When I first saw this above last night, I retweeted it.  But then, on second thought, I realized that that wasn't the proper response.

Brad Parscale isn't just some Trump supporter.  Or merely some low-level member of the Trump administration, like, oh, another of those "I don't know him" coffee boys.  Or just the former digital media director for Trump in the 2016 race with a history of deception overlapping with Russian collusion.  No, Brad Parscale is the actual campaign manager for Trump 2020 re-election.  You know, the job that convicted felon Paul Manafort had.

It is not enough for Brad Parscale to delete his sweet. What is required is him addressing -- as campaign manager for the reelection of Trump 2020 -- that he posted something he himself recognizes was, at best, wrong, and at worst intentionally deceptive.

But that's not enough either.

Honestly, I have no idea if this was just a totally, understandable "oops" moment where Brad Parscale saw a great photo of Air Force One at the Daytona 500 race where Trump was on Sunday, or something he knew perfectly well wasn't remotely from the event he oversaw but didn't care if it was true or not.  What I do know is that it doesn't matter.

To be clear, it would matter for most administrations.  ("Most" being every other administration in U.S. history since the invention of photography.)  It would matter for most people, as well.  However, it does not matter for this administration, the Trump administration which is headed by someone with 16,241 documented lies since taking office only three years ago.

Lies are the fuel of this administration.  This isn't the first photo they've gotten wrong.  Further, they have a history of using other doctored photos and videos.  And Trump himself has personally sent them out.  Then, you add in those 16,241 Trump lies.  And all the other actual, knowing lies from Trump spokespeople.  Not to mention that this is an administration based on a foundation of "Alternative facts."  And a president represented by a personal lawyer who has said, bluntly, agressively, with no shame, that "Truth is not truth."

For the record, just to be clear about it up front -- truth is truth. 

Also, facts are, in fact, facts.

And perhaps above all, this false photograph is from an administration that has been desperately trying to make the public distrust the news, desperately trying to make the public think the news is fake.  While itself has been built on a foundation of fake.  Such as this now-deleted fake photo.

All of which addresses the reality that this is an administration with zero credibility.  Which is why it doesn't matter whether Brad Parscale -- the campaign manager for Trump 2020 -- knew the photo was false or just made an oopsy mistake this one time.  The point is that nothing that comes from the Trump administration should be believed at this point.  Nothing.  Zero.  Nada.

That doesn't mean that nothing the Trump administration says is true.  Of course some of it is.  But they have lost any and all consideration of credibility to the extent that nothing from their mouths or pens or tweets or ads should be trusted anymore at face value, unquestioned.  Absolutely nothing.

So, while Brad Parscale -- Trump 2020 campaign manager -- should be required by every member of the news media who deals with him to address this false photo, not a single word he says -- quite literally none -- should be taken at face value.  Because as All Things Trump have repeatedly, relentlessly shown, the foundation of this administration and its effort to stay in office is to lie and deceive and make the public distrust the truth.  So, by their own standards, they must be required to defend their own words and prove them.  Every one of them.

Maybe this photo was an innocent error.  Or maybe it was yet another attempt to lie and they got caught.  It doesn't matter.  They want you to distrust the news.  It's a very fascist thing, after all.  Page one of the table of contents.  So, if they want everyone to distrust the news, then the press -- and we all -- must do so with them, because that's the rules of the game they've set up.  To not believe them.

By the way, I'm okay with people being aware that all news can possibly be incorrect, but by the same token, we make that judgement on what we trust but the track record and standards an organization lives by.  After all, if a news company is repeatedly wrong about what they report and can't be trusted for correcting their mistakes, they go out of business. So, we know it's essential for an actual news organization to succeed that they operate at the highest standards.  And we factor that reality into our judgement.

But when an administration relentlessly lies and falsifies documents and hides evidence and says not to trust the truth, because the truth isn't truth and there are alternative facts and Remember the Massacre of Bowling Green that never existed -- you have only two options:  to not trust them or to trust their word when they say not to trust them.

I'm fine either way.  I don't trust them.  I require verification of everything from the Trump administration.  Everything.  Everything.  Everything.

And it my fond hope that, at this point, so too will the press require verification, as well.  About everything from the administration and re-election campaign.

Everything.

If someone from the Trump administration says, "Good morning," at this point -- check it out.  Because they haven't earned the right to believe them that it's really the morning or is good..  Nor, as they themselves have said, do they want you to.

And the elected members of the Republican Party are okay with that.  So, fine, don't believe them either.  Because they enable it all and are complicit.

So, Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump 2020, deleted his glaringly-false tweet.  Gee, that's swell.  But when you're the campaign manager for the president of the United States, that's not taking responsibility for your actions, that's hiding them.  And that's Standard Operating Procedure for this administration.  That's blocking witnesses, that's not allowing evidence, that's locking away the actual transcript of a phone call as code-level security.  On and on, over and over.  Year after year, day after day.  And that's why far more is required by him and from the press.

And the Republican Party is okay with it.

Not from the archives!  It's been a while, but we actually have a Piano Puzzler new to these pages. And so this week's contestant is Shawn Weil from Melrose, Massachusetts.  It took me a while to even get a sense of the hidden song, but eventually I did pick something it out and was right.  I didn’t guess get the composer style, but at least I got the period and country right.  Just the wrong person.

The NBA All Star game is being held in Chicago this weekend.  A local resident showed up at one of the events to say hi and help out.

