Almost All Of Our Politicians Lie To Us With Alacrity... Which Is Why Bernie Is So Loved Even By People Who Don't Agree With All His Policies

Yesterday in this time slot, we looked at one of the Bloomberg lies from the last debate: "All of the new Democrats that came in and put Nancy Pelosi in charge and gave the Congress the ability to control this president, I bough... I, I got them." It wasn't just the oligrachal hurbris of the word "bought." The word "all" wasn't close to a factual description. "Some" would have been more appropriate and a recognition that he was part of a team-- not even the leader of the team-- might have shown a little

a- humility
b- connection to reality

People create their own narratives, sometimes by exaggeration, sometimes out of wishful thinking, sometimes out of thin air, sometimes, in later life, due to the onset of senility. Chief executives-- particularly in business, but increasingly in politics-- do this is a matter of course. And no one challenges them. That's why CEOs are unfit for public office. Trump and Bloomberg are both absolutely perfect examples. Let me come back to Trump, the world's biggest public liar, in a moment. First a tangent to the fuzzy and deteriorating world of Status Quo Joe. Jonathan Turley explained Biden's latest big lie-- about how he was arrested in South Africa fighting to free Nelson Mandela. (If Biden could dance like these guys, I'd stop writing about what a monster he is. He'd still be a monster; I'd just stop writing about it.)





As you read this, keep in mind that Biden's early career was premised on only one thing: showing Delaware racists how he would fight against integration by derailing busing. Turley on the eve of the South Carolina primary where Biden's entire political career now rests on the shoulders of elderly, largely rural African American voters:

After weeks of confusion, Joe Biden’s campaign have finally admitted that he was not arrested while visiting Nelson Mandela. Biden has made some false claims in the past but this was particularly bizarre. No one had any record of such a historic arrest in South Africa. While Biden did not take responsibility personally for the exaggeration, his deputy campaign manager admitted today that Biden was not arrested but merely “separated from his party at the airport.” That is a bit of a nose bleed of a step down from an arrest with Mandela to an airport separation. Hard to imagine how you confuse the two since one ordinarily involves custody, cuffs, and confinement.

The claim of the arrest was viewed as a pitch to help Biden’s campaign in South Carolina but was widely ridiculed. The problem is that Biden identified his own witness in his account by noting that “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see [Mandela] on Robben Island.”

However, Andrew Young, who was the U.N. Ambassador at the time, stated “No, I was never arrested and I don’t think he was, either.”

The campaign then tried to explain but only made the claim more offensive that Biden would suggest that he was arrested in South Africa during apartheid: “It was a separation. They, he was not allowed to go through the same door that the-- the rest of the party he was with. Obviously, it was apartheid South Africa. There was a white door, there was a black door. He did not want to go through the white door and have the rest of the party go through the black door. He was separated. This was during a trip while they were there in Johannesburg.”

So Biden remembers separation in going through an airport door as an arrest in the cause of freeing Mandela in South Africa?

Biden has been challenged about past statements like his claiming that he Biden had traveled to Konar province in Afghanistan to give a Silver Star on a Navy captain who refused the medal, because his friend didn’t survive. The Washington Post reported that it “never happened” and said “as he campaigns for president, Joe Biden tells a moving but false war story.”

Biden was also recently challenged for saying that Biden he worked on the Paris Climate Accord with former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who died 19 years before the agreement was signed.

This story however is even more insulting to those who honor the memory of Mandela. It is akin to claiming to have marched with Dr. King because you walked through an airport with him on one occasion. There is a big difference between being separated at an airport and being arrested in South Africa in the same cause as Nelson Mandela.

Yet, it is notable that CNN spent exclusive coverage on “how important is the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn” to Biden in South Carolina rather than this astonishing claim and belated admission about Nelson Mandela.

Where do you even start with Trump? By now we all know they every word out of his face is a self-serving lie, right? Well... depends how you define "we." This should be self-explanatory-- if you click on it and blow it up so it's legible:

Basically 32% are not part of "we." For one reason or another-- my guess is IQ-- they're going to follow Trump right into the jaws of the pandemic. Remember what I said about thinning the herd yesterday? I know it's horrible and cruel but that 32% is what I was talking about.

Mixing Up The Voters-- A Cover-Up Strategy

Chuck Schumer by Nancy Ohanian

Writing for Bloomberg News yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein noted that Republican senators don’t even know what they’re covering up for, or at least what they would be covering up for if they follow the White House’s preference to rush through the Senate impeachment trial that starts next week and refuse to hear from relevant witnesses and collect relevant documents." He's right, although Moscow Mitch very much does know exactly what he's covering up.

"Some of those senators, to be sure, just don’t care," continued Bernstein. "They’ve decided they can live with (both politically and ethically) any revelations that may come down the road-- that no one who they care about will hold them accountable for burying important evidence, no matter what it turns out to be. Others may really be so fully inside the conservative information-feedback loop that they sincerely think that Trump is an honest, innocent man being railroaded by partisans; they may not even be aware of the considerable evidence to the contrary. But for anyone else? As I said just 24 hours and a couple rounds of ugly revelations ago: 'If new ugly details are still emerging, who’s to say that more won’t turn up later?'"

And it has. Will it matter is the question. Sean Illing pointed to the method in their madness: flooding the zone with shit, utterly overwhelming the capacity for Trump's low-info supporters to be able to discern what's real and what isn't. Illing wrote that "Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump’s transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship-- some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side... We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, 'people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact.' This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president’s impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we’re facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There’s Team Liberal and Team Conservative and pretty much everyone knows which side they’re on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear."

