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LIES AND THE LYING LIARS THAT TELL THEM

A Flailing Trump Pushes Questionable Voter Numbers

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Donald Trump speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

President Trump, still looking for a narrative after his disastrous government shutdown did immeasurable damage to the country, took to Twitter to share some numbers he believes about voter fraud.

In a move similar to his 2016 voter fraud claims, he once again argued about non-citizens voting. While Trump won in 2018, he lost the popular vote — and Trump tried to claim that was only due to voter fraud suppressing his numbers.

The GOP also suffered tremendous loses in the 2018 midterms.

A study by a Loyola Law School professor, Justin Levitt, tracked United States elections from 2000-2014. Out of more than 1 billion votes, they could only confirm 31 instances of voter fraud. Additionally, only four documented cases of voter fraud were discovered in 2016.

President Trump’s own commission on voting fraud shut down last January, after finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud. 

Trump’s source for his numbers was a tweet by Ken Paxton, the current Texas Attorney General. He retweeted Paxton’s claim as well.

The numbers Paxton are citing are suspect. For one, they cover a 22-year time period from 1996 to 2018. There remains, however, no evidence that any of these people voted fraudulently in the 2018 midterms.

What’s more, the data does not state that 58,000 non-citizens voted: these were emphasized as weak matches, with many of those listed being in the process of becoming naturalized citizens. 

Many names in that sample are also likely in error, potentially based on a name match alone, but not the same individual. Even the head of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators, Chris Davis, has requested patience, knowing that these number lack appropriate verification. Nevertheless, President Trump moved forward on these claims.

President Trump seems to be once again trying to create a narrative of voter fraud, akin to his post-2016 mantra that “millions” voted illegally in California, in spite of a clear lack of proof.

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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LIES AND THE LYING LIARS THAT TELL THEM

Marco Rubio: ‘Not a Crime’ to Break Federal Law by Taking Top Secret National Security Documents From the White House

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In a rare Fox News moment, host Bret Baier reported that many are concerned about the lack of Republican “alarm” over Donald Trump absconding with at least 15 cartons of documents and other items, some of which were classified, or even “top secret” classified, and storing them in his suite at Mar-a-Lago, compared to the massive coverage the media gave the Hillary Clinton email story.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who is the Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee, and also serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, responded by saying “it’s not a crime” to break federal law – the Presidential Records Act of 1978, in this case, by removing the documents or flushing them down the toilet.

It seems odd that the Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee would be unaware of federal laws about retention of presidential documents, especially handling of classified and top-secret national security documents.

The Florida Republican also suggested Trump had turned over all the missing documents, which is false.

Rubio began by claiming he doesn’t know what’s true because “they” have made up so many stories about Trump “over the years.”

He goes on to suggest, apparently erroneously, that Hillary Clinton’s treatment of classified documents was pleaded in a federal court case.

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LIES AND THE LYING LIARS THAT TELL THEM

‘That’s a Lie!’ MSNBC’s Hayes Destroys Kayleigh McEnany for Blatantly False Claim About Trump’s COVID Tests

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MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Thursday night played a clip of then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany discussing former President Donald Trump’s timeline of COVID-19 test results after he was diagnosed with the virus last year.

Hayes played the clip during a report on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’s claim that Trump tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 26, prior to his first debate with President Joe Biden.

“All of the evidence points to Trump having COVID, knowing he had COVID, and spending a week spreading it around while covering it up and refusing to admit he’s sick,” Hayes concluded.

READ MORE: Trump is ‘furious’ at Mark Meadows for spilling the beans about his illness last year

He went on to recall that after Trump finally announced he had COVID on Oct. 2, White House officials were “so sketchy” about when he had last tested negative — and then he played the clip of McEnany “trying to evade this simple question” on Oct. 4.

McEnany was responding to a reporter’s question about whether Trump had been tested prior to the debate on Sept. 29, or before a fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Oct. 1.

“I’m not going to give you a detailed readout with timestamps of every time the president is tested,” McEnany said. “He’s tested regularly, and the first positive test he received was after his return from Bedminster.”

“Again, I’m not giving a detailed readout of his testing, but it’s safe to say his first positive test was upon return, or at least after, Bedminster, that trip,” McEnany added.

“That’s a lie. We now know, that’s a lie. That clip there is a lie,” Hayes said, recalling that at the time, “the squirrelliness around this was hard to ignore.”

PBS News White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor agreed, saying, “When I watched Kayleigh lie there, it just reminded me of all the different times she lied, so many times, from the podium, from the White House lawn, from the stakeout location where she is in that clip.”

“It really just underscores that this was an administration that was never really playing it straight with the American people,” Alcindor said.

Watch below.

 

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LIES AND THE LYING LIARS THAT TELL THEM

Trump Issues Stunningly False Statement Criticizing Biden for ‘Attack’ on US Oil Reserves

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Donald Trump, the disgraced, former president who is reportedly planning a third campaign, on Tuesday released an exceptionally false statement criticizing President Joe Biden for taking action to combat increasing gas and home heating oil prices.

President Biden Tuesday morning announced he has authorized 50 million barrels of oil to be sold from the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserves, a move that should help lower oil and gas prices that have risen because of OPEC+ policies. Biden is making the move in conjunction with similar moves by five other countries: China, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.K.

“We expect the industry to be passing through these savings to consumers as quickly as possible,” a White House official said, as The Wall Street Journal reports.

“The president stands ready to take additional action, if needed, and is prepared to use his full authorities working in coordination with the rest of the world to maintain adequate supply as we exit the pandemic,” the White House added.

Trump, in a statement released to the press, outright lied about Biden’s move, and about his own performance and that of other U.S. Presidents.

“For decades our Country’s very important Strategic Oil Reserves were low or virtually empty in that no President wanted to pay the price of filling them up. I filled them up three years ago, right to the top, when oil prices were very low. Those reserves are meant to be used for serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else,” Trump falsely claimed.

As The New York Times’ Peter Baker notes, the Strategic Oil Reserves (technically the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,) were far from empty when Trump took office, but they were far less full when he left:

That’s not the only lie Trump told.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is authorized to hold up to 714 million barrels (in 2009 it was 727 million barrels), so they were nearly full when Trump took office. He also exposed his ignorance about how the federal government “buys” the oil. The oil is effectively traded to the government as payment (royalties) for drilling leases so presidents not wanting to “pay the price of filling them up” is false as well.

Here’s a graph from the U.S. government showing how many barrels of oil are in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves, starting in 1980. At no time were they “low or virtually empty,” not ever. The chart is highlighted to indicate the day Trump was sworn in to office:

The Reserves have been tapped about 20 times since they were first created in 1975, including to reduce the deficit in 1996 and 1997, in 2011 during the Arab Spring, and as loans to oil companies.

 

 

 

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