The Pesky Trouble with Facts

Given the way this administration has been operating, ​it was not surprising that the official Trump statement how only "109" people got visas revoked at airports was later changed to 100,000 by their lawyer when in court.

It turns out that "109" is to "oops, what I actually meant to say was 100,000" what "massacre" is to "oops, what I actually meant to say was 'arrested.'' Trump administration sense of accuracy with language appears to be lacking. By a degree of at least 1,000. By those standards of linguistic navigation, if Trump had been the one leading Christopher Columbus's exposition, the ships all would have sailed off the edge of the earth.

It's yet one more reason why it has become borderline-impossible to believe anything that comes out of the mouth of the president or any of his official spokespeople. Indeed, it's gotten so out-of-control that it's now required to create a macro for the phrase, "Imagine if Obama Did This..."

Like this latest installment -- Imagine if President Obama had released video of all the great intelligence they claimed to have gotten from a disastrous raid, and it turned out that the video was from A DECADE EARLIER!  But, yes, that's actually what Trump did.

​So, I really mean it when I wrote about not only not believing a word from his administration's mouth because they miss accuracy by such an unimaginable degree that reality and explanation don't come close.

As a result of how wildly, monumentally inaccurate statements from the White House are,, even the point that Trump keeps trying to make lately (his denial that the bust of Martin Luther King was removed from the Oval Office)  is something I question, given his track record with facts. For all we know, it *was* removed but put back when the story broke.  With their track record, the burden of proof is on them, not the listener.

And woe to whoever pushes back with actual reality that contradicts these "alternate facts," they are losers, fake news, sad, because accepting his personal flaws is something that Trump does not have in his make-up to accept.  And if it gets to the point that an Executive Order is actually denied??  Denied!!!

Well -- what we get is the spectacle of seeing how Trump upset can get at a federal judge overturning his Executive Order on immigration, referring to him as a "so-called judge"!! I suspect that "so-called" may become the new Trump Catch-Phrase, along with "Alternative Facts."

Given that Trump lost the popular vote, I guess that by his own standards that makes him the so-called president.

And hey, with Pope Francis releasing a new video that gracefully trashes Trump's stand on immigrants, I guess we can now look forward to a tweet about the so-called Pope...

And while we're at it, let's add one more late-breaking new installment to American's favorite game: "Imagine if Obama Did This..." --

On Saturday, I saw the following headline: "Trump Ordered to Pay $5.77M to Golf Club Members He Stiffed."

To anyone skeptical, you can read the story here.  And now imagine if President Obama did this.  I suspect the right-wing outrage machine would be on hyper-overdrive. But then, since this was for Trump, no doubt the court ruling ordering the payment was made by yet another "so-called judge."  

​​Facts are pesky things.  Reality is a pesky thing.  Once upon a time is was much easier to ignore them, but then , as Republicans liked to claim, Al Gore created the Internet and near-instant communication provided the opportunity to put on the brakes and actually show the lie.

I'm happy to accept actual evidence that the Trump administration shows to support anything!  But at this point -- I require the evidence.  I know that the 25% who will believe Trump on anything and everything don't have the same standards or -- it seems -- any.  But seeing the 36% approval rating Trump is at after only two weeks of his Honeymoon Period in office...it appears that most others are beginning to require that regular evidence, as well.

Facts are such pesky things.