Trump’s Easter Twitter Lies

by | Apr 4, 2018 | US Politics | 8 comments

Tomorrow we’ll have the final of Third Month Mania. The original 64 lies will be down to two items – one from each conferences. Theconferrences are the Donald Trump and the Everyone Else.

The two conferences are fitting. Some of the contenders in the competition being pretty big purveyors of bullshit on their own. Personnel at Fox News who made the list come to mind. However, Trump tells so many that on his own he tells as many as everyone else put together.

Critics will say that my low opinion of Trump as a person, politician, leader, and president affects my judgement. They are wrong. My opinion is backed up by the facts.

Politifact is an independent fact checker. They are keeping a record of Trump’s public lies. As an independent fact checker they are, of course, more diplomatic; they use the term “false statements.” Semantics don’t change reality though. They are lies.

Trump’s twitter tirade over Easter Weekend includes several lies that his base repeat as fact. It should not be part of normal operations that the president tweets lies about policy. This post is about just a few days of lies, and the liar is the president of the most powerful country in the world.

US leadership expects the free world to look to them as an example of democracy and freedom. They’re the world’s only superpower, and internationally their role is to maintain and promote those values.

And this is what we got over Easter. (Even Laura Ingraham apologized about her attack on one of the Parkland kids “in the spirit of” Easter. Well sort of. It was not exactly an example of how to apologize!)

Lies About the US Postal Service and Amazon

One target of his tweets is Amazon.

The tweet above is simply wrong. Amazon do pay state and local taxes, and they pay a bulk rate they negotiated with the Postal Service.

But he just keeps on going …

The truth is, the US Postal Service makes money from their contract with Amazon, and would probably fail without their business.

He goes on …

Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country…not a level playing field!

 

No Mr President, you are not right. Amazon negotiated a bulk delivery contract just like every other business that gives the Post Office a lot of business. No costs are “bourne” or even borne by the taxpayer. On the other hand, the taxpayers bear the cost of your trips to Trump golf courses every weekend where you don’t even let the Security Services watching out for for use the golf carts free of charge.

As for the tax issue, actually, Amazon charges state sales taxes wherever they apply in the same way that stores made of bricks and mortar do.

Trump doesn’t like Amazon because its owner, Jeff Bezos, is also owner of the Washington Post. The Washington Post, along with the New York Times are doing some of the best reporting on the White House. (And thanks to my wonderful donors I can subscribe to both.)

 

Lies About His Approval Rating

Then there’s his ongoing worry that Obama has a bigger dick than he has.

Trump considers any polling that he likes honest, while any he doesn’t like are lies. It’s truly pathetic.

According to Gallup, Barack Obama’s approval rating was 49% at this stage in his presidency (end of March 2010). However, currently Trump is at 39% in Gallup‘s ratings. Personally, I find Gallup’s poll more likely to be accurate. It is consistent with other polls and previous results, and Gallup has a good reputation. I suspect the Rasmussen poll is an outlier.

Trump is so insecure because he knows deep down that he didn’t win the election. More people voted for Hillary Clinton, and Obama is more popular now than ever. Even those on the right who hated his presidency admit that he’s a good man.

As for “Cheatin’ Obama”? Obama didn’t cheat to win the presidency. However, several cheated to make sure that Trump won the presidency. We don’t know for sure yet if Trump himself was one of them, but we do know that many in his team are cheats.

 

Lies About DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)

This is an ongoing issue with Trump, and we got more tweets about it over the weekend.

DACA

DACA was an executive order by Obama. It allowed those who were brought to the US illegally as children and have no criminal record to stay in the country. These children have mostly known no other home than the US, so to deport them to another country would not just be unfair, it would be cruel and inhuman. Often they don’t even speak the language of their birth country.
Trump claims here (and it’s a frequent claim) that DACA is making people go to the US so they can become a part of it. More lies. Either that or he doesn’t understand the policy. This policy only applies to children who were brought to the US before 2007. Those who come later are NOT eligible. Specifically, no one who came to the US during his or Obama’s presidency is eligible. They cannot take advantage of DACA.

Many on the far right didn’t like this executive order. They felt that however these people (known as “Dreamers”), however they came to the US, are there illegally. They also consider that Obama did not have the right to make the order. Last year found a judge who was in agreement with their argument. As a result, Trump cancelled the executive order which means the Dreamers face deportation at any time. DACA’s opponents, who are a small but vocal part of Trump’s base, are still doing all they can to get the Dreamers deported.

Trump claims that it’s the Democrats who are the enemy of the Dreamers. He says he wants them to stay. However, he’s the one who got rid of DACA. Further, both Republicans and Democrats have offered several legislative solutions. Trump has refused to sign them all.

 

“Caravans” of People from Honduras

Then there are his lies about the Caravan of people from Honduras:

 

In this one, caravan becomes plural – caravans. His paranoia is ratcheting up – and so are the lies.

I bet he knew nothing about the Caravan before he had Sean Hannity and Jenine Pirro (both Fox News hosts) at Mar-a-lago for Easter. Steven Miller and Don King were there too. The truth is the caravan got no further than southern Mexico. The authorities there made sure it went no further days before Trump even started tweeting about it.

The Truth About the Caravan

From Time (my emphasis):

The caravan of Central American migrants that angered U.S. President Donald Trump was sidelined at a sports field in southern Mexico with no means of reaching the border even as Trump tweeted another threat to Mexico Tuesday. …

The caravan that once numbered 1,150 or more people actually halted days ago in the town of Matias Romero in the southern state of Oaxaca. …

Irineo Mujica, director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the activist group behind the annual symbolic event designed to draw attention to the plight of migrants, said the caravan would continue only to Puebla southeast of Mexico City, “but not in a massive way.”

To be fair, there was a large group of young men who used the caravan as cover for part of the way to hide their intention of trying to get into the US. They broke away from the caravan, and authorities are aware of them.

 

Anti-Immigrant Attacks

Trump drug companies cartoonAlso from the above tweet, there’s the claim that “Democrats want No Borders.” That’s just ridiculous and clearly another example of his constant lies. There are some on the extreme left of course who don’t want borders anywhere in the world, but that’s not the policy of the Democratic party.

As far as blaming illegal immigrants for all drugs and crime, I see that as a dog whistle to what Hillary Clinton termed “The Deplorables.” Statistics show that immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than the general population.

The Republicans are supposedly the party that’s pro legal immigration. They should be too. The US, like most Western countries, needs immigration. We aren’t giving birth to enough people to support us in our old age and we’re living too long.

However, if you listen to Trump and some of his closest allies, they appear to oppose all immigration except white people with high skill levels. The country needs more than just people with high levels of education or similar. They need people who will work on farms, in rest homes and restaurants, and as cleaners. There aren’t enough USians to do those jobs, so they need immigrants.

Trump seems to see people who perform such jobs as not Good People. He equates poor with bad.

We need Trump to be involved in a real life version of one of those sit-coms from the early ’70s where a bigot’s life is saved by an African American, thereby changing his attitude!

 

Lies About NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)

As part of the tirade against immigrants, he also exposes his poor understanding of macroeconomics:

Trump has this weird idea that a trade imbalance means a country is ripping off the US. He says it a lot and I’m not entirely sure whether it’s more lies or just stupidity.

 

Lies About Sinclair Media

Then there’s Sinclair Media. He sticks up for them and calls legitimate groups fake news:

 

But the agenda of Sinclair is obvious, or at least it should be. The ever-reliable John Oliver did a piece on Sinclair last year exposing how they require their stations to broadcast certain opinions. Then there’s this from Deadspin a couple of days ago:

Sinclair pretend their statement was meant to be about things like Pizzagate, but the John Oliver video shows that’s not the case. Clips that Sinclair require their stations to run have an obvious conservative, pro-Trump bias.

This was Trump’s performance over one long weekend, and it isn’t even everything.

There were other tweets that were’t lies of course, like this one:

 

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

By my count, there were 31 Trump tweets over Easter. There are thirteen above in my analysis, and there are a couple of others that I think are lies too but don’t have enough knowledge to opine about. So almost half of the tweets by the most powerful man in the free world in a four day period were lies.

Trump lies via Twitter at Mar-a-lago cartoon

 

 

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8 Comments

  1. Laurance
    Laurance on 4th April 2018 at 10:55 pm

    “We need Trump to be involved in a real life version of one of those sit-coms from the early ’70s where a bigot’s life is saved by an African American, thereby changing his attitude!”

    I saw a very well done episode of “The Jeffersons” in which George Jefferson saves the life of the hateful bigot who is trying to get the Jefferson family evicted from the building. But it did not end with the bigot changing his attitude.

    No, the bigot was shamed and humiliated and disgusted that the target of the bigotry was the one who had saved his life. And George Jefferson was not happy. He had done the right thing. He’d taken the High Road. But it didn’t undo the reality of the situation and the active hatred and threat that had been directed at him.

    I found the episode believable. If the episode had ended with the bigot changing his mind and the Jeffersons feeling safe and comfortable in their home it wouldn’t have been quite right.

