Donald Trump's 'Art of the Lie'

Lies are easier and much more effective than truths.

Be Loud, Be Proud

The big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted...in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie. ~ Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

Whisper the truth and people won't believe it. Shout a lie and the world will accept it as gospel. Timid people rely on the truth. As Hitler taught, big lies are more easily believed than little lies because people believe no one would be so bold as to tell such a huge whopper. Be bold and the world will believe anything.

Repeat It

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. ~ Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

The key to a successful lie is repeating it over and over and over again until your lie are the only words that people can remember.

Facts Are for Wusses

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect. ~ Jonathan Swift

Truth tellers are handicapped by the desire for facts and evidence. Lies have no such shackles. Facts and evidence are traps that weak people fall for. How many times can you repeat your lie while the truth tellers are researching their facts?

Be Specific In Your Lies

I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. ~ Sen. Joseph McCarthy (1950) starting the McCarthyism witch hunts. It was a blank piece of paper.

As long as you are making shit up, be specific about it. People will believe specific lies before they believe general truths. Odd numbers are more believable than even numbers. If McCarthy had claimed a list of 200 Communists it would have been less believable. Claiming three million illegal votes for Hillary Clinton is more believable than saying there were two million illegal votes for her.

Be big with your specifics. Even now, with no evidence of any illegal votes, you have already accepted the lie of illegal votes and are only wondering if it was three million or only two million.

Make Truth Treason

Truth is treason in an empire of lies. ~ George Orwell

Ideally, you want to create a society where truth is considered an obscenity, an assault to the mind and a burden on the soul. In such a society, telling the truth is a punishable act - an act of libel, an act of sedition, an act of treason.

This Christmas I'm Gifting Liberty

The Statue of Liberty under construction

This Christmas I am not giving stuff to my adult friends and family. Stuff is meaningless. Instead, I am spending Black Friday giving gifts in their name to nine organizations that for the next four years are going to be defending the Constitution, the People, and the Earth.

For Liberty
American Civil Liberty Union - Founded in 1920 initially to defend the free speech rights of people against World War I, its lawyers have over the decades fought against McCartyism, segregation, and police misconduct. The pledge on their website speaks volumes.

Southern Poverty Law Center - Founded in 1971, they have led the fight against the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. Their work is needed now more than ever.

Project Vote - Their effort is to protect all Americans right to vote against disenfranchisement.

For Our Fellow Americans
NAACP Legal Defense Fund - Founded by Thurgood Marshall in 1940, they led the fight against segregation and racial discrimination.

Muslim Legal Fund of America - The threat against American Muslims is more acute than ever.

National Council of La Raza - Mass deportations in America as threatened by Trump have have a history of being cruel, deadly, and indiscriminate, deporting citizens and non-citizens alike.

For the Earth
Sierra Club - The oldest group on this list, founded in 1892 by John Muir, their focus is the protection of public lands.

National Resources Defense Council -  Their focus is global. With Trump's antipathy to green energy and disdain for climate science, their efforts are vital.

Greenpeace -Willing to get their hands dirty defending the planet.

So, no fruitcakes or useless gifts that have to be stored away.

Trump's First Amendment

First they came for the satirists and stage performers and I did not speak out because I was not an actor.

Hispanics and Muslims may not be the first targets after Trump is sworn in. Judging from his recent Twitter posts, Trump really hates being laughed at, publicly booed, and publicly lectured.

While it is perfectly possible that Trump will grow out of his Terrible Twos in the next seven weeks, it is far more likely that Trump will put off his southern wall and Muslim registry to focus his energies on stifling public discord.

In Germany during World War II, the wrong joke could result in you facing a firing squad for treason. A woman named Marianne is said to have been executed for telling this joke on the production line of a munitions plant -

Hitler and Göring are standing on top of Berlin’'s radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to cheer up the people of Berlin. “Why don'’t you just jump?” suggests Göring.

Now might be the time to show Trevor Noah's Halloween skit of Trumpistan 2020.
 
Many totalitarian regimes accept humor as a necessary outlet, better a little laughter than revolution. My guess is Trump won't be so broad-minded.

Is There Any Courage In the Senate?

In 1957, then Senator John F. Kennedy wrote a book entitled Profiles In Courage where he told the stories of eight American politicians who bravely stood up and did what was right when political expediency and professional survival dictated they meekly surrender their principles.

