Trump is the King of Fake News

If I were asked to assess Donald Trump's character -- in other words, the mental and moral qualities distinctive to his personality -- I would not be able to find a single positive adjective that I could apply to any aspect of said character.

But the guy became President of the country, surely he must posses some positive qualities? Well, no. At least not in the sense that the quality being considered can be said to be a "good" one, or at least used in a manner that promotes a moral virtue.

I can't deny that he's audacious -- he's certainly willing to take surprisingly bold risks. But his audaciousness springs from an impudent lack of respect for just about any person or social norm -- regardless of whether any decent person would approve of these people or norms.

Many people would credit him for being smart. He's a billionaire, after all. Trump himself says he's "like a really smart person." But this assessment is in stark contradiction to the sheer number of profoundly stupid things he's said and done.

Here's just a small fraction:

Global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese.

I know more about ISIS than the generals.

Obama is the founder of ISIS.

"You're going to have such great healthcare, at a tiny fraction of the cost -- and it's going to be so easy."

Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated.

"Bing bing bong bong bing bing bing"

The Mexico border wall must be see-through to stop sacks of drugs landing on people's heads. "they hit you with 60 pounds of stuff? It's over." (not fake news. I checked. Read this very funny article)

Good news for border residents: No one is throwing 60-pound bags of drugs over a 50-foot wall - The Washington Post

Well, what about ambition, motivating people and communication skills.

Again, these are good qualities but only if they are used in a manner that promotes a moral virtue. Adolf Hitler had those qualities in abundance and look what he did.

There I go with the Hitler comparison. 

I'm not saying Trump wants to invade Poland or exterminate the Jews. But he has used those qualities in much the same way as Hitler.

His ambition comes from his egomania. Here's the definition, and tell me this doesn't fit The Donald to a T: an obsessive preoccupation with one's self ... applies to someone who follows their own ungoverned impulses and is possessed by delusions of personal greatness and feels a lack of appreciation. (Wikipedia)

As far as motivating people and communication skills? Just like Adolf, he has appealed to people's worst instincts. Trump and Adolf both used demagoguery.

Here's the definition of demagogue, and again, it fits The Donald to a T:

a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. Demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.

They exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, it is possible for the people to give that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of the population. Demagogues have usually advocated immediate, forceful action to address a national crises while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. (Wikipedia)

Terrorism, illegal immigration and crime are legitimate issues. Every politician should be addressing them. What Trump has done that is so reprehensible is that he has addressed these issues with fake news that is outrageously false and inflammatory so he can then manipulate his audience by provoking their emotions.

Let's be clear, as I reported in a previous post, Trump doesn't make up most of the  fake stuff he says, himself. He get's that stuff from the right-wing hate media. 

Fair and Balanced: Trump On ISIS Founder: "I Really Like Him as a Person"

The Birther stuff. The drug bringing Mexican criminal rapists. The "thousands and thousands" of 9/11 celebrating Muslims. The outrageously false black on white murder statistics. Obama is the founder of ISIS. The crime rate is the highest it's been in 47 years. Hillary got a child rapist off and laughed about it. etc, etc, etc.

All of this fake news has been going around the right-wing media/blogosphere for years. Trump reads/hears it, likes it and then uses it. Trump hasn't met a fake right-wing news story that he hasn't bought lock, stock, barrel and promoted like it had his name on it.  

The fake stuff he makes up himself are the things about himself.

The size of his inauguration crowd.

The height of his buildings.

His net worth.

He knows more about ISIS than the generals.

He invented the economic term "prime the pump."

His electoral win was the biggest landslide in American history. (when he was corrected about that he then said it was the biggest since Reagan. When he was corrected about that he then said it was the biggest Republican win since Reagan. When he was corrected about that he then said it was still a very big win. It is ranked 46 out of 58 elections. He said he won 306 electoral votes. That was fake too. He won 304. Two electors refused to vote for him.)

I heard Trump say recently that he coined the term "fake news" (which he uses against the media).

He only started using that term after it had already been widely used in the media concerning the kinds of fake news he was promoting.

As I pointed out in a previous post, he has been the leading purveyor of fake news for years now.

Fair and Balanced: Spokesperson Conway: Trump Is Bananas

And that is the main point of this post. The man who constantly calls any negative news about himself "fake news" and has convinced his supporters that he is the only source that can be trusted -- is the King of fake news.

