Fakes, Fakers and Fakery

Drowning our politics and culture in a "firehose of falsehood" has been the modus operandi of the reactionary Republican right for decades, and it knows no end. The pollution is unrelenting, a daily toxic shower of lies, misdirection and slander. Here's a brief roundup of some recent examples, with some of the usual suspects =cough= GOP-TV =cough= Lyin' Ryan =cough= :

The Sprint/ Softbank gambit

... Trump announced that Sprint was bringing 5,000 jobs back to America. "I just spoke with the head person," Trump told Bloomberg. "He said because of me they're doing 5,000 jobs in this country."  

... Trump did indeed desperately try to take credit for this, and you will be unsurprised to learn that he was lying. First of all, Sprint announced these jobs back in April. Here's the Kansas City Star: "Sprint Corp. is launching a nationwide service to hand-deliver new phones to customers in their homes. The Direct 2 You service, which first rolled out in a Kansas City pilot, will lead to the hiring of about 5,000 mostly full-time employees as it spreads nationwide." 

Second, the Japanese owner of Sprint, Softbank, announced in October that it was creating a huge tech investment fund. 

Third, in December, Softbank's CEO announced the fund again after a meeting with Trump, and said that one part of the whole package was the creation of 50,000 new jobs. Today, Sprint reluctantly conceded that its 5,000 jobs were part of the previously announced 50,000 jobs. 

And finally, these jobs were announced yet again today. 

That makes four times these jobs have been announced. Donald Trump was responsible for none of them.  (our emphasis)

Are you wondering if our trusted media will blow the whistle on the fakery?  Surely you jest.

The Food Stamp "fraud" fakery

It’s widely assumed that congressional Republicans, working with a Republican White House, will go after social-insurance programs with a vengeance next year, and the most economically vulnerable Americans are likely to face new hardships. GOP allies know that the public might be more tolerant of drastic cuts if the public distrusts the public programs themselves. 

And with that in mind, Fox News ran a curious report this week.

Food stamp fraud is at an all-time high, with cases this year including a state lawmaker and even a millionaire. 

According to the USDA, $70 million of taxpayer money was wasted in 2016 due to food stamp fraud. [snip]

Taking the report at face value, the question is bizarre. The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, generally known as food stamps, is a nearly $71 billion program. If $70 million helps provide food for people who shouldn’t receive assistance, that’s 0.09% of the overall budget. In other words, according to Fox’s report, 99.91% of the money Washington spends on food stamps is spent appropriately. That’s an amazingly successful program. 

What’s more, if we continue to take Fox’s report at face value, since when do we “end” public programs in reaction to tiny amounts of fraud? If someone found 0.09% of misspent money in the Pentagon budget, wouldn’t it be silly to say we should scrap the Defense Department? 

But here’s the best part: there’s no reason at all to take Fox’s report at face value. 

As Ari Melber noted on last night’s show, Fox sourced the Agriculture Department, but the Agriculture Department hasn’t put out any new information about fraud. When we called the agency yesterday, department officials said they didn’t know where Fox came up with the figure. (our emphasis) 

We're guessing it came right out of this fella's ↓ ass --

Obamacare's "damage"

House Speaker Paul Ryan has vowed a quick repeal of Obamacare in order to “stop the damage” and because “things are only getting worse.”   

Meanwhile, here is a selection of news reports from the past two weeks: 

The Obama administration announced that the number of people signing up for insurance through HealthCare.gov, the federal website that 39 states use to administer Obamacare plans, is even higher than last year. State-run sites such as Covered California are reporting similar surges. 

An independent think tank, The Commonwealth Fund, published a study showing that fewer people are skipping medical care because of cost ― most likely because, thanks to the health care law, so many more people have health insurance. 

Standard and Poor’s Global Ratings reported that insurers selling Obamacare plans are seeing better financial results this year, suggesting that premiums are finally coming into line with the actual medical expenses of their customers ― and that this year’s big rate hikes may be a “one-time pricing correction.” 

It’s possible that Ryan thinks these and similarly positive news items are irrelevant ― that the Wisconsin Republican has deluded himself into thinking Obamacare really is an unmitigated policy disaster, rather than a fairly typical government program full of pluses and minuses and the inevitable implementation complications that large reform efforts usually overcome. 

It’s also possible that Ryan’s crusade to pass repeal in January has nothing to do with policy and everything to do with politics ― that he wants Congress to vote before the rest of the country, and maybe even the president-elect, wakes up to the real-life changes such a vote would unleash.  (our emphasis)

Russians hacking the election

Trump was asked about possible economic sanctions against Russia in general. He replied:

“I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind the security that we need.”

Um, what? 

There’s evidence that a foreign adversary attacked an American election, stole American materials, and launched an espionage operation to help elect their preferred, allied candidate. The beneficiary of foreign intervention has a new position: “I think we ought to get on with our lives” because computers “have complicated lives.”

Translation of Trump's traitorous weaselspeak: "Homina homina."

We will, in less than a month, have a government of, by and for the deplorable.  Sic transit gloria, America.

BONUS:  Tom Sullivan tells Democrats what they need to do to get on track.