We’re in an age of manufactured nihilism.

The issue for many people isn’t exactly a denial of truth as such. It’s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable.

I call this “manufactured” because it’s the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon reportedly said in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

...For most of recent history, the goal of propaganda was to reinforce a consistent narrative. But zone-flooding takes a different approach: It seeks to disorient audiences with an avalanche of competing stories.

And it produces a certain nihilism in which people are so skeptical about the possibility of finding the truth that they give up the search. The fact that 60 percent of Americans say they encounter conflicting reports about the same event is an example of what I mean. In the face of such confusion, it’s not surprising that less than half the country trusts what they read in the press.

...Trump can dictate an entire news cycle with a few unhinged tweets or an absurd press conference. The media cycle is easily commandeered by misinformation, innuendo, and outrageous content. These are problems because of the norms that govern journalism and because the political economy of media makes it very hard to ignore or dispel bullshit stories. This is at the root of our nihilism problem and a solution is nowhere in sight.

The instinct of the mainstream press has always been to conquer lies by exposing them. But it’s just not that simple anymore (if it ever was). There are too many claims to debunk and too many conflicting narratives. And the decision to cover something is a decision to amplify it and, in some cases, normalize it.

We probably need a paradigm shift in how the press covers politics. Nearly all of the incentives driving media militate against this kind of rethinking, however. And so we’re likely stuck with this problem for a very long time.

As is often the case, the diagnosis is much easier than the cure. But liberal democracy cannot function without a shared understanding of reality. As long as the zone is flooded with shit, that shared understanding is impossible.

Yesterday, for example, it was widely reported by the mainstream media that "The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that the Trump administration broke the law when it put a hold on aid to Ukraine." That line was from the Murdoch-owned, Republican-leaning Wall Street Journal. Think about it: "the Trump administration broke the law." There were no mainstream news sources that didn't run with the story. This is from Jeff Stein's and Ellen Nakashima's at the Washington Post, White House hold on Ukraine aid violated federal law, congressional watchdog says. Ironically, Trump and Giuliani are probably happy to see it moving Maddow's devastating interview with Trump crony Lev Parnas Wednesday night (video below). Stein and Nakashima wrote that "The White House violated federal law in its hold on security aid to Ukraine last year, according to a decision by a congressional watchdog released on Thursday and reviewed by the Washington Post. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that reports to Congress, found the Trump administration violated a law that governs how the White House disburses money approved by Congress. The GAO decision comes as the Senate prepares for the impeachment trial of President Trump, a process set to begin Thursday. 'Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,' the decision states. 'OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act.' ... The GAO found that the administration broke the Impoundment Control Act-- a 1974 law that provides a mechanism for the executive branch to request that Congress reconsider a funding decision that’s been signed into law. 'This bombshell legal opinion from the independent Government Accountability Office demonstrates, without a doubt, that the Trump administration illegally withheld security assistance from Ukraine' said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who requested GAO write the report in December... 'If the executive branch violates the [Impoundment Control Act] with impunity, then Congress loses its power to direct the expenditures of federal funds and any program authorized in law could be defunded by Executive fiat,' Van Hollen wrote in a letter to Gene L. Dodaro, comptroller general of the GAO, in December."

That all said, let's remember that the case against Trump being removed has continued to grow in popularity-- despite the Republican gaslighting strategy-- as more information leaks out. The Morning Consult poll released by Politico earlier this week shows Trump's approval number's underwater, with 54% of registered voters disapproving and just 43% approving. Also among registered voters 31% say they are definitely voting to reelect Trump and 45% say they are definitely voting against reelecting him. When you add in leaners, 39% will vote for him and 52% will vote against him. 49% of registered voters approved of the House impeaching Trump and 43% disapproved and 49% say he should now be removed by the Senate, 43% saying he should not be removed.

How Dangerous To National Security Are Trump's Daily Flood Of Lies?

Sometimes I check Google for my least favorite Members of Congress to see what they've been up to. That's how I learned, for example, that New Jersey Blue Dog Jefferson Van Drew went on Fox News a few days ago to say Trump's impeachment is "like something you would see in Europe or third-world nations" and to read Republican Party talking points. (Now Trump tweets nice things about him now and I have a feeling in my gut that he'll soon be switching parties like so many Blue Dogs have in the past.)

But most of the villains are just playing low and trying to not draw any attention to themselves. Many are just there to collect their corporate bribes, vote for their paymasters and hope their constituents never figure out what's up. So they kick back under the back benches and never say "Boo!" Look at these half dozen Google searches, all for Democrats who have earned "F" scores from ProgressivePunch:

Trump, on the other hand, has the opposite kind of narrative. A malignant narcissist, he is a firm believer that the only bad news is no news. He's out hogging the cameras constantly. And what he does most of the time is gaslight and lie. Have you forgotten what gaslighting is?

Yesterday, Trump decided the Fox & Friends audience needed a little gaslighting so he called in and stayed on their air for 53 minutes, riffing and gaslighting. He pretty much ignored the show's imbecile hosts. Daniel Dale counted 18 lies

A factory in Texas

Trump said, "I just got back from Austin, Texas, where I was with Tim Cook. He's going to be building a $1 billion facility to make whatever he makes. You know, that's Apple. And he's gonna build this incredible facility. We toured another facility where they make the Mac Pro, which is phenomenal, which was opening-- the reason we, you know-- it opened that day."

