Breaking Fake News Update (v12)

 Fake News Broke on August 20, 2025!

This fake news broke after a video of President Zelenskyy's reactions to the FOTUS, who babbled on and on about his federal occupation of our nation's capital, went viral.

Only an idiot would sit next to a commander-in-chief whose country is actively engaged in an over three-year battle with an aggressor nation and pretend that there's no place on earth more dangerous than Washington, DC. 

Sadly - and I sure wish this was fake news - that idiot is our idiot, much to our embarrassment.

We'll cover more fake news as it breaks - and you can be sure it will.

So... God Gave us Trump?

Have you seen the new Trump Adoration video? It's a total rip-off of the famous 1978 Paul Harvey speech, "So God Made a Farmer," of course, and it's a doozy.

In addition to being full of things God would never say, it's full of comical contradictions, such as Trump coming home hungry - in the dark, as he's seen in this picture - but having to wait for Melania to finish lunch "with friends, and then tell the women to come back real soon - and mean it."  

There are other mismatches between the video and the script; you might need to sit through it a couple of times to catch them all.

I took the opportunity to edit the script; if I had the talent and patience, I'd create a video to go along with it, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the picture - all of the pictures, in fact. 

And on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a charlatan” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will play tennis and baseball while stricken with bone spurs, and use those bone spurs as a reason to avoid fighting for his country,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said “I need someone who will party all night and then get up in the morning and spend all day lying about his business prowess, talking about his money, and showing off his gold-plated toilet,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will salivate over his own daughter, relentlessly promote her sexy body, and suggest that if only she weren’t his child, he’d be dating her,” so God gave us Trump.

Inexplicably, God said, “I need someone who will get up before dawn and cheat on his first wife with his second, his second with his third, and his third with sex workers,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will mock and denigrate women, boast about sexually assaulting them, say because he’s rich he can get away with it, and buy a beauty pageant so he can prowl the contestants' dressing rooms unabated,” so God gave us Trump.

At some point, God said, “I need to test the capacity of Americans to take their civic duty seriously, and to do that we need a celebrity blowhard who used to call into radio shows using fake names to promote himself to run for the president of the United States,” so God gave us Trump. 

And then God said, “I need someone rude enough, with arms strong enough to push his way through a group of world leaders to get in the front for the picture, and stupid enough to share the nation's secrets with people willing to pay to spend time with him," so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone strong enough to suck up to dictators like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping, and bold enough to talk about how much he admires their strength, their total control over their people, their intelligence, and the pageantry of their military parades,” so God gave us Trump.

Again, inexplicably, God said, “I need someone who’s not afraid to lie about belonging to a church, who says the Bible is his favorite book, is unable to mention even a single passage he’s fond of, who will hold the Good Book upside down for a photo op as protestors are cleared from My house, and autograph copies for his adoring fans,” so God gave us Trump.

And speaking of adoration, God said, “I need someone who doesn’t represent anything I stand for, to gloat while others lay hands on him, proclaim him their Savior, and shout his praises from the pulpit,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need a patriot who’s unafraid to maul and grope the United States flag as if it was one of his sex workers, to hug it and kiss it while making lewd faces, as a crowd of people who despise many of the freedoms the flag stands for cheer him on,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone so self-centered he will mock our war heroes when they disagree with him, call them losers, say he doesn’t like people who were captured and tortured by our enemies,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need a leader to tell Americans to ‘get over it’ when faced with yet another school shooting, to proclaim he had the tallest building in New York City after terrorists attacked and destroyed the tallest buildings in New York City, and to comfort natural disaster victims by tossing rolls of paper towels to them,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone who will quote the vile language of evil leaders who came before him, taking the words as his own, knowing that others will immediately rise to his defense and take the words as their own,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone who will lie about everything, who will steal from charities, and who will raise children who do the same,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, "I need someone who will ignore the law when it suits him, and face dozens of civil and criminal charges; someone who will proclaim immunity no matter what, even murder; who'll talk about 'his judges' as if they swore an oath to him, not to the Constitution, and who will, even now, refuse to commit to accepting the results of an election," so God gave us Trump.

And God said, ‘I need someone who will surround himself with people who believe everything he says, twist and turn his worst ideas into action plans, help strip rights away from anyone who disagrees with or has nothing to offer him, and who are willing to go to the ends of the earth in service to him, but not me,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God shook his head and said, “Holy cow, they actually fell for that?”

Wondering on Wednesday 9/1/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Where to begin with this week's wondering? Well, how about with a time check?

It's been reported, primarily - but not solely - on the right, that President Biden checked his watch after each of the 11 fallen Americans were transferred from the plane to waiting vehicles at Dover AFB on Monday (two of the 13 transfers were private).  There is video, that has been widely shared, showing him do that once. And, it's been 'fact-checked' by the folks at Snopes that the scene in the video was at the end of the ceremony, after all of the victims of the ISIS-K suicide bomber had been transferred.  