What I want to do in my next post is explain how the media has failed so miserably in forcing Trump to account for the mountain of falsehoods he has perpetrated on the American people and the world.

Honest Don And The Very, Very Dishonest Media

In the 1934 movie Six of a Kind, the great comedian W.C  Fields plays a sheriff called "Honest John."

In one scene, when asked how he earned the moniker, Fields' character tells of a time when he used to tend bar and wait on a guy with a glass eye. The fellow would take the glass eye out and put it in a tumbler of water. One day he forgot his glass eye. Honest John found it. The next morning when he came in, Honest John said "Young man, here's your glass eye." "And I gave it back to him. Ever since that day, I've been known as 'Honest John.'"

W.C. Fields Honest John Snooker Scene - YouTube

 

The comedic genius of this scene relies on the absurdity of the ridiculously low bar used by those who awarded Honest John his appellation.

 

Well, according to a poll that came out recently, an unbelievable 49% of registered voters seem to be applying the same ridiculous standards to the Trump administration, who they consider to be truthful!

To quote WC Fields -- Godfrey Daniels!!

 

Emerson College Polling Society

 

This compares with only 39% who consider the news media truthful!

48% find the Trump administration to be untruthful while a whopping 53% find the media untruthful.

This poll made me feel ill. What the fuck is going on? Are that many people only watching Fox News?

 

I would love to know what's behind the thinking of these people. The poll does refer to the Trump administration and not Trump himself. But even so, we're still talking about Kellyanne "Bowling Green Massacre" Conway and Sean "Alternative Facts" Spicer, both of whom constantly defend Trump's falsehoods, Trump's national security advisor and "so-called" general, Mike Flynn (who appears to have been untruthful about his communications with Russian officials.) Not to mention Steve Bannon and a host of other conspiracy theorists who relentlessly feed the media their fevered fantasies.

 

In a test of my ability to withstand disgustingly warped delusions, I tuned in to the "Fair and Balanced" network to watch them gloat. I heard Mike Huckabee ask, incredulously, "who are these 39% who actually believe the media are truthful?" Later, Sean Hannity and his guest sported broad smiles while they crowed about the correctness of their media assessments.

 

None of these jackasses seemed to be aware of the fact that they were broadcasting from Fox News -- a  television news channel and part of the news media. They were also blissfully unconcerned with the mountain of falsehoods that have been spewing out of the mouth and tweets of the (shudder) President for the past six years or so, and on a daily basis for the past two years. 

Mr Huckabee,  your incredulity should be directed at those who think the Trump administration is truthful, you obnoxious jerk.

 

Just like Trump thinks that all improperly registered voters voted -- and they all voted for Hillary -- the aforementioned jackasses think that the "untruthful media" poll responses only applied to non-right wing news outlets. What makes this all particularly disgusting is that Sean Hannity -- who broadcasts on a station who's very premise is a lie (Fair and Balanced) -- is the lyingest fuck of them all.

 

A chronicle of Hannity's and Fox News' untruthfulness deserves its own separate blog posts, which I intend to do in the future. For now, check out these past posts: Fair and Balanced and Fair and Balanced

 

Are the responders to this poll buying Trump's bullshit that the media is "very, very dishonest" when it comes to their coverage of him? Do they not notice that whenever Trump makes some outlandish claim -- including his most often used charge that the media is "very, very dishonest" -- he offers no evidence, but when the media fact checks his claims, they provide detailed information that includes references to relevant and reliable sources? 

 

If these people believe Trump -- despite all of the concrete evidence proving that he will say anything that he can pull out of his overweight ass -- then they are truly gullible fools and our country is in "big league" trouble.

 

Trump wants the entire media to be like Fox News. Ignore all of his imbecilic comments, his moronic insults, his daily output of blatant falsehoods, his racism and his childish and ego-maniacal behavior -- and just put a positive spin on all of his policy proposals. And don't forget to compliment and praise him and act like he embodies nothing but positive qualities. And whatever you do, don't treat him the way he and Fox News treated Obama. Because, while he can dish it out, he sure as hell can't take it.

 

I'm listening to his press conference right now and he's repeating the "fake news, false reporting, dishonest media" crap. Unfortunately, no one has asked him what, specifically, has been reported that is not true.

Is their reporting on your claims of massive voter fraud fake? Is their reporting on your claim that the crime rate is the highest it's been in 47 years false? Were they being dishonest when they contradicted your claims about the size of your inauguration crowd?

Frustrating.