Facts First: The plant Trump visited did not open that day. The Flex Ltd. facility has been making Apple's Mac Pro computers since 2013.

Apple did break ground that day on a $1 billion campus in Austin, about a mile from the plant Trump toured with Cook, but no manufacturing is expected to be done at the campus. You can read a full fact check here.

The Ukraine scandal and impeachment

CrowdStrike

Trump said that Democrats gave a computer server that was hacked in 2016 to "a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian."

Facts First: The cybersecurity company that investigated the hack, CrowdStrike, is a publicly traded American company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch, an American citizen who was born in Russia, not Ukraine. Regardless, such firms do not typically take possession of physical servers to conduct their analysis.

Asked if he is sure the Democrats gave the server to Ukraine, Trump did not cite any specific evidence. He said, "That's what the word is."

The accuracy of the whistleblower

Trump said that the whistleblower complaint about his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "bore no relationship to my call."

Facts First: The whistleblower's account of the call has largely been proven accurate.

In fact, the rough transcript released by Trump himself showed that the whistleblower's three primary allegations about the call were correct or very close to correct.

You can read a full fact check here.

The identity of the whistleblower

Trump said "a lot of people think" that the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, is "essentially the whistleblower."

Facts First: This is simple nonsense. Schiff is not the whistleblower, "essentially" or otherwise.

The whistleblower is someone who works in the intelligence community. The whistleblower sought guidance from Schiff's committee before filing their complaint, but there is no evidence Schiff dictated the content of the complaint, much less that Schiff can himself be considered the whistleblower.

The timing of Schiff's comments

Trump said that Schiff made up what Trump said on the call with Zelensky, but then, when Trump released his rough transcript of the call, everybody was "embarrassed."

Facts First: Trump can reasonably criticize Schiff for Schiff's comments at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in September; as we've written before, Schiff's mix of near-quotes from Trump, his own analysis, and supposed "parody" was at the very least confusing. But Schiff spoke the day after Trump released the rough transcript, not before.

Before he started claiming that Schiff did not expect a transcript to be released, Trump had complained that Schiff did not read the transcript available to him.

European aid to Ukraine

Trump said of aid to Ukraine, "Why isn't Germany putting up money? Why isn't France putting up money? Why isn't all of the European nations, why aren't they putting up?"

Facts First: European countries have provided hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion in 2014. (Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade told Trump in this interview that Europe has indeed provided aid.)

Zelensky acknowledged European "help" during his meeting with Trump at the United Nations in September, though he said the world's efforts had been inadequate so far: "And, I'm sorry, but we don't need help; we need support. Real support. And we thank-- thank everybody, thank all of the European countries; they each help us. But we also want to have more-- more."

You can read a full fact check here.

Obama's aid to Ukraine

Trump said President Barack Obama sent only "pillows and sheets" in aid to Ukraine, adding, "He wouldn't send anything else."

Facts First: Obama did refuse to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, but he didn't send mere pillows and sheets; he sent counter-mortar radars, drones, armored Humvees and night vision devices, among other things.

You can read a full fact check here.

Hunter Biden's career

Trump said that Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden managed to get business opportunities during Joe Biden's vice-presidency even though Hunter Biden "never made 10 cents in his life."

Facts First: This is an exaggeration. While it's certainly fair for Trump to raise questions about how qualified Hunter Biden was for the positions he secured while Joe Biden was vice-president, Hunter Biden did have prior professional experience.

Hunter Biden has acknowledged that he probably would not have gotten a seat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, if his dad were not Joe Biden. However, it's not true that he had never made "10 cents." Hunter Biden, a lawyer, had worked prior to Joe Biden's vice-presidency as a bank executive, at the Department of Commerce and as a lobbyist. He had also served on the board of Amtrak.

Prosecutor Viktor Shokin

Trump said that the Ukrainian prosecutor Joe Biden had pushed to oust, Viktor Shokin, was "prosecuting" the company where Hunter Biden sat on the board, Burisma.

Facts First: Shokin was not prosecuting Burisma.

While there had been an investigation of the company, Shokin's former deputy, Vitaliy Kasko, has said that it was dormant at the time of Joe Biden's intervention. (The former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, George Kent, testified in Trump's impeachment inquiry that Shokin was corrupt; the US and its allies had made a coordinated effort to oust him.)

Zelensky and Marie Yovanovitch

Trump said of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch: "By the way, when I was talking to President Zelensky, it's right on the phone, you can read it. He didn't like her. He brought up her name and he didn't like her at all."

Facts First: The rough transcript of the July phone call shows that Trump, not Zelensky, was the one who brought up Yovanovitch: "The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that," Trump said. Zelensky responded, "It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%."

Zelensky did criticize Yovanovitch, saying, "Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough." But he had been prompted by Trump, not disparaging her on his own.

Marie Yovanovitch and Trump's photo

Trump claimed about Yovanovitch: "This ambassador that everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy... She's in charge of the embassy. She wouldn't hang it. It took like a year and a half, or two years, for her to get the picture up."

Facts First: There is no evidence that Yovanovitch refused to hang Trump's photo. It took the Trump administration more than nine months after his inauguration to distribute an official photo of Trump to government buildings such as embassies, CNBC reported in 2017. More than seven months into the term, the White House told The Washington Post that Trump had not yet sat for the photo.

A State Department official who has recently served in Kiev said Yovanovitch never sought to prevent Trump's photo from being put up at the embassy. The official said the photo did not arrive until late 2017.

