Tag: GOP Lies

MAGA Lies About Pelosi Attack Are Cynical Assertions of Power

Pensito Editors

Art by imgflip

Republicans’ and MAGA right-wingers’ lies about and mockery of the attack on Paul Pelosi in the face of contradictory facts are an assertion of power and the first step toward autocracy. So argues Greg Sargent in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post.

It’s a compelling argument:

In 2020, Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud provided a fake pretext to overturn his presidential election loss. Now that has metastasized: Many Republicans in the MAGA vein are employing “big lies” on numerous fronts, but their purpose has taken a dark new turn: It’s as if all the lying is becoming an assertion of power in its own right, a kind of end in itself.

The embrace of political lying as a declaration of power — of the power to say what reality is — has long been studied by academics. Some see it as a harbinger of autocratic political tendencies.

Read the rest in this gift article here.

Stark Proof that Vaccines are Winning Against Omicron

Trish

The next time your unvaccinated coworker starts telling you that the shots make no difference because even vaccinated people are getting omicron, whip out these charts. They were published in the excellent and free New York Times daily email, The Morning.

First, look at how being vaccinated affects whether you will get omicron:

Published in the New York Times “The Morning” enewsletter

OK, so some people who are vaccinated are still getting covid during the omicron surge. But who’s staying home and isolating and whose cases are so severe that they have to go into the hospital to recover? […]

Trump in 2016: Us Against Them. Trump in 2020: Us Against Us.

Trish
Thanks to Janine Robinson for sharing their work on Unsplash.

It took almost four years but here we are.

Trump used to rally his base with innuendo about shadowy others who threatened America: Mexicans are rapists and members of obscure, violent gangs. A Muslim travel ban would keep out terrorists. Orphaning the children of parents fleeing Central America by locking them away and concealing them from their families would ensure that only Americans would receive benefits from paying taxes.

Where we are now was a gradual and incremental shift but it’s easy enough to look back and see it coming. After all, Trump made his mark on the political scene by questioning Pres. Obama’s legitimacy and refusing to acknowledge that Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya.

We know the cascading inflection points ever since. Good people on both sides. Pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio before he could be sentenced for what the U.S. Dept. of Justice called “sadistic punishments” of Latino inmates. Trying to shut down the NFL because Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem in response to police killings of Black people. Calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas. Labeling a free press the enemy of the people. Saying the members of “The Squad,” four Democratic congresswomen, should go back to their countries although all but one were born in America. Calling Jews who vote for Democrats “disloyal.” Retweeting white supremacists. The list is endless and neither of us has that much time.

Now, as Poltico’s Michael Kruse, Renuka Rayasam, and Myah Ward note, Trump is no longer talking about us versus them. He’s ginning up the base by making it us against us. […]

Four Setbacks This Week to Trump’s Campaign to Cover Up His Finances

Jon Ponder

This has not been a good week for Donald Trump’s wide-ranging campaign to hide his personal and business finances from voters. The legal team he’s brought in specifically to prevent his finances from being made public lost two rounds in court, two banks have complied by supplying documents to a House committee and the cover-up campaign is being targeted by elected officials in New York State.

Here’s are links to four defeats to Trump’s financial cover-up campaign:

[…]