We all remember it – in the sunup to the 2016 Trump lied thousands of times over 6 years that Barack Obama was not born in the US.  The lie was outrageous, silly, and debunked before he spread it, but it didn’t matter to him.  Subscribing to Joseph Goebbel’s philosophy, of “The Big Lie“, Trump repeats his lies in a continuous loop no matter how outrageous, and the list is long; from his lies about immigrants, the border, the economy, environment, nonexistent voter fraud, the Clinton Foundation, and even the weather, no lie is too big for Trump. If it serves his purpose, lying is his first and only offensive tactic.

Carrying that tactic to 2020, you can read the roadmap.  It’s pretty obvious that Biden is the leading and strongest candidate against Trump, and he knows it.  That’s why 14 months out from the election Trump has implemented the strategy of the Big Lie.  And that Big Lie is that Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden engaged in years of corruption and coverup of corruption with the government of Ukraine.  Never mind that there is ZERO evidence of any corruption or scandal; Trump and his henchmen have been prosecuting an offensive and defensive war against Biden, one to smear the Democratic frontrunner, and other to cover up the actual scandal, which is Trump and Giuliani soliciting the assistance of a foreign power to help him defeat an American political opponent.

Trump breathed life into the latest Big Lie today at the UN when he denied any wrongdoing in seeking foreign assistance in the next election by lying about the conversation saying he was withholding aid to Ukraine BECAUSE of the non-existent corruption between Biden and the government of Ukraine.  Did you see it?  Trump brushed aside his actual corruption by spinning the lie that he was actually trying to get Ukraine to stop helping Biden.  The notion of this lie is laughable, but it’s  not.  This is how it starts.  The echo chamber will pick it up, just like they picked up the birther lie, the Benghazi lie, the voter fraud lie, and even the weather lie.  By tomorrow, normal people will be slacked jawed when Trump’s bullshit will transform into an article of faith for his sycophants.

This WILL happen, and Biden’s team needs to be ready to aggressively call Trump’s bullshit uh, bullshit.

During Trump’s silly visit to his wall south of San Diego last week (the one where he tried to reveal secret sensing built into the wall), he made the remarkable claim that 20 world class mountain climbers tried and couldn’t climb it.  The claim was bullshit, of course, like the virtually all of his claims.  The press immediately tried to confirm Trump’s claim by…wait for it…talking to world class climbers.  Said climbers said they had no knowledge of any climbers participating in any test of Trump’s wall, and even added that would help even if asked.  They also gave the parting shot that the wall could be easily scaled.

LOL.

George Conway teamed up with Neal Katyal yesterday to opine on Trump’s latest outrage of holding up aid to Ukraine as inducement to dig dirt on Joe Biden.  Katyal was solicitor general in the Obama administration.  It’s become obvious now that the whistleblower case that Bill Barr is covering up is a blatant incident of Trump violating the Constitution and US law to induce a foreign power to assist him in defeating a domestic political opponent.  Another weekend must-read, this one is powerful.

I believe most thoughtful Americans are more than a little concerned that, should Trump lose the election in 2020 he would refuse to concede and vacate office.  We’re getting a preview of that possibility right now in Israel as Netanyahu failed to get a majority of the votes last night in that country’s elections.  In his first speech after the election he refused to concede and blamed the media for biased coverage.  He went on to say that the Israeli government should be Zionist and not involve representatives of Arab heritage.  To be clear, 21% of the population of Israel are Arab muslims.

If you’re looking for a preview of 2020, here it is. Netanyahu just blamed his loss at the polls on the election.  Trump will do the same.  The only way Trump will ever leave office after an election defeat is to be be dragged out by his armpits.  Even his lawyer, Michael Cohen, said before Congress that if Trump loses the election next year that there will “never be a peaceful transition of power.”

It gives me cold chills thinking about it.

Remember when the rumor was floated that Robert Mueller was going to be swept up in a sex scandal?  Remember when it went nowhere?  Remember when rumors floated about Pete Buttigieg that also died on the vine?  Meet Jacob Wohl, a young smartass from California, cut from the same cloth as James O’Keefe, another young smartass who’s become known for botched stings and false reporting on Democratic politicians.

If it’s even possible, Wohl is worse than O’Keefe (or at least more criminal).  He has partnered with a shadowy 53 year old political operative named Jack Burkman whose checkered past goes all the way back to the Clinton impeachment.  He claims that Don McGahn, Trump’s former WH counsel who spent 30 hours with Mueller, introduced Burkman to Wohl.  McGahn told the Washington Post he’s never met him OR Wohl.  Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s on staff advisor liar, warned the Post to watch out for Burkman.

Like all dirty tricksters, truth doesn’t matter to Wohl and Burkman, so they have been cooking up all kinds of fake scandals to attack Trump enemies, but they’ve all been botched, including doing a “press conference” on the fake Mueller scandal with Burkman’s fly unzipped.  LOL.

And it gets better – Wohl, who started his career as a securities salesman, has been trailed by financial scandals and investigations the last several years.  On Wednesday, he was arraigned on felony securities fraud for selling a fake real estate fund.  The charges stem from an investigation of the fund from 2016 leading to the charge this week.

The lesson keeps repeating itself.  Dirty tricksters like Wohl and O’Keefe base their entire existence on lies for political gain.  Those lies often land them in scandal at minimum, and sometimes criminal charges.  Amazing that many on the side that claims morals and family values have devolved into supporting lies and criminality in their tribe.  Worse, there are some who are neck deep in it.  It’s a head shaker.

Yesterday, Trump did what only Trump can do, and that is to lie on national television to prove that he hadn’t made an untrue statement.  This time, he was trying to justify blurting out that Hurricane Dorian was forecast to hit Alabama, which it wasn’t.  He was so obsessed with the press calling him out for the  mistake that he actually took a print of the National Hurricane Center’s forecast map from last Thursday and actually altered it with a Sharpie.  Yes, that’s right, he altered it with a Sharpie:

I’m sure the only ones fooled by this ham handed alteration of the NHC forecast map were Trumpists, but the National Weather Service corrected Trump with their own tweet saying that Alabama would not be affected.  After Trump showed the altered map, Twitterverse lit up, and #sharpiegate became trending, showing a number of solutions to Trump’s other problems.  Here are a few:

While the trending is pretty entertaining, Trump’s tampering with National Weather Service forecasting is dangerous.  All of us from Texas understand the life and death threats of hurricanes.  Accurate forecasting of hurricane tracks is essential for people to make their own decisions about life and property.  Trump has no business muddying the water by serving around like this just to prove himself right after saying something really stupid.