I've been thinking about that book with the prospect of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions becoming Attorney General and his promise to roll back civil rights by a hundred years. Will any Republican senators have the courage to vote the best interests of the country and her citizens and refuse to confirm his selection.

It would only take three Republicans to keep Sessions from gutting 60 years of voting rights progress and spitting on the First Amendment by imposing restrictions on Americans based on their religion. Are they there?

I kind of doubt it. I suspect it is more likely that some future American will write a book titled "Profiles In Cowardice" and he include a chapter on the 2018 class of the United States Senate.

Internment Camps = Concentration Camps

I woke up depressed this morning. Trump acolyte Carl Higbie was on Megyn Kelly's show last night and proposed that the internment of Japanese during World War II was a precedent for how Trump will treat Muslims. The only difference between internment and concentration camps is meaningless semantics. Concentration camps are internment camps.

The first Nazi internment camp was at Dachau and built just two months after Hitler took power. It initially held political prisoners - Social Democrats, Communists, and labor union officials. In time, it was expanded and additional camps were built to house a religious minority, stripped of its citizenship two years after Hitler gained power and deemed dangerous by the ruling party (Jews).

Propaganda films were produced showing how wonderful the camps were. In truth, Dachau did not have gas chambers. There, inmates were just beaten, tortured, starved, and worked to death.

For over half a century, the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II has been held up as a black mark on the American experience, a clear example of the evil that racism and hysteria leads to.

In the New World Order of Trumpism, racism and hysteria are being viewed as ideals to be aspired to.

Boycott This!

I am grateful to Shannon Coulter for creating an important database of pro-Trump businesses that people of good conscious will want to avoid. I've noticed a few businesses I've used in the past on that list and that fact makes me feel kind of dirty.

Boycotts have a long and valued history is the struggle against racism. Thank you Shannon. You have done a great public service.

The Montgomery bus boycott in 1956 led to an early victory against segregation.

Making a Trumpist List...

Trumpism (noun) - Discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that Donald Trump being President makes such behavior acceptable.

On Veteran's Day in the majority black community of Cedar Hill, TX an African-American veteran accepted the offer of a free meal that the Chili's restaurant chain offered to active duty and retired military.

At the end of the meal the restaurant manager accosted the veteran, accused him of not being a "real" veteran, and confiscated his doggy bag of leftovers.

Chili's has "apologized" and "suspended" the manager. Not fired, just suspended. Which means his racist little white ass will be back on the job as soon as the current kerfuffle dies down.

Not good enough. I will actively boycott any and all businesses that support Trump or engage in Trumpism. And yes, I'm keeping a fucking list.

Do's and Don'ts Facing Ragnarök

I've made some rules for myself going forward.

Do's
Do Join the ACLU. ~ I let my membership lapse during the Obama Administration. I'm rejoining with a large, for me, donation. They are going to need it.

Do Have Fun. ~ It maybe like partying aboard the Titanic but the ability to have fun may disappear in coming years. Don't waste the opportunity now.

Do Travel Abroad. ~ Whether it's looking for possible refugee sites or visiting friendly countries before we are at war with them, get some traveling in now.

Do Organize! Fight Back! ~ I'm going to spend the next few weeks deciding where my volunteer efforts can best serve. They can't send us all to concentration camps.

Don'ts
Don't Imagine the Horrors to Come. ~ That way leads to madness. Better to face each outrage as it happens than let your imagination destroy you. Besides, if this election taught me anything it's that my predictive skills are total shit.

Don't Be a Jerk. ~ It's perfectly alright to shun Trumpites and boycott their businesses like they are diseased, but be nice about it.

Don't give Up, Never Surrender. ~ I'd rather be hauled off by jackbooted thugs in red hats than meekly genuflect to our God-King Trump.

Don't Panic. ~ Panic is paralyzing. Fear is paralyzing. Get angry if you must but never panic.

First They Came For...

It took less than 24 hours for Trump's minions to set the tone of the new administration.

The Republican Jewish Coalition filled the role of Group 13 by threatening the Anti-Defamation League with retaliation for their opposition to Donald Trump's anti-Semitic statements.

Meanwhile, Trump spokesperson Omarosa Manigault promised retaliation against Republicans who failed to enthusiastically support Trump during the election.

What is that curse? May you live in interesting times.