Yovanovitch's legal team did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment, but NBC received this response from a person "connected to her legal team": "The Embassy in Kyiv hung the official photographs of the president, vice president, and secretary of state as soon as they arrived from Washington, D.C."

Soldiers

The treatment of veterans

Trump said, "The vets: for years you would turn on your television, every night you'd see a story about the vets and how badly they're being treated, it's a horror show. You don't hear that anymore."

Facts First: We can't speak for what Trump himself has seen on television, but it's just not true that the rest of us no longer hear about veterans being treated badly at VA facilities.

Merely since August, there have been news stories about "11 suspicious deaths at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center," "how Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases" and wasn't fired until 2018, how "a Veterans Affairs medical center in West Virginia is being investigated over allegations that one of its physicians sexually assaulted more than a dozen patients," and how a veteran at a VA facility in Georgia was allegedly bitten by ants "100 times before his death."

Veterans Choice

Trump claimed to have been the one who passed the Veterans Choice health care program.

Facts First: The Choice bill, a bipartisan initiative led by senators Bernie Sanders and the late John McCain, was signed into law by Barack Obama in 2014. In 2018, Trump signed the VA Mission Act, which expanded and changed the program.

The U.S. presence in Syria

Trump said: "I'm pulling back. I just pulled out of Syria, except I kept the oil, if it was okay with you."

Facts First: Trump did not "pull out" of Syria. While he did withdraw US troops from the northeastern region, in advance of a Turkish offensive in that region, he has kept hundreds of troops in the country-- as Kilmeade noted to Trump, responding, "You have 600 guys there, right?"

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said two weeks ago that there would be "probably in the 500-ish frame. Maybe 600" soldiers left in northeast Syria (he said the number would definitely be less than 1,000), in addition to the separate force of more than 100 soldiers stationed in southern Syria near Jordan.

Military leaders have said that the US will not keep any revenue from the Syrian oil fields they are securing, but Trump has continued to suggest that the US is seizing the oil for itself.

China

China's economic performance

Trump said China is having its worst economic year in "57 years."

Facts First: China's second-quarter GDP growth of 6.2% and third-quarter GDP growth of 6% were its worst since 1992, 27 years ago. Trump has repeatedly made clear that he knows that 27 years is the reported figure, but he has added additional years for no apparent reason.

Who is paying for Trump's tariffs on China Trump blamed "the media" for trying to convince people that Americans are paying for Trump's tariffs on China.

Facts First: A bevy of economic studies have found that Americans are bearing the overwhelming majority of the tariff costs, and Americans make the actual tariff payments.

The history of tariffs on China

Trump said the U.S. has never previously taken in "10 cents" from tariffs on China.

Facts First: Again, these tariffs are paid by Americans. Aside from the question of who is paying, it's not true that the Treasury has never received "10 cents" from tariffs on China. The US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries; FactCheck.org reported that the US generated, from such tariffs, an "average of $12.3 billion in custom duties a year from 2007 to 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission DataWeb."

Trump's claim also ignores China's hundreds of billions of dollars in purchases of US goods-- more than $300 billion during Trump's presidency alone. The US had generated over $37 billion from Trump's new tariffs on China as of November 20, according to official data published by Customs and Border Protection.

The trade deficit with China

Trump said the U.S. has for years had a "$500 billion" trade deficit with China.

Facts First: Through 2018, there had never been a $500 billion trade deficit with China. The deficit was $381 billion last year when counting goods and services, $420 billion when counting goods alone.

Politico's Michael Calderone looked into Jake Tapper's CNN special, All The President’s Lies-- scheduled for tomorrow night at 9 PM-- exploring the effects on foreign policy, business and the national culture of the president’s compulsive lying. Tapper said he "isn’t afraid to ascribe motive when the president repeats a false claim 'over and over and over' despite evidence to the contrary. It’s not an honest mistake; it’s a lie. And yet, nearly 30% of Americans refuse to accept the fact that Trump is a compulsive liar, incapable of being truthful.

Take the whistleblower complaint that kick-started the Ukraine scandal. Trump has repeatedly said it’s inaccurate, which Tapper considers a “lie” given that an investigation and testimony have largely corroborated the whistleblower’s claims.

“He’s repeated that so many times that there’s obvious malice of forethought,” Tapper said of the president. “He’s obviously saying this in order to undermine a fact, in order to try to gaslight the country.”

Trump’s dishonesty in the White House has been thoroughly documented. Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler and his team have tallied more than 13,000 false or misleading claims since taking office, while CNN’s Daniel Dale this week highlighted 45 false claims specifically about impeachment and Ukraine. The New York Times counted more than 1,700 conspiracy theories on Trump's Twitter feed.

But Tapper said he’s trying to go beyond the sheer volume of erroneous and misleading claims... and address the impact on business, science, international relations and the national psyche. For instance, how might a false claim about trade talks with China affect global markets-- and more broadly America’s credibility on the world stage?

“God forbid there should be some major international crisis where the United States president needs the people of this nation and the world to believe what he says about something,” said Tapper, asking, “What would the result be?”

...“Facts are facts. The earth is not flat,” Tapper added. And the news media, he said, is supposed “to provide accurate information” and “sort through the spin-- what really happened, and what is the truth, regardless of who’s asserting it.”

And yet facts may not always be enough to convince the public what really happened.

