Homily: More Trump Lies (plus Tweets)

by | Dec 29, 2017 | Tweets | 20 comments

It’s a tiring time for me, leaving little energy for things like posts. Today’s tweets were collected over a three day period, so again some are probably out of date by the time you read this. My apologies.

Also as I’ve mentioned previously, little is happening in New Zealand at this time of year except people managing to kill themselves in car accidents and via drowning at greater rates than usual. Most of the country is out enjoying our wonderful outdoors over the Christmas/New Year period. Unfortunately, this has its downside.

I’ve been watching a bit of CNN in between naps in the armchair. They’re a bit obsessed with Trump. Now I don’t have Trump’s opinion of CNN; I don’t think they’re fake news. In fact I think they’re really good and mostly fair. That wasn’t the case on the 27th though. Every time I woke up enough to hear what was going on that day, there was another commentator going on about Trump tweeting that he was going back to work when he was, in fact, on the golf course for the 86th time in his presidency. It was fair enough to point it out, but to go on about it all day was a bit OTT.

Now personally I don’t mind if Trump’s golfing; it keeps him away from governing. I do have a problem with his hypocrisy though. During the Obama presidency, Trump was constantly criticizing him for golfing. But at this point in his presidency, Obama was only up to his 26th golf game! Further, throughout the election campaign, Trump constantly said he wouldn’t be golfing if he won because he wouldn’t have time as he’d be working so hard. (“Believe me!” he said. Yeah, right!)

The following day, Trump was golfing again (# 87). This time there was a truck parked in such a way as to block CNN‘s camera. When CNN moved their camera, the truck moved too. Oh, well. The long shot that only caught one tiny part of the course was reminiscent of paparazzi getting a shot of Diana, Princess of Wales anyway!.

That day Trump was out working for part of it though. He went on a visit to some firefighters, which is fine. But he couldn’t help himself – when it came time for him to speak, the lies came spewing out. The lie was a frequent one that he seems to believe himself. He was telling everyone that his administration has passed the most Bills since the Truman administration. (The truth is, it’s the least since the Eisenhower administration. Even one of the Fox News actual news shows says this, so it must be true!)

Why does he say this stuff when the truth is so easily proven? I think it’s for several reasons.

Firstly, while I hate to agree with someone like Ted Cruz, I think he’s right when he says Trump is a pathological liar. He just can’t help himself.

Secondly, as I said above, he really seems to believe a lot of the lies. He surrounds himself with people who praise him, or at least don’t contradict him. If he gets something wrong, no one corrects him.

Thirdly, people know that the way to get ahead with him is to praise him excessively. The bigger the suck-up, the better. We see it all the time with foreign leaders, but it’s happening internally too. People who are deluded themselves, like Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Michael Flynn, and the Evangelicals, tell him their crazy theories and he believes them. When Trump came out in support of the white nationalists after the Charlottesville protests, you could hear the arguments of Bannon coming out of Trump’s mouth while the more reasonable chief of staff John Kelly hung his head in the background.

Fourthly, Trump appears to be incredibly insecure, looking for praise constantly. We all like compliments of course, and we all like it when others agree with us. However, as you get older you come to realize that some praise is better than others. More importantly, you realize there are people whose criticism actually doesn’t bother you because their opinion is rarely worth much anyway.

Fifthly, Trump has a way of raising himself up by putting others down. He is incapable of letting any of his achievements stand on their own. He has to constantly compare himself to others. Trump couldn’t just celebrate the achievement of the GOP Tax Bill, for example, he had to make it into something it wasn’t. He constantly calls it the greatest tax cut in US history. By doing this he actually takes away from any achievement. He makes himself look ridiculous and exposes his personal feelings of inadequacy.

I’ve got more pop psychology about Trump, but that’s enough or I’ll start to sound like one of the crazies I love to criticize.

I wonder if anyone has told Trump yet that Obama and Clinton have once again been voted the most respected man and woman for 2017. (He came in second.) Most people would be pretty pleased and honoured that a significant number of people think they’re worthy of such respect. All Trump will see is that the two people he hates most did better than him. It’s pathetic.