Our Long National Nightmare Has Just Begun

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ~ H. L. Mencken

I've seen a lot of election defeats in my life. I've been angry, sad, depressed, confused and I'm certainly all that this morning, but I've never before been physically ill at an election result.

One thing I'm not is afraid. Maybe it's because I'm halfway through my seventh decade and there is nothing that Trump and his alt-right minions can do to me that nature won't top soon enough. Maybe it's faith in our Constitution. Then again, maybe it's just the Prozac.

There might be hope. In seventh grade my history teacher had a theory that the office of the presidency elevates a man to be greater than he was. But that teacher backed Barry Goldwater so maybe he was just a fucking idiot.

I've taken a sledgehammer to my crystal ball. That thing's a piece of shit. Right now I don't want to speculate about the future, we'll see it soon in all it's horror.

I've deleted all the links to conservative websites that I have been monitoring. They can gloat their heads off but I don't have to see it. I'm going to tune down my news obsession for a while for the same reason, the news will be full of Republicans being insufferable.

In time I'll either reenter the battlefield to fight the good fight or hunker down hoping to survive holocaust.

Tomorrow Predictions

I've have this kind of nightmare scenario on how Donald Trump wins and what will follow. However, I've been afraid that, like chanting "Bloody Mary" three times in a mirror will call a demon, typing up this scenario might make it come true. Suffice, it's scary.

Election Day
Hillary will win, having just under 50% of the vote. Trump will take 43% with the remainder going to third parties. Democrats will take the Senate narrowly, one or two seats. Republicans will hold the House, losing 15 seats.

Hillary will win Florida and Nevada but lose North Carolina. She'll end up with 308 electoral votes with Ohio and Arizona late toss-ups.

Trump will refuse to concede. A couple days after the election Trump will hold a rally where he will vow to fight the results all the way to the Supreme Court. He will not follow through on that threat.

2017
Hillary will nominate a Supreme Court justice who will be quickly confirmed by the Senate after they end filibusters on nominations. The Senate will fill other empty federal judgeship as rapidly as possible.

Paul Ryan will step down as Speaker of the House of Representatives and be replaced by a radical who promises to form an impeachment committee. Hearings to impeach Hillary will begin in February.

Trump will continue to hold rallies attacking both Clinton and traitorous Republicans but the attendance will dwindle and Trump will quietly stop the rallies by early summer.

2018
Impeachment hearings will heat up for the mid-term elections but still no bill of impeachment sent to the House floor. Democrats will add one more Senate seats but lose a few House seats.

And Sometime In the Next Few Years
--> Television evangelists will declare Hillary Clinton the anti-Christ.
--> NATO will station troops, including US soldiers, in the Baltic states as a tripwire against Russian aggression.
--> ISIS will die out and be replaced by some other terrorist group to fear.
--> Some disastrous event will prove conclusively that global climate change is real and horrible. Republicans will still refuse to believe it.

This Election in a Nutshell

Rogue elements of the FBI are conspiring with Russian spies and the Ku Klux Klan to elect a neo-fascist white nationalist to the American presidency.

As a screenplay you would want Denzel Washington playing the fearless reporter for the New York Times risking his life to uncover this bizarre plot. But this is real life. There are no heroic figures coming to save us.

We have to do this ourselves. At the voting booth. Failure means we can say goodbye to such quaint notions as peace, economic security, equality under the law and say hello to war in Europe as Russia invades the NATO Baltic states, an economic depression that will follow massive import tariffs, and mass deportations unseen in the world since WWII.

The Comey Syndrome

Day Four of FBI Director James Comey hiding out in an undisclosed location.

I've seen what Comey's FBI has done in the presidential election before on a local level. A district attorney opposing a candidate for city council opens a extremely public investigation of that candidate. After the election is over, that investigation is very, very quietly dropped.

It is a sleazy and corrupt use of the office for blatantly political purposes but it frequently has the desired effect of defeating the candidate in question.

Say what you will about J. Edgar Hoover, how he used the dossiers he compiled on politicians to blackmail them into doing what he wanted, but Hoover never demeaned the Bureau by obviously and unscrupulous trying to influence the outcome of an election. Hell, even Top Cop Heinrich Himmler never did that.

Non-Election Nightmares

In an election season that is certainly making Satan giggle, Halloween just seems a little underwhelming.