Now, before you go all nutso on me about how Snopes is the Wikipedia of fact-checking and can't be trusted, know that they're not the only ones who have said this isn't true. And, regardless of how you feel about the fact-checkers, don't you wonder why, if this really happened 11t times, no one has video of it?  

And coming on the heels of the false reports that "no one from the Biden administration met the plane" for the dignified transfer on Saturday, when the plane hadn't even arrived yet, how much faith are we to put into a report like this one?

Are you also wondering about the fate of the American service dogs that were left behind in Kabul? I'm sure you've seen the reports from reliable sources such as Donald Trump, Jr., about our leaving crates of dogs at the airport. Other notables also chimed in, like Medicare fraudster Sen. Rick Scott (R-I Took A Huge Golden Parachute and Named it Responsibility).

"Infuriating. Biden stranded Americans. He stranded our allies. Now, he’s stranded our loyal K-9 warriors," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., wrote on Twitter, posting American Humane's letter.

Sadly, for those who wanted to paint Biden as an animal hater, in addition to all the other stuff he's accused of being, we did not strand our service dogs. 

On Tuesday, the Pentagon denied that any dogs that had worked with the U.S. military were left behind in the country while acknowledging that a series of social media posts about nonmilitary evacuation of Kabul pets caused confusion.

"To correct erroneous reports, the US military did not leave any dogs in cages at Hamid Karzai International Airport, to include the reported 'military working dogs,'" said Eric Pahon, a spokesman for the Defense Department.

I wonder, if the real news out of Afghanistan is as bad as it is, why do people feel the need to make it worse? 

Speaking of making stuff up, there's the Big Lie, that the election was stolen from Former Guy. There was a fun little recording featuring Sen. Ron Johnson (R- Who Doesn't Love Moscow on July 4th?), who pretty much summed up the fallacy of Former Guy's theory that the election was stolen from him. Speaking about the results in his state, Johnson admitted that

There’s nothing obviously skewed about the results...If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he [Trump] would have won. He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.

I added the emphasis for the folks in the back, and I wonder why that's so hard for the Rs to understand?

And speaking of rigged elections, the GOP's latest poster boy, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Not the Naval Academy) has made it clear he's willing to fight over this. Speaking at a GOP event in his home state of North Carolina, he offered this.

If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen then it's going to lead to one place and that's bloodshed.

Continue to be rigged? There's going to be bloodshed? Huh?

And I will tell you, as much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there's nothing I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American. 

In case you didn't know,  rising star Cawthorn lies about all kinds of things, including the accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, and about being accepted into the US Naval Academy. Given that he'll lie about those things, I wonder why we should think that he's telling the truth about taking up arms against his fellow citizens? 

And while I don't condone gratuitous violence, I wouldn't wonder at all if the bloodshed Cawthorn spoke of eventually happens when someone who finally had enough of his BS hauled off and punched him in the nose.

And speaking of bullshittery and hyperbole, let us not forget about House GOP Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-You Better Watch Out if We Take Back The House, Dammit!), who seems to be in a bit of a snit about every action taken by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. 

The Committee issued a document preservation request to more than 30 telecom companies on Monday, a step taken in advance of a request for specific documents which is sure to follow. And McCarthy wasn't happy about that - at all. 

I'm not wondering about his response, or his threat - I mean, he's a ring-kissing #AlwaysTrumper after all - but I am wondering why he didn't include the traitorous RINOs Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney in his tweet? 

And I'm wondering if the GOP really is like an elephant. What if they don't retake the majority for a few cycles? Will they remember that they have to take out some of these great American companies that support all those great American jobs and help our great American stock market soar ever higher, making America even greater? 

What are you wondering about?

He Made Them Believe His Absurdities

All his absurdities, no matter how absurd, were believed by people who felt only he understood them, only he understood what was wrong, and only he could fix it. 

Those were among the first of the absurdities to surface, to be believed, and nowhere near the last, that had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

The violence, the hate, the racism, the sexism, the five-mile-wide mean streak. The attacks - the relentless attacks, years of attacks - had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him. 

He's like us, they said. He talks like we do. He's not politically correct, and he doesn't take any crap from anyone. He is just like us, the 'everyman' billionaire, and he had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

He hated losing, he refused to lose, it was not possible for him to lose. He promised winning, so much winning we'd be tired of it, and yet, they never tired, even when the winning was clearly losing, even when the winning was a lie. He had them hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

Look at me, he said, look at the crowds at my rallies, look at my social media accounts - everybody loves Trump, he said, and I love you, he told them. He basked in their love, they basked in his. Very good people, he called them, the people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him. 

The media is evil, they are enemies of the people, they are fake news, even when there was proof of him saying what he said, doing what he did, telling the lies, the tens of thousands of lies, saying the people who proved he lied were the liars, and he had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

He assailed people of faith, attacked peoples' families, mocked peoples' looks, sneered at their beliefs, made fun of their heritage. He made a mockery of every tradition, every practice, he didn't even bother going through the motions half the time. He said everything he ever did was perfect, everyone said so, it's all been looked at, he has no need to apologize, it was all perfect, so perfect, and he had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him. 

