Helena Bottemiller Evich reports ‘It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie’ (‘A top climate scientist quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science’): One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists is quitting the Agriculture Department in protest over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury his groundbreaking study about how…
Mendacity
America, Babbittry, Boosterism, Mendacity, Politics, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
Origins, National
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at the Gaslit Nation podcast, guest Greg Sargent contends that the ‘90s, under the influence of Newt Gingrich and his ilk, are the origin of contemporary Trumpism. Sargent points to the craziness of anti-Clinton conspiracy theories as the beginning of our current condition. (Our current condition is one in which lies don’t have to…
Babbittry, Books, Culture, Fact Checking, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Politics, Public Relations, That Which Paved the Way
Fact-Checking is an Active, Ongoing Effort
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Laura Hazard Cohen explains that “First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes next: “Fact checkers need to move from ‘publish and pray’ to ‘publish and act.’” “The idea that fact checking can work by correcting the public’s inaccurate beliefs on a mass scale alone doesn’t stack up,” write representatives from Full Fact…
Bad Ideas, Crime, Government Spending, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Misconduct
From Festival to Alleged Felony
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One now reads – sadly, any normal person might have expected – that the promoter of Jefferson Wisconsin’s shabby Warriors & Wizards festival faces the prospect of felony charges for theft and misrepresentation. See Warriors & Wizards Fest organizer Cramer charged with theft. 1. Unfortunate, All Around. I’ve been a critic of this festival, and those…
Bigotry, Mendacity, Race, Trump
All in the (Trump) Family
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Mendacity, Trump
10,000
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
We expect honesty even from children, but septuagenarian Trump may be the most prolific liar on the contemporary scene. He is a model of mendacity and depravity. The Fact Checker is keeping a running list of all of President Trump’s false or misleading claims, reviewing every word the president says (or tweets) to compile an…
Authoritarianism, Bigotry, Mendacity, Misconduct, Never Trump, Trump, Trump-Russia, Unfit
‘A cancer on the presidency’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Attorney George Conway III writes Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him. Although I would describe Trump more broadly as a blight on the country, Conway’s assessment is spot on: So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he…
Bigotry, City, Economy, Herrenvolk, Immigration, Local Government, Mendacity, Trump
An Answer to Trump: Welcome All
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
So Trump claims – absurdly – that America is full, and that contrary to the law he might send asylum seekers and migrants to sanctuary cities. Oakland’s mayor, Libby Schaaf, gave Trump the reply he deserved (and a reply that a just and well-ordered society should expect): Trump: ….So interesting to see the Mayor of…
Mendacity, Trump, Trump-Russia
Trump: It Wasn’t Me…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Mendacity, Trump
Trump’s Bizarrely Inflated Financial Statements
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Employment, Mendacity, Trump
Did Ivanka Trump create ‘millions’ of jobs?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The national press has reported extensively, and critically, on the Foxconn project. National technology site The Verge (part of Vox Media) has also noticed how local officials who flacked this project day and night are now, well, quieter. Nilay Patel writes Let’s all watch the Wisconsin local news desperately try to get answers about Foxconn:…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
The published case against Foxconn – with reporting & analysis from some of America’s finest journalists and economists – is overwhelming. Their careful, published work has set out the plain facts for well over a year. And yet, as a multi-billion dollar public failure, there are even more startling accounts still emerging. Austin Carr reports…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Willy Shih, of Harvard Business School, writes that Foxconn’s Wisconsin Factory Is What The Chinese Call A ‘State Visit Project’: Last week I wrote that Foxconn’s giant flat-screen factory in Wisconsin was facing an economic reality check, and might not get built after all. On Friday, after a call between Foxconn chairman Terry Gou and President Donald Trump,…