Lies, Lies, and More Lies: Trump, Conway, and Spicer

​WABE radio in Atlanta noted on 8 February that Trump’s press secretary, Spicer, had twice defended Trump’s Executive Order on immigration by including Atlanta in a list of cities (e.g., San Bernardino, Miami, Boston) which had seen terrorism by radical Islamists. Either Spicer is lying, or he’s not checking his facts, or he’s deluded. Perhaps all three. Atlanta has never been the subject of an attack by radical (or radicalized) followers of Islam.
 
Trump has set up a revocable trust to hold many of his businesses in order to appear not to violate ethics laws and the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Problem is, the only social security number associated with that trust is Trump’s own. He’s still going to receive benefits from those properties. The wall he’s built in this case is purely a figment of his imagination. It constitutes a lie.
 
When Kellyanne Conway was challenged to defend Trump’s criticism that the news media didn’t give enough coverage to terrorist attacks, she tried to compare it with coverage of the death of a rock star. That’s spin. And spin is just another way of lying.
 
Spicer promised a list of under-reported terrorist attacks. When the list was released, it didn’t prove the point. It included well-reported incidents. It included attacks not known to be associated with Islamic terrorism. The list did not include many attacks by Muslims targeting Muslims who make up the vast majority of victims of Islamist terrorism. It does not include attacks by Boko Haram, which has been covered extensively. It includes only one of the many attacks in Kabul.
 
Newsweek characterized the list as “…one so embarrassingly rife with misspellings and falsehoods that it reads like a term paper thrown together in the last second by a 10th grader recovering from a nightlong binge of Minecraft,” and noted that they misspelled “attacker” 20 times. In addition to being liars, the White House staff are apparently ignoramuses. [The entire list, with errors included, is at a link near the bottom of this post.]
 
Perhaps more disturbing, the list as issued seems to lend credibility to perceptions that Trump is targeting Muslims. (Remember, banning Muslims from the United States… all Muslims… was a campaign promise.)
 
Trump has claimed that the murder rate in the US is the highest it’s been in almost half a century. That’s a lie.
 
Trump has claimed that the news media doesn’t report terrorist acts because they have an agenda—presumably some sort of animus against Trump. That’s a lie.
 
Trump has lied about the size of the crowd at his inauguration, and his staff has continued to support that lie.
 
Trump has lied by saying that God stopped the rain and brought out the sun during Trump’s inaugural address. So far his staff hasn’t repeated that. It’s still a lie.
 
Conway lied when she claimed that there had been a massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It never happened.
 
Trump has accused the media of lying while criticizing the media for not reporting on things he’s has said… which were shown to be lies.
 
Trump’s minnions, Conway and Spicer, ignore what Trump actually says, misdirect (a way of lying), and lie point-blank.
 
Trump, on the other hand, seems to follow one rule: tell a lie often enough, say it loudly enough, and appear sincere, and people will eventually believe it.
 
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time,” as the apothegm goes. Trump and his people seem to have perverted the closing phrase, and believe that they can fool all of the people all of the time… or, at least enough of them that the rest don’t matter.
 
Conway was turned down for an appearance on CNN’s Sunday show because of questions about her credibility.
 
Spicer? As I said, he appears to be a liar, a fool, or an incompetent. Time will tell.
 
Trump has compromised, perhaps destroyed the dignity of the Office of President of the United States.
 
 
References:
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jake-tapper-kellyanne-conway_us_589af2c9e4b09bd304bee163
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/business/media/jake-tapper-kellyanne-conway.html
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/07/kellyanne-conway-in-return-to-cnn-plays-a-shell-game/?utm_term=.506822496592
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/us/politics/the-white-house-list-of-terror-attacks-underreported-by-media.html
 
Trump List of Terrorist Attacks:
 
Read the list with errors included at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/07/full-list-of-trump-under-reported-terror-attacks-and-how-they-were-reported
 
 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/us/politics/the-white-house-list-of-terror-attacks-underreported-by-media.html