Pants on Fire! You may not wake up each day and pick up the paper, or turn on the news, and cringe, as I do, when you remember that Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States. While I find that fact, in and of itself, incredibly hard to believe, I don’t have an alternative. It’s a fact. It really happened. The minority of American voters elected this man by way of an archaic electoral process that was designed to insure that political power in this republic would be wielded by the slave-owning class in the American South (Just look at our history from 1789, the beginning of the Union, up through the Civil War. Ten of our first 16 Presidents —- Washington through Lincoln —- owned slaves!). It is appropriate, then, that Trump is a dog-whistling racist who cannot even criticize neo-Nazis who defend Confederate General statues —- but condemns “ungrateful” African-Americans in sports, entertainment, or politics through Twitter, his preferred form of communication. This is our “President.” One of the most incredible features of this Presidency, however, is that we, the American public, simply accept that this President will, on pretty much a daily basis, LIE. That’s just the fact of the matter. Trump speaks, Trumps LIES —- regularly, daily, sometimes hourly, very often in his Tweets. Facts aren’t even a consideration any longer, are they? We know that Trump supporters are low-information, fact-averse individuals, who are not going to change. We also know that all those people will support Trump even if, as he said, he shot someone on Fifth Avenue (hopefully, from his perspective, a Muslim). Yesterday, the “President” released a Tweet in which he claimed that Time Magazine told him he was probably going to be their “Man of the Year” (again) this year. Here’s the Tweet: “Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" Because they would need time to interview him and take photos, he graciously declined. He told them ‘No.”. Trump is like the guy who says "You can't fire me because I quit!" Here’s what Time Magazine Tweeted this morning: "The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year, TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6." Time has rarely named someone Man/Person of the Year more than once (FDR, Stalin, Truman, LBJ, Reagan, Gorbachev, Clinton, W. Bush & Obama) but never two years in a row. And, by the way, what has Trump done to deserve that title for a second year in the row? Time notes that the title represents “someone who has, for better or worse, had the greatest impact on the events of the world that year.” (Wikipedia) Adolf Hitler was Man of the Year in 1938 and Josef Stalin in 1939 and 1942, for example. But that’s not the point. Trump created a fake Time Magazine cover naming himself “Man of the Year,” to hang in his various Golf Clubs around the country (he also created “fake history” about the Civil War at one of his Golf Clubs, too). Yet all of this is beside the point because it's about what Trump needs: he needs his name to be in the news every day. Remember when he told us “you will get tired of winning?” We’ll, he really doesn’t seem to care much about “winning,” as far as legislation or foreign policy goes (both are up in flames, in case you haven’t noticed). “Winning,” for Trump is simply having his name front and center, every day. Reading a statement to the troops for Thanksgiving, Trump noted “We’re really winning now.” Previous administrations “weren’t letting you win before. Now we’re letting you win.” It is unclear, exactly, what and where “we’re winning.” The troops he was addressing were primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I guess we’re all supposed to assume we are now “winning” in those conflicts. How we measure or gauge that “winning” is simply Trump’s statement that: we are. Yet, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Does he honestly care about anything beyond his own need for attention? (That’s rhetorical, of course) One other thing: Trump’s reflexive phrase “Believe me.” “Believe me” is Trump’s “tell.” Anyone who gambles know that many players have a “tell” —- a tic or habit (spinning your ring, rubbing your nose) that gives away your hand (the ring means you’ve got a good hand, the nose, not so good). Trump’s “believe me” “tell” always follows a statement that is a LIE. It’s what a used car salesman tells you about the lemon he’s trying to sell you. “You won’t have a day of trouble with this beauty. No, sir, believe me.” It’s what the prosecutor with the weak case tells a jury. “Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, this man is as guilty as the day is long. Believe me.” Listen for when and how Trump uses it. “We’re going to build a wall and Mexico’s going to pay for it, believe me.” “We will terminate Obamacare and replace it, believe me.” “This tax reform is not good for me, believe me.” And the list goes on. If you go to: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/pants-fire/?page=1 you will find 4 pages of PolitiFact's “Pants on Fire!” ratings for Donald Trump’s statements from April 2011 through November 2017. Take a look for yourself at just how far our “President” will challenge your common sense and credulity with statements he will make without thinking twice. He is an inveterate, pathological liar, pure and simple --- or, as he would say, “believe me.”
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