Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Donald Trump Is Lyin’ Up a Storm

Is there an election coming up, or something?

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

Oct. 22, 2018


There he goes again.

With Republicans struggling to keep their grip on Congress, President Trump is dialing up the demagogy. At campaign rallies and on social media, he’s spewing dark warnings about a Democratic mob clamoring to usher in an era of open borders, rampant crime, social chaos and economic radicalism.

As is so often the case, Mr. Trump is not letting reality interfere with his performance. At a rally in Nevada this weekend, the president told the crowd that Californians were rioting to “get out of their sanctuary cities.” (They aren’t.) He also suggested that Democrats will soon be looking to hand out free luxury cars to illegal immigrants. (They won’t.) “Give ’em a driver’s license. Next thing you know, they’ll want to buy ’em a car,” he riffed. “Then they’ll say the car’s not good enough, we want — how about a Rolls-Royce?”

Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed has been electrifying as well, full of statements intended to thrill his fans — and, better still, bait his opponents into a partisan rage. In recent days, he has dubbed Stormy Daniels “Horseface,” escalated his taunting of Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” and grumbled about the fact that Bruce Ohr, one of Mr. Trump’s nemeses in the “rigged” Russian “witch hunt,” is still employed by the Department of Justice. He has asserted that the Democratic nominee for governor in Florida, Andrew Gillum, is looking to turn the state into “the next Venezuela.” He has threatened to dispatch troops to shut down the southern border and renewed his vow to cut off the “massive foreign aid” sent to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras for those nations’ failure to stop their people from flocking to the United States.

In particular, the caravan of Honduran migrants making its way north has emerged as a focus of his fantasies. Mr. Trump has repeatedly implied that Democrats are paying Honduran youth to join the caravan. On Monday, he claimed, based on nothing, that the caravan is awash in “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.”

On Sunday, news broke of yet another move by the Trump administration to assault L.G.B.T. rights. According to a draft memo leaked to The Times, the Department of Health and Human Services is leading the charge to establish a legal definition of “sex” based strictly on “immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” eliminating the category of transgender individuals in the eyes of the federal government. In cases when a person’s birth sex was in dispute, genetic testing would be used to settle the matter.

Such a shift has been in discussion among administration officials for more than a year, and the memo in question has been floating around since the spring. Health and Human Services is expected to present its official case to the Department of Justice by year’s end. Yet, like Mr. Trump’s prior reversals of Obama-era policies that expanded transgender rights, the news understandably sent a ripple of fear and anguish through the community of 1.4 million transgender Americans, their loved ones and anyone who cares about civil rights.

Mr. Trump plays the polarization game because he enjoys it — he does love a brawl — and because he doesn’t appear to care about much beyond his political and personal fortunes. And, more practically speaking, these days he doesn’t have much else to talk about.

It’s not that this president has failed to achieve anything in his first couple of years in office. The economy is chugging along right now, and many Republican candidates would be happy for him to play that up on the campaign trail.

But his most notable achievements do not resonate beyond Mr. Trump’s base. He has overseen a conservative overhaul of the federal judiciary, seating a record number of judges, including two Supreme Court justices. And he has been an aggressive deregulator in areas ranging from education to transportation to health care to the environment.

Meanwhile, the Republicans’ much-ballyhooed tax cut hasn’t proved especially popular. The party failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, as it had been promising for seven years. The president’s big talk about infrastructure investment has devolved into a bad political joke. His tariffs and trade war talk are giving even members of his own team migraines. And that’s without even getting into all the foreign policy drama.

It is notable if not surprising that two of the widely popular policy issues Mr. Trump has been talking up — his commitment to protecting health care coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and his promise to put forward “a very major tax cut” for middle-income people in the next few weeks — have no basis in reality. This administration has specifically declined to defend pre-existing conditions against pending legal challenges. And with Congress out of session until after the elections, there can be no serious movement on tax policy until the lame-duck session.

Thus, as Mr. Trump moves to make the case for Republicans in the midterms, he has few options beyond revving up his base. Which might be motivating — possibly even energizing — for some die-hard partisans on both sides of the battle. But it is more than a little dispiriting for the millions of Americans already exhausted by seemingly endless outrage. And it is really bad for the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/opinion/editorials/transgender-trump-lies-midterm-election.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-editorials

Tex-s

First of all, Trump lies, no doubt. Usually though, his embellishments are due to ego, not so much to agenda, as was the case with the previous President. Additionally, the left leaning media have become so virile in their attempts to propagandize their Trump hatred that they themselves simply omit facts, and omit context....

[he’s spewing dark warnings about a Democratic mob clamoring to usher in an era of open borders]

Trump does not need to 'spew' anything. Democrat candidates all over the nation have voiced varied opinions concerning their views of not enforcing a southern border, from the (likely true) 'we don't need a wall' to 'abolish ice' to a widely seen Beto O'Rourke video in which he leads a procession of groupies toting an 'open borders' banner. Trump may be illuminating the best/worst cases, but he is NOT lying here.

[ eliminating the category of transgender individuals in the eyes of the federal government.]
This one is an unfortunate paradox for the left because the last several years of 'logic' from the left has been to try to suggest (and to implement rules, regulations, policies, etc) demanding that people and institutions must recognize gender as a separate phenomenon from biological sex. Fine...... If that is the case, then Trump is continuing their work here, by clarifying that a law referencing 'SEX' is not the same as a law referencing 'GENDER'. Or is it that a) Trump has to be painted as wrong....no matter what or that b) the left are actually admitting sex and gender ARE linked, or both?

