Lyin' King

Before it became an oligarch's Hallmark card to the world's leading buffoon and America's Jacques Clousseau assassin, The Washington Post reported that the double agent "had accumulated 30,573 untruths" in his first four-year assignment. In further observance of the ghastly torment we had just escaped, the paper wrote in astonishment that his "tsunami" of lies rose as he "became increasingly unmoored from the truth." (Yes, that would seem to follow.)

Yet now that he's back, neither the press nor we are at all astonished by Agent Trump's wall-to-wall mendacity. Immensely disturbing is that we should be outrageously astonished but we're not. Is it because the clown is out to kill the U.S. so somehow it's tolerable that he's merely falsifying the act? Or have we already achieved the infamy of Hannah Arendt's perceptiveness — a people subjected to relentless propagandistic malignity forfeits cognitive distinctions between truths and lies, leaving them barren, in turn, of cognitive resistance? Or beginning 12:01 p.m., 20 January, did we just stop giving a damn?

I won't pretend I know the answer, for unlike Trump, I'm not falsely omniscient. But I do know this: He believes all three are true, and though there is rank inconsistency in that, his buffoonish mind is untroubled. He's centered on weightier things, the stuff of his one-man ministry of Stalinesque enlightenment, which, as noted, is evidently also untroubling to the American people. After all, with vacant aforethought they dismissed Trump's 30,000+ "misleading claims" of yore. With that he has license to go big, really big, and that too he knows. Behold but a sample of his recent pronunciamentos ... and on second thought, apologies to Uncle Joe; not even he would have vomited tripe like this:

As of five days ago, the tariff revenue figure was $183 billion. As of this Friday, "new jobs" will be whatever spectacular number Trump fantasizes and some regime flunkie confirms.

On tariffs: "How did they already get $8 trillion [when total imports are valued at] about $3 trillion a year?" —Erica York, vice president, Tax Foundation

No it's not: "It's remarkable to see this. The lying that is." —a former tech executive

Colima and Tijuana, Mexico, compete for that title. Chicago is way out of the running. America's competitors for the deadliest slot are red-state cities, Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee.

Trump claims it has been “many years” since Washington, D.C., had a murder-free week.

"Washington had three such periods since late February of this year, one of them 16 days long."

Trump claims the city now has “no crime” at all.

"There have been hundreds of offenses."

Trump claims crime in D.C. was at an “all-time” high during President Biden's last year in office.

It was "nowhere close to the violent peaks of the early 1990s." —factual quotes, CNN

Trump claims "95%" of Washingtonians support his National Guard deployment.

"Voters 56 - 41 percent oppose the move." — Quinnipiac University poll, 27 Aug.

Why oppose? Here's the Guard preventing murders-by-leaf-raking.

"[Trump claims] the U.S. economy, with his hand at the wheel, is roaring." —Newsweek

We're "on the precipice of [a] recession." —Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics

Trump claims "the U.S. economy is going great." —The Week

Trump invokes the Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The Epstein files were "written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration." —Trump, 12 July

I'll pass. Some of his garbage is too ludicrous to warrant comment.

Around the world ...

Trump claims "the European Union is giving him $600 billion."

"Which is news to the Europeans." —Paul Krugman

"You should have never started [the war]." —Trump to Ukraine's "dictator," President Zelensky, pretty much whenever Donald is feeling sensationally stupid.

For comment, see entry: Epstein files.

Trump: "I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.... I got it stopped."

India's foreign secretary: "The talks regarding cessation of military action were held directly between India and Pakistan."

India's prime minister, (via foreign secretary): "No talks were held at any level ... on the mediation between India and Pakistan by America."

Trump on Egypt and Ethiopia: "There is peace ... because of my intervention."

Evelyn Farkas, executive director, McCain Institute, Arizona State University: "I’m not even aware that there [was] a shooting war."

On the ancient conflict between Serbia and Kosovo: “That was going to be a disaster, and I stopped it.” —Trump, 19 Aug.

"[Trump] hasn’t demonstrated an interest in mediating Kosovo-Serbia talks." —Agon Maliqi, senior fellow, Atlantic Council's Europe Center, 25 Aug.

"Congo and Rwanda, they’ve been fighting for 31 years. And I got it settled, all settled. They were all happy, everybody settled. Nobody’s being killed." —Trump, 19 Aug.

Within weeks of the happy agreement, “at least 319 [Congolese] civilians were killed by M23 fighters, aided by members of the Rwanda Defence Force.” —United Nations

Trump announces a “joint declaration ... for international peace" between Armenia and Azerbaijan, 8 Aug.

The joint declaration "is not a final peace agreement. It does not ... end the conflict." — former U.S. ambassadors to Azerbaijan, the Atlantic Council

And the biggest lie of all: that this shit-talking, bumbling, unAmerican buffoon is a U.S. president.

* This piece is cross-posted at Substack. Subscribe to be notified of new posts.