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Rick Perry Lies Twice As Much As He Tells The Truth

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Rick Perry, the latest in the radical, religious, Republican race to the presidency, lies twice as much as he tells the truth. No, this isn’t partisan slinging, this is from the folks at the non-partisan Politifact, who write in their investigation that on some major issues and statements, Perry has told the truth ten times, and lied 21, and add, Perry “has spoken accurately when airing figures calculated by others that don’t necessarily reflect on his own record.”

“No one in Texas politics has faced the Truth-O-Meter more than Rick Perry, who’s gotten more True ratings than anyone else in the state — 10 — while also leading in False (14) and Pants on Fire ratings (7).

“The just-declared presidential hopeful has fared well on our other meter, the Perry-O-Meter, which rates the fulfillment of campaign promises. To date, a dozen promises have been rated Kept, three as Broken. And now, given his speech in South Carolina, we’re also marking as Broken his repeated vow not to run for president.”

Note that this doesn’t include all the false statements that lie in his announcement on Saturday that he is running for president, and that having an eye on the White House seems to have been a plan all the while.

“His exaggerations and falsehoods have typically touched on federal issues, including border safety and actions by the Obama administration. For instance, he once inaccurately said he had not been called by the Obama White House and wrongly said that the state hadn’t heard a response from the federal government to its applications for Medicaid waivers.”

Politifact discusses issues like Perry’s recurring lies about issues like this one that just make hiom look like Chris Christie.

“In a December 2010 interview, Perry told a writer whose blog appears on the Houston Chronicle’s website that the state’s request for a federal waiver allowing it to restructure its Medicaid program “has languished in a file cabinet at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for more than two years.” We’d previously learned that the federal government had been waiting for Texas to revise its original proposal — meaning the ball was in the state’s court. Noting Perry had earlier aired the stalled-in-Washington claim, which we then rated False, we ruled his rerun worse than inaccurate. Pants on Fire!“

Politifact says Perry has “distorted” facts, and also cited Perry saying the difference between 40% and 63% is “not that much different.”

Perry lied on issues like when he said, “You’ve got bombs exploding in El Paso.” You didn’t.

And one has to wonder not why Perry lies so much, but why he lies — especially about issues like this one.

“Asked about his relations with Obama’s administration, he said: ‘I have, frankly, never had a call from them.’ Information from both the White House and Perry’s state schedule contradicted his claim. Presuming the state schedule reflects what actually happened, Perry had received such a call two weeks earlier. Pants on Fire.“

But Politifact isn’t the only one digging a little deeper into the Texas Governor’s statements.

In May, Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos wrote,

“Apparently our snake oil dealing Governor Rick Perry is lying his way through the state of California in an effort to trick CEOs into moving to Texas.

“Of course most folks in Cali, unlike those of us in Texas, have no clue that Rick Perry is incapable of fessing up to the sin of his reckless fiscal polices. For Texas is flat out broke and it has lost more jobs than California had in 2010. In fact, Texas ranked second in the nation in job losses.

 

Shaw cites a Houston Chronicle op-ed by Lisa Falkenberg that states,

Texas actually lost 352,500 non-farm jobs from 2008 to December 2009, according to seasonally adjusted data from the Texas Workforce Commission.Over the past three years, the period cited in the Journal, Texas lost 61,600 jobs, according to Workforce Commission data from March 2008 to March 2011.

Of course, our numbers are still better than those in many other states, including California. Texas’ jobless rate is 8.1 percent, compared with California’s 12 percent.

Falkenberg adds,

“Every time the governor or some other politician downplays the effect on Texas, it minimizes the struggles of the 984,411 Texans, who, by latest count, are still out of work.”

And just yesterday, The Des Moines Register reported Perry’s lie about the trucking industry and government regulations.

“Perry, who on Saturday announced he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, contended in Des Moines today that federal regulations are stifling creation of American jobs.

“He then proceeded to cite what he termed an “obscene, crazy” regulation. “If you are a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re going to have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?”

Of course, Perry’s lies are just convenient politics, and don’t represent actual facts, just targets he thinks he can gain political points with. The Register delivered the facts.

“U.S. Department of Transportation officials are disputing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s statement at the Iowa State Fair today that federal administrators plan to require a farmer driving a tractor across a public road to obtain a commercial driver’s license.

“We are absolutely not requiring farmers” to obtain commercial licenses, such as those required of semi-trailer operators, said U.S. DOT spokeswoman Candice Tolliver in Washington, D.C.

“She said U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood had put out a statement last week making the DOT’s position clear.

“We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking farmers who feed our country and fuel our economy,” LaHood’s statement said.”

Like Perry’s number one rival, Michele Bachmann likes to say — albeit in another context — this is just “the tip of the spear.”

Go deeper, fellow journalists.

(image: Texas Governor Rick Perry’s signature.)

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News

‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory

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14 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.

“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.

Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”

Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2022 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.

On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”

Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”

“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”

She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

 

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‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

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17 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.

Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.

“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”

The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”

Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”

Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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News

‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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20 hours ago

on

April 22, 2024

By

Prosecutors for the State of New York in their opening statement drew a direct line between the October 2016  “Access Hollywood” leaked audio and Donald Trump’s alleged “hush money” payoff to two women, including the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, telling the jury it was “election fraud, pure and simple.”

Legal experts are dissecting the prosecution’s opening argument. Professor of law, MSNBC contributor and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann summed it up, saying New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg “squarely places the NY criminal trial in the election interference/corruption bucket– exactly what the DC and GA indictments allege, just 4 years later.”

“And the NY alleged ‘cover up’ is reminiscent of the two MAL [Mar-a-Lago] alleged obstruction schemes post-presidency, to keep prosecutors from uncovering evidence of that scheme,” Weissmann added.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo late Monday morning in his 45-minute opening argument told jurors, “This case is about criminal conspiracy and a cover up,” according to MSNBC’s Joyce Vance.

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“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election,” Colangelo told jurors, CNN reports. “Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

“This was a planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures,” Colangelo, a former U.S. Department of Justice Acting Associate Attorney General, told jurors.

“Another story about sexual infidelity, especially with a porn star, on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign,” Colangelo added. “’So at Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated the deal to buy Daniels’ story,’ and prevent it from becoming public before the election.”

“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”

Vance, an MSNBC legal analyst, professor of law and former U.S. Attorney, explains: “The scheme the prosecution is outlining is catch & kill to elect Trump-awful but lawful. Trump crossed the line into illegality when he created false business records to conceal his payments to Cohen to cover up the payments to Stormy Daniels.”

READ MORE: Fox News Host Suggests Trump ‘Force’ Court to Throw Him in Jail – by Quoting Him

“It’s always the cover up,” she adds.

Professor of law and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman adds, the prosecution told jurors “a straight election-interference story.”

Colangelo, Litman says, told jurors that Trump’s then personal attorney Micheal Cohen “then discussed the [Stormy] situation with Trump who was adamant he did not want the story to come out. Another story…on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign.”

MSNBC legal contributor Katie Phang describes Colangelo’s opening argument, saying he is “working methodically and chronologically through the conspiracy, identifying the main characters and their involvement. He speaks clearly and succintly [sic].”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.

Watch an MSNBC clip below or at this link.

 

READ MORE: Gaetz: ‘Corrupt’ Republicans Could ‘Take a Bribe’ and Throw House to Dems, Blocking Trump Run

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