January 18, 2018: "Dictators Round the World Are Listening to the Words of Our President."

 

1/18/18: Can we assume the president woke up lonely in bed again? I think we can. In Touch magazine is running a 5,000-word interview with Stormy Daniels, the porn queen who says she slept with then-businessman Trump in 2006. 

FLOTUS cannot be amused. 

____________________ 

“The news is what you can prove.”

____________________ 

 

Just the right touch of slutty.

Stormy was paid not to tell about sleeping with Donald.

___

* 

IN OTHER NEWS, Sen. John McCain is the second GOP senator in two days to take the president to task for attacking the free press. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, he writes: 

[The president] has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit the free press by bestowing “fake news awards” upon reporters and news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with. Whether Trump knows it or not, these efforts are being closely watched by foreign leaders who are already using his words as cover as they silence and shutter one of the key pillars of democracy.

 

McCain warns that dictators round the world are listening to the words of our president. Then they launch their own attacks modeled on his “Fake News” campaign. As it is here in America today, in their countries, “Fake News” is any news Vladimir, Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad don’t like. “For decades,” McCain points out, “dissidents and human rights advocates have relied on independent investigations into government corruption to further their fight for freedom.” 

That’s still true in America. For now. We want Fox News to cover the Benghazi story. We want the free press to unmask the creepy behaviors of Harvey Weinstein and Bill O’Reilly. We want CNN to put hard questions to Trump and his surrogates and not feed us a steady diet of stories of Trumpian greatness. At the state and local level, we want a free press to unmask crooks in the New York statehouse, to comment on the sexual misdeeds of the Missouri governor, to give Chris Christie a thumping for Bridgegate. Unless we have our heads up our patooties, we want the press to follow leads in the Russia investigation and see where it ends. 

We can’t know yet where that is. No one can. The news isn’t “fake” a Washington Post reporter recently said. 

“The news is what you can prove.”

April 23, 2022: The First Time Kevin McCarthy Was Caught on Tape Telling the Truth

With Kevin McCarthy caught on tape telling the truth again, 

this is what I wrote on July 13, 2018:

 

AT THIS POINT all good Americans might be wise to remember a May 2017 report from the Washington Post.

 

____________________ 

“There’s two people I think Putin pays. Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy

____________________

 

 

In a leaked recording of a meeting of top Republican lawmakers, in June 2016, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy can be heard joking, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump.” 

The Post explained: 

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment. Then McCarthy quickly added: “Swear to God.”

 

“This is an off the record,” [Speaker Paul] Ryan said.

 

Some lawmakers laughed at that.

 

“No leaks, all right?” Ryan said, adding: “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

 

“That’s how you know that we’re tight,” [Rep. Steve] Scalise said.

 

“What’s said in the family stays in the family,” Ryan added.

 

The remarks remained secret for nearly a year….

 

Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.”

 

McMullin ran for president last year as an independent and has been a vocal critic of Trump.

 

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

 

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

 

“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks said.

 

And there you have it. As has so often been true where Russians and investigations are concerned, first you get lies from Republicans. Then the free press confronts the liars with evidence. 

Then the liars back-pedal furiously. 

Rep. Rohrabacher.

Once dubbed, "Russia's favorite congressman."

 

POSTSCRIPT: We now know that Rep. Rohrabacher traveled to Moscow during the 2016 campaign. We know he received documents from Yuri Y. Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general, a post equivalent to the U.S. Attorney General.  

Rohrabacher denies using anything he received from Chaika to damage Hillary or the Democrats. (See: 7/18/18.)

April 22, 2020: Trump Cries "Fake News" - News Not Fake

 

4/22/20: On Tuesday, CDC Director, Dr. Robert Redfield issued a dire warning during an interview with the Washington Post. 

There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through. And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean. We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time.

 

Today, the president insisted that this was “Fake News,” and Dr. Redfield was “totally misquoted” by CNN. 

An interesting mistake to make, when talking about “Fake News,” to mix up the Washington Post and CNN.

Dr. Redfield said what Trump said he didn't say.

 

White House Press Liar McEnany naturally backs up her boss, and hints that maybe a few reporters deserve to be castrated for the way they peddle lies about poor Donald J. Trump. 

Her position was blown to bits by the following facts. Shortly after the Post conducted the interview with Dr. Redfield, he shared it in a tweet and urged others to read it. And on Wednesday, during a coronavirus briefing, he said, “I’m accurately quoted in The Washington Post.” 

Trump was standing by, and found himself reduced to complaining that the headline for the Post story – or CNN – or Mad magazine – was a mischaracterization. 

“We’re starting to open our country again,” he insisted, more hopefully. “Thanks to our significant progress against the invisible enemy, I’m pleased to announce that in line with my administration’s guidelines for opening up America again, we will begin to reopen our National Parks and public lands for the American people to enjoy.”

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (7/5/21): We know now who was right, Dr. Redfield, and who was blowing smoke. 

The president.