Nothing was too absurd to be believed. No one could ever get more votes than he got, it was not possible. He got more votes than any other president. He could not lose unless the election was rigged. And it will be rigged, he said, because he knew he would lose when Joe Biden became the nominee. Had it been anyone else, he would have won, but it was Joe Biden, and he knew he couldn't beat him. He needed a story, he made one up, and he told it, over and over and over. And he had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

The Big Lie - the election was rigged - was the absurdity to beat all absurdities. How is it possible that only his line on the ballot was rigged? How is it possible that all those Republican election officials rigged the election against the man they wanted to win? It is, truly, impossible to believe. And still, he had people hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

They were the patriots, they were the real Americans, they were the ones he was fighting for, he deserved to have them fighting for him. He deserved them and they deserved him. They were eager to fight for him, because he was fighting for them. He had them hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

All the absurdities, every single one of them, was believed. He was convincing in the telling, in the repetition, in the challenge, in the call to action. He is nothing if not relentless, nothing if not convincing, and they were ready and willing to be convinced, to be led, to obey the call. He had them hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

He made them believe the absurdities, and when he asked, the atrocities followed. To the end, they were hanging on his every word, hanging on to him.

No True Supporter of Mine... Yeah, Right.

The twice-impeached president released another video letting us know how he feels about violence, apparently thinking that we don't already know how he feels about it. 

I want to be very clear -- I unequivocally condemned the violence that we saw last week, violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement. Making America great again has always been about defending the rule of law, supporting the men and women of law enforcement and upholding our nation's most sacred traditions and values. Mob violence goes against everything I believe in, and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence, no true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement, or our great American flag, no true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. If you do any of these things you are not supporting our movement, you're attacking it, and you are attacking our country. We cannot tolerate it."

You've got to love how he puts his personal interests, his 'movement,' on the same level as he puts the country. Who else would do this? 

What he said in the video conflicts with his many documented instances of encouraging and condoning violence, as this article from Vox  points out.

Trump has continually refused to recognize what’s at the core of this violence: hate nurtured under a tense national climate that he has helped cultivate.

Trump’s campaign rallies have always been incubation grounds for violence, sites where Trump spewed hate speech that encouraged physical harm against dissenters. And as president, he has used his platform to encourage violence against American citizens, whether through the police and National Guard or militia groups — unless those citizens are his supporters.

The article gives examples of his rhetoric, and of his supporters listening and responding to it. Here are just a few of them.

August 19, 2015: Two Boston brothers invoked Trump when they were arrested for urinating on a homeless man and beating him with a metal pipe. While in custody, one of the brothers told the police, “Trump was right. All of these illegals need to be deported.” The 58-year-old Mexican American they assaulted was a permanent US resident.

In response to the news that the Boston assault was inspired by his rhetoric, Trump did not denounce the violence, instead calling his supporters “passionate.” “I think that would be a shame. I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that,” he told reporters the next day.

On August 21, Trump  backtracked a bit, taking a both-sides approach. “Boston incident is terrible. We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence,” he tweeted.

November 21, 2015:  At a rally in Birmingham, AL, Trump demanded the removal of Black activist Mercutio Southall Jr. after he yelled, “Black lives matter!” Onstage, Trump exclaimed, “Get him the hell out of here! Get him out of here! Throw him out!” In a video captured by CNN, Southall fell to the ground as Trump made his statements and white men appeared to kick and punch him.

...Trump told Fox News the next day, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a troublemaker who was looking to make trouble.”

February 1, 2016:  At a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, IA, Trump told the crowd that... “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. There won’t be so much of them because the courts agree with us,” he said.

March 31, 2016: Three people who say they were assaulted at Trump campaign rally in Louisville sued the then-candidate, alleging that he riled up his followers and encouraged violence when he repeatedly yelled, “Get ‘em out of here!” The group sued Trump for incitement to riot, and in April 2017, federal Judge David Hale ruled that their claim was valid since there was sufficient evidence proving their injuries were a “direct and proximate result” of Trump’s comments. “It is plausible that Trump’s direction to ‘get ‘em out of here’ advocated the use of force,” Hale wrote. “It was an order, an instruction, a command.”

Trump appealed the case, and in September 2018, a federal appeals court  dismissed the protesters’ claims, saying that Trump’s words were protected under the First Amendment and did not “specifically advocate imminent lawless violence.” An attorney for the plaintiffs called the ruling “unprecedented” and “dangerous,” and a “free pass” for a candidate for public office.

How right they were. 

December 2016: After Trump bullied then-Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly for months, Kelly said that Trump’s social media director was responsible for inciting the many death threats she was receiving. “The vast majority of Donald Trump supporters are not at all this way,” Kelly said, according to the Guardian. “It’s that far corner of the internet that really enjoys nastiness and threats and unfortunately there is a man who works for Donald Trump whose job it is to stir these people up and that man needs to stop doing that. His name is Dan Scavino.”

Scavino is now Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, in addition to his social media role.

