On Our Liar In Chief…

You may have heard, Donald Trump had an interview with Time very recently. An interview that earned him four Pinocchios from The Washington Post.

Most of us know full well that Trump has a serious problem with the truth. In fact no one that has been paying any real attention fails to see this.

Trump lies with such regularity that one cannot help but arrive at the consclusion he is a pathological liar. Just as a frame of reference… Pathological lying (also called pseudologia fantastica and mythomania) is a behavior of habitual or compulsive lying. It was first described in the medical literature in 1891 by Anton Delbrueck. … The individual may be aware they are lying, or may believe they are telling the truth.

Trump certainly appears to fit the above description. At least to the non medical layman. Whether Trump understands he is lying or actually believes his lies are the truth is really immaterial. Presidents of the United States of America must earn and maintain the respect of the people of our nation. As well as  that of the entire free world. A pathological liar cannot do that.

Trump has the support of less than 40% of the American people, and, it continues to head south. Little by little. The only real question is, how long before he hits the bottom? The logical next question is,  how will he be able to continue to govern?

Our hope was for Trump to be a successful president. A hope he would put on the presidential cap, begin to tell the truth, and become a unifier rather than the divider he has chooses to be. It now seem almost conclusive that will never happen. We are likely stuck with a pig in a poke for his 4 year term.

Read the list of falsehoods Trump spewed during his Time interview HERE. It is an extensive one..

Peter King Says Trump Wiretap A 99.5% Certainty…

Rep. Peter King (R-NY), another Trump surrogate, told Bill O’Reilly on FOX’s O’Reilly Factor that it is 99.5% certain, and likely 100% certain, that Trump was surveilled. King did say Trump overstated it when he accused President Obama of ordering wiretapping his phones.

King was obviously referencing the information Representative Devin Nunes went public with yesterday. Information that mysteriously surfaced and was provided by an unnamed source.

It seems clear Trump’s congressional supporters are using new information as a means to legitimize rump’s prior allegations.

Breitbart “News”, America’s premier conspiracy theory “news” outlet ran an article this morning.

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, admitted after his committee’s review of President Donald Trump’s claim the Obama administration had wiretapped his transition team, he had a “legitimate case to make,” but said he may have overstepped with his Twitter claim.

“[T]he president had a very legitimate case to make,” King said. “He overstepped it by saying President Obama ordered wiretapping. That we don’t know, but what we do know is to me this is shameful.”

Host Bill O’Reilly pressed King on the seriousness of Trump being “surveilled,” to which King said it was at least 99.5 percent correct he was surveilled.

“I would say, from all I know, you’re at least 99-and-a-half percent accurate, and probably 100 percent,” he replied.

This amounts to trying to put lipstick on a pig.

FROM METAPHOR TO METAPHYSICS

Let us take a pause from worldly preoccupations.  What title should I give this photo?  To call it a ‘Lotus Leaf’ is too profane.  For Egyptians, Hindus, and Buddhists, the lotus is the embodiment of the sacred.  Since the flower retracts each night and reopens at dawn, the lotus serves as a symbol for creation, death, and rebirth – for the journey of consciousness in the field of time.

Perhaps the title should suggest creation inside the water droplet. Any kid with a toy microscope and a nearby pond will tell you: Every droplet is a universe teeming with life.

In illo tempore.  A scarab beetle emerges from the mud of the Nile; a mighty wind sweeps over a primordial abyss; eons of time pass in the wink of an eye as Brahma sits atop a lotus blossom. Every beginning starts with a word, a dream, a vision, a thought.

Notice the debris inside the water droplet and the vague reflection of the photographer.  It reveals something about my relationship to the subject.  Heisenberg might approve of these concepts: Of observer as part of the observed system, of subjective explorations of the same phenomenon.  Thoughts radiate along vascular paths to the edges of space and time.

Perhaps a title can misrepresent an image.  Is my point one of certainty or doubt, of insight or incredulity?  Sometimes a title takes our speculative imagination beyond the temporal image.

