Last night (1.15.20), Rachel Maddow aired an interview with Trump & Giuliani operative (and federal criminal defendant) Lev Parnas. (Parnas sat with his lawyer while speaking to Maddow.) Parnas played a key role in Trump’s pressure campaign in Ukraine, a campaign designed to compel Ukraine to help Trump smear an American political opponent. If you’ve…
Mendacity
Foreign Affairs, Mendacity, Trump
Lie of the Year 2019: Donald Trump’s claim whistleblower got Ukraine call ‘almost completely wrong’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Politifact’s Lie of the Year 2019: Donald Trump’s claim whistleblower got Ukraine call ‘almost completely wrong’: ? No matter the motivations or the political outcome, testimony from the whistleblower would not change the underlying facts of what Trump said. The whistleblower’s account is verified by the same set of facts supplied by Vindman, Williams and Morrison,…
America, Authoritarianism, Babbittry, Bigotry, Boosterism, City, Law, Liberty, Local Government, Mendacity, Never Trump, Politics, Resistance, Trump
Forget the Tender Feelings of a Pernicious Faction
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert writes about the political divide in For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin [Richland Center], the impeachment fight is a symbol of broken politics. The story establishes a false equivalence between those who support impeachment and those who oppose it, as though the conflict between these views…
Foreign Affairs, Mendacity, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia
GOP Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana: Liar & Conspiracy Monger
by JOHN ADAMS •
On Sunday, GOP Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana falsely contended that both Russia and Ukraine might have hacked a Democratic National Committee server in 2016. Monday, he falsely contended that he misunderstood the question that he was asked. Originally, Kennedy’s remarks from Sunday: WALLACE: Finally, the president and his supporters have said that Ukraine was behind…
America, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, City, Crony Capitalism, Economics, Economy, Local Government, Mendacity, Newspapers, State Capitalism
What the New Dealers Got Right – What Whitewater’s Local Notables Got Wrong
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s sound reason to doubt that the New Dealers’ economic solutions to the Great Depression were effective, but there’s no doubt that Roosevelt’s Brain Trust was hard-working, smart, and candid in its description of America’s economic problems. For a critical assessment of the New Deal, written accessibly, see The Forgotten Man: A New History of…
Mendacity, Seven Deadly, Trump
The Greatest Trick Trump Ever Pulled
by JOHN ADAMS •
Of all the thousands of lies that Trump has told since becoming president, perhaps the most fundamental lie is his insistence that he somehow represents a majority of his fellow citizens. The opposite is true: he lost the popular vote by three million, and he’s even less popular now than when he was elected. John…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, Comedy, Crony Capitalism, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by JOHN ADAMS •
Trump insisted Foxconn in Wisconsin would be the eighth wonder of the world, and smarmy development men in places like Whitewater spoke about how much would come of the project, but in a puff of smoke that project’s ‘innovation centers’ are gone. Nick Statt reports Foxconn finally admits its empty Wisconsin ‘innovation centers’ aren’t being…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Babbittry, Bigotry, Boosterism, Economy, Herrenvolk, Impeachment, Mendacity, Television, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Trump-Russia, Unfit
Fox News Won’t Be Enough
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s a sound position to focus criticism of Trumpism on Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders. This sometimes includes Trumpism Down to the Local Level. (Those local officials across America who have this past decade spread sugary lies of boosterism during the Great Recession, during its aftermath, and during the opioid crisis are contemptibly…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Mendacity, Politics, Trump, Waste Digesters
Saying and Believing Anything
by JOHN ADAMS •
Adam Serwer, writing on Twitter in response to a series of distortions from the conservative Federalist website, states plainly the truth of Trump-supporting lies: There is no incentive to correct because the targeted audience will believe anything pro-Trump they are told, whereas acknowledging error would signal weakness and insufficient devotion to the Great Leader. Yes,…
Disinformation, Mendacity, Propaganda, Putin, Trump
Kasparov on Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
by JOHN ADAMS •
Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63), the former chess champion and longtime human rights activist, recently described the role of propaganda in creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The thread from Twitter is below (linked here from the first tweet) in the thread: As you watch Trump’s defenders lie, deflect, and distract today and in the coming weeks, remember…
Ethics, Mendacity, Trump
Reminder: Trump Admin Has History of Falsifying Documents
by JOHN ADAMS •
Trump falsified transcript in 2018 https://t.co/GVnmx8U82P — David Frum (@davidfrum) September 24, 2019 The White House famously falsified this video too https://t.co/hCKEVEFdcl — David Frum (@davidfrum) September 24, 2019
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Disinformation, Fact Checking, Marketing, Mendacity, Misconduct, Police, Press Release, University
UW-Whitewater’s Administration Covers Crap with Catsup
by JOHN ADAMS •
For months, UW-Whitewater has publicized on its website a sham study from a burglar-alarm company as confirmation that Whitewater has the safest campus in Wisconsin. The study is a shabby fraud, with a methodology so far below proper academic standards that it taints the serious work of faculty and students at the school, in the UW…
City, Crime, Cruelty, Education, Ethnicity, Immigration, Local Government, Mendacity, Migrants, Police, Race, University, UW System
‘Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anna Flagg writes Do Deportations Lower Crime? Not According to the Data: In one of Donald J. Trump’s earliest moves as president, days after his inauguration, he revived the deportation program known as Secure Communities. Proponents argue that it helps prevent crime and also increases the police’s ability to solve crime through collaboration with federal…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, That Which Paved the Way, UW Madison, WEDC
Be Patient, UW-Madison: Only $99,300,000.00 to Go!
by JOHN ADAMS •
If a group invited a guest speaker who said the world was flat, then that group would be rightly discarded as a credible policy advocate. In Whitewater and other towns, crony-capitalist groups of different sizes proudly declared the Foxconn project a boon for Wisconsin. (Trump, himself, declared it a boon for the whole planet: “the…
