Trump Lied 2 Times a Minute During Presser: NPR

By Michael Woyton

Anyone who was really listening to the “press conference” that former president Donald Trump held Thursday in his Mar-a-Lago country club could tell that many things coming out of the convicted felon’s mouth at the very least didn’t ring true.

Since then a few news outlets have fact-checked some of the more egregious misrepresentations, including the infamous — and false — Willie Brown emergency helicopter landing story. 

But NPR on Sunday published its massive undertaking: outlining “162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies” uttered during the 64 minute presser.

“That’s more than two a minute,” NPR reported. “It’s a stunning number for anyone — and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.”

NPR said that, yes, politicians spin, fib and misspeak, but there is an expectation that any errors will be acknowledged and corrected.

“But what former President Trump did this past Thursday went well beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do,” the news outlet said.

SEE ALSO: O’Donnell Calls Press to Task over Trump ‘Press Conference’

The NPR article is quite a read, and it is important to keep in mind that none of the reporters pushed back on anything that Trump said.

I think my favorite checked facts concerned the process by which Vice President Kamala Harris was elevated from President Joe Biden’s running mate to leading her own ticket.

Fact Check Nos. 32-34 had Trump saying, “And I’m no Biden fan, but I’ll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you’re looking at, they took the presidency away. … And they took it away.”

NPR responded,” There’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution about picking presidential candidates. This is a party process, and everything has been done within party rules. And, again, the presidency wasn’t taken away: Biden is still president.” 

It’s pretty well documented that Trump plays fast and loose with the truth. The Washington Post said that in the first 100 days of his presidency there were 492 “suspect claims,” with more than 30,000 over the four years.

The real questions that remain are, Does Trump believe it’s OK to continuously lie, or does he have no grasp on reality?

Walz’s Hotdish Specialty Hits Campaign Trail

By Michael Woyton

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz likely drove another stake into his wholesomeness by posting a recipe on the site previously known as Twitter for Tim Walz’s Turkey Trot Tater-Tot Hotdish.

I intend to try making it because I’ve only made one hotdish in my years in the kitchen, and it didn’t put me off trying another. (I think that one was inspired by Amy Klobuchar.)

Reading Walz’s recipe brought back memories of working at King Features Syndicate back in the 1990s where one of the other editors and I were intrigued by the Family Circle presidential spouse cookie baking competition.

It was, of course, the time when Bill Clinton was running for president and Hillary Clinton famously said in response to having a job at a law firm (no other first ladies were gainfully employed at the time) that “I suppose I could have stayed home, baked cookies and had teas,” according to Time.

Family Circle got Barbara Bush to agree to a bake-off with Mrs. Clinton, which the future first lady, secretary of state and Broadway producer won. I’m not saying that was a turning point in the campaign, but … a win is a win.

Back at King Features, I challenged Sandy, who had the cubicle next to mine, to duplicate Bush’s cookie recipe and we’d bring both recipes in and have our co-workers sample them. I’m proud to say my effort producing Hillary Clinton’s Chocolate Chip Cookies won more votes from the other syndicate employees.

Full disclosure: I slightly reheated my cookies in the break-room microwave, which I believe gave me an edge, though HRC’s recipe was the superior one. IMHO.

Fast forward to 2024 and Walz’s hotdish.

I’m wondering if Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance will be offering up a hillbilly-ish version of a hotdish to compete with Walz.

If and when he does, we’ll let you know.

Perhaps someone will agree to a hotdish bake-off with me.

Top image from Wikipedia

O’Donnell Calls Press to Task over Trump ‘Press Conference’

By Michael Woyton

Lawrence O’Donnell had a few choice words on his show Thursday night for the members of the press who were at former president Donald Trump’s “news” conference Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago country club.

The event was planned or mis-planned to avoid having any microphones placed so the actual questions could be heard. All that anyone viewing on television could hear clearly were the words coming out of the former president’s mouth. Even Trump had to ask the questions to be repeated frequently.

Whatever parts of the questions that could be heard seemed to have no relationship — or quickly lost any relationship — on what Trump was saying. At one point, The New York Times had a headline that generously called the press conference “meandering.”

Garrett Haake of NBC tweeted a transcript of his Q&A concerning mifepristone, showing the word salad that Trump produced.

O’Donnell said the reporters and their networks were doing the same thing they did in 2016: letting Trump say whatever he wanted for however long he wanted without even trying to push back on his lies and misrepresentations.