Trump is not the problem, the infection. Trump is the symptom of the infection. Trump is the reaction of the middle of America to a few decades of being vilified by the media a s ignorant, intolerant, hateful, etc. Trump is the reaction of usually polite, hard-working, God-fearing Americans who have seen the federal government target them repeatedly. From religious freedoms, to higher taxes, greater financial burden due to regulation, to mandates on health insurance, to vilification over gun rights, to the last administration actively seeking to eliminate an entire industry and all the self-sufficiency and pride of those associated with it (coal). Trump is what happens after 50 or so years of the major parties moving further apart. People in the middle voted for the A-hole that promised to work for America first, for prosperity first. That's it.

jcs Loc: USA

How dare he mention the Democrat left wing mobs : rioting, raping, murdering, looting, burning....

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Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

This is unusual, a polite and mature post with thought behind it, and I commend it.

The poster is wrong in several instances, but his presentation is refreshing and serious.

Trump lies about many things, sometimes it is his ego speaking, but he lies for policy and to alarm his base; he is a profoundly dishonest man.

Trump IS lying about the mass of “illegals” some 1200 miles away—a direct and vicious lie for policy and to rile up the base during and election time when the stock market is unstable.

Trump is every bit of the infection and also a symptom of the illness within our society where political disagreement means war and hatred and verbal violence. No one has been so incompetent as Trump, has had so dishonest and incompetent a cabinet, is so corrupt to the tune of $500,000,000 at a time, and is so ignorant in foreign policy, dictated to by Putin, laughed at by Kim, paid off by Xi and Qatar, and no one has so openly dictated tax policy to his personal advantage.

“Trump is the reaction of usually polite, hard-working, God-fearing Americans who have seen the federal government target them repeatedly. From religious freedoms, to higher taxes, greater financial burden due to regulation, to mandates on health insurance, to vilification over gun rights, to the last administration actively seeking to eliminate an entire industry and all the self-sufficiency and pride of those associated with it (coal).”

We’ve seen how peace-loving his base is, no one had violated any religious freedoms except Trump (Muslims) and the greater tax burden due to regulations saves lives, the health insurance issue is increasingly popular, even with Republicans (why else do the Republicans lie so claiming to support it?). No one has challenged gun rights (they are protected by the US Constuition, right?) and the coal industry is dying and taking the planet with it; coal simply has to go.

Thank you again for a civil post without verbal violence and hate; more people should follow your lead, and thank you for your consideration.

Tex-s

You too, on civility. I do have to make a note though. Trump was elected before taking any action you are citing as President, so it does not serve to refute my comments about how middle Americans were feeling prior to 2016. I live here, and I can promise people were REALLY angry and scared at Obamacare mandates and religious institutions having to go to court to continue practicing their faiths. Additionally, the republicans, by not actively using the power of the purse in the House from 2010-2016, have abandoned their base almost as much as the left have abandoned the center.

As to the coal issue, I'll grant that there will have to be an alternate path, but having a President directly say he planned to kill coal, and to say "maybe 20 dollar a gallon gas would be a good thing" can ONLY cement opposition in areas that are energy centers. My point was, overall, meant to defend those who chose Trump more so than to defend Trump. I did not vote for Trump, but had there been no other boxes or blanks other than he and Hillary, would have done so. My take home income declined 5% over the previous administration despite an 18% income increase (taxes and contribution to health coverage). Add to that the 400% increase in my out-of pocket expense for medical, despite fewer office visits (daughter's asthma meds went from 20 dollar co-pay to 250 dollar full price when our group policy tried to keep plan costs to 'only' 15% cost increases)..... 4 or 8 years more of that would mean having to sell my possessions to keep my child in college.

Trump voters just needed some hope and change to get away from the hope and change.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

“Trump was elected before taking any action you are citing as President, so it does not serve to refute my comments about how middle Americans were feeling prior to 2016.”

I don’t quite get what you’re saying here.

People are very concerned that republicans are going to destroy the health insurance, expecially the previous conditions aspect, and Republicans and now lying frantically that they never meant to destroy it.

Nobody, but no body has to go to court to practice their faith. Shame.

Your 18% increase isn’t quite right. You must have had health insurance before Obama, right?

Coal was dying and needs to die, but I never heard anything about $20/gallon gas. Are you sure?

Tex-s

I looked it up. Sorry it was 10 dollars. Obama said he'd prefer the move to 10 dollars per gallon be gradual...... but he was 'rooting' for higher gas prices.

And to the having to go to court, MANY religious organizations benefited from the little sisters of the poor 'winning' this suit and not being forced to fund abortion-esque service.. maybe there is room to discuss whether or not being forced to provide abortion or abortion inducing drugs violates one's ability to practice faith, but people of faith in my area viewed the mandates as mandating both beliefs and behaviors.

https://www.becketlaw.org/case/littlesisters/

And again, I don't intend to defend Trump or obviously retalitory policy, but rather defend people in flyover territory, those who feel they are generally dismissed by Hollywood, by media, and by DC

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

The ‘mandate’ required everyone to have health insurance—as they should.

Sorry, meant to complete this post, but iPad is acting up.

Nice talking to you....