January 27, 2017: On the day the Trump administration instituted a ban against travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a Muslim Delta employee wearing a hijab was physically and verbally attacked at JFK International Airport in New York. The perpetrator told the victim “[Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you,” according to ABC. On the campaign trail, Trump said he was open to the idea of closing mosques and creating a database of all Muslims in the US, consistently saying that Muslims were a “problem” and a “sickness."

The article also notes a number of studies showing a significant increase in hate crimes during the Trump administration, including a 2019 report which found "counties that hosted a rally with Trump as a headliner experienced a  226 percent increase in hate crimes, and that Trump's rhetoric "may encourage hate crimes."

Back to the violence: 

October 18, 2018: At a rally in Montana, Trump celebrated Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte, who body-slammed a reporter in May 2017, telling the crowd, “Any guy who can do a body-slam ... he’s my guy.”

Gianforte assaulted journalist Ben Jacobs after Jacobs asked him a question about the GOP health care bill, on the day before Gianforte won election. He ultimately apologized (after his spokesperson first denied the assault) and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. Gianforte was sentenced with 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management, and a $300 fine along with an $85 court fee, in addition to a deferred 180-day jail sentence.

August 5, 2019: A 39-year-old Montana man was charged with felony assault for choking, slamming, and fracturing the skull of a 13-year-old boy who didn’t take his hat off for the national anthem. The man’s attorney told the local newspaper that Trump’s “rhetoric” led to the violent act. “His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished,” the lawyer said, referencing Trump’s harsh words against athletes like Colin Kaepernick who protested for social justice.

I wonder what that man would have done had he been at Mar-a-Lago for Trump's Super Bowl party antics last year?  But I digress.

Back to the violence.

May 29, 2020: Following the first weekend of social justice protests after George Floyd’s killing...(h)is tweet thread showed the tone that would dominate his reaction to the unrest in the following months: 

...These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!  

Twitter flagged Trump’s tweet for “glorifying violence.”

There's so much more out there, including all of the stuff last year around state-level COVID responses (just ask Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) and the "stolen election," culminating with his rally speech on January 6th. 

It is all a lie. 

I'll close with a tweet sent by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday (emphasis added). 

Jan. 6 was supposed to be about talking about the very real election fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election. To expose it. To talk about election reform. To review our systems so that this kind of distrust in our electoral process never happens again. Instead, it became a sad referendum on just how easily people are influenced and misled.

I'm not a subscriber on Gingrich's website, so I don't know for sure who the easily influenced and misled people are, but I'd be willing to guess 

• it's not the Trump supporters who took, and continue to take, comfort in the president's often-repeated calls for, and approval of, violence in the MAGA movement; 
• it's not the Trump supporters who bought into the president's drumbeat about the election being rigged, which began in earnest with a May 1,2020 tweet stating "Do not allow RIGGED elections" and only ended January 8, 2021 with his permanent banning from Twitter; and
• it's probably not his fellow Republicans, who (for the most part) have been easily influenced by Trump, and misled by him - and who toed the line right up to the bitter end.

Sunday School 10/4/20

I don't have a clue where to start my classroom stroll today, so I'm doing it the old fashioned way: drawing names out of a hat.  And the winners are: This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and  CNN's State of the Union, with Jake Tapper.  Which means I get to skip Chuck Todd, which is good, and I get to skip Nancy Pelosi, which is also good. 

After a news brief from a handful of correspondents, George started out with Jason Miller, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign and an all-around good guy, it would seem - and yes, that's sarcasm.

Miller's one of the folks who has tested negative, so far, but he had some very upbeat news from the president:

Number one, that we're going to defeat this virus. President Trump personally is going to defeat it. As a nation, we're going to defeat it and get life back to normal. Get this vaccine. 

But then also our campaign is going to defeat it. And I think when President Trump gets out of the White House, or -- excuse me, out of the -- gets back to the White House and back on the campaign trail, it's going to be a slingshot taking us forward.

But he said something that was important, George, and that’s to be careful. To make sure that folks are washing hands, to make sure using hand sanitizer, to make sure they're wearing a mask if you can't socially distance. These are all important things and reminders that President Trump told us.

Those are all important reminders from the president, who doesn't follow any of his own advice.  George noted  a new poll showing that 72% of Americans "say the president didn't take the risk of getting COVID seriously enough and didn't take appropriate precaution when it came to his own personal health." 

Miller's response? It's pretty funny, actually. He said Trump made sure we stopped the foreign travelers from China and Europe, shut down the country for two weeks and a month, "had to go and keep us safe," and that flattened the curve, helped us develop therapeutics, then the vaccines being developed and 100,000 ventilators, and you know what else? NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE QUESTION!

Oh, wait, sorry. Let me address the question, which George helped him do by giving some concrete examples: 

... the president had to take it head-on, but he didn't have to have -- hold rallies where people did not social distance, where did not wear masks. He didn't have to mock former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing a mask and reporters who wore masks. He didn't have to continue to go to event after event without wearing a mask.

