Lies and Policies

 After the hurricane hit North Carolina, Mr. Trump lied about FEMA. He claimed that FEMA was unfair in allocating its help. His lies were so destructive that some victims refused to accept  FEMA's help.

Trump seems now to believe those lies. He is contemplating closing down and abolishing FEMA (Trump says states should manage disasters and weighs shuttering FEMA, New York Times, January 24, 2025). That would be a big mistake.

President Trump muses about letting each state be independent and stand on its own two feet. Does that mean no more Massachusetts money going to red states? Perhaps Massachusetts would like that; but I don't think so: from John Adams on down, Massachusetts has always believed in the United States of America.

Trump: BS or liar

Were the cues in Daniel Levitin's piece (Forget the tax returns, show me his brain scans. Boston Globe, February 21, 2017) strong enough to help us decide whether Donald Trump is a liar or a BS artist?

I think he is both.

At one level he tells one big lie: that the press and his opponents are liars purveying false facts. This is a strategic position taken to discredit any opposition.

At another level, he is a BS artist. He doesn't care what he says about immigrants, about Sweden, or about Russia as long as it creates a stir in the political ecosystem.

The BS is easy to deal with, but I do not know how we overcome the big lie.

Sent to Boston Globe

Never repeat the lie

The first step in resisting President Trump is NEVER REPEAT THE LIE.

Repeating the lie reinforces the false framing of the issue. We must only speak truth about the issue so as to imbed an accurate framing in the minds of people.

Sent to New York Times

Political lies

Op-Ed Boston Globe

Forbidding Political Lies

What is it about a lie, especially a political lie, that gives it Constitutional protection (Even misleading speech shouldn't be banned, Boston Globe, February 4, 2015: A14)?

Sent to Boston Globe

In Favor of an Anti-Lying Law

I disagree with Tom Keane that forbidding a lie has no place in politics (Boston Globe, June 22, 2014.

I sympathize that some hyperbole and exaggeration are inevitable in political campaigns. However lies can be damaging and if repeated over and over again become utterly believable so that attempts to correct the lie become viewed as incorrect.

I would suggest that it is time to amend the First Amendment. We need a mendacity amendment. 

This would not prevent politicians from lying -- after all in the heat of the moment a little exaggeration can be expected. 
However, once a statement had been judged to be a lie by independent observers, the politician who had uttered the lie would be prohibited from repeating it: in person, over the airwaves, in newspaper reports, in fliers. Surrogates and the politician's allies, party and campaign staff, as well as friendly PAC's would also suffer this prohibition. 
The Federal Elections Commission would be responsible for enforcing this rule.

This would allow for exaggeration but forbid it becoming institutionalized.

Sent to Boston Globe

Liar or Bully

July 21st. 2006
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Adrian Walker (At home, in control, Boston Globe, July 21st. Page: B1) in discussing the Governor's new found credibility as manager of the Big Dig recovery quotes Mitt Romney as saying "I've had no involvement."

Mitt Romney is either a liar or a bully.

If he is telling the truth, then he has been trying to remove Matt Amarello from the Highway Board for the past couple of years without any information that could justify removal. In my book, that is bullying.

If he did have the information to justify removing Amarello then he and his advisors have been deeply involved in the Big Dig and the Massachusetts Turnpike and he did nothing until a fatality occurred. That does not add to his credibility; in fact he's been caught in a barefaced lie.

Either way, we need an independent investigation.