Best Ghost Photo Ever

Most ghost photos can be explained by double exposures, foggy lenses, pareidolia, or plan fakery. A few have enough documentation to suggest something paranormal. The image above is of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. According to legend, the lady was the wife of the Second Viscount Townshend who, in the early eighteenth century, had faked her death and imprisoned her in their English mansion for life for adultery.

This picture, taken in 1936, is supposed to be of the poor woman whose ghost has been seen for 200 years. Many have concluded it is a hoax but the photographer was a man of stellar reputation, he had a witness to the image he shot, and the Lady has been seen on many other occasions.

Best (probably fake) Witch Video

This video is allegedly dash cam footage from a Saudi Arabian border control vehicle. If it is not a real witch, the best explanation is that it is a prank that veteran agents played on a rookie, the guy screaming hysterically.

Slenderman

 Or maybe just a tree and shadows. Slenderman is a fictional 2009 internet meme that has rapidly become an urban legend. You can find pictures of him all over the web. Slenderman is said to be a demon that lurks around playgrounds because he loves tormenting children. In 2014, two very real 12 year-old girls stabbed a classmate 19 times and nearly killed her. They claimed there were compelled to murder by the Slenderman.

Angel (or the Flash) Video

This is said to be traffic cam footage of an angel saving someone. The flashes alone seem to be proof of a hoax.

Robert the Doll

Robert was a gift in 1904 from an unhappy maid to the son of her employers. She had cursed the doll with black magic. The child, Robert Eugene Otto, would talk to the doll who could be heard responding. When the child grew up he stored the doll in an attic room from which the doll could be seen staring out from different windows and heard walking about.

Today, the doll is an exhibit in a museum where it is claimed he has been seen moving and visitors who have disrespected the doll report their lives have been cursed and writer letters to the doll begging his forgiveness.

The Sound of Hell

According to the story, in the later part of the 20th century, Soviet scientists in Siberia drilled a borehole deep into the earth. They encountered an opening some 14 km under the surface and lowered a microphone down the hole because, why not? They then recorded 30 seconds of the sound of souls being tormented in Hell.

There is no evidence of any such hole being drilled (Illuminati coverup) and the noises seem to be from the soundtrack of a 1972 movie. But, that hasn't stopped religious fundamentalists from pointing to this tape as absolute proof of Hell.

Comey's Bombshell

For future reference, THIS is how you rig an election.

A normal investigative chief when told that his subordinates want to look into something would have asked pertinent questions (Do we have anything serious? Not yet. Do you need any subpoenas? No.) and told his people to get back to him if they find something. That chief would then say and do nothing until he had something substantial to report.

FBI Director James Comey didn't do that. Comey had been chastened by charges that he had surrendered to political pressure by his announcement that there was nothing to the Clinton email investigation. Comey was afraid of being criticized again so he clumsily elevated a probable nothing-burger into a major event.

Now, afraid of the aftereffect of his bumbling, Comey is hiding from the media and will remain in hiding. He is afraid of being criticized and afraid of having to admit he bumbled badly.

If this takes the worst possible path - swinging the election to a President Donald Trump with his alt-right Svengali Steve Bannon as White House Chief-of-Staff - then James Comey will likely go down in history with names like Philippe Pétain and Vidkun Quisling. These are men who cravenly delivered their people to fascism while mewling pathetically that they didn't know what else to do.

Why did I leave England? Political refugee status is easier to get if you are already in the country.

Back into the Maelstrom

I've spent the last two weeks as an election refugee in England. I wasn't completely unaware of news from the States (damn you free hotel wifi) but I didn't drown in campaign sewage.

I met a splendid couple from Shanghai in the English Lake District who had been following the US news for months with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. They had many questions about American elections which I answered happily until they asked me about Donald Trump. I answered that he is insane and scary.

The most memorable encounter was with a Mexican student traveling Europe I met on a train headed north out of London. He was well versed in the American election and we spent a couple hours discussing it and other topics. As I was debarking this young man looked at me and said in a compassionate and reassuring voice, "Don't worry, Trump won't win."

I think he won't but I will stop worrying on November 9th.

Trump Broke the Camel's Back

In and of itself, Trump's "pussy" tape would have damaged but not murdered most campaigns. The problem was that it was piled on top of 18 months of shit emanating from The Donald's pie hole. It caused a sudden shift the American Zeitgeist. In the words of Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard, "The line must be drawn here. This far, no further."