Again, we have an epic fail from Miller: the president is one of the most tested people in the country...  anyone spending time with him is tested before hand, they keep their distance - 

 -- the closest I ever get to the president is about eight feet, maybe six feet, usually a pretty solid distance back. A lot of times it's more like ten feet. 

And people wash their hands and use sanitizer and drink bleach.. (sorry, he didn't really say that, and on and on and on about not answering the question. And I'm done with Mr. Miller, I'm not even going to watch the rest of his segment. 

The round table gang was all there, except for Chris Christie, who tested positive after hanging out maskless doing debate prep with the president, and was in the hospital due to his pre-existing asthma. 

In contrast to Miller, Matthew Dowd (chief political analyst for ABC) said 

first thing is I hope we can simultaneously do two things, which is send compassion and concern for the first lady and the president, and be so angry about the cavalier attitude and the cavalier way and the irresponsibility of this president and the White House... 

Which means, basically, he's mad as hell and doesn't want to take it any more. For her part, Republican strategist Alice Stewart said that this whole thing does put pressure - "tremendous pressure" - on Republicans up and down the ballot.

Look, the president's base will support him. Biden's base will support him. But these undecided voters, they do have concerns about how this has been handled. And leadership is about not just showing that you're in control but actually being in control. And to be in control, you have to lead by example and heed the advice of these public health officials and also talk the talk and walk the walk. And there's great concern whether or not this president has done so.

Rahm Emmanuel, former Obama chief of staff, talked about what George called "a case study for how not to bring important information to the public."

I will say that what they did there on the White House was everything you're not supposed to do. And it continues to undermine the president's campaign, because it was a lack of information on a very, very important issue. And what they needed to do from the get-go was hit the restart and say, 'here's how we're going to be honest, here's how we're going to lead by example.'

And he said, "the edifice of what Trump is to the public" is starting to come apart.

And I think the White House, in this set of decisions, has actually shown a disjointed -- you got a medical team that saying he's OK, yet all the care he's getting shows he's a very sick patient. And that dissonance, that kind of information that's jarring, is actually undermining the presidency and his candidacy right now.

Which is just one more "thing that makes you go hmm... " 

Down the hall in the CNN classroom, Jake Tapper noted the confusing information on Trump's condition, with Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, contradicting Sean Conley, the president's doctor. And, Tapper said,

Right now, it is of the utmost importance for the White House to provide you, the American people, with information, accurate information, factual information, about the president's condition.

We asked the White House for someone to be here to do just that today. We asked for the vice president or the chief of staff or the communications director or the president's physician. We asked for members of the Coronavirus Task Force, including health Secretary Azar, Dr. Fauci, or Dr. Birx, or the surgeon general, or the director of the NIH, or the CDC director, or the top vaccine adviser, or Jared Kushner, or the national security adviser.

The White House declined to provide any of them, any of them, to update you on the president's condition. Instead, they referred us to the president's political campaign. We told them we would be happy to take the campaign manager.

But, unfortunately, he, too, is now battling the coronavirus.

Some folks on social media thought that those comments meant that Tapper was picking on the White House. In fact, he was picking on their apparent inability to speak the truth. Not the same, usually, but with this administration, I guess it is. 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was one of the guests. He said there had been no contact from the White House on the potential exposure to anyone who had attended the debate in his state,. And he doesn't know if the White House had reached out to the Cleveland Clinic folks, either - they're the medical consultants for the debates.  That said, DeWine didn't seem too upset about the president, his family and his team perhaps putting Ohioans at risk.

Well, I think it's important what the president has done. The president went to the hospital. That will -- could not have been an easy thing for him to do. I'm sure he didn't want to go the hospital. He made the right decision. They put up two videos of the president talking to the people of this country. I think that is very positive.

And I think, look, this is -- what I said at a press conference I did the other day, this is -- should be kind of an alert to everybody that anybody can get the virus. Even the president of the United States can get the virus. And so we ought to use this, and simply just learn from it. And so people who -- maybe who have not worn masks in the past, I'm hoping that they will look at this and say, look, the president can get it, I can get it, it can happen to anybody.

And I hope that that's what happens and that's what comes out of this.

He's quite the tap-dancer, the Governor is. Or, he's physically incapable of saying anything bad about Trump, I'm not sure which. Oh wait - my bad - it's something else entirely. Tapper flat out said to him, "I just don't understand the reluctance to state the obvious, which is, President Trump has been mocking people who wear masks. And now there are a lot of Republicans who won't wear masks.

DeWine's answer?

Look, do I wish -- look, do I wish the president had worn masks all the time? Of course. Of course. When people go vote, there's a lot -- there's other things besides that. I think the president has done a very good job, as I just detailed, in trying to get us the things that we need, the testing that we need... and the PPE that we need. And that doesn't, frankly, a lot of times get reported. And they have done a very good job.

And if I don't keep saying stuff like that, he left unsaid, I won't get the stuff I need. And so in that regard, it's not October, it's March. And April. And May. And June... when all the governors were having to suck up to the president, or Jared, or Pence, in order to get the things they needed. 

