Three Lies Unmasked

OK, by Wednesday of this past week there had been so much nonsense playing out in the news that I had the following reaction: It's Wednesday - so it must be the Congress we have to look to for the outrage of the day.  That’s the schedule now isn’t it?  Supreme Court on Monday, civil trial Tuesday, Congress Wednesday, federal prosecutions Thursday, Florida Friday and potluck Saturday.  Sunday is a day of rest where we all just scream at the referees and officials of our favorite sporting events.   

This is what passes for order these days. 

Sigh.  

Unfortunately, the truth is there is actually no predictable order to any of the things going on in the world of American current events.  It nearly passed unnoticed when the ex-President of the United States advocated for the execution (yes, that’s correct – the execution) of the outgoing head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  In times past you might have expected that to get a bit more airplay.   

Then the Speaker of the House was fired by his own party – well, 8 members of his own party, which will no doubt give rise to a documentary called “Eight Is Enough” or something similar. It was during this contretemps that I noticed a number of news stories and claims by the various parties that were – well – I don’t want to say they were “lies” but… 

Oh, to hell with it – they were lies. 

Not the kind of lie where you say you saw Bigfoot going through your garbage cans or that your 200 square foot extension is actually 2000 square feet. I’m talking about a more subtle lie – one that could be claimed to be “true” if you just threw out all past experience and knowledge.  Here are a few of the lies I’m talking about as real-life examples. 

Lie Number One – The Matt Gaetz Crowd “Joined With Democrats” to Oust Kevin McCarthy 

You may have noticed news stories that say “Kevin McCarthy was removed from the Speaker’s seat when a rogue group of far-right Republicans joined with Democrats to oust him”. If you looked at the numbers this would appear true – Democrats plus those eight Republicans joined together to total 216 votes – enough to remove McCarthy from his job.   

Except – they really didn’t. 

All the Democrats did is what every party does when it comes to a vote for the Speaker’s job – they voted for their own party to have the position.  That’s the way the House works, has worked and will (presumably) continue to work absent extraordinary events (which, by the way, may happen next week). 

Whenever the office of Speaker is voted on the two parties go into caucus and select a candidate to stand for the role.  This part of the process can be contentious – let’s say there are 200 Democrats who caucus together – when they meet amongst themselves the vote for who will be put forward as Speaker can be highly contested – and could even conceivably be split 101-99.  But here’s the thing – whoever gets the 101 votes in the caucus – gets the full 200 votes when the matter goes to the Congress as a whole.  You get behind your own guy. The same applies to votes like the one concerning the removal of the Speaker – each party is supposed to control their own membership to vote as a bloc.  That, after all, is why they are set up as separate parties, why they are given only a certain amount of seats on each committee, how they are assigned things even as trivial as office space. Crossovers happen all the time when voting on bills or issues – but almost never when dealing with organizational matters like this. 

That is exactly what the Democrats did here – they aren’t supposed to vote for Kevin McCarthy – and they didn’t.  I mean just think rationally about this for a second - in what universe would the Democratic party ever coalesce to save Kevin McCarthy? The man has blamed them for everything from the invasion of Ukraine to the state of Donald Trump's hair. They followed time honored tradition and held ranks – performing as a loyal opposition – but – as they are supposed to - as a true opposition party.  

Of course – if the Republicans had simply done the same and followed form – held a caucus, presented their arguments and then gone to the floor as a unit (a true majority party) – then none of this would have happened.  Instead, as we all know – Matt and the Seven Dwarves decided not to follow this time-tested process.  Instead – they went off and toppled Kevin McCarthy for working across the aisle to prevent a government shutdown. They most certainly did not “work across the aisle” to get rid of him. 

Ostensibly the reason they did this is because McCarthy dared to not allow the federal government to shut down. Look – I get that though I (and the majority of the American people) may not want their government to drop tools and walk away from the job – others may see this is exactly the type of “come to Jesus” moment that is needed.  But, given the fact that the response the rogue Republicans made to the funding deal was completely over the top let’s not conflate the ordinary, expected, entirely routine actions of the Democratic House members with the extraordinary, unexpected and unusual approach taken by the Republican caucus.  The Republicans did this to themselves – the Democrats were just observers of the chaos. 

Lie Number Two – The Civil Case Against Donald Trump is Bogus Because “The Banks Got Paid Back”.

Donald Trump is involved in a myriad of criminal and civil cases at the moment. However, as has become increasingly clear, the one that troubles him the most is the civil case brought by the Attorney General of New York claiming that the Trump Organization systematically lied on financial forms submitted to banks throughout the years leading up to his Presidency and beyond. This action could result in serious losses to the Trump properties and could lead to the organization being banned from doing business in New York. Trump is understandably worried at that possibility and claims that this is all a bogus effort solely motivated by politics.

One of the reasons floated by Donald Trump when claiming he is the victim of a “witch hunt” is the assertion that the banks that lent him money in reliance on these false statements “all got paid back’. So – what’s the big deal? No one lost any money.