 

 

Political Tweets

I’m sick of these a$$holes treating Hillary Clinton like $hit. Take a look at her career, and compare it with their own (lack of) achievements in comparison. Whether you like her or not, you should be capable of admitting her accomplishments and not revert to sexism in your attempts to be hip when insulting her. Vanity Fair is self-righteous, pretentious, and represents some of the worst of the authoritarian left.

 

Pre-Mueller Time Tweets

Something else to watch out for!
(Via Ann German.)

 

Ha ha!

 

I admit I haven’t actually read the article in the link. However, it is already my opinion that the Steele dossier is largely credible. Basically the only bit that hasn’t been independently verified is Trump getting prostitutes to urinate all over the hotel bed Obama slept in. Further, I’ve written several times that Putin’s core goal is to undermine Western-style democracy. It’s his way to justify his own authoritarianism and put a damper on calls for greater democracy in Russia.
(Via Ann German.)

 

Human Rights Tweets

With MPs like this in the Knesset it’s no wonder there’s no progress towards a two-state solution. This is the type of person that Israel’s enemies use as an excuse for their actions. He’s a disgrace, and it’s disgusting that there are people who support him.

 

The #WhiteWednesdays protest against the compulsory hijab in Iran is gaining momentum. it will be interesting to see how this plays out in 2018 and beyond.

 

I didn’t re-tweet this myself, but I thought you might be “interested” …

 

Un-effing-believable!

 

Religion Tweets

I’ve seen this before, but it’s too good to pass up!
(Via Ann German.)

 

If Mary and Joseph turned up at Mar-a-lago …

 

This is a very good article.
(Via Ann German.)

 

Entertainment Tweets

Celebrating the life and talents of Bob Givens.

 

One of the best movies of all time, and it’s not even in my collection! Time to spend that Amazon voucher my nephew and nieces got me for Christmas!

 

Gaming Tweets

I know nothing about gaming, but I know I could easily have got into it. Anyway, I like the music, and I like the graphics, so I thought I’d put this tweet up.

 

Science Tweets

I don’t know about you, but this activates my primal instincts and freaks me out!!!
(Via Ann German.)

 

Weather Tweets

Cool!

 

He constantly tries to tell us how smart he is. I don’t know whether or not he’s smart. I do know he’s fu€king ignorant! This is unbelievable!

 

Insect Tweets

Wow!!! This is amazing!!!
(Via Ann German.)

 

Marine Tweets

Otters again!!!

 

It was already the 27th in New Zealand when this came up, but it’s so cute it’s going in!

 

Other Animals Tweets

Boxing day sloths are cute too!

 

Celebrating the great work of SWCC rescuing hedgehogs!

 

Hoglet feeding!

 

I was going to put this in the Bird Tweets section, but then I thought my well-know scientific ignorance would mean some people wouldn’t get the joke.
(Via Ann German.)

 

I learnt something new! Hedgehog mums pick up their hoglets like cats do!

 

The next video in the series on the wildlife of Norfolk.

 

Bird Tweets

Rude gits are ignoring me!

 

Twitter birds are real!

 

Very nice.

 

This is brilliant!

 

Lovely video of NZ native birds shot on Tiritiri Matangi, an island in the Hauraki Gulf (near Auckland) that’s been cleared of predators.
(Via Rickflick.)

 

Dog Tweets

I don’t believe it’s enjoying the moment. I think it’s bloody cold and miserable and is thinking I wish I was a cat so I could not do what my human says, just walk away, and go somewhere warm.

 

This is one very smart dog!

 

Cat Tweets

My, what big ears you have!

 

Wow! Gorgeous!

 

I want these kittens!

 

Yep. Typical cat!
(Via Ann German.)

 

There’s one more from Amanda’s Advent Calendar! And it’s a cat!
(Via Ann German.)

 

Stretch those toes!
(Via Ann German.)

 

 

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20 Comments

  1. Amy Carparelli
    Amy Carparelli on 30th December 2017 at 1:13 am

    Hello Heather,

    This is my second attempt because the first attempt didn’t work.

    The music you referred to is in two tracks from Dragon Age Inquisition sound track album. I do not know how to add the videos to a comments section but I will try.

    https://youtu.be/utZZpP73eZg

    https://youtu.be/18nbrRg9W10

    These are from a fictional RPG:

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 30th December 2017 at 7:29 am

      Thanks for this Amy. Much appreciated.

