It’s a Terrible Life

Every time a politician lies, a devil gets its horns.

Gaffes

Biden doesn’t always get his facts right ... see: CNN Story. The media tends to respond to Biden’s many gaffes with “Let Biden be Biden ...”

Then, can we also “Let Trump be Trump?”

I guess not. Isn't it funny how Biden’s “gaffes” are equivalent to Trump’s “lies” ... media bias anyone? A classic example!

Trump’s Reality

American political divide today boils down, pretty much, to those willing to live in President Trump’s reality ... and those who refuse to do so. The dissonance often occurs in the way that Trump communicates his world view ... spiced with bravado and, sometimes, harsh invective. This style, frequently communicated via Twitter, rubs many the wrong way and, to resolve this discomfort, they reject his reality out of hand. Big mistake.

This rejection then compounds their foolishness ... because they are forced to grow more and more semantically convoluted in their inane rationales for their resistance. We are told Trump has lied 12,000 times ... so his reality must also be false. How are these many lies possible? Does he lie when he states his name or what he had for dinner? We are told he is a white supremacist when his popularity with blacks and Hispanics grows daily. We are told he is anti-semantic while his son-in-law and daughter are Orthodox Jews. We are told he is growing senile when his schedule would daunt a much younger man. All these accusations are part of the strained rejection of his reality.

Trump’s reality on immigration, world trade, American exceptionalism, Islamic terrorism, nuclear threats, global warming, race relations, etc. are a whole lot closer to middle-America’s psyche than his opposition. This is why many Democrat presidential candidates have staked out such extreme positions ... just to demonstrate how opposed they are to Trump’s views. Big mistake. They are out on a limb of their lack of policy reality ... and Trump has saw in hand.

Quotable Quote

The first instinct of  government is to stay in power ... either by lies or by spies. -- Anon.

Shades of Shading

Some WaPo pajama boy has spent months documenting Trump's 3,000 "lies" ... see: Washington Post Story. Now there are lies and there are lies ... and it is best to differentiate between these shades of such shading. Below is my way of placing a metric (low to high -- 1) Shading the truth ... 2) Misleading  ... 3) Spinning ... 4) Exaggerating ... 5) Accentuating the negative ... 6) Fibbing ...  7)White lying ... 8) Prevaricating ... 9) Lying ...  19) Being mendacious ...  11) Telling whoppers)  on such mendacity ... and this author's take on where prominent "liars" lie on this lying spectrum.

My approximate positioning of this group is as follows:

Fox News -- 1.5

Mitch McConnell -- 2.5

Trump -- 4.0

Nancy Pelosi -- 4.5

MSNBC -- 5.0

Main-stream media -- 7.5

Chuck Schumer -- 8.0

Bill Clinton -- 8.5

Barack Obama -- 10,0

CNN -- 10.5

Hillary Clinton -- 11.5


Now, if this isn't taking a stilk to a hornets nest, I don't know what is?

Mendacity

Lies are good.  They add texture to the drab truth -- Anon.

Why Trump?

I was watching Morning Perjoritive, er, Joe this morning and sighing Mika was dropping mortar rounds on Trump again as she does every morning without fail ... and she asked every guest to join her in her fusillade. This was all in the context of Jeff Flake's denouncement of Trump on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. Flake is now considered to be the conscious of conservatism ... even though he is for open borders and the kind of free trade that bleeds the U.S. of jobs.

Is Trump Sir Galahad? Hardly! He is a bit of a blowhard. And an egomaniac. His tie is too long. He does stretch the truth, but doing a Google search on his "lies" does not turn up many whoppers. Most of his lies are a consequence of his oversized ego ... like exaggerating the size of his inauguration crowd (and his pickle.) But compared to Hillary's and Obama's monstrous mendacity, he is a piker.

So why did I vote for and still support this "mentally deranged idiot?" It really comes down to the lesser of two evils. The previous administration was so corrupt, so dirty, so anti-American, so self-serving, so duplicitous, so mendacious, so slimy, so dangerous ... I could go on for quite a while ... that it couldn't be allowed to continue. However, sometimes doctors use one malady to defeat another ... like when they use malaria to cure cancer.

