Overcast, though no rain as of yet this Wednesday morning on California’s north coast — howling, gusty winds earlier, but quiet right now.
Update sort of on my post yesterday about T-Rump’s lying — CYA, as the asshole concocted a rant against truth Tuesday afternoon in Florida (via The Star):
“These fact-checkers, they’ll check facts with me and I’m like, like, 99-per-cent right, and they’ll say, ‘And therefore he lied,’ ” he said. He concluded: “Oh boy, these people are bad. What a group of people we have. What a group of dishonest scum we have, I’m telling you.”
(Illustration: Donald Trump, ‘Basic Shapes,‘ by caricaturist/illustrator Chong Jit Leong, found here).
In keeping with the theme of spewing falsehoods continually, on Monday T-Rump hit a high note (also The Star): ‘And he said 37 false things — tying the record he set at the third presidential debate, by far the most of any nondebate day since we started counting in September.’
Attacking fact-checkers clears the road to pure lies.
A related piece at Vox this morning details the nine types of lies T-Rump pontificates, such this bit listed at No. 8:
He obscures the truth by denying he said things he said, or denying things are known that are known.
After receiving classified security briefings where (according to reports) the issue of email hacks of Democratic organizations came up, he maintained that they might not have been hacked at all.
In debates, he routinely denied the existence of his own ugliest statements.
Relatedly, he also claims that things have been “debunked” when they haven’t been — like the sexual assault allegations against him.
Key point of this shit, however:
We are looking at an existential threat to a key principle of democratic discourse: People can only debate and persuade each other if they agree on the basic facts of the world around them.
They are entitled to their own opinions but not entitled to their own facts.
Every single time Donald Trump lies, that principle gets a little shakier and harder to maintain.
Way-hopefully, 13 days to go…