Jon Stewart didn’t let Bill Adair finish his sentence, so I’ll do it. nnAdair, father of Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checker PolitiFact, was discussing his book “Beyond the Big Lie” on “The Daily Show.”
A theme of the book is that though politicians of all stripes lie, the GOP’s devotion to it so far exceeds the other side that it threatens to “burn down democracy.”
To affirm Adair’s point that PolitiFact is non-partisan, Stewart acknowledged that he – Stewart – had been dinged twice with the fact-checker’s “Pants on Fire” admonishment for claims on the show.
“I went home shamed,” Stewart deadpanned.
“There’s the difference …” said Adair, stopped midsentence as Stewart headed in another direction.
What Adair didn’t get to say: When it comes to the lies, particularly in the Age of Trump, Republicans have no shame.
None. Indeed, having elevated Trump to their god, Republicans now recite his lies as their sacrament.
What’s the latest?
Russia acknowledges, as reported by the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, that Vladimir Putin received COVID tests from then-President Trump when for millions of us, holed up in isolation, COVID tests were only a rumor.
Trump’s response to Woodward’s report was to deny it and say nasty things about the iconic Watergate reporter.
In Woodward’s new book, “War,” he also reports that after being ousted from office, Trump had multiple phone calls with Putin.
This would violate the Logan Act barring non-elected officials from engaging in foreign diplomacy with nations under U.S. sanctions.
Trump knows the law. He accused former Secretary of State John Kerry of violating it in alleged contacts with Iranian officials.
(We need not say that if such claims were laid at the feet of Barack Obama or Joe Biden when either was out of office, Republicans would be prosecuting it morning, noon and night on Fox Spews, and with a calendar sweep of congressional hearings.)
So many lies, so little time for a desperate man in the campaign’s final days.
Trump’s lie that the Biden administration was “stealing” hurricane relief funds and funneling them to the needs of undocumented individuals is one of the most disgraceful of all.
This ogre is exploiting the chaos and uncertainty of storm victims for pure political benefit.
He did the same in lying that Biden withheld disaster aid from Republican-dominated areas.
Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post that these claims carry the “hint of projection” — guilty of the aspersions he casts.
“Hint” of projection? This is a pile of dung that smells exactly like doo-doo.
The New York Times reported that Trump was going to block wildfire relief funds from blue-state California until his aides demonstrated how many Republicans were affected by the flames.
This is far from isolated. It is the norm in TrumpWorld. In the book, “This Will Not Pass,” about Trump’s four years in power, authors Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns describe in detail “protection-racket antics” by which President Trump carried out vendettas against whole states and constituencies regarding federal aid.
As for siphoning funds meant for disasters, Trump did what he falsely accuses Biden of doing when he shifted FEMA funds to the building of his border wall.
As I write this, Trump is in Colorado telling his wide-eyed flock about the so-called takeover of Aurora, Colo. — population 400,000 — by a group of Venezuelan youths only barely sufficient to man a baseball team.
Actually, the issue in Aurora (particularly since most of these youths are now behind bars) is the malfeasance of a Trump-style slumlord who let an apartment complex go to seed.
We have only a few days of MAGA-fueled lies left of this — meaning that J.D. Vance must evade “who lost the 2020 election?” at least 200 more times. Guy must be exhausted.
Lying is the new Republican sacrament. Pass the communion wafers.
John Young is a longtime newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024
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