And to me,Trump is the lesser malaria defeating the more lethal cancerous scourge of the Obama/Clinton threat. This would-be terminal disease is now being pushed into remission and yet, many myopics and slope-heads like Mika are incensed that we are suffering the ague of the Trump malaria. I myself am more than willing to suffer some night sweats to avoid our country's big sleep.

Now, my liberal friends and readers, you know why I have said and written such heresy.

Today's Quote

"History is a set of lies agreed upon." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

50 Shades of Grey

Donald Trump lies, James Comey lies, Hillary Clinton lies, Kellyanne Conway lies, Chuck Schumer lies, Paul Ryan lies, Nancy Pelosi lies. It is safe to say that most, if not all politicians lie. But there are white lies. There are black lies ... and 50 shades of grey in between. The seriousness of these transgressions depends a lot on their motivation and consequences. James Comey's lie about the possible number of Clinton e-mails on Anthony Weiner's computer had a lot to do with her losing the election. Donald Trump's promise that Mexico will pay for the wall may turn out to be a stretch ... but many American people treat it as hyperbole. These lies are at opposite ends of the mendacity spectrum.

And, of course, the media can point out (repeatedly) some untruths while ignoring others ... which they too frequently do. And the media often lie also ... to me, an unforgivable sin. These indiscretions they see as their sacred duty and protected by the Constitution. Perhaps President Trump lies more than most (just watch Joe and Mika play and replay this theme every morning) ... however he is doing most of the things his voters want him to do. And so they tune out a lot of the media's drumbeat of criticism. And this causes them to increase the tempo and volume.

But Trump has appointed Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, rolled back countless crippling regulations, stopped the flood of illegal migrants, dumped the Paris climate accord, faced head-on the North Korean nuclear threat, refriended Israel, and is struggling mightily to fix healthcare, the tax code and our infrastructure. As a consequence, many Americans (including me) are willing to view Trump's lies to be the lighter shades of grey.

Presser

I have to confess ... I'm not a slobbering fan of President Trump's style ... like he often displayed in his press conference yesterday  ... just like I never was a fan of reality TV. (And Trump is the personification of reality TV.) But I am a big fan of what Trump is doing ... like what he summarized at beginning of this presser. If you have over an hour, watch: VIDEO: SEE IT ALL In general, with a very few exceptions, Trump is doing courageous combat against the alt-Left, the fake news media, our real enemies abroad, and even his own party's establishment ... in order to tell the difficult truths and correct decades of creeping corrosive chimeras (aka, agenda-driven fantasies).

This presidential news conference made big news not necessarily because of what he said but rather because of Trump's performance. Rush Limbaugh said that it "was one of the most effective press conferences I have ever seen." And, I suspect, that the majority of viewing Americans felt the same way. Yes, he, like always, engaged in hyperbole (LIES to the left), he eviscerated the lefty media (but he did take questions from them), he took most of his shots from the hip (without major flubs but lots of media hysteria), and bragged about his accomplishments (despite his Deep State problems).

So, we have passed through a portal into a new reality ... a reality where many of our old assumption no longer hold. President Trump's world is not as many in the main stream media want it to be. And so they, and many of Obama's acolytes look forward to the next four years like a trip to the dentist. Therefore they resist, at their peril, with brickbats, fake news and disloyalty.

If the progs want to change Trump, they better start by changing vast swaths of America outside of both coasts ... before, that is, Trump changes the coasts.

Bunch of Hicks

His actions belie the folksy manner of his continued prevarications. He is avuncular and disarmingly believable when he looks through the TV screen and lowdown lies to us gullible Americans. Somehow we keep forgetting these subterfuges because he seems so convincing. Now, we learn of another whopper ... he has sworn, like he has on many occasions when backed into an embarrassing corner, that he had learned about Hellary's illegal e-mail server in the media.

