When facts are fiction, Trump

Twitter/Donald J. Trump, 2/17/17.  "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" (2/16/17).

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What? Reliable news sources are "fake" you say.

The fact is conclusive: comments from
President Trump may not be credible.

CNN/Frida Ghitis/Opinion, 2/18/17. "Why Trump wants you to hate the media." "If you watched President Trump's astonishing press conference on Thursday, you might be forgiven for concluding that the most urgent problem facing America is that the media... 'is out of control.' ... journalism is plagued by 'false, horrible, fake reporting.'.... On Friday, he made his point even more directly, tweeting 'The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!'

.... Trump ... does have strong authoritarian tendencies... .... ... He is trying to confuse the public so that they will not believe inconvenient truths. What he wants is to manufacture his own pseudo-truth .... ... Where when things go wrong it is someone else's fault... .... Even on the generally-supportive Fox News channel, the brave Shepard Smith called him out. 'It's absolutely crazy,' Smith said. 'He keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we're some kind of fools for asking the question.' .... ... Trump's tactic may work for dictatorships. It won't work in the United States."  Read article. 

Related President Trump on Twitter .   Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump. "Don't believe the main stream (fake news) media.The White House is running VERY WELL. I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it." (2/18/17).  "One of the most effective press conferences I've ever seen!" says Rush Limbaugh. Many agree.Yet FAKE MEDIA calls it differently! Dishonest." (2/17/17). "The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by 'ntelligence' like candy. Very un-American!" (2/15/17). "This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign." (2/15/17). Etc., etc., etc.  

Related article. CNN/Politics/Eugene Scott, 2/18/17, "McCain: Dictators 'get started by suppressing free press'" Sen. John McCain slammed President Donald Trump's attacks on the media this week by noting dictators 'get started by suppressing free press.' 'I hate the press,' the Arizona Republican sarcastically told NBC News' Chuck Todd on 'Meet the Press.' 'I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.' But he continued, 'If you want to preserve -- I'm very serious now -- if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press,' McCain said in the interview. 'And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started'."

Note photographs. Fictional private investigator from Fact File blog, "10 facts about detective fiction." "What?"image from cgroup on Dixie Electric, 7/23/16 (?),"Air Conditioning Facts & Fiction."

Posted by Kathy Meeh