Nearly half of Americans recently polled believe “it’s difficult to know whether the information they encounter is true,” the Times noted this week. One can find dramatically different framing of events on television in prime time and on social media.

The president’s desire for Ukraine to launch investigations stemmed largely from conspiracy theories, like the debunked claim that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, which Trump again pushed Friday in an interview on Fox & Friends. Also, there’s also no evidence former Vice President Joe Biden urged the dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect his son Hunter’s business interests.

Tapper said some of Trump’s defenders are claiming he “never requested a foreign government to look into the Bidens.”

“That’s just a lie. That’s just false,” said Tapper, citing the rough transcript of Trump’s infamous July 25 call with Ukraine’s president. (Tapper tweeted Friday it is “not in dispute” that Trump sought the investigations from Ukraine into the Bidens and the 2016 election).

“There is an attempt among some individuals to create an alternate reality where the president did not say what he clearly said,” Tapper said. “And we just have to state what the facts are.”

It Isn't Just Gaslighters And Narcissts-- It's Also Fascists

I ran this Democracy Now video of fascism expert Jason Stanley being interviewed late last night and I don't think enough people saw it. So-- since Trump is still sitting in the White House-- here it is again. Reading Stephanie Sarkis' Forbes essay on how gaslights and narcissists create crises and then act like they solved them reminded me of how fascists also create crises and then act like they solved them. Perfect position for Trump-- gaslight, narcissist and fascist.

Sarkis wrote that after they "solve" the crisis they invented, they "demand accolades." Sound like anyone know and hate? She says they do it to "create support within their base. And with 2020 elections right around the corner, Trump knows the importance of manufacturing an enemy and then portraying himself as the only person who could 'conquer' this manufactured enemy."

The most recent case in point is Trump's tariffs on Mexico. Trump is touting himself as the key factor in getting a border agreement with Mexico. However, the New York Times reported that the U.S. and Mexico had reached an agreement on border policies months before Trump's tariff threat.

Trump tweeted the following on June 7th:

If we are able to make the deal with Mexico, & there is a good chance that we will, they will begin purchasing Farm & Agricultural products at very high levels, starting immediately. If we are unable to make the deal, Mexico will begin paying Tariffs at the 5% level on Monday!

He then followed with this tweet on the same day:

I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended.

Again, these tweets were sent out two months after an agreement had already been reached. Trump then went after the New York Times, which accurately reported that a border agreement was in place two months ago. And as he has done several times before, Trump called the press the "Enemy of the People." He tweeted, "The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged [sic] @CNN will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!"

Trump is more frequently adding "Corrupt" to "Fake" when describing the news media. So in addition to claiming that the media have made stories up, Trump is now accusing them of receiving money or power in exchange for false stories. This is a common tactic of gaslighters/narcissists in power-- they will accuse any accurate media outlets as traitors to the country and its leader. Gaslighters/narcissists particularly accuse those in the media of being corrupt or making up stories, and they will go after the media at a fever pitch. For example, see the history of the Argentinean government going after Grupo Clarin.

Trump has manufactured crises time and time again and then tried to make himself look like the savior of that crisis. Look closer at Trump's manufactured border crisis. In reality, illegal border crossings have actually decreased in the U.S for 46 years. He also created the crisis of the "criminal immigrant." In reality, immigrants, illegal and legal, actually have a lower rate of criminal activity than citizens born in the U.S.

Trump also focused on his belief that a majority of drugs have passed through the U.S. border via illegal entry points when the truth is that a vast majority of drugs enter through legal entry points. If Trump was truly concerned about drugs entering the U.S., a much more effective course of action would have been to beef up security at those legal entry points. But that wouldn't have fit Trump's "bad immigrants" narrative.

Trump also manufactured a "crisis of patriotism" regarding NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. Kneeling during the anthem was a protest against police brutality and racial injustice, but it was spun by Trump as an issue of "patriotism." At a rally in Alabama in September 2017, Trump said to the crowd, "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now!'" Trump said to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, "This is a very winning, strong issue for me," according to a sworn deposition of Jones. Pay attention to Trump's use of the word "winning." Trump views others as "winners" and "losers", another common gaslighter/narcissist tactic. And Trump knew exactly what he was doing. Narcissists/gaslighters in power will rile up their base by declaring a behavior they don't like to be "unpatriotic." Interestingly, it has only been since 2009 that NFL players came out for the anthem, contrary to a common belief of that this was a long-standing tradition. But Trump proclaimed victory when the NFL issued a statement in May 2018 that required all players to "stand and show respect for the flag." The NFL Players Association filed a grievance, and the NFL and NFL Players Association agreed to stop implementing this new policy until discussions were held.

Why do gaslighters/narcissists manufacture crises and then proclaim that they have solved them? Because it gives their supporters the false belief that the narcissist/gaslighter is accomplishing great things. It also takes the focus off real crises in which the gaslighter/narcissist has failed to take action. Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, for example. And if the gaslighter/narcissist finally provides help or aid to an area, he still plays the savior and tells the people they should show gratitude towards him.





How do you counteract this gaslighting/narcissist tactic? Call it out for what it is-- a blatant attempt to cater to supporters. Present facts that contradict the gaslighter/narcissist's assertions that first, there is a crisis, and second, they are the solver of that crisis. If you work with this type of "crisis manufacturer," keep documentation of the statements and actions taken by the gaslighter/narcissist. In addition, a constant stream of truthful information is the best way to counteract this type of behavior.