Well, ladies and gents, I hate to disappoint you once again, but, yes, President Obummer has again misremembered things. It seems that not only did he know what e-mail malfeasance she was about, but he was also sending and receiving messages to crooked Hellary's server ... UNDER A PSEUDONYM ... see: Politico Story. Unfortunately I can't say I am surprised. He, like Hellary mixes fiction among fact with aplomb ... like the peanuts in a Cracker Jack box. This evil man is cloaked in respectable sartorial splendor and presents himself so well in speech and manner that he still enjoys the respect of 58% of we Americans.

Boy! are we one stupid bunch of hicks ...

Truth

"Truth is beauty, and beauty truth ..." -- Keats

Truth today is an endangered species. It has been driven to the hinterlands by the poaching politicians and the medacious media. Lying has become a performance art ... to be practiced and admired on national television and in the press. The more difficult the position to lie one's way out of ... the higher the judges' score. We are now experiencing an Olympics of lying ... with specializations evolving ... sprinters, heavy lifters, long-distance liars ... people who even are lying about lying.

Lying is so pervasive that, when a talking head or a politician tells the truth, it is like a bolt from the blue. And truth is often held hostage in our ivory towers. We are so unused to the truth that it often seems like a lie. "This truth cannot be true! Why it even reeks of common sense ... and wasn't common sense banished by presidential decree seven years ago?" Truth is so shining bright that it hurts one's eyes ... and we can't have our people becoming blind. Lies are much darker and easier to view and understand. Therefore, lies are good and the truth is bad!

You all know where this is heading ...

Gates of Hell

By Rodin

     
Donald Trump is a sinner ... a maddeningly unrepentant sinner ... often a social embarrassment. He somehow continually takes the Democrat's tainted bait and says and tweets stupid things ... non-political things ... un-PC things ... statements defending his ego against trivial taunts .. like "he hasn't sacrificed for his country." These are, to me, pissing contests amounting to next to nothing and not of lasting consequence. As I have said before, Trump's guttural mutterings are venial sins ... sins that can be forgiven by spending time in media purgatory.

On the other hand Hellary Clinton is much more polished than Trump with her panel-tested rhetoric. She does, of course, frequently lie ... but she does it like a good politician and not a playground bully. But there is a real difference ... these lies deal with much more serious sins ... her sins costing lives ... her sins involving national security breaches ... her sins that exchange our nation's assets for personal gain ... her sins that cover up repugnant malfeasances of family members and associates ... or, to Christendom, definitely mortal sins.

Venial sins are easily forgiven ... mortal sins, not so readily. I would much rather be embarrassed than decapitated ... red faced vs. no faced. Mortal sins swing wide open the Gates of Hell. Venial sins just leave them slightly ajar. So far, I have not seen any mortal sins committed by Donald Trump, He may have some, I just haven't seen them. I hope I don't. Because, if I do, then there will be an absolute moral equivalency between these two candidates. Then I couldn't vote for either of them. As of now, I still will vote for the venial sinner ... not that I am happy about it ... but it is what my Sunday-School-learned morality dictates.

Afterward: I changed "cardinal" to "mortal" and "venal" to "venial."

Lies

If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. -- Joseph Goebbels paraphrased


There seems to this observer to be more lies told these days than I can remember. And so, to honor this meme, I have, as is my habit, decided to offer up a taxonomy of this mendacity:

Fibs -- "No, I didn't eat the rest of the Oreo cookies."

White Lies -- "No dear, that pants suit doesn't make you look hippy."

Lawyerly Lies -- "I didn't have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, not a single time." ("Actually, I had sex with her multiple times.")

Political Lies -- "Under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

Self-serving Lies -- "I am 1/8 Cherokee Indian."

Popular Delusions -- "Carbon dioxide is a pollutant gas."

Propaganda -- "This agreement will prevent Iran from getting the atomic bomb."

Whoppers -- "This hamburger only has 125 calories."

Dumbo

President Obama promised in a 2008 campaign speech that, if elected, he would “heal the planet” … see: YouTube Video .  Unlike Pinocchio, when Obama lies his nose doesn’t grow … it is his ears.