 

Apparently, I missed this. Trump continued his daily output of blatant falsehoods by claiming that he had the biggest electoral college victory since Ronald Reagan. (Previously he claimed it was one of the biggest electoral college victories in history. According to the NYT it ranked 46 out of 58 elections)

A reporter corrected him by pointing out that it wasn't even the biggest electoral win since the last election (Obama had 332 votes -- Trump had 304). Trump than tried to say that he was talking aboutRepublican presidents and he was corrected again.

 

To his credit, the reporter asked "Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you're providing information that's fake?"

Trump's answer? "I don't know, I was given that information."

Trump then tried to distract from the question by saying " We won by a very, very big margin... but it was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that?"

 

The distraction worked because the reporter seemed to agree, sat down and left him off the hook. Infuriating. He should have repeated the question, because Trump didn't answer it!!

That distraction technique is used by politicians all the time whenever they don't want to answer a question. And it is very effective because it works. In order to deal with that the reporter should either ask the question again or, if the politician gives an ambiguous answer, ask for a clarification.

 

So, in this case, the reporter should have, because Trump actually gave an ambiguous answer, said "for clarification, Mr President, your answer to the question "why should Americans trust you when you give fake information -- your answer is 'I don't know?"

 

My guess as to how Trump would have answered that question, if he had been asked, is by repeating the "excuse" that that was the information he was given -- as if he should be forgiven because of that.

This is exactly how he answered Bill O'Reilly when confronted about his retweet of outrageously false black on white murder statistics that he got from some White Nationalist/Supremacist web site:

http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2017/01/trump-honest-skeptic.html 

 

This is what I would have asked next: "with all due respect, sir, you have a very long history of making many, many false claims that have been fact-checked as being false -- shouldn't you, by now, be making sure that when you make a claim, that you can back it up with solid, reliable evidence?"

 

Whatever bullshit Trump would have offered next, this would have been my next question:

"Shouldn't you, sir, since you claim that the media is not being truthful about you, be addressing those many false claims you made instead of making baseless claims that the fact checks are fake news?"

 

Because there were no follow up questions, I guarantee you that that excellent question will be forgotten by most people. Trump really outplayed the media this time. He managed to turn the whole fake news/honesty issue around on them when they should have nailed him for being the real dishonest, fake news perpetrator.

Liberals correctly see this but the majority of people -- like the ones who answered the Emerson College poll -- will think Trump came out looking very good. I predict that Trump's honesty numbers will go up and the press's will go down after this. Disgusting

Trump On ISIS Founder: "I Really Like Him as a Person"

Sounds like fake news, huh?  Well, this time we have the proof. It's all been recorded. It's not fake news! It's Trump Time!

 

Incredible. How can the President-elect have such fond feelings for a man who was responsible for a series of bombings and beheadings, the savage murders of countless innocent people and the formation of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually evolved into ISIS? We're talking about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the heinous criminal who was known as "Shayakh of the slaughterers."

 

Oh, wait. That's not who Trump was talking about. The man who lost the popular vote was talking about President Barack Obama.

 

We all remember when Trump called Obama the founder of ISIS, don't we?

And if you missed it when Trump said that he really likes Obama as a person, well here it is:

Trump says he's consulted Obama on Cabinet picks - POLITICO

 

I know, Trump said he was being "sarcastic" when he said that thing about ISIS. 

It did take him two days to come up with that excuse, and he repeated the ISIS charge emphatically, several times, during those days -- but I assume that he either never believed it in the first place or at least he no longer believes it, now.

Unless he's being sarcastic about being sarcastic. Hmmm.

Come to think of it, he did say "I'm being sarcastic... but not that sarcastic to be honest with you."

So maybe he meant it like, "Yeah, that's right. I'm being sarcastic, I'm being really sarcastic."

 

Anyway, when I heard him lavishing all that praise on Obama after his first meeting with the President, I had to shake my head in disbelief. Even though, by now, we should all be used to Trump saying such starkly contradictory things, that was a stunner. Trump also said that Obama "loves the country. He wants to do right by the country and for the country." !!!

 

One of the first things I thought of was 'how are the right-wing haters going to take this?' I was thinking about Trump's basket of deplorables, including all the radio talkers like Rush Limbag, Michael Savage and Mark Levin. These media megalomaniacs have based the last eight years of their multi-million dollar careers on the premise that Obama is a wretched Islamo-sympathizing demon who hates America with all the fibers of his radical leftist being. They have convinced their audiences of this belief by manipulating their emotions with an endless barrage of atrocious mischaracterizations, ridiculous hyperbole and outright lies.