Belive Scooter Libby

April 7th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

I find it difficult to believe Scooter Libby's claim that President Bush declassified the previously classified information that he passed on to various journalists.
Can you imagine that George Bush, a president of unimpeachable integrity who has been absolutely forthright in all his dealings with the public; can you imagine that George Bush would stand before the public and say that he wanted to get to the bottom of the question and that anyone involved in the leaks of classified information would be fired if he had already declassified that information?
Can you imagine that George Bush, a pillar of fiscal responsibility would stand before the public and allow an expensive investigation unfold if he knew, having declassified the information that no classified information had been passed on.
Can you imagine that George Bush, a man who is loyal to a fault to the people who work for him, would have put his subordinates through the wringer of a criminal investigation?
Actually I can imagine all of these. Bush lacks integrity, he lacks fiscal responsibility, and his loyalty is the kind that keeps people on because he cannot stand face to face conflict.
So, I guess I can believe Scooter Libby after all.

Bush's Energy Policy

February 1st. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

In his State of the Union Address President Bush made an eloquent but incomplete plea for reform in our energy policy (New York Times, February 1st, 2006; page A1.
The question is whether we can believe him.
In his Jackson Square speech of September 15th 2005, President Bush said: "there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality."
What in the intervening four months has the Bush administration done to relieve poverty in New Orleans or elsewhere (except among the hyper-rich)?
Is it that Mr. Bush is merely a man of fine words, or is he unable to bring the Congress along with him?
In either case, I remain skeptical that there will be any change in our disastrous energy policy.

Date: November 12, 2005
Sent to but not published by the Boston Globe

President Bush sometimes speaks the truth, but he rarely speaks the whole truth. Yesterday's Wilkes-Barre address (President steps up attack on war critics, Boston Globe, November 12th. 2005, A1, A12) was correct that early in the run up to the Iraq war everyone believed that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone was basing their beliefs on the same information.
But that "everyone knows" level of confidence was undermined by the reports of the UN Weapons inspectors between October 2002 and the first days of war. They reported finding no significant WMDs.
It is worthwhile examining the time line very carefully because it puts the Senate War resolution of October 2002 in a very different context than it is usually provided. On September 16th 2002, Iraq accepted the return of the inspectors; this followed by four days G. W. Bush's speech to the UN laying out the case for war. By September 30th, the Iraqis were dragging their feet and proposing unacceptable (to the US) conditions for the return of the inspectors including the exclusion of eight Presidential sites from their remit. On October 10th. The War Resolution passed Congress. In the weeks that followed, Iraqi recalcitrance collapsed and by November 18th. the inspectors were on their way to Iraq with no restrictions on their activities. The War resolution was just what was needed to get the inspectors into Iraq. As such it was a brilliant piece of realpolitik. Over the next four months, the inspectors did their work in Iraq. On February 14th., Hans Blix the chief inspector says that Iraq is in compliance with the disarmament agreement that ended the first Gulf War. March 20th. The War begins.
Yes, up until February, it was plausible to claim that we all knew that Iraq had WMDs; after February, no one could claim that position. The UN inspectors suggested that there was no causus belli. That should have been enough to derail the juggernaut. Alas it did not.
Men and women are dying in Iraq today because we failed to hold the administration accountable for the truth. We must not allow George W. Bush to continue with his misleading half-truths today.

More Energy Policy

February 3rd. 2006
Sent to but not published by the New York Times

It seems to me that President Bush has never come across a dot that he didn't try to disconnect.
The latest example is given in Paul Krugman's column (New York Times, February 3rd., page A 27) describing the Energy Policy of the Administration. With one breath, the President, in the State of the Union Speech, talks about increasing research on biomass and renewable energy; yet at the same time, his budget measures result in a reduction of funding to the Energy Department's research group that is working on those issues.
To understand the Administration's goals we need to look at what they do, not at what they say. Just as with the pious profession of help to the poor in New Orleans that has been coupled with cuts to Medicaid, the true goals of the Energy department do not embrace  renewable resources.