      Sorry your comment didn’t go through earlier – I was asleep in NZ! My security screens out comments with more than one link even if it’s from an approved commenter because becoming an approved commenter is a tactic of spammers.

      Reply
  3. nicky
    nicky on 30th December 2017 at 8:19 am

    Mr Trump can indeed claim Greatness:
    “The stories told tend toward presenting the liar favorably. The liar “decorates their own person”[3] by telling stories that present them as the hero or the victim. For example, the person might be presented as being fantastically brave, as knowing or being related to many famous people, or as having great power, position, or wealth.” I fear that in Mr Trump’s case the latter hardly is a lie anymore.
    “It is a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders such as psychopathy and antisocial, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders, but people who are pathological liars may not possess characteristics of the other disorders.[6]” (my emphasis) But we fear that in Mr Trump’s case, it is definitely not a ‘stand-alone’ disorder. At least he can truthfully claim to be ‘The Greatest Liar’ of all POTUS’s
    Quotes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_lying

    Was also struck that all Rep presidents are systematically lazier than all Dem presidents in that graph (at least since Carter). I thought I knew Baby Bush was the laziest president, but look now! Here Mr Trump can also claim being ‘The Greatest Sluggard’ without lying.

    Reply
    • Mark R.
      Mark R. on 30th December 2017 at 9:59 am

      He also didn’t lie about telling the rich people at Mar-a-Lago he made them “a lot richer” with the tax scam.

      Reply
      • nicky
        nicky on 30th December 2017 at 3:22 pm

        Still, if we would tally his lie/truth ratio, we’d get a positive number.

        Reply
  4. Mark R.
    Mark R. on 30th December 2017 at 11:04 am

    Someone has to explain to Trump the difference between weather and climate. I’ve never experienced a person so eager to broadcast globally their profound ignorance. And America is already spending $billions$ (it will eventually be in the trillions) fighting the effects of climate change: rising seas, more severe hurricanes, super storms and wild fires…on and on it goes and the price tag continues to grow. The smart (not-fake smart) countries are finding economic ways to curb and fight climate change and are investing vast sums into renewable energy; they know their ROI is inevitable. Here in the US, we curtail resources and watch from the sidelines. Germany just beat a world record in 2017 by creating 35% of their energy from renewables. They will faze out all nuclear power by 2022. This type of achievement means nothing to the GOP and their tribe.

    Life of Bryan is an excellent gift for yourself, and you might as well get MP’s The Holy Grail and Meaning of Life while you’re at it. 🙂

    Sloths make me happy. I vote for more sloth tweets!

    Sorry to hear your health is still a drag. I hope you start feeling better soon.

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 30th December 2017 at 11:48 am

      NZ does better than Germany for renewables – 80% of our electricity is from renewables, and 40% for all energy. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_New_Zealand )

      There’s a goal for 100% of electricity to come from renewables, but I can’t remember when it is. I know it’s later than I think it needs to be. I think we could easily do it by 2025 or 2030, but I’m pretty sure it’s later than that. We have no nuclear power and took a stand in the 70s never to get it. It caused a big stink with the US. Since then, NZ hasn’t been a US ally, and we still aren’t. It was only last year US ships were allowed back in our ports and only if they declared they weren’t nuclear powered. Last year there was a big joint naval exercise off Hawaii with multiple countries joining in. To make a point, all the navies except NZ were in the same port. We had to go to another one.

      Reply
      • j.a.m.
        j.a.m. on 31st December 2017 at 9:21 am

        Is anti-nuke hysteria a bit like anti-vax hysteria?

        Reply
        • nicky
          nicky on 31st December 2017 at 11:54 am

          No, it is not the same.
          Nuclear energy is potentially dangerous (not least because of it’s potential to generate nuclear weapons). We have -as yet- no good (economically and safely) ways of getting rid of the nuclear ‘waste’,. That being said, nuclear energy is a serious, but rather expensive, option. The French get most of their electricity from nuclear fission. However compared to the potential of solar energy it is not worth the expense, immo.
          Anti-vax is completely stupid, a real hysteria. None of the anti-vax arguments cut any wood, all objections have been thoroughly debunked. It is complete woo.
          In other words: the fear of ‘nuclear’ has some serious arguments, Anti-vax has none.