To illustrate how ridiculous their hyperbole is, let me make it clear that my characterization of their characterization of Obama is not hyperbole.

 

Where do you think Trump got "Obama is the founder of ISIS" from? Trump didn't make that shit up himself. He got that from the right-wing media/blogosphere. That's exactly the kind of ridiculous hyperbole I'm talking about. If you believe that Obama is a secret jihad sympathizing Muslim -- and that he hates America with every fiber of his being (these kinds of things have actually, literally been said countless times during Obama's entire time on the national stage) then it's not much of a leap to believe that he really is the founder of ISIS.

 

This is what Trump does. He listens to and reads the right-wing hate media and repeats the shit he knows they love to hear. (Notice how he hardly ever repeats anything from the legitimate, intellectual conservative press. That wouldn't stoke the anger and hatred that he used to fuel his campaign.)

He's noticed the same thing that anyone who observes the right-wing hate media could see -- the audience will believe anything they hear that feeds their anger and hatred. They will defend those beliefs ferociously. And the more preposterously evil the things they hear are, the more ferociously they will believe and defend them.

 

This is why he hardly ever takes back any of the blatantly false things he repeats from the right-wing hate media. And when he does take it back, it's always insincere and not without a fuck you to the media for making him do it. This is because he knows how strongly his supporters believe in those things. If he disavows those falsehoods, he disavows their most cherished beliefs. And he only takes back those things when confronted with it's falsity (or awfulness) persistently and over a long period of time. 

 

Examples:

(Not an example of a false statement but an awful one) 

His admission that John McCain is a war hero --"OK, he's a hero because he was captured. I prefer soldiers who weren't captured."

 

His Disavowal of David Duke's endorsement which had to be wrung from him after days of being asked about it and lying about not even knowing who he was -- an irritated Trump uses just three words -- "I disavow, OK?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseotd_fxWY

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-david-duke-amnesia/

 

His admission that Obama was born in the US -- "Hillary started it."

 

And the Obama/ISIS thing -- "I was being sarcastic."

 

Like I said, insincere, unapologetic and not without adding even more falsehoods and insults.

 

Anyway, getting back to my curiosity about how the right-wing radio talkers would react to Trump's praise of Obama. Without a doubt, the one theme they have emphasized more than any other during the last eight years is that Obama hates America and has even succeeded in destroying everything good and great about America. (hence the 'Make America Great Again' slogan)

Now here is Trump, right after getting elected and (as he pointed out himself in a post election rally) no longer needing the votes of his rabid right-wing supporters, saying the exact opposite!

 

Wow! I couldn't wait to hear their reactions. I tuned into Rush Limbag's show the next day and it was the very first thing the bloviating blowhard brought up! Rush's spin was classic Limbag.

He said that Trump was "playing" Obama. Ah, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.

Me thinks you are the one being played, oh Lord and Master of all bullshit.

 

Yes, El Rushbo went on to say that Trump was playing Obama but that Obama was too arrogant and narcissistic to realize it. Ah, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.

Me thinks you are the one who is too arrogant and narcissistic to realize who is actually being played, oh Lord and Master of all dittoheads.

He said that Obama thinks he's God's gift to humanity and that it is this psychological conceit that prevents him from seeing the truth.

 

Talk about the pot calling the black man something he's not.

I'm sure Obama has a healthy ego but for Christ's sake, for his entire career Rush is the one who has been using the catchphrase "with talent on loan from God" to describe the source of his awesomeness.

You can't listen to Dimbulb's show for more than 20 minutes without hearing him tell his audience how great he is.

And, to add even more irony to the farce, the third person involved, Trump himself, has also invoked God for creating him to be the greatest at whatever it is he happens to be talking about.

 

In a contest of arrogance, narcissism and being an all around shithead, comparing Rush and Trump for the honor of being the greatest in those areas -- would be like comparing Mickey Mantle to Willie Mays or Michael Jordan to Lebron James for being the best ever in their respective sports.

 

Do you want more proof that Trump is playing Rush and all the others in the basket of deplorables?

Well, stay tuned to this blog

Trump -- An Honest Skeptic

Do you recall the phrase "it's Giuliani time"? That refers to Rudy Giuliani's first term as mayor when the devious prick we now know as a screaming, foaming at the mouth maniac "allowed police to trample civil liberties -- particularly those of blacks, artists and welfare recipients -- in the name of maintaining public order." 

