▲
1
0
▼

Goodbye Spin, Hello Raw Dishonesty


               
2017 Mar 5, 3:42pm   5,047 views  15 comments

by marcus   follow (7)  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/opinion/goodbye-spin-hello-raw-dishonesty.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

It's important not to indulge in an easy cynicism, to say that politicians have always lied and always will. What we're getting from Mr. Trump is simply on a different plane from anything we've seen before.

For one thing, politicians used to limit their outright lies to matters not easily checked — hidden affairs, under the table deals, and so on. But now we have the man who ran the Miss Universe competition in Moscow three years ago, and who declared just last year that “I know Russia well,” then last month said, “I haven't called Russia in 10 years.”

On matters of policy, politicians used to limit their misrepresentations of facts and impacts to relatively hard-to-verify assertions. When George W. Bush insisted that his tax cuts mainly went to the middle class, this wasn't true, but it took some number-crunching to show that. Mr. Trump, however, makes claims like his assertion that the murder rate — which ticked up in 2015 but is still barely half what it was in 1990 — is at a 45-year high. Furthermore, he just keeps repeating such claims after they've been debunked.

And the question is, who's going to stop him?

The moral vacuity of Republicans in Congress, and the unlikelihood that they'll act as any check on the president, becomes clearer with each passing day. Even the real possibility that we're facing subversion by agents of a foreign power, and that top officials are part of the story, doesn't seem to faze them as long as they can get tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor.

« First        Comments 11 - 15 of 15        Search these comments

11   CL   @   2017 Mar 6, 12:28pm  

Tim Aurora says

You will repent then but it would be too late.

Ha! No, they won't. When the shit wheels come of this shit clown car, they will declare that Trump was never a conservative at all, and no wonder he failed! "Sure", they'll say, "we lost our way, but now we need a REAL conservative to right the ship!".

They have impenetrable cloudy logic on all things political.

Why, just a few scant years ago, Russia was our biggest geopolitical threat, and protectionism was anathema, the stuff of unions.

12   CL   @   2017 Mar 6, 3:57pm  

Remember when Iraq was the defining issue of our era? Anyone opposed was a pussy (liberal)! You're either with us, or against us! Pussies!

Now, the head of the same party thinks "Bush lied, Soldiers died". But it's the Democrats who are to blame!

13   Rew   @   2017 Mar 6, 11:38pm  

CL says

Remember when Iraq was the defining issue of our era? Anyone opposed was a pussy (liberal)! You're either with us, or against us! Pussies!

I fear we will get a new "support our troops, true American" litmus test soon.

The story that burns me up the most about the Iraq war was this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/nyregion/15about.html

Check out "Why We Fight" if you haven't seen it yet, as well.

14   Shaman   @   2017 Mar 7, 2:13pm  

I guess we will see. Still glad we didn't get Clinton. Trump with all his flaws is still at least aligned with the right direction the country needs to go. Trump hasn't divided us, the globalists and Leftists have done that with their pet media corporations singing shrill tunes of imminent destruction! Gradually, as nothing bad happens, their adherents will grow tired of the whole schtick and move on with their lives. It's already happening.

And the thing with Trump being a traitor? It is to laugh! Fake news doesn't prove anything except that the people who believe it are idiots. The media is currently backpedaling as hard as possible on that "charge" as they insist their sources were all crap and there was never any evidence. All because Obama's ass is suddenly swinging in the wind for his Watergate-style election hacks. Democrats do love to accuse opponents of the very misdeeds they commit all the time!

You know what cemented my support for Trump? It was the ridiculous level of opposition from the globalists and Leftists that convinced me he was planning a different course for our flight than straight into the ground like it was obvious the globalists wanted.

This isn't Left vs Right. It's the people vs the owner class/elites. One side wants freedom and personal responsibility and the other wants totalitarian government with special perks for themselves and their friends. It's all power games, but this time the elites lost. Let's hope this is the start of a long series of elite failures.

15   Shaman   @   2017 Mar 7, 3:20pm  

I'm glad you agree with me, Tim. All the focus on race and racial politics has led us to this point. Obama and his Leftists have led us here. Rather than focusing on finding common ground, Leftists are asking to be resegregated by racial/cultural boundaries so that everyone can have their safe space.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/6/cal-state-university-la-offers-segregated-housing-/
MLK is probably rolling over in his grave.

Some psychologists have suggested that this SJW madness is a result of kids growing up in daycares while their parents both work and drop in to helicopter parent whenever the kid got an owie.
This doesn't explain why different races can't seem to get along now. I would imagine that most classes are fully integrated, giving kids exposure to all different types of people from the youngest ages. My daughter's daycare class has as many different colors of beautiful kids as any sampling I've seen. I just hope she doesn't grow up and get infected by the Leftist poison that would make her see her friends as the other.

« First        Comments 11 - 15 of 15        Search these comments

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   users   suggestions   gaiste