Bush, Socal Security, and the Big Lie

Date: January 27, 2005
Sent to but not published by Boston Globe

George W. Bush is an expert in playing the game of accusing his opponents of the sins that he himself is guilty of. He is quoted as saying in yesterday’s press conference (Boston Globe, January 27, 2005: A 3) that “those who want to derail a Social Security agenda ... by scaring people.” It is Bush and his minions who are going around scaring people with the big lie that the Social Security system is in deep trouble. Most assessments of the System agree that “minor modifications” of the system are required -- a modest change in the income level on which Social Security taxes are levied will do the trick. The draconian changes proposed by the President are completely unnecessary.
Instead of engaging in a sensible reform program, which we agree is necessary, he is determined to destroy the system while claiming to be saving it. Private accounts have three major flaws -- flaws that have been amply demonstrated by the disastrous privatization undertaken by the UK’s Thatcher government in the 1970's (and it was a disaster for both pensioners and for the insurance companies providing the pension benefits). These three flaws are the problem of volatility; the problem of individual plan costs; and the problem of transition costs. The first two accrue to the individual, the last to the country.
Any one who has lived through the past five years knows that share prices can go down as well as up; as can bond prices. Individuals with their private plans can win or lose in these two markets. As a result the capital they amass may or may not be sufficient to compensate for the reduction in Social Security benefits. The nice thing about Social Security benefits are that they do not run out – individual privatized accounts do not have similar longevity.
The Social Security trust fund has microscopic administrative costs (about 0.3% of its assets and many of these costs are not incurred for the administration of the trust fund but for assessing eligibility and making payments to the 40 million beneficiaries -- retirees and disabled employees). Privatized plans operating through brokerage houses, mutual fund companies, and insurance companies have much higher expense ratios – only TIAA-CREF and Vanguard have expense ratios in this ballpark for their Asset Allocation funds; funds in this class have average expense ratios 1.28% (according to Lipper). These administrative costs will reduce the capital that accrues in the individual’s account. Social Security enjoys enormous economies of scale that the individual cannot duplicate.
If funds that are currently paid into the Social Security trust fund are diverted to private accounts, the country will have to make up the difference. This means that we will start dipping into the trust fund next year rather than 20 years from now and it means that the trust fund will be exhausted in about seven or eight years rather than in 40 or 50 years from now. It is estimated that an additional $2 trillion debt will be incurred by the US; debt that international capital markets will be very chary about funding.
These are real costs that Bush and his yea-sayers do not mention. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, so watch what Bush and his spokes-people are saying as the volume of their scary talk increases over the next stage of the Social Security debate. And ask the tough questions that they ignore.
The past election was supposed to be about morality, what Bush is saying about Social Security is not moral; what Bush intends to do about Social Security is not moral.

Convention Truths

Date: September 3 2004
Sent to but not published by Washington Post

The Republican party Convention is becoming the convention of the big lie. So far the top performer has been erstwhile Democrat, Zell Miller. His list of weapons systems that John Kerry voted against were, in the main, weapons systems that Dick Cheney was also opposed to.

Never mind, the great American public will not notice that Cheney and Kerry were united on those issues. Only the lie that Kerry was soft on defence will be remembered

Close behind in the absurdity of his support for war was moderate republican Senator John McCain. He effused that we had to go to war because "We couldn't afford the risk posed by an unconstrained Saddam in these dangerous times." Unfortunately, Senator McCain overlooked the constraints imposed upon Saddam by the UN Sanctions, the arms inspectors who were on the ground (and finding nothing), and the allies who were patrolling Iraqi air space. Some freedom! With those constraints the necessity of war becomes quite questionable.

Our final example comes not from the convention itself but from some pre-convention advice given to the President by Senator Susan Collins writing in the Boston Globe. She claims that President Bush “called for the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.” (Boston Globe, August 29, 2004). She conveniently forgets that from October 2001 until June of 2002, President Bush soundly resisted the call for a Department of Homeland Security. It was only through pressure from the Democrats and especially from the families of those who perished in the 9/11 attacks that President Bush reluctantly adopted the idea in June of 2002.

Really even a Massachusetts Democrat expects better of these distinguished Senators. In politics, as in war, the first casualty is the whole truth.