‘Giuliani Time’ paints ugly picture of the man - TODAY.com

 

Well, now it's Trump Time.

 

Ever since Trump put his hat -- or whatever that thing is on top of his head -- in the ring of presidential politics, I've considered him to be a litmus test for conservatives. Trump tests conservatives' ability to distinguish objective reality from the fabricated reality that their emotional biases urges them to believe in.

 

According to the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of Human Nature, this urge is innate and exists, to varying degrees, in all of us. Whether these biases are conservative or liberal is biologically determined.

Our brains are designed to want and to seek out leaders. In order to satisfy this need, we often project certain qualities onto these leaders, even when they don't exist. Democrats and liberals did this with Hillary. We wanted her to be the honest, selfless and upstanding standard bearer of our values, so we ignored her many self-serving ethical lapses, contrary political positions and just pretended that those lapses and contradictions didn't matter.

 

As for Trump, he took this phenomenon and drove it into hyperspace. He has created a space-trumptime continuum in which our nation has been plunged into a different dimension -- an alternate universe where reality is being defined by Trump and his supporters.

 

As more and more people normalize Trump, those who believe in an objective reality will become marginalized -- accused of and viscously attacked for being anti-Trump and thus unfair, dishonest and not to be listened to. I've even started to hear the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" being used.

Oh my God, it's already begun! Reality has been turned upside down.

 

Early on, during Trump's primary campaign, I expected him to implode. While I realized that his unvarnished racism would appeal to that portion of republican voters that Hillary gave as a reasonable estimate for constituting half of his supporters, I was sure that his denigration of American prisoners of war, the disabled and women who don't live up to his standard of suitable attractiveness would turn off enough primary voters.

 

And certainly, his endless string of blatant falsehoods, moronic utterances and comical third grade vocabulary would be enough to doom his campaign. And when Jeb Bush said Trump couldn't insult his way to the presidency, I couldn't have imagined how wrong he would be.

 

But by the time we got to hear Trump bragging about his ability to get away with grabbing women's pussies, I knew he would get away with those boasts, too. After all, Hillary's own husband had already normalized that kind of behavior.

 

If only Democratic voters had chosen someone without all of Hillary's baggage. Someone who could not be attacked for personal behavior. Someone who had Trump's populist message without the ignorance, stupidity and racism. Someone who had a consistent, lifetime record of promoting that message. Someone who had polled much better than Hillary against Trump. Someone who would have brought out the youth vote.

Ahh, but I guess no one like that even exists.

 

I was heartened by the number of conservatives who came forward to accurately describe Trump's appalling personality and behavior. These are the conservatives who have passed the litmus test.

Unfortunately, they have been overwhelmed by the number who have enthusiastically climbed aboard 

Trump's insane train and described him in a manner that is exactly opposite of the way he truly is.

 

A case in point. Former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoeksrtra has recently described Trump as a healthy sceptic for doubting the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia hacked into Democratic Party computers. He repeated this description in a number of interviews last week.

And the point is, Trump is the exact opposite of a healthy skeptic.

 

As I've pointed out in previous posts, Trump has never met a false right wing allegation that he hasn't bought lock, stock, barrel and promoted like it had his name on it.

http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2015/12/i-thought-birtherism-was-stillborn-but.html

 

This is Trump we're talking about. The King of the Birthers.

He "heard things" and "read things" about Obama. Like how he spent 2 million dollars to hide his birth certificate. Or how there was no proof he ever attended Columbia University.

A healthy skeptic would have performed a simple fact check and discovered that all of those things were proved in excruciating detail to be demonstrably false by numerous fact checking organizations. But Trump immediately believed every word of every false allegation he ever heard of and continued to promote all that birther related nonsense for five years.

 

And it wasn't just the birther stuff. The number of phoney shits he believed in was countless. He gets his information from right-wing conspiracy web sites like World Net Daily and Info Wars. He has collaborated with and guest starred on these sites.

 

Here he is on Bill O'Reilly's show defending his retweet of some outrageously false black on white murder statistics that he got from some White Nationalist/Supremacist web site. Check him out at the 3:59 minute mark where he says he's probably the least racist person on earth. When O'Reilly scolds him for the false tweet, the world's healthiest skeptic then goes on to ask "am I going to check every statistic..." in a way that obviously means "I am not going to check every statistic".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioLjp-G2bY8

 

Why couldn't at least one of Hoekstra's interviewers have pointed these things out? Wouldn't you have loved to hear Hoekstra's response? Wouldn't it have been nice for the American public to be reminded of the fact that Trump is not normal and that Hoekstra's description of Trump is the exact opposite of the way he really is?

