Debunking this week's MAGA lies.
Trump & the GOP lie about everything. Here's a fact check of some of the worst ones.
I got up this morning and wondered, not for the first time, what the GOP stands for these days. After counting the lies, there’s only one thing left… and it isn’t pretty.
What they are campaigning on are all lies. Here’s a partial list:
The Biden crime family. What we’ve actually learned from the House impeachment inquiry is that there is zero evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden and that the House Republicans are spreading Russian disinformation for their own partisan ends. Instead of showing that the President is culpable of anything, we’ve learned the GOP is capable of anything. Testimony made it clear that each of the so-called smoking guns, from Hunter’s laptop to FD-1023 whistle blower form, all stem from Russian ops. Meanwhile, Donald Trump leads a real crime family- one that is struggling to pay the court-imposed liabilities while paying its lawyers to delay upcoming criminal trials.
Biden’s border problem. Republicans have torched bi-partisan border legislation for decades. MAGA House Speaker Johnson declared he would not fund Ukraine until there was a border deal. Then we got a tough, bi-partisan deal. Republicans killed it because they think chaos on the border is a winning political issue for them. Instead, by refusing to fund border patrols and advanced technology to identify fentanyl coming into the country, the GOP now owns the problem.
Joe’s mental decline. The State of the Union address put an end to that canard. Meanwhile, Donald Trump can’t identify his ex-wife in a photo and regularly confuses Joe Biden for Barack Obama.
Out of control crime. Partly as a result of his mishandling of the pandemic, Donald Trump was president during the largest increase murders in American history. Since Joe Biden took office and passed the American Rescue Plan which funded public safety investments across the nation, murder rates have dropped. So has violent crime overall. Meanwhile, the GOP continues to protect the gun industry and continues to defund efforts to combat white collar crime, like tax cheating.
Weaponizing government. The GOP claims that the multiple prosecutions of Donald Trump are examples of weaponizing government. They do not claim Mr. Trump is innocent of the crimes he is alleged to have committed. They do claim he is innocent of the civil violations for which he has already been found liable. What they claim is that holding him accountable for anything is a weaponization of government. It is not. Only in Republican hands is government so misused for political purposes. The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas despite lacking any evidence of wrongdoing. The charade is so bad they have not even walked the impeachment over to the Senate for trial. See above for the other weaponized impeachment hearings. The Trump administration was worse. His Attorney General, Bill Barr, approved an investigation by a special prosecutor to go after democrats despite having no evidence of wrongdoing. The three-year investigation, led by John Durham, ended up indicting three people, two of whom were acquitted, and the third pleaded guilty to altering an email. Trump’s IRS launched rare comprehensive tax audits on the two former FBI employees that Trump frequently blamed for his troubles. And, let’s not forget, Trump himself held up a Congressionally mandated arms shipment to Ukraine seeking to pressure Ukraine to claim it was investigating Joe Biden.
Biden’s inflation. Pandemic supply chain disruptions, and changes in purchasing patterns, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and record corporate profit taking are the leading causes of the inflation across the world. The Biden administration has brought inflation down. The President worked with American business to make improvements at ports that helped unlock the supply chain. He released oil from the strategic reserve to bring down gas prices. He supported investments that led to productivity increases across the economy. Increased wages for American workers does create some upward price pressure, but most economists agree that corporate pricing power remains the biggest domestic source of inflationary pressure, and the Biden administration is stepping up anti-trust efforts so that the market will correct itself.
The woke agenda. Supporting unions, fighting to raise minimum wage, standing against corporate consolidation and price gouging, saying the richest should pay their fair share, standing up for Ukraine when Russia invaded, on-shoring jobs. That’s the Biden agenda. Is that what they mean by “woke?” Maybe it’s fighting for reproductive choice. Or maybe it is the part where Democrats say they want to treat others as they themselves want to be treated. But then, is the bible woke? Maybe, because a Missouri school district pulled that ancient book from its libraries when they were unsure whether it was in compliance with their new content restrictions.
Energy independence. They say Biden is making us dependent on foreign energy sources. Wrong. The United States is the biggest energy producer in the world. Bigger than Saudi Arabia. US oil and gas production protected Europe from reliance on Russia. Meanwhile, the US is leading the world in its transition to renewable energy sources.
The IRS is coming for you. Most Americans pay their federal income tax through payroll withholding. When they file their returns, they expect a timely refund. That has been problematic owing to outdated technology and under-staffing. Who benefits from outdated technology and under-staffing? Wealthy tax cheats whose complex filings require careful audits. Funding the IRS actually helps ordinary Americans get their refunds on time and shrinks the deficit by collecting what is actually owed by those with armies of lawyers and accounts to shield their income.
You were better off four years ago. On what planet?
After you dismiss the lies, what does the GOP really stand for? The party is Mr. Trump’s. It works for Mr. Trump. And it stands only for Mr. Trump’s personal interests. That’s all that’s left of a once great American political party.
The only thing sadder than the capture of the GOP by Mr. Trump would be if we somehow let them win.