​The contrast of humanity is gripping.

It's only 2-1/2 minutes and not much happens that's newsworthy.  But watch it all the way because it's so profound in its normalcy and basic decency.

Since today is the day when most baseball teams report to Spring Training, I thought it would be a good time to post an episode of the Ron Burgundy Podcast from around the middle of last year, In the show, Ron talks baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers' Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, Clayton Kershaw.​

Today's guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR game quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is the Washington correspondent for New York magazine Olivia Nuzzi.  Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is pretty amusing, since she tells the behind-the-scene tale of Trump wanting to talk to her and an even funnier one about dealing with Rudy Giuliani.
 

A particularly good Al Franken podcast this week, since he always has an extremely good conversation every time he talks with Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar for the American Enterprise Institute.  As Al writes, “Veteran Washington observer Norm Ornstein tracks the erosion of norms that once allowed Washington to work. From Newt Gingrich instructing Republicans to demonize Democrats as “sick, corrupt, traitors” to Mitch McConnell denying Merrick Garland a hearing. The abandonment of fact-based evidence, shutting down the government, using the filibuster to grind the Senate to a halt, to a pathological President attacking the media as ‘enemies of the people.’” 

This is one of my favorite pieces that Conan O'Brien has done.  It's when he decided to go out and help for Valentine's Day.  Today seemed like a good day to post it again...

Happy Valentine's Day. Here are a half dozen absolutely great love songs that most people probably don't know -- unless they wander around these pages where I've poste the songs.

This first is a gorgeous ballad from the musical Fiorello! written by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock.

Next, here's one of the best love songs of the many written by the great Steve Goodman, which is saying a whole lot.  

For a change of pace, this is a song that singer-songwriter Tom Paxton describes as "the only true love song."  It's his "Not Tonight, Marie."

What I've loved about this song, "Love is the Reason," from the musical A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is its utter charm mixed with whimsy.  It's performed by Shirley Booth, and written by Dorothy Fields and Arthur Schwartz.

Okay, we have two more to go.  This may be one of the most utterly joyous performances of a love song I know.  It's Louis Armstrong with "Be My Life's Companion."  I especially love his little ad-lib at the 2:25 mark.

Finally, we end this gaggle with what might be top competitor with "When Did I Fall in Love?", the completely gorgeous "I Know Now" from the British musical Robert and Elizabeth, about the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.  It's written by Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer.  We fortunately have a video of the two original stars, Keith Michell and opera singer June Bronhill recreating the number for television.

Gut-wrenching testimony on Tuesday to the Ohio state legislature by former Ohio State University wrestling captain Adam DeSabato telling of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) begging and crying for a half-hour that he deny his sex abuse charges, just like Jordan got others to drop theirs, and repeatedly calling Jordan a "coward."

The charges that Jordan wanted Adam DiSabato to drop included allegations that DiSabato's own brother had been sexually abused during the time Jordan was a coach and helped cover things up. I haven't found video that I can embed, but you can view the the Ohio Channel video of his testimony here, starting at the 17:15 mark.

I recommend it because it's so moving and raw, and also because the setting of him testifying in the state legislature is especially meaningful, but if you prefer to stick around these pages , this is a more low-key, 8-minute appearance by Mr. DiSabato this morning on CNN, in which (among many things) he says about Jim Jordan's denials knowing nothing about the abuse --

"I think it’s a boldface lie, because someone went to him and told him about an exam to his face and it’s been documented. There were several people that went up to him, we all complained. It was an open discussion in the locker room around anywhere we were at. But mostly when the physicals came around every year because, you know, it was a problem."

Amid all the controversy of Trump's involvement with the Justice Department trying to lesson the sentence for Roger Stone who was convicted on seven felony counts, Attorney General William Barr gave an interview with ABC News trying to explain that this was all normal.

A few things, but one very important point to keep in mind.

First, if all this was just normal process and Standard Operating Procedure, I wish the reporter had asked him (or any subsequent reporter asks him) to please name the last time he -- or anyone in the Justice Department -- overruled federal prosecutors to lower a sentencing recommendation.

Second, as former U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman pointed out last night, by the Justice Department returning to court with their lessened sentencing recommendation, the federal prosecutors have laid the foundation as precedent for all defense attorneys to use this argument for lowering sentences of their clients, not just because it is now stated Justice Department policy, but specifically as ordered by the United States Attorney General.  The unintended consequence of this aside, it would seem to be an appropriate issue for Trump's opponent to raise as to why his administration is soft on crime.

But there is also a very Important fact to keep in mind about this whole issue surrounding Roger Stone --

I think it's generally assume that Roger Stone will be pardoned by Trump.  What's important to remember is that this is the equivalent of pleading guilty.-- but even more to the point, someone who has accepted a pardon is required by law to answer truthfully ANY and all questions asked him under oath. Any question, since he cannot plead the 5th Amendment because there is no jeopardy attached.  Or he can go to jail for obstruction of justice.

If (or when) Stone is pardoned, that could actually turn out to be terrible for Trump.  The House is continuing its investigations of Trump and oversight of the administration.  It seems highly reasonable to think that Stone will be subpoenaed.  It's possible that Trump could pardon him on his last day in office.  But assuming Democrats retain control of the House, investigations won't stop.  Certainly Roger Stone could decide to obfuscate or not answer, and no new evidence will come to light -- that's his choice, and if he does so, he might well go back to prison.