Does that work when the gaslight/narcissist is also a fascist tyrant? Not a chance. Tom Steyer has a better idea: throw the bum out. Steyer is amping up pressure on the House Democrats who should be doing their duty and impeaching him. Steyer's group, Need to Impeach, kicked off a campaign to target 12 districts held by Democratic lawmakers who do not yet back impeachment. The group plans to spend $360,000 in the first few weeks of the effort, which will fund targeted digital ads, billboards, organizing activities, and events like so-called “Impeach-ins,” which are intended to make the case for impeachment.

The dozen Democrats whom Need to Impeach is targeting are either all prominent members of party leadership or hold positions on key House committees. They include Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the number three House Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the Democratic Caucus Chairman...

Other lawmakers being targeted by Need to Impeach include Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a candidate for president and Pelosi ally who sits on the House Judiciary and Intelligence panels; Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), who chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee and is another close Pelosi ally; and several Democrats representing liberal districts in southern California and Florida.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is another target. A Need to Impeach source provided an example of a billboard that could soon be going up in his district. “Rep. Luján: We need an impeachment inquiry now,” it reads. The billboard displays the phone number for the D.C. office of Luján, a top member of House Democratic leadership and candidate for Senate, and urges constituents to call in with their thoughts.

The new campaign by Need to Impeach comes as a growing number of House Democrats have begun calling for the launch of impeachment proceedings against the president. The group, along with others organizing for impeachment, believe that building support among voters in progressive districts is key to persuading lawmakers on the fence to take a stand—which would ultimately put pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to take up impeachment, an option she has repeatedly dismissed at this stage. Some 60 Democrats have so far come out in support of launching an inquiry, accounting for a quarter of the party’s House membership.

In a statement, Steyer said that momentum behind impeachment is growing by the day. “The leaders of the Democratic Party deserve to know where their constituents stand, and alongside millions of Americans, we’re calling on them to stop putting political expediency ahead of what’s right,” he said.

Need to Impeach has targeted 47 members of Congress so far this year, and the group says its organizers and volunteers have visited over 100 congressional offices to make the impeachment case. In January, Steyer announced he would pour $6 million into a nationwide ad campaign to boost his message.

The agitating from Steyer has gotten him crosswise with Pelosi, who represents the hedge fund billionaire’s hometown of San Francisco. Steyer has blasted Pelosi’s declaration Trump isn’t “worth” the effort: “Shall America just stop fighting for our principles and do what’s politically convenient?” he asked in a March tweet.

We caught up with Heather Brewer, campaign manager for the progressive Democrat who Luján is running against, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. She told us today that Oliver "knows that holding elected officials accountable is a key part of what makes our democracy work. That’s why she fully supports initiating impeachment hearings. And that’s she agrees with Need to Impeach that voters must make their voices heard  to hold the Congressman to account for his position on impeachment."






UPDATE: Time For Pelosi And Her Team To Retire

Progressive Democrat Shahid Buttar is primarying Pelosi from the left. He told us that "Voices who oppose impeachment, like Speaker Pelosi's, are the same ones that never saw Trump coming in the first place. We shouldn't accept their supposed wisdom as gospel now, especially when their positions have demonstrably emboldened our criminal president to escalate his attacks on America and our Constitution. Even if Pelosi were right about impeachment being a losing political proposition-- which she is not-- it remains a constitutional imperative. Failing to initiate impeachment will ensure that kleptocracy will be accepted, whereas initiating the process will put purple state activists in a position to force the hands of Republican Senators to either show up for their oaths of office or find a new career. Nothing would be better for the Democratic Party's base heading in the 2020 general election. This is no time for timidity."

Maybe Pelosi Needs A New Chair For House Ways And Means-- Neal Is Dragging His Feet On Trump's Taxes

Mnuchin and Richard Neal, who REALLY doesn't want to get the Adam Schiff treatment from Trumpworld

When the Biden p.r. machine stirs up shit against Bernie-- which they never stop doing (it's like a pit of vipers whispering in the ears of any journalist foolish enough pay them any attention)-- one of the first things they always bring up is that he hasn't released his taxes. Really? When he ran in 2016 he did release his taxes for 2014; they were boring and very white bread. He has since pledged to release 10 years this time, but virtually every anti-Bernie pundit who has raised this, wrongly claims he's never released any tax returns.

You know who didn't release any tax returns of course. And, according to Greg Sargent's column in the Washington Post yesterday, the Democrats-- particularly Richard Neal-- seem to be dragging their feet and screwing it up. Trump's "absurd claim" that Barr's 4-page press release purporting to be a "summary" of the report granting him "total exoneration," is laughable and only hardcore Trump 2-digit IQ worshippers believe it-- oh, and the corporate media. Trump's "efforts to bully Democrats and the media into groveling with forgiveness for supposedly having gotten this scandal wrong, are all about what lies ahead. The obvious game is to chill further scrutiny, which very much constitutes a live threat to Trump that no amount of furious tweeting about 'exoneration' can make disappear." Sargent points out that that is precisely "why Democrats should, if anything, be intensifying their effort to access Trump’s tax returns right now, not dragging their feet on it."

He sites a new memo-- from centrist Dems no less-- hoping to amp up the pressure on Neal and Pelosi, arguing that "getting the returns is a legal slam dunk, and is absolutely justifiable, or even imperative, as a matter of oversight and good governance," since as head of the House Ways and Means Committee, Neal has the law in his side, a law that says he can "request any individual’s tax returns, after which the Treasury Department 'shall' furnish them." Neal has asked multiple House committees to each furnish a rationale rooted in governing or oversight for getting the returns, the theory being that this will place the request on firmer institutional footing and make the legal case stronger. The Trump administration will challenge the request, leading to a long court battle."

