09

Yesterday was another day in which many of the most active threads were ones that I've previously discussed. As a result, the first thread that I will discuss today was actually the fourth most active yesterday. Titled, "Trump's rambