Laura Hazard Owen writes When’s the best time to correct fake news? After someone’s already read it, apparently: Debunking > prebunking. If you want someone to not believe that false or misleading headline they just read, when’s the best time to correct it? We hear a lot about inoculating people against fake news or “prebunking”…
Mendacity
Congress, Conspiracy Theories, Crackpots, Disinformation, Mendacity, Sen. Ron Johnson
Ron Johnson Searches for the Real Killer
by JOHN ADAMS •
United States Senator Ron Johnson wonders if, possibly, maybe, perhaps it is Nancy Pelosi who is responsible for the Capitol riot. He doesn’t have any proof for this contention, and after all, he’s only askin’ questions, so don’t ask Johnson for substantiation: “Is this another diversionary operation? Is this meant to deflect away from potentially…
Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
The Liar’s Guide to Mendacious Hypocrisy
by JOHN ADAMS •
Authoritarianism, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
Trump’s Big Lie
by JOHN ADAMS •
Timothy Snyder, on Twitter, writes of Trump’s Big Lie: See also Snyder’s On Tyranny.
Babbittry, Boosterism, Conflicts of Interest, Culture, Disinformation, Local Government, Mendacity, Negligence, Politics, Public Relations, Reasoning, School District, Self-Dealing, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Trumpism, University
Consequences, Accountability, Repentance, Redemption
by JOHN ADAMS •
David Frum, writing of Trump & Trumpism in The Conservative Cult of Victimhood, observes that There is no redemption without repentance. There is no repentance without accountability. There is no accountability without consequences. He rightly concludes that for the Trumpists, the absence of a moral order of accountability and repentance has meant that Even as Trump commits…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Herrenvolk, History, Law, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism
Confederates, Copperheads, and Conservatives
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s an understatement to say that a democratic society that endures a violent mob seizing its capitol building is a society in distress. We find ourselves in the twenty-first century facing movements as malevolent and mendacious as the nineteenth century’s Confederates and Copperheads. Karen L. Cox writes What Trump Shares With the ‘Lost Cause’ of the…
Mendacity, Scott Walker
Former Gov. Scott Walker Keeps Busy by Lying About Eating Pizza
by JOHN ADAMS •
People lie about the dumbest things. Here is Republican @ScottWalker (who has been caught lying before) posting a photo of his "great pizza tonight." Next to it is the uncropped version of the same pizza, in a photo he posted last year. pic.twitter.com/LvDkw0I5H7 — Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) December 27, 2020 …
Coronavirus, Mendacity, Sen. Ron Johnson
Sen. Ron Johnson: From Ludicrous to Malevolent
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve previously described Sen. Ron Johnson as America’s Dumbest Senator™, and his years in office confirm that assessment. A man who was formerly ludicrous, however, may now be fittingly described as malevolently mendacious. Sophie Carlson, Laura Schultz, and Patrick Marley report Wisconsin reports record-high 48 coronavirus deaths as Sen. Johnson falsely claims state has flattened the curve:…