    Every once in a while Norman Lear would present a show that was dead serious and not funny in what was otherwise a comedy series. I remember an episode of Archie Bunker All In The Family in which Archie and Edith were horrified to discover that Gloria and Meathead did not intend to baptize their baby. That one was sickeningly real to me because my then-husband and I had gone through hell with his Christian parents over atheism and not baptizing our daughter.

    I’m glad that Norman Lear did not sweeten and soften the endings of these dead serious and realistic stories.

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 5th April 2018 at 8:17 am

      You’re right of course – reality usually ends very differently and it takes a lot more than one event to change years of ingrained attitudes.

      Sit coms back then were the way a lot of controversial issues were introduced into public awareness. I don’t remember most of those shows very clearly – in the 70s I went from 6-16 – I was just vaguely aware of them. My father was a lot like Archie Bunker. He wouldn’t let us watch US sitcoms, so it only happened when he wasn’t around. He thought they were a corrupting influence! I managed to get corrupted anyway! 🙂

      Reply
  2. Mark R.
    Mark R. on 5th April 2018 at 6:04 am

    Elect a clown, expect a circus. Aint that the truth. It’s truly horrifying though that he propagandizes constantly and thinks he is doing a good job at governing by tweeting incessant lies.

    One way to look at Trump’s tweets is that the truth is almost always the exact opposite of what he tweets. Too bad millions of his followers are so blinded by the cult that they believe all his horseshit. The dumming-down of America has come home to roost.

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 5th April 2018 at 8:27 am

      The thing that worries me the most is what’s going to happen if Trump is charged in the Mueller investigation.

      Trump has gone out of his way to sow distrust for the FBI, justice department, and leading news organisations. The country has also been growing increasingly partisan since the Bush/Gore election.

      There are a whole heap of people like Alex Jones spinning conspiracy theories that too many are swallowing wholesale. Then there are all those who also believe God had a hand in putting Trump in office and it’s the Devil who’s trying to tear him down.

      What will all those people do if/when Trump is indicted?

      Reply
      • Mark R.
        Mark R. on 5th April 2018 at 9:12 am

        It’s unclear if a sitting POTUS can be indicted. If crimes are proven the evidence goes to Congress and it’s up to them to impeach…if they choose (at least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work). Nixon resigned before impeachment hearings proceeded. I doubt Trump would resign because he’d relish a Constitutional crisis and the chaos that would ensue.

        If/when his time comes up, I’m sure many in the cult will run rampant setting their hair on fire; law enforcement personnel are going to be busy, that’s a given. I’m glad I don’t live in a Trump-saturated area of the states…very glad indeed.

        Reply
        • Heather Hastie
          Heather Hastie on 5th April 2018 at 12:02 pm

          I don’t know either. Different lawyers say different things and they seem unsure too. As far as I can work out it’s up to Congress to impeach him. However, if they’re looking into his finances, I bet they can find illegal stuff from before he was president, and that will be waiting for when he’s out of office.

          I just look at people like the Bundys. They had a lot of supporters. There are all those on the far right who already think any government is tyrannical and it wouldn’t take much to tip some of them over the edge. I’ve heard people say there would be civil war if Trump was impeached.

          Whatever happens, people will die, and that will be a sad day for the country and a stain on its history.

          Reply
  3. Randall Schenck
    Randall Schenck on 5th April 2018 at 10:16 am

    Another thing about the Post Office. I have noticed the Postal Vehicles coming around on Sunday. Finally caught one of the guys and asked…What’s the deal on Sunday. He tells me they do it because of Amazon. So don’t tell me they are not making money. Then Trump wants to put Troops on the boarder, so many coming across. The truth, we are at a 20 year low and getting lower on people crossing the boarder. Also, Trump does not seem to know he cannot use U.S troops to do this work in the United States, it is illegal. All they can do is stand there and say, oh look, there goes somebody. The can call the boarder patrol but they cannot do anything.

    Reply
    • Heather Hastie
      Heather Hastie on 5th April 2018 at 12:08 pm

      I heard on CNN last year that there were about 1400 vacancies for border patrol agents, even before Trump said he’d employ a lot more. No one wants to do it. The conditions aren’t great and it’s not well paid. Perhaps the focus should be on making them into a more professional, better trained, and well paid group. There was an incident a few months ago that’s been hidden away where border patrol agents were killing each other. A lot are corrupt, which is inevitable if staff are poorly paid, trained, and not well valued. Apparently morale is low too, and that is something that comes from management.

      Trump always looks for the easy answer, but the problem is usually a combination of factors which means the answer has to be as well imo.

      Reply

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