That's all for now. I'll have more for you in tomorrow's Extra Credit. And, as Chris Wallace said so eloquently, wear your damn mask.

Sidebar: Email of the Week 9/17/20

Yesterday's snail mail winner of our coveted Email of the Week award was from Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of the many communications folks who have taken the briefing room podium on behalf of the president.  

One of the key things recipients of the emails were asked to do was to fill out the STOP FAKE NEWS petition which was included. And, as I read through the survey, it occurred to me that, with just a minor tweak or two, it pretty much demanded that the media stop covering the president. 

Take a look. 

STOP FAKE NEWS _ A CITIZENS PETITION

To: The United States Senate

Whereas, media outlets in American enjoy freedom due to the First Amendment but with that freedom comes a responsibility on their part to not actively mislead the people or disseminate news stories they know to contain falsehoods;

Whereas, since president Trump took office, the American people have been inundated with stories attributed to unnamed "sources" and the vast majority of these stories have attempted to portray the president;

Whereas, during the past three years, countless media stories have been completely disproven and show to be riddled with verifiable lies;

Whereas, the American people elected president Trump to do a job, and we deserve media outlets that report fairly on his efforts to do that job, not an endless flow of attacks;

Therefore, I demand that all media outlets in America STOP airing/publishing the Fake News they've been churning out for the past three years, and I urge Republicans in Washington to seek new ways to enforce a sense of truth and fairness in media reporting.  

I'm not a Republican - heck, right now I'm not a registered anything, truth be told - but I've got to tell you, I'm practically giddy seeing Republicans all up in arms about the lies and the attacks (in which they've been complicit, as we all know - and they know, too).  

I mean, Trump has attacked them, and lied about them, and he's also attacked and lied about:

• their constituents;
• Democrats, Independents, and folks belonging to any other party;
• our allies; 
• urban people;
• suburban people; 
• immigrants and asylum seekers;
• protesters (which, as we all know, are not the same as rioters and looters);
• hurricane victims;
• wildfire victims;
• mask wearers;
• Catholics;
• Hispanics, blacks, and whites;
• LGBTQ and their allies;
• all those people from the shithole countries; 
• the poor;
• the middle-class; 
• women and children; 
• scientists; 
• first responders;
• elected officials;
• doctors;
• Asians and Asian-Americans;
• farmers;
• Americans who were born here; 
• Americans who chose to become citizens; 
• green card holders, DACA recipients, and those here with other special protections;
• public school children; 
• artists, musicians and actors who don't support him;
• reporters, photojournalists, and anchors; 
• folks who work in retail for companies that drop his darling Ivanka's clothing line; 
• folks who work for all the other companies he's asked people to boycott;
• Gold Star families; Angel families
• veterans (including the losers and suckers);
• people who want health insurance and actual health care (not the same thing, but I supposed that's being snitty);
• all the people he's driven out of public service;
• all the crooks who worked for him who haven't been pardoned yet; 
• organizations he screwed over through his, ahem, charitable activities;
• beauty pageant contestants;
• the women he's sexually harassed and/or abused;
• book publishers;
• all of the very good people who still work for us in the federal government;
• athletes;
• businessmen  and -women from all industries;
• small business owners who he said will lose their businesses because of COVID-19 but that's OK because something else will take there place;
• educators and educational facilities of all kinds that serve people of all ages;
• taxpayers who have had to foot the bill for his endless tourist visits to his own properties;
• the disabled;
• all the people he's declared himself smarter than; 
• voters and people who want to be voters;
• the USPS; 
• Native Americans; 
• the Constitution, our flag, the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the rule of law; 
• judges and justices, from village court up to and including the Supremes; and
• anyone else I might have left out of the long list of people about whom the president has lied, whom he has attacked personally and professionally, and whom he has threatened, in any way, shape or form. 

So, yes - let's  STOP FAKE NEWS  - let's' get the president off the airwaves. If I had a grand to spare, I'd be happy to send it along if we could just make him stop talking. 

TGIF 4/24/20

Hey - look - another Friday. How about that?

We're going to take a slightly different path this week, because I happened to hear someone mention comments made by Piers Morgan about Donald Trump. I was fascinated by the paraphrasing of Morgan's remarks, and I was fortunate that there's a transcript.

Morgan, the person who was telling the story, is one of 47 accounts the president follows on Twitter -- so he's definitely part of the 'in crowd'.  Or, more accurately, he was of the in crowd, and he was one of the 47 lucky accounts Trump follows -- but not any more, at least not as I write this. Because now there are 46, and Morgan isn't one of them.

What did the Brit say that got appear to have gotten him in hot water? Among other things, that he has "been watching these daily briefings with mounting horror, frankly, because this is not what presidents should be doing."

Presidents, Morgan said, have to "be calm, they've got to show authority, they have to be honest, they have to be accurate, entirely factual with what they're telling the people and they have to have an ability to show empathy." And, "on almost every level of that, Donald Trump at the moment is failing the American people." 

It's important to note that Morgan's comments came before yesterday's allegedly joking, sarcastic comments from the president, which we'll get to in a sec.  But first, more Morgan.