Over the weekend, Arthur Delaney at HuffPo reported that the overly cautious "Neal is in no hurry and seemingly doesn’t care if Democrats don’t get the documents before the next election." Back to Sargent:

The idea is that, while it may be understandable for Democrats to want to build a strong institutional and legal case, this cannot become an excuse for further delay. Notably, the memo points out that while there is no precedent for seeking a president’s tax returns under this particular provision of the law, that’s because for decades, presidents and presidential candidates voluntarily released them.

That is, until Trump blithely shredded this most basic norm of transparency-- meaning that his own unprecedented contempt for this norm is what necessitates the House taking this aggressive step in response.

Along those lines, the memo further argues that doing this would represent a thoroughly legitimate and reasonable exercise of Congress’ oversight function. Among the reasons:

• To determine whether Trump’s foreign financial dealings create conflicts of interest, or worse, whether he’s compromised by them in some way. We still do not know whether special counsel Robert S. Mueller III defined his investigation to avoid looking at Trump’s finances. Whether he did or not, the memo argues, Congress has its own obligation to scrutinize these questions.
• To determine whether Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause by receiving payments from foreign governments without Congress’ consent. The memo argues that the fact that the clause allows for Congress to consent to certain emoluments-- or not to-- itself requires getting the returns, so it can exercise its responsibility to determine whether any particular emoluments either are, or are not, deserving of congressional consent.
• To determine whether-- or to what extent-- Trump and his family have profited off the huge tax cut he signed, which could be substantial. The memo argues that this information could help Congress determine whether to go along with whatever future tax policies Trump proposes, such as making certain provisions in the new tax law permanent.

Here’s the thing. The urgency of all these matters should not in any way be seen as diminished by the conclusion of the Mueller investigation. That’s because, even if no criminal charges were brought for conspiracy with Russia, the Mueller probe and its spinoffs added substantially to the broader case against Trump’s corruption.

This is a case that will continue to build, as the multiple other investigations resulting from Mueller’s work, as well as those launched by House Democrats, proceed. As Timothy L. O’Brien, who understands the depths of Trump financial murk like no one else does, puts it, “reality is likely to keep intruding on everybody who has been ushering Trump-Russia coverage into the grave.”

After all, because of those investigations, we have learned that Trump carried on negotiations with Russia over a Moscow project for many months while GOP voters were picking their nominee; that he has been directly implicated in a criminal campaign finance scheme; and that Trump concealed both these things from America. Getting Trump’s tax returns could help shed light on whether there are other such foreign dealings, and on his tax treatment of the hush money payments, among other things.

We have also learned from Trump’s own former lawyer that he may have gamed assets for insurance and tax fraud purposes, and that Trump’s tax returns could contain clues to those things-- not to mention clues to the extensive history of tax fraud used to inflate his inherited fortune, something we learned about from that big NY Times expose.

Rather than getting drawn into a sad-sack debate over whether Democrats should “move on” from the Mueller investigation, it’s more natural to just keep the focus on Trump’s corruption, as a matter of basic oversight. The political ground for maintaining that focus is actually more fertile right now, due to everything we’ve learned-- and continue to learn-- as a result of the Mueller investigation. And getting Trump’s tax returns is central to that basic mission.

A couple of years ago Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, author of Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative And Emotionally Abusive People-- And Break Free, wrote a piece for Psychology Today 11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting-- Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic used to gain power. And it works too well. The only way we're going to break free of Trump's gaslighting is at the polls in a little over a year and a half, but it's important to understand one of Trump's most used coping mechanisms. Sarkis defines gaslighting as a common tactic used by abusers, dictators, narcissists and cult leaders to gain more power, while making a victim question their reality. These are her 11 warning signs. How many of them do you recognize in Trumpanzee?

• They tell blatant lies-- with a straight face.
• They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.
• They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
• They wear you down over time.
• Their actions do not match their words.
• They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.
• They know confusion weakens people.
• They project.
• They try to align people against you.
• 10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.
• 11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

Is Gaslighting The Country Into A State Of Dread An "Accomplishment?"

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that registered voters say Kavanaugh’s confirmation makes them more apt to support Democratic rather than Republican candidates by a 6-point margin, 33-27 percent. Overall, confirming Kavanaugh was a net loss for the GOP. And a majority of voters thing Congress should do a real investigation of him next year. Ted Lieu, a member of the House Judiciary Committee was the first to call for such an investigation and now Jerry Nadler, the likely next chairman of the committee, has promised an investigation into sexual misconduct and perjury allegations against Kavanaugh if the Democrats take control of the House in the midterm elections.

Another poll, also released yesterday, this one by Harvard for Politico got into motivation driving voters, more proof that this wave is not a Blue Wave but an anti-Red (or anti-Trump) Wave. "Fear and anger over the GOP’s health policies are driving a majority of Democratic voters to the polls in an effort to flip control of the House and put the brakes on the Trump administration’s agenda... More than half of Democrats likely to vote in House races rank health care as “extremely important” in determining their vote." Republicans are more driven by their own paranoias about terrorism and guns.

“The parties are incredibly polarized in what they are voting on,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor of health policy and political analysis, who designed the poll. “Health care is not really a major issue for Republicans. But it’s an overwhelming issue for Democrats.”