Photo: © Jeffrey Berger

Trump Exonerated?…

Trump’s allegations that his phones were wiretapped on orders by Obama have been widely considered  bogus by knowledgeable intelligence officials as well as congressional Republicans. This afternoon Representative Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, made public new information from an unnamed source that, on numerous occasions the Intelligence Community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.

Nunes decision to immediately announce this new information publicly and then visit the White House, without first sharing this new revelation with Democrats, spreads the dark shadow of Republican politics over the issue.

With every knowledgeable source essentially saying Trump’s allegations are lies for a mysterious unnamed source to suddenly surface with new information which deals with legal collection of information is suspicious in the very least. Especially given the information was channeled to a Nunes, a Trump ally.

The Atlantic – Coming into Wednesday, the Trump administration faced a crisis: Every knowledgeable source, from congressional Republicans to intelligence officials, has said that President Trump’s claim that his predecessor “wiretapped” him was bogus. In the midst of this crisis, a mysterious and unnamed “source” apparently delivered new information to Nunes, a Trump ally, which deals with legal collection of information. Nunes, in turn, quickly went public with the information, despite offering no proof of wrongdoing, in an apparent effort to shift the story in a direction favorable to the administration.

For example, Nunes said that all of the information that was collected legally, as part of “incidental collection” that occurs when U.S. citizens are captured speaking with lawful non-U.S. targets of surveillance under FISA orders. Nunes also reiterated that there had been no “wiretap” on Trump Tower, as the president has alleged and continued to assert, despite disavowals by top Republicans in Congress and the intelligence community.Yet Nunes’s announcement offered Trump a lifeline, presenting him—intentionally or not—with a way to claim he really had been surveilled. Trump quickly seized it, saying he felt “somewhat” vindicated during a brief pool spray at the White House.Nunes charged that while the collection was entirely legal, the fact that Trump team staffers’ names were unmasked and information was shared is “inappropriate.”

“It looks like it was legal, incidental collection that then made its way into intelligence report,” Nunes said. “Nothing criminal at all involved.”

The problem is that there’s no way to assess the truth of Nunes’s claims. He says he has full faith in his source, suggesting it’s someone within the intelligence community, but it’s not clear that anyone besides Nunes has seen the “reports” to which he referred: Adam Schiff, the Democratic ranking member on the committee, has not, and while Nunes briefed both Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, there’s no indication he showed them the report.

This is troubling because, as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf reported Wednesday morning, Nunes’s statements so far in the investigation make it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt on truthfulness. The Washington Post also previously reported that the White House had asked Nunes to help tamp down stories about Trump team ties to Russia.

Moreover, Nunes repeatedly said he did not have all the information he needed, raising the question of why he felt it was worthwhile to go public immediately. As Republicans including Nunes complain about unauthorized leaks of classified information to the press, he has come forward to publicize anonymously obtained intelligence community materials.

His choice to take it to the White House is even more perplexing, especially without having discussed the matter with Schiff. Trump accused Obama of having surveilled him despite offering no evidence for the claim. No evidence has appeared since. Pressed to explain why it can’t simply provide the proof, the White House—rather than admit, as appears indisputable, that it has no evidence—has claimed that because of “separation of powers,” Congress should investigate without executive-branch interference. By taking his information to Trump on Wednesday, Nunes has driven a bulldozer through that wall of separation.

In leaving Schiff out of the process, meanwhile, he has blithely poisoned his cooperation with the Democratic member on the committee. Monday’s committee hearings with FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers showed that there were already effectively two separate House intelligence committees, a Democratic one worried about Russian meddling in the election and a Republican one worried about leaks about Michael Flynn. Nunes’s sidestepping of Schiff, though, could doom any remaining prospects for cooperation on the committee.

Schiff angrily responded during a press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

“The chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or he is going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both,” Schiff said. “Unfortunately I think the actions of today throw great doubt in the ability of the both the chairman and the committee to conduct the investigation the way it ought to be conducted.”

The first hundred days of the Trump administration has not yet passed. Yet his administration is mired in questions about its legitimacy and possible scandal. Largely due to its problems with truth and ethical behavior. It’s only going to et more bizarre and unnerving.

Simply unbelievable is the only way Trump’s ineptitude and that of his administration can be described. As well as that of many republicans in congress.

Story continues HERE.