housing allowance was NOT taxable income, but the check will
be.
On Donald’s performance: I’m not getting why so many seem to simply believe the White House representation that this was a LIVE address.
Nothing whatsoever in that broadcast supports the idea that it was live. And when have White House claims ever been reliable?
It seems clear that they picked a time of day when he’s least-sundowny, on a day he was most rested, and taped a few go-throughs. Likely after he’d gotten whatever stimulants they usually give him before public performances.
Then they had the tape sped up. It’s fairly easy now to speed up a tape of a person speaking and correct the pitch of the voice to sound normal (not Chipmunk-y).
All those patting Donald’s head for achieving the goal of finishing the speech in less than twenty minutes, should reconsider those pats.
[This is a longish technical paper on speeding up speech while adjusting the pitch, for anyone interested:
There were reporters in the room when it took place.
Detailing what happened after the cameras stopped rolling in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, the Independent’s White House correspondent, Andrew Feinberg, posted on X: “@realDonaldTrump turned to his staff and asked how he did. They all responded [with] some version of great. ‘Very good, it looked rea@realDonaldTrumply good!’”
Freelance political journalist Laura Rozen confirmed Feinberg’s version of events and revealed further details of what was said as Trump was “reviewing his speech with staff.”
“He… said (not exact) ‘Susie told me I have to give an address to [the] nation,’” she wrote on X. “They went back and forth on length, and he said ‘how did I do?’ Wiles said ‘I told you 20 minutes and you were 20 minutes on the dot.’ The president then thanked the press and walked out.”
As a former member of the military, I can in no way conceive that they are withholding any housing allowance money from any military service member. It is an integral part of people’s compensation. If it had ever been withheld when I was in the service, I wouldn’t have been able to pay my rent that month.
It’s been a little garbled in the news media, but I think Trump grabbed some money that was budgeted for housing allowances and is diverting the funds to pay for his bonus. So the fund will run out of money that much faster. And they will likely have to scrounge up money from somewhere else to make up the shortfall.
I think it’s all basically a shell game. But regardless I think servicemembers will ultimately get a bonus on top of their housing allowance.
What they love most is that he pisses off liberals. They don’t care what he does as long as they can laugh at liberal tears. I guess it’s the only joy in their lives.
See above.
Whew. I watched this clip, which had maybe 60 seconds of Trump content and it was enough for me for the rest of the year.
Boy I can see how stupid people fall for this crap. He says it all with such conviction. If you’re just Joe Dumbass who just ingests Trump speaking then it all sounds pretty great. Even if you do seek out a little news you probably only see news sources that bolster his claims. Whew job done, information received. Back to Nick at Nite!
I don’t talk to my mom about Trump anymore but I know she’s of the mindset of “he’s the President” and thus everything he says is presidential and should be supported. If you tell him everything he says is a lie she’ll tell you “so all the bad stuff you say that he says is a lie. So he’s not that bad.” And I guarantee she will pick up on the “$1776 for the troops” part and come away with the idea that’s he’s great and doing great things (my dad was a Vietnam vet and my cousins kids are active military so she is weirdly focused on the military).
Anyway…I am tired.
I bet they don’t get shit.
Reminds me of the joke about the guy who trudges out of church after a sermon, muttering under his breath, well, at least I’ve never made any graven images…
I agree with this. But journalists are usually very careful to avoid accusing people of lying. That’s just what journalists do, and have always done. It isn’t that Trump gets a pass, it’s that everyone gets a pass on that.
This is from 2012:
Or a non-paywalled article from a year later:
So it’s not that journalists give Trump special treatment. They give him the same treatment they give other politicians. What’s special is just the volume and blatant nature of his lying. It’s ridiculous. Which makes the normal journalism stance all the more jarring.
I do, however, think that what Trump does warrant at least a little more pushback than usual. You don’t report on everything the same way; you don’t treat a story about the opening of the state fair with the same tone and language as a story about a mass killing. So I think it’s not only fair, but the responsible thing to treat what Trump is doing a bit differently than you might have for other politicians in the past who weren’t so brazen and frankly, so deranged.
Thanks for those cites, and for saying this. The old civility and “gentlemen’s agreements” rules don’t apply to him. He is in a disgusting, unprincipled class all by himself.
Well, there’s your problem.
I’m glad some of you managed to wince your way through that speech so I could get a flavor of it being just another grievance-laced boastfest. I’m also glad he didn’t announce an invasion of Venezuela. Or Greenland. Or Canada. Or Grenada – oh, wait, that’s been done already.
Especially when they’re a government official, and are routinely surrounded by people who are specifically employed for the purpose of keeping them informed, both with straight factual information, and educated opinions. The goddamned president of the United States should have at least some idea what the real numbers are on inflation, the employment rate, and how much they’re taking in as taxes.