          Reply
        • Heather Hastie
          Heather Hastie on 31st December 2017 at 5:15 pm

          No, because nukes are a genuine threat. have you forgotten Chernobyl, 3 mile island, and Fukishima?

          Reply
    • nicky
      nicky on 30th December 2017 at 4:52 pm

      Well Mark, the NYT tried to explain to Trump in a way he might understand. The analogy is of unmitigated brilliance. And it is short enough he could actually read it, despite his limited attention span. Just the part I put in bold should suffice:

      “…to use an analogy Mr. Trump might appreciate, weather is how much money you have in your pocket today, whereas climate is your net worth. A billionaire who has forgotten his wallet one day is not poor, anymore than a poor person who lands a windfall of several hundred dollars is suddenly rich. What matters is what happens over the long term.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/climate/trump-tweet-global-warming.html

      (found the link to the NYT article on the Friendly Atheist: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/12/29/donald-trumps-climate-tweet-is-a-reminder-that-the-gop-embraces-science-denial/ )

      Reply
      • Mark R.
        Mark R. on 30th December 2017 at 6:43 pm

        Awesome…thanks for that!

        I would also like to add that record snowfalls are attributed to global warming. Heat evaporates water, the atmosphere collects it and viola, it falls down in heavier quantities. The ambient temperature dictates rain or snow, but the general warmth of earth’s atmosphere creates the severity that is now so common. Why do so many people think that heavy snow is some kind of proof that climate change is a hoax? 2+2=4 is a difficult truth to protect. It shouldn’t be in 2017, but sadly, it is never free from doubt.

        Reply
        • nicky
          nicky on 30th December 2017 at 11:07 pm

          Note the NYT “we’ve got answers to your questions” leaves a lot to be desired.
          eg.
          Part 1 Q3: “We’ve known about it for more than a Century”, is only half true. There was also a fear we were heading to an new Ice age in the ’60s and ’70s. The virtual consensus progressively started in the ’80s, and we can only talk about a virtual consensus since the late ’90s.
          Part 1 Q4: “Geologists say that humans are now pumping the gas into the air much faster than nature has ever done.” This is not strictly true, it is thought that giant lava flows, such as the ones forming the Deccan Traps or the Siberian flows tens of millions of years ago released greenhouse gases in even greater amounts. We simply do not know how fast this release was. Our dating methods do not allow for such short intervals as thousands of years. Note, they are being linked to mass extinctions.

          The most realistic solution is of course to go completely solar. The talk about baseload and storage capacity is bogus. It is political will.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wPdZ69H2NU

          A nice illustration about the amount of solar energy reaching our planet:

          https://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Global_energy_potential_perez_2009_en.svg_.png

          Note these are spheres in that illustration, not discs

          Reply
        • j.a.m.
          j.a.m. on 31st December 2017 at 9:10 am

          Isn’t it the Chicken Littles who’re always pointing to yesterday’s weather as proof positive that the sky is falling?

          Reply
          • nicky
            nicky on 31st December 2017 at 11:40 am

            Don’t be silly. That is exactly what your hero, Mr Trump, is doing in reverse.

  5. nicky
    nicky on 30th December 2017 at 5:32 pm

    “little is happening in New Zealand at this time of year except people managing to kill themselves in car accidents and via drowning at greater rates than usual.” Well, some good (for NZ that is) news, NZ defeated the WI in their first T20 match. They are on the verge of overtaking Pakistan as the world no 1 T20 team (124 v 123 points in the rankings)
    [I also noted -not really new, but even better immo- that NZ has become to be considered one of the friendlier, easy-going teams since Brendon McCullum’s captaincy, he retired 2 years ago. The Black Caps used to be considered a bit grumpy, but no longer!]

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 30th December 2017 at 5:41 pm

      Yeah, I like the friendlier reputation too. The All Blacks got a bit big for their boots for a while there too, but have gone back to being friendly again thank goodness! And the cricket has been great!

      Reply
      • nicky
        nicky on 31st December 2017 at 12:48 am

        For all clarity, I think that more easy-going style is McCullum’s doing, his legacy as it were , the way I put it was as if they had become friendlier after him.

        Reply
  6. Miss Ironfist
    Miss Ironfist on 5th January 2018 at 9:26 am

    I agree: more golf; less governing ????

    Reply

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