The host of the MSNBC 10 p.m. show said the media is giving Trump credit for having a “press conference,” and tacitly complaining that Kamala Harris hasn’t held a press conference, all while letting Trump continue to spout the same lies over and over again.

“Words spoken after [their questions] are not necessarily answers and are never answers when they come from Donald Trump,” O’Donnell said.

Some of the answers the former president gave were that nobody was killed on Jan. 6th at the U.S. Capitol, the crowd he spoke to before the riot was larger than MLK Jr. had, it was unconstitutional to replace President Biden with Harris for the upcoming election, everyone wanted abortion decisions to be made by each individual state and he was in a helicopter that went down in an emergency with former California politician Willie Brown.

There’s so much more. If you watch the video of the press conference, pause it now and again to Google what he was saying.

“A lie is never an answer,” O’Donnell said, adding that any reporter who says that Trump answered their questions is lying to their readers.

You can watch Trump’s complete press conference through this C-SPAN link.

Vance Accuses Walz of ‘Stolen Valor,’ Lying over Military Service

By Michael Woyton

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is hammering away at Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz’s military service saying the latter abandoned the soldiers he was leading as they were shipping off to a stint in Iraq.

What’s interesting and not a little sad about this is that Vance, who served in the military, has leveled accusations that are, if one is being generous, misrepresentations, or, if not being generous, out and out lies.

The effort to discredit Walz is being led by former Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Chris LaCivita. He was a consultant who helped sink John Kerry’s run for president in 2004, according to NBC News. Kerry is a documented war hero who was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Heart medals.

Vance is talking about “stolen valor” and said Walz deserted his unit as it was called up for deployment.

The timeline, from MSNBC, shows something different.

Screenshot

Walz joined the National Guard just after turning 17 in 1981. He ended his military career 24 years later as a master sergeant in 2005.

The timeline shows that Walz signed paperwork to run for Congress in January 2005 and officially retired from the National Guard in May 2005, after which in July 2005 his former battalion received notification it would be mobilized. One month later, his former battalion was officially ordered to Iraq.

A campaign spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris said Walz retired after 24 years of military service to run for Congress, where the chaired the Veterans Affairs committee and advocated for the men and women in uniform, NBC reported.

The campaign didn’t deny that Walz embellished, in an undated video about gun control, that he carried “arms in war,” but said he “carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times.” The spokesperson went on to say Walz thanked Vance “for putting his life on the line for our country” and that he would never “insult or undermine any American’s service” to the United States.

Vance worked as a public affairs Marine in Iraq doing community outreach, NBC reported.

While he was training others to use howitzers, Walz suffered from hearing impairment and was ordered in 2002 to appear before a medical retention board. The board cleared Walz to serve out the remaining years of his last six-year stint in the National Guard, according to MPR News.

Can’t Believe I’m Saying This

As my husband well knows, I’m not really a fan of “Saturday Night Live.” I can take it or leave it, but when I’m watching, I prefer to fast forward through most of it, concentrating on the cold open and the news segment (even fast forwarding through that).

I was curious about David Harbour’s appearance because I really enjoyed “Stranger Things.” And I was even more curious when SNL featured a video with Harbour as a garbageman.

And this is the part that I can’t believe — and neither can my husband. The video, which was a riff on movie superhero trailers, was nothing short of brilliant.

Harbour was perfect as the Grouch, the editing was tight, the music was perfect. It was extremely clever and worth watching again and again.

As a matter of fact, I can’t wait for the movie to come out!

A little introduction

I’m sure most of us sit and watch a movie or a television show and think, “I’ll bet everyone wants to know what my opinion is.” Well, some of us. Well, probably just me. I spend my workdays doing news and there’s no room for opinion — mine at least.

So I’m going to use this as an outlet for my thoughts on television, movies, the arts, music — whatever strikes my fancy.

A brief history: born in Texas, went to college in New Mexico and grad school in New York. Bummed around in editing for throwaways, a couple of newspaper syndicates, freelanced and then reported for a newspaper for a few years. (What’s a newspaper? It’s a big papery blog with advertising that is less and less frequently being thrown on doorsteps in the morning.) Then I transitioned to writing online news. And that brings us to today.

I hope what I write makes you think. I hope you enjoy it, too. Whether you do or don’t, let me know by leaving a comment.