Beyond health care, Democrats list education, the Supreme Court and climate change among their top concerns heading into the November elections.

...More than two-thirds of Republicans say they’re somewhat motivated to vote in November to show support for President Donald Trump. Among Democrats, the president is playing an even bigger role in priming turnout: 72 percent say they’re voting in part to oppose his administration. ...For Democrats, the midterms are about protecting Obamacare and its benefits, and preventing the Trump administration from pursuing its own health care agenda. Republicans, reflecting Trump’s protectionist leanings, care deeply about issues like preserving gun rights and immigration restrictions.

Yesterday New York Magazine carried an essay by Andrew Sullivan on the dangers of Trump's accomplishments. "Trump’s record as a force of destruction is profound," he wrote, "whether it be the sabotage of Obamacare, the devastation of democratic norms, or the rattling of NATO. But as the months tick by, there’s a decent case that Trump’s proactive accomplishments are beginning to add up as well: a huge tax cut, two Supreme Court justices, wholesale deregulation, renegotiation of NAFTA, isolation of Iran, and a broader reboot of bilateral nationalism on the world stage. But I’m not talking merely about policy-- he has also shifted the entire polity more decisively toward the authoritarian style of government. In this respect, yes, the Trump administration has indeed accomplished much more than many of us want to believe."

But there's another essay from yesterday that's a must read, this one by John Harris and Sarah Zimmerman for Politico, Trump May Not Be Crazy, But The Rest Of Us Are Getting There Fast. Sullivan overlooked that accomplishment. "Psychologists' couches are filling up as Americans seek relief from Trump Anxiety Disorder." Her wrote about couples have problems because "the agitated state of American politics was causing strain in their marriage... Trump excites hot feelings in many quarters has cooled them considerably in bedrooms... During normal times, therapists say, their sessions deal with familiar themes: relationships, self-esteem, everyday coping. Current events don’t usually invade. But numerous counselors said Trump and his convulsive effect on America’s national conversation is giving politics a prominence on the psychologist’s couch not seen since the months after 9/11-- another moment in which events were frightening in a way that had widespread emotional consequences."

The American Psychiatric Association in a May survey found that 39 percent of people said their anxiety level had risen over the previous year-- and 56 percent were either “extremely anxious” or “somewhat anxious about “the impact of politics on daily life.” A 2017 study found two-thirds of Americans’ see the nation’s future as a “very or somewhat significant source of stress.”

These findings suggest the political-media community has things backwards when it comes to Trump and mental health.

For two years or more, commentators have been cross-referencing observations of presidential behavior with the official APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s definition of narcissistic personality disorder. Journalists have compared contemporary video of Trump with interviews from the 1980s for signs of possible cognitive decline. And even some people on his own team, according to books and news reports, have been reading up on the process of presidential removal under the 25th Amendment of the Constitution-- fueled by suspicions that the president’s allegedly erratic and undeniably precedent-shattering approach to the Oval Office may prove eventually to be a case of non compos mentis.

A more plausible interpretation, in the view of some psychological experts, is that Trump has been cultivating, adapting and prospering from his distinctive brand of provocation, brinkmanship, and self-drama for the past 72 years. What we’re seeing is merely the president’s own definition of normal. It is only the audience who finds the performance disorienting. In other words: He’s not crazy, but the rest of us are getting there fast.

...A study from the market research firm Galileo also found that, in the first 100 days after Trump’s election, 40 percent of people said they “can no longer have open and honest conversations with some friends or family members.” Nearly a quarter of respondents said their political views have hurt their personal relationships.

“Authority figures represent the parent, [so] President Trump seats in the seat of parent for all Americans,” said Baum-Baicker. “So now, my ‘father figure’ is a bully, is an authoritarian who doesn’t believe in studying and doing homework... [Rather than reassurance] he creates uncertainty.”

Even Trump supporters are not insulated from this modern age of anxiety.

...Nearly every interview with psychologists returned to the theme of “gaslighting”-- the ability of manipulative people to make those around them question their mental grip.

Trump daily goes to war on behalf of his own factual universe, with what conservative commentator George F. Will this week called “breezy indifference to reality.”

Examples include false boasts on the size of his inauguration crowd; his denunciation of unfavorable stories as “fake news”; the assertion that an investigation into his campaign which has already produced multiple criminal convictions is “a hoax.” Some people can’t just roll their eyes at obvious bullshit-- they experience an assault on truth at a more profound psychic level.

“Gaslighting is essentially a tactic used by abusive personalities to make the abused person feel as though they’re not experiencing reality, or that it’s made up or false,” said Dominic Sisti, a behavioral health care expert at the University of Pennsylvania who penned an article with Baum-Baicker on Trump’s effect on stress. “The only reality one can trust is one that is defined by the abuser. Trump does this on a daily basis-- he lies, uses ambiguities, demonizes the press. It’s a macroscopic version of an abusive relationship.”

When people are frightened by erratic behavior and worry what’s coming next in any arena of life, said Panning, that creates an extraordinary amount of anxiety and often a feeling of dread.”

...[T]herapists say today’s political conditions are ripe to send people of all partisan, ideological and cultural stripes to the emotional edge.

“Human beings hate two things,” said Michael Dulchin, a New York psychiatrist who has seen Trump anxiety in his practice. One is “to look to the future and think you don’t have enough energy to succeed and live up to your expectations. The other is to not be able to predict the environment.”

Put these together, he said, and the psychological result is virtually inevitable: “Anxiety and depression.”