 

Interestingly, after looking up Hoekstra's Wikipedia bio, I saw that Hoekstra himself, as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in 2006, put forward information that was deserving of skepticism (because it was apparently disputed by Pentagon officials, the Duelfer Report and the intelligence community) claiming that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.  

 

In 2007 he created a report about Iran producing weapons grade uranium that was also deserving of a healthy dose of skepticism -- being that it was labeled by various sources, including the IAEA, as erroneous, misleading, dishonest, incorrect and outrageous.

 

But Hoekstra seems a lot like Trump, himself. Maybe, just like Trump knows more about ISIS than the generals, Hoekstra knows more about Iraq, Iran and weapons, both of grade and destruction, than all of those organizations. He's a leading candidate to be the new head of the CIA and, like Trump, he's all in with waterboarding.

Most importantly, just like Trump and his supporters, he believes what he wants to believe.

And the things they are willing to believe are absolutely frightening.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trump-and-the-amazing-alex-jones

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-alex-jones-conspiracy-theorist-extraordinaire-got-donald-trumps-ear/2016/11/17/583dc190-ab3e-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.202759175040

Spokesperson Conway: Trump Is Bananas

Did you hear the news? When asked to respond to one of Trump's latest bizarre tweets, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway could offer no explanation other than the obvious: The man's nuts.
If you haven't heard about it, that's probably because I just made it up. It's fake news.
Hopefully, it will catch on.

Hey, it's Trump Time! Fake news is all the rage. It's not only normal, it's fashionable. I don't think enough credit can be given to Donald "White Power" Trump for taking this phenomenon and making it mainstream. He has been the leading purveyor of fake news for years now. Way back in 2011, when Birtherism was a mere fringe activity -- restricted solely to those afflicted with Obama Derangement Syndrome -- the Donald used his celebrity to bring that lunacy front and center before the American people.

The Donald had "heard" things and "read" things about Obama. Really bad things. Things that he apparently was sure were true because he presented them as proven fact. Like the fact that Obama's own grandmother admitted that he was born in Kenya. And how nobody ever knew him growing up in Hawaii or when he supposedly attended Columbia University. He had a bunch of other things he accused the President of. These were all proven facts. Except the only thing proven about those things -- by numerous fact-checking organizations -- is that they were all demonstrably false.

There doesn't appear to be a single phoney right-wing conspiracy theory that The Donald hasn't bought lock, stock, barrel and promoted like it had his name on it. Like how he saw "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the attacks on 9/11. Or how he retweeted outrageously false crime statistics that claimed 82% of white murder victims were killed by blacks when that is actually the percentage of whites killed by other whites. (If Trump has accepted those real statistics, I sure hope he is going to do something about all those white predators who are murdering innocent white people, because white lives matter most)

The Donald doesn't only repeat, retweet and spread false rumors. He fabricates his own. Remember when he claimed that he sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to investigate Obama's birth certificate? He said they couldn't "believe what they're finding". He got a lot of people wondering what sort of treachery Obama had committed. So far, he hasn't revealed Obama's betrayals. Like his decision whether or not to accept the results of the election, he's keeping us in suspense. When asked about it years later, he said he would reveal it "when the time was right". Another time he told the reporter it wasn't any of his business.

Oh Master of the Master Race, how could you do this to us? You know how this stuff is like heroin to your supporters. They're just dying to know. We're all dying to know.
Maybe if we keep pestering him about it the way he pestered Obama about the long form birth certificate, he'll finally share everything his investigators found out.

Speaking of the professional double-talker -- Kellyanne Conway -- her frequent presence on my TV and computer screens is a constant irritant. To hear her describe Trump's falsehoods, contradictions, idiocies and racist lies as honest, truth-telling brilliance is such an outrageously obnoxious insult to the intelligence of anyone listening. But what adds injury to that insult is how effective her obfuscating tactics are. She is usually able to -- if not completely bamboozle her interviewer -- escape relatively unscathed.