Donald Trump's approval ratings are falling and the reason for that is -- he needs to understand this -- they're falling because people don't trust him. They think he's turning these rallies -- these daily briefings into self-serving rallies, and they don't understand why he can't just do the basics of crisis leadership, which is to make the public come with you, and to believe you, and to feel that you're on their side and you're showing them the empathy that they need when so many people are dying.

Attacking Trump's ratings? That's like the third rail of being a Trump friend, I think. But that wasn't all.

Donald Trump, if he's listening to this or watching, you will win the election in November if you get this right. If you stop making it about yourself and make it about the American people and show that you care about them over yourself, you will win. And, conversely, you will lose the election in November if you continue to make it about yourself, you continue playing silly politics, continue targeting Democrat governors because that suits you for your electoral purposes. None of that matters.

Now, it would appear that Morgan did not make these comments in jest, and it wasn't a really bad attempt at sarcasm. We know this, because he hasn't retracted the comments. And he won't. Because, well, because he has courage, and convictions.

Whereas the president has zero courage, zero convictions, and absolutely no sense of humor. Because apparently, when the backlash struck today, the comments below were said to have been sarcasm.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting.  So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it.  And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too.  It sounds interesting.

ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN:  We’ll get to the right folks who could.

THE PRESIDENT:  Right.  And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.  One minute.  And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning.  Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.  So it would be interesting to check that.  So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with.  But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see.  But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s — that’s pretty powerful.

So, the official White House transcript shows that the president was addressing his remarks to Acting Undersecretary Bill Bryan, who "leads the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security..." - and yet, here's what the president said today about those remarks.

I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,

He's a liar, the president is, as we know. And he's proved that again, as he does regularly. There should be no doubt about that, although I can't imagine how there has been any doubt about that for the past nearly five years - or more.

So, how does all of this tie to our usual TGIF theme? Well, I 'm saying Piers Morgan had a good week, and the president had his typical week, which is usually a bad one. He's among the usual suspects for that dubious honor.

Now, in the interest of something that was actually intended as a joke, and is not true and is completely ridiculous, I offer these remarks, which are funnier if you read them with Trump's voice in your head.

See, you go into the spray tan booth, but instead of spraying you gently with that orange dye, they'll turn up the pressure and blast you at the SAME time with both the UV light AND the disinfectant - at the same time, can you believe it?

The spray will be SO POWERFUL that it will penetrate your skin, and the light will get in there, and the disinfectant will get in there, and it will be like a BEAUTIFUL cleanse - so important, doing the cleanse. Doing the cleanse. And think of it - your pores will be opened up just like our beautiful ECONOMY, the greatest economy EVER, they tell me. Best ever. Even bigger pores, even bigger economy than ever before, even bigger. So important.

And JOBS! Think of all the JOBS, good old American jobs, that's right! We'll buy American UV lightbulbs, made right here in the US, they're going to reopen the plants and make the bulbs, not the orange ones that make me look bad, the good ones, the great US made UV bulbs, only the best and we'll make the disinfectant too.

I can use the D, I'll invoke the D, like never before, nothing like this before, we'll get those factories, GM will get those old factories open again, the people working again, good American people, good American jobs for the bulbs and the spray and the disinfectant, the best in the world. So important, the best in the world. No one can make the bulbs and the disinfectant like we can. 

Like I always say, #BuyAmerican and #HireAmerican, so important, so beautiful. It's going to be beautiful, and clean, so clean. 

TGIF everyone - whether you're kidding, not kidding, being sarcastic, or just plain being honest. Which, as we know, is the best policy. As is washing your hands and keeping your distance. Even from nice people like me.

Wondering on Wednesday (v199)

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Let's wonder about the coronavirus, for starters.

Remember when the House held impeachment depositions in the SCIF - the secure, compartmentalized info filing cabinet, or whatever you call it? And how horrible that was?  Well, I wonder why it is that, according to multiple sources who have spoken to Reuters, the administration is holding coronavirus meetings in a similar SCIF?

The officials said that dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January in a high-security meeting room at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a key player in the fight against the coronavirus.

And I wonder how it is that an NSC spokesman could make the following statement without snickering?

"From day one of the response to the coronavirus, NSC has insisted on the principle of radical transparency,” said the spokesman, John Ullyot. He added that the administration “has cut red tape and set the global standard in protecting the American people under President Trump’s leadership.”  (Emphasis added.)

Need an example of how we have NOT "set the global standard" under the president's leadership? Let's not try and wrap our arms around the entire response to the virus here in the US, let's wonder just about testing, OK?  Because testing, much more than hand-washing, is the key to identifying and dealing with the virus.

Here's a chart from March 8th published by Science Alert, showing the tests per million people stats from several countries. You'll see the US at the top of the chart, which is where we want to be, right? #MAGA and all? Well, no.

Now, the asterisk there on the US notes that the data is what the CDC has, and it "doesn't include accurate test counts from state, local, private and commercial labs." Which in and of itself is a problem, if you ask me, that the CDC doesn't even know what the heck is going on. 