LePage Wants a Trump Dictatorship

History will record that this week marks the official birth of the new American Fascist Party. Maine governor Paul LePage openly called for Donald Trump to impose "authoritarian" rule over the United States. The Republican Party is now officially split into a dominate neo-fascist party under Trump and Rance Priebus and a rump center-right party of traditional Reaganites like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain.

Trump Unbound

Trump has declared his "shackles have been taken off" and he is using this new found freedom to wage civil war against the party that nominated him. To mix my strongman metaphors, Trump's final act as his party's nominee will be to tear down the temple of Republicanism like the biblical Samson.

Methadone For a Political Junkie

I'm leaving for two weeks going to England, hoping the soothing voices of BBC newsreaders will re-energize my soul after the decaying rot of this American election season. Also, I am certain that things will only get worse in the coming days and distance may keep me from ODing on political bile.

So, I Watched the Debate

1. The biggest take away for me was Trump's pledge to have his opponent arrested and imprisoned. That is what you would expect out of fascist Italy, Stalin's Russia, or Hussein's Iraq. It is a terrifying prospect.
2. Trump specifically said he has never groped a woman. At least two women have accused Trump of exactly that. Jill Harth sued Trump in 1997 for sexual harassment and rape and that he groped her. Temple Taggart, Miss Utah 1997, says that Trump grabbed her and forced her to kiss him.
3. Trump again showed no contrition for his obscene statements on the Access Hollywood tape.
4. The lurking. Trump choose to stand closely behind Clinton as she spoke in a clear attempt at physical intimidation. Clinton was clearly not intimidated.
5. Clinton was cool, controlled, presidential while Trump was angry and a little whiny.
6. I loved the last audience question.

And, because I need this...

Trump's Sleepless Night

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. ~ Leonard Cohen

Donald Trump brags about his chronic insomnia. According to Trump, his inability to sleep more than three or four hours a night is a sign of his superhuman constitution. His inability to stay focused, his poor judgement, and his forgetfulness are all signs of chronic insomnia.

But that was before the events of the last couple of days. Unless Ivanka slipped a half-dozen Ambians into his warm champagne (only losers drink warm milk before going to bed), Trump likely didn't get a wink of sleep last night.

His mind monkey was jumping frantically between all the contradictory talking points that Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway tried to stuff into his brain, mixing them up horribly. His ego was seething with anger at all the treacherous Republicans withdrawing their support. He was imagining all the vengeance he will wreak on Paul Ryan and Mike Pence.

At some point last night he remembered how much he hated Nancy O'Dell for refusing to let him fuck her. Trump probably got a small erection remembering how he tried to get her fired after she rejected him.

He got up several times wanting to use Twitter only to find that someone (Ivanka) had hidden his cellphone. He had to wait until after breakfast before he was allowed to play with his phone. He also probably got a small erection when Ivanka gave him the phone.

Trump: A Most Vile Man

Donald Trump has turned our democracy into an extended Jerry Springer episode. Nothing is so repugnant that there isn't something worse waiting to surface.

I waited to watch Trump's after midnight "apology" video. I had listened to Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech while waiting because I wanted to compare Trump's "apology" to a previous worst moment in presidential history. Tricky Dicky handled it better.

While Trump did apologize he then undid the apology by claiming he wasn't really like that. We have ample evidence from Howard Stern, Alicia Machado, reports from the set of The Apprentice, and the endless spew of misogynist bile from Trump's mouth that the Access Hollywood outtake was an accurate reflection of Trump's psychopathy. In his scripted (by others) speech there was no sign of genuine contrition.

He then buried his apology under his standard stump speech condemnation of Democrats.

This is far from over.

• Speaker of the House Paul Ryan disinvited Trump from a major rally in Wisconsin. This is a huge snub which may be repeated by other Republicans.
• Trump has hours, not days, to convince Republican leadership not to disavow him. As it is, they are looking for how to handle Trump withdrawing from the race.
• Access Hollywood claims to have many more hours of outtakes of Trump being Trump.
• The production company for The Apprentice is going to be under incredible pressure to release outtakes from that program showing Trump being a misogynist thug.

Then there is the debate where Trump will be unscripted and face this issue repeatedly. If Trump's "apology" video is a predictive then we can expect him to turn every question into an attack on Bill and Hillary. I have no doubt that Hillary will be fully prepared to handle this obvious tactic.

I am leaving the country for two weeks specifically to escape the most revolting period of this election. I really wish I had left yesterday.