This seems to sound fairly reasonable. Isn’t this a victimless crime? Aren’t there better things for the Attorney General of New York to be doing than going after someone who has paid the banks who lent him all this money back? Isn’t this a red herring (or, perhaps, an orange one)?

No - it is not. You need to look at the purpose of the law in order to see that the case is entirely justified. The law under which the Trump organization is being tried is not there to protect the banks – the lenders – against false statements. They are big boys and should be able to take care of themselves.

Instead – it is there to protect the borrowers – more specifically potential borrowers or “the market” – against the impact of these type falsifications.

Think of it this way. Let’s say a bank – we’ll call it “Bailey’s Building and Loan” - announces that it is going to create a civic development fund of ten million dollars for the town of – you got it – Bedford Falls. Any prospective customer who can convince the BB&L that they have a safe, reasonable project they want to undertake can apply for part of that fund. The BB&L has a number of applicants for that money – and they pick out ten finalists. Nine of those are small developers – looking for a million apiece to build a whole range of new projects – houses, community centers, shopping malls, etc. One of them – after a nationwide search we’ll call them “Potter Enterprises” – proposes a five-million dollar housing estate on the edge of downtown.

In support of its proposal Potter submits financial statements showing that they have an enormous amount of collateral making their large offering completely safe and risk free. The BB&L is impressed – they decide to lend to five smaller projects that don’t have nearly as much security and give the Potter group a five-million dollar loan based upon the assurance that everything they are proposing is completely risk free because there is so much security to back it up. Why – the “Mar-a-Potter” estate alone is worth $50 million and is mortgage free. Not to mention Mr. Potter’s apartment at Potter Tower worth another $10 million in equity.

Except – Potter lied. Mar-a-Potter is pledged to other banks already, and the Potter Tower apartment is about a third of the size he said. Potter only got the lion’s share of the fund because they overstated their assets – thus blocking other worthy applicants out of the market. Even if Potter pays back BB&L – there are four potential borrowers out there who have been cheated out of their chance to participate in the fund. Cheated out of their opportunity because Potter lied. Cheated out of their dreams. Oh – and by the way – the community at large has been cheated out of the benefits of their projects.

That’s what the law is meant to do – not simply to make sure the banks get paid back - but to protect the opportunity for those who tell the truth to get a fair shake when it comes to having their vision fulfilled. Even if the Trump’s of the world (for once) pay everybody back – they still cheated their way to the top. The law was passed to stop the same old fat cats from going back to feed at the trough every time there is money to be dispensed. The hurdle they have to overcome is quite minor – they just need to tell the truth – but if they don’t they can be sued – as Trump is finding out to his horror. Just don’t let him lie his way out of this one – this is not a victimless situation. 

 Lie Number Three – This is Only A Test 

Back in the day - late 1960’s, early 1970’s – when I would be lazing around in front of the family television, just home from school or just up on a Saturday with a bowl of Fruit Loops in front of me – there would often come on my screen a test pattern accompanied by an exceedingly annoying hum and closely followed by words to this effect: 

“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency you would have been instructed to tune to a local station for updates. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program”.  

I often cannot remember why I went from the living room to the kitchen. But I remember that annoying squeal and those words pretty well.  Once the message had passed I would go back to watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island or The Wild, Wild West and think nothing more of what had just crossed my screen. 

I think from the mid-1970’s – say around the time of Happy Days and Charlie’s Angels – there started to be less and less of these “tests”.  Either the Emergency Broadcast System was working just fine and didn’t need to be tested – or the whole thing had just become passé. Still – from time to time the old EBS test would pop up – and I’m sure we were all safer for it. 

In truth the EBS was a relic of JFK’s New Frontier – a softer, more modern version of the old “duck and cover” strategy.  If the Russians were about to bomb us to oblivion we could all get regular updates if we followed instructions. In truth – the concept was a good one – there could be occasions (often weather driven) where getting people to tune to a single point of contact could help save lives.  The EBS could be annoying – but it had its upside. I hadn’t, to be honest, thought of it in years. 

Decades removed from the day to day of American media as I am imagine my surprise this week when it turned out that the old EBS test had popped up in the news as one of the week’s bigger stories.  It seems that one of the increasingly rarer tests (which now encompasses mobile phones) has led to one of the craziest conspiracy theories ever being revived.  If you haven’t heard - the latest scuttlebutt is that the test scheduled for Tuesday was really a sham.  The government’s real purpose in sending out the test warning was not to interrupt the viewing habits of children everywhere – but to activate the microscopic graphite-based receptors injected into everyone’s system via the bogus COVID vaccine program.

   

Those bastards – and there I was standing in line to get pre-activated graphite shot into my arm – and no one even gave me so much as a lollipop. 

OK – spoiler alert – the test run this week will not “activate nano-particles” in your body via your cell phone or Smart TV.  While it is tragic that there was a severe shortage of lollipops at testing sites – there was also no concerted effort to spread mind-controlling micro-technology throughout the populace.  The Emergency Broadcast System has not been hijacked to turn us into zombies – especially given that the non-emergency broadcast system seems to be accomplishing that just fine, thank you.