But fear not; people are trying to figure it out for us. According to this March 9th article in The Atlantic,  

Nearly two weeks after the new coronavirus was first found to be spreading among Americans, the United States remains dangerously limited in its capacity to test people for the illness, an ongoing investigation from The Atlantic has found.

After surveying local data from across the country, we can only verify that 4,384 people have been tested for the coronavirus nationwide, as of Monday at 4 p.m. eastern time. These data are as comprehensive a compilation of official statistics as currently possible.

Now, let's compare that to the example of South Korea, as reported in this article, published today, in The Guardian:

The country is conducting about 15,000 tests a day, free of charge, and has carried out almost 200,000 screenings so far. It has also set up about 50 drive-through testing centres and distributed smartphone alerts about the movements of people who have tested positive.

So, NSC spokesman John Ullyot, if we've only tested around 5000 people, and South Korea is testing 15,000 each day, I'm not interested in having whatever swill you're selling. Thanks but no thanks, as they say.  But I do wonder how you people do this day in and day out, threatening us with "radical transparency" and delivering the exact opposite?

And no, I'm not panicking about the virus. I understand why people might be, but I'm much more panicked by the pandemic of lying permeating the Trump administration. Here are some links - ABC News, the NY Times, and Slate, and there are others -reporting on actual experts testifying before Congress today. I encourage you to take a look and get educated. The bottom line is, all of the news outlets are reporting that this is much worse than the president pretends it is - or wants it to be. 

What else is on the wondering agenda today? Well, there was that 'big Tuesday' thing yesterday, and it was, again, not what That Guy from Vermont was hoping for. He went home to Vermont without addressing supporters.  

Here are the results as we know them, as of around 7:30 PM here in NY. 

If you're a TGFV fan, this was not good, on the heels of Super Tuesday being not good, and on the heels of Iowa and New Hampshire being underwhelming, at best. 

In a statement earlier today, TGFV talked about the issue of electability, and how (per the email I got from him today)

while we are winning - very clearly - the ideological debate, we are losing, right now, the electability debate.

I cannot tell you how many people I and our campaign have spoken to that tell me that they like what our campaign stands for but they are going to vote for Joe Biden because they believe he is the best candidate to beat Trump.

Now. you may wonder if that's enough for him to step aside, and I can assure you, as he did today, that he's not. That will not be happening, at least not before the next round of primaries. He plans on debating hard on Sunday, and it seems he plans on asking all of the questions, not just answering them. During his remarks, he mentioned more than a handful of questions he planned on asking his friend Joe.   

So, what's the wondering about? Well, TGFV has regularly attacked the media for not reporting fairly, and for being part of the massive establishment that wants to take down his campaign. And so, I wonder if the reporters who were there today, or watching on TV were fast and furiously scribbling down the questions he wants to ask Papa Joe?  And I wonder whether reporters are going to ask Papa Joe what questions he wants to ask TGFV, so the moderators can ask those questions, too? 

A couple of other things I'm wondering about? 

The president plans on addressing the nation tonight (9PM, if you're interested) and I don't know yet whether he made enough headway with Congressional Republicans to get his now-til-election-day payroll tax waiver moving (not that he's trying to buy votes or anything), or if he's beaten Fed Chair Jerome Powell enough to get him to drop interest rates again, or what he has up his sleeve.  I wonder about that stuff, a little. 

But I heard on tonight's news that he went to Jared for help. That's right -- Jared of the ever-expanding portfolio has apparently been called in to write the speech that we'll hear later. And I wonder even more what the message will be with him behind the pen. Will we see new settlements of patients, maybe? You know, unilateral movements of them behind fences in areas that we can simply call coronavirus-free, and assume everyone will believe it? 

And I wonder, I do, about all the people who say this is "just the flu" and "just wash your hands" and whatnot, and how they feel about an economic stimulus for something so insignificant? I'm guessing they're up in arms, but you never know. (Well, wait -- we do know, of course. They are conspicuously quiet.)

Finally, let's turn to the sports world. 

We learned today that the NCAA is going to do March Madness without the madness that comes from having bodies in the seats. Other than game-essential folks and limited family members in attendance, the arenas will be empty. And so, I'm wondering if they'll get recordings of rabid fans from all the participating teams and blast them into the arenas during games? Because March Madness in silence? Yeah, there's no madness there. 

And last, we've got some fascinating stuff from the soccer world. As you may know, the US women's national soccer team has sued their governing body for equal pay with the men's team. There are some complicated issues here, from a legal responsibility perspective, but there's also this kind of stuff that makes one wonder.

That US men's team players often face openly hostile fans at their own home games, US Soccer argued, was also evidence that men work a different, more demanding job than women. The US men’s opponents, like Mexico, sometimes attract more supporters to games played on US soil than the US men do, especially in the wake of the men’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Got it? You get paid more when you lose because it's hard to deal with fans who are mad at you for losing, than you do for winning because, I guess, the fans are nicer?

That should make anyone wonder.