Her recent dust up with Clinton's communications director is a depressing example:
FIREWORKS: Kellyanne Conway vs. Clinton Camp's Palmieri: Trump Gave Alt-Right, White Supremacists A Platform | Video | RealClea
Clinton's Palmieri says she'd rather 'lose than win the way you guys did'. Conway says "I'm sorry -- how exactly did we win -- no, go for it, Jen -- how exactly did we win?" Palmieri stutters and Conway filibusters. But when given a chance to elaborate, Palmieri talks about giving the Alt-Right a platform. (That is an awful consequence of the Trump campaign but not the way they won. However, Trump did convince enough people that non-whites [Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, the Chinese] are a dire threat to their safety and prosperity and that Trump was the only person with the courage and conviction to push these hordes back and Make America White again! What about Putin and the Russians? Oh, they're great! They're white!) Anyway, Conway demonstrates outrage, brushes the alt-right platform accusation aside and filibusters some more.

Since Conway came on board, what I've been waiting all campaign for, is someone to confront that -- I'm thinking of a word for her and it rhymes with confront -- with some of the more outrageous lies that Trump has told. I would love to see how Conway would try to talk her way out of that. This is what Palmieri should have zeroed in on, particularly his racist lies. Like -- you know -- most, if not all, Mexican immigrants are drug bringing criminal rapists, and the other lies I mention in the fourth paragraph of this post.

Being familiar with Conway's tactics, my guess is that she would have used the "best defense is a good offense" ploy. 'You want to talk about lies, let's talk about Hillary's lies.' (she's actually said things just like that) Then Palmieri could have truthfully and correctly said that Hillary didn't lie about other people and whole races and religions. And she could have stressed how terrible those lies were and how damaging and divisive they are.

Here's another thing I haven't heard brought up to her. When they talk about the popular vote and the anti-Trump protests, she says 'the elections are based on electoral votes not the popular vote', the protestors are 'crybabies and sore losers' and they should just shut up and accept the results. The Donald won fair and square.

Well, the question I would ask her, if I had the chance, is how she thinks The Donald and his supporters would have behaved had he won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. I would love to hear what kind of double-talk she would conjure in order to answer that question. Interestingly, we know how he and they would have behaved because we have the proof, from their own hypocritical mouths. See my previous post, below.

Trump: I Would Have Won Even More Bigly

As the number of votes cast against Donald Trump continues to rise, Trump and his supporters continue to brush that fact off with an interesting bit of reasoning. If the election was based on the popular vote, they say, Trump would have campaigned differently. Trump himself tweeted: "If the election were based on total popular vote, I would have campaigned in N.Y., Florida and California and won even bigger and more easily."

There's at least one thing wrong with that rationale. It assumes that Clinton would not have changed her campaigning strategy, too. As it stands now, Clinton's popular vote total is by far the largest winning margin -- in history -- by a candidate who lost the electoral college. If that happened without Clinton even trying to get the popular vote, doesn't it makes more sense that her popular vote margin would have been even larger if she had campaigned for it?

The fact that the popular vote count is being brought to the attention of the American people really annoys the Trumpers. And they are livid at the anti-Trump protests. Their response to these realities? "You lost. Get over it." What should really be annoying them are these facts (from a Nov. 15 politico article):

On election night in 2012, Trump ranted about the Electoral College when he appeared to believe, incorrectly, that President Barack Obama lost the popular vote to Mitt Romney.

"He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!" Trump wrote that night, continuing in a subsequent post that "the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy."

"The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!" he added [sic].

"More votes equals a loss ... revolution!"

It is amazing how the Trumpers are able to filter out all of the incredibly stupid and contradictory things Trump says. It seems like there isn't a single thing that comes out of that jerk's mouth that hasn't been completely contradicted by a previous thing he's said. Like these other tweets from 2012:

Of course, when he thought he was going to lose, he incited his supporters with unfounded accusations of rigging. He urged them to take matters into their own hands with "Second Amendment remedies" if Hillary won. Some of them vowed to wage an armed revolution if Trump didn't win.

According to The Independent, Clinton has more than 1.7 million more votes -- and counting -- than Trump and more total votes than any other US presidential candidate in history -- except for Barack Obama -- who's approval rating is 55%.

Besides losing the popular vote, the Republicons lost two Senate seats and six congressional seats.

Imagine if the Dems had nominated someone other than Hillary Clinton. Someone without her long history of ethically dishonest and corrupt decision making. Someone like Bernie Sanders, for instance.

The anti-Trump protests are not only fair -- common human decency demands it.

Trump is a racist liar and a moral degenerate. That is not partisan hyperbole. As Senator Paul Ryan said -- "it's the textbook definition." I hope and pray that -- out of these protests -- a demand for an apology from Trump emerges. We can't let him get away with his mountain of insults, slurs and lies. We can not let this be the norm of our political discourse.

Trump gets his talking points from the right-wing hate media. He has delved into the dark and ugly fringes of the alt-right, white nationalist and white supremacist movements. Those hate mongers get away with that shit when they speak to their gullible audiences. We can't let Trump get away with that when he speaks to a national audience.

We must demand an apology.

Disbelief, Despair -- And Then Anger

Even though I knew Trump could win, when it actually happened, it seemed so unreal.

When that reality finally sunk in, I sunk, too -- into a pool of despair. I had to face the realization that an ultra-right, ultra-white Senate and House of Representatives will be led by a pussy-grabbing, lying, racist, conspiracy-theorist-demagogue. And he's stupid, too. George W. Bush stupid. A huge  asshole. Yuuuge.

http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2011/04/donald-trump-huge-asshole-huge.html

Hey, Trump. When are you going to release your college transcripts?

Because "I heard you were a terrible student, terrible. How does a terrible student go to the Wharton School? Let us see your records. I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can't get into the Wharton School. We don't know a thing about this guy. There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our President-elect."

(If the words in those quotes look familiar, it's because they are Trump's -- speaking about Obama and Harvard, back in the heady days of Birtherism. Ahh, those were intoxicating and exhilarating times for those suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome. Too bad they'll be gone all too soon.)

Did you know that when Trump was asked if he would release his college transcripts he told the reporter that it was none of his business? Ha!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/12/eight-documents-donald-trump-has-yet-to-fully-release/?tid=a_inl

So, first disbelief followed by despair but then the anger started to rise. I got really pissed at the way so many Dems were being so nice to Trump, considering what a scumbag he's been. They should have demanded an apology for all the vile garbage and lies he's spewed -- before they said a single word to him (other than the demand for the apology.)

The fucking prick said he wouldn't accept the results if he didn't win! He incited his supporters with constant and unfounded accusations of rigging. Some of them vowed to wage an armed revolution if he didn't win. He urged them to take matters into their own hands with Second Amendment remedies if Clinton got elected.

Being nice to that bastard is completely unwarranted. He is a scumbag of the first order. In the name of decency, he should be thoroughly repudiated. Think of how his basket of deplorables treated President Obama, a decent person, during his entire time on the national stage, with the most vile attacks imaginable. 

The attacks on Obama were based on distorted information, twisted reasoning and outright lies. They constantly accused him of saying horrible things when he actually said the exact opposite of what they accused him of. Meanwhile, Trump's bile was crystal clear and totally unambiguous. The same retards who attacked Obama cheered and chanted as Trump lied and demagogued his way to the presidency.

A few days ago, I heard Chris "Lane Closings" Christie being asked if Trump should apologize to Obama for all that birther stuff he promoted for all those years. Governor Lane Closings had the audacity to brush all that stuff off as mere jabs at the President -- just the normal kind of politics that everyone engages in. After all, he said, President Obama himself did the same thing to Trump at that 2011 White House Correspondents' dinner.

That double-talking liar had the gall to compare Trump's five year birther campaign of hate to Obama's five minute ribbing at that dinner!? I need a word that means "obnoxious to the power of ten." I bet they have a word for that in German.

I've got a new chant for Gov. Lane Closings. It goes like this:

LOCK HIM UP -- LOCK HIM UP -- LOCK HIM UP

http://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2016/09/federal-prosecutor-says-christie-knew-about-lane-closings-105584

The Republiconservative talking heads are out there decrying the protests and legitimate grievances being expressed by those who oppose Trump. Liar for Hire, Kellyanne Conway, feigned disgust and accused them of being divisive!!! Why you miserable fucking C-word. You wretched piece of shit.

You just did all the official double-talking for the undefeated, undisputed, world heavyweight champion of  divisiveness, Donald J. Trump!!!

If anyone is offended by the vulgarity in this post, let me remind you -- this is Trump-time!!!

Just as he did for racism, he has made vulgarity socially acceptable.

http://wonkette.com/444598/donald-trump-shouts-f-word-multiple-times-in-las-vegas-speech

I predict he will issue an executive order making political correctness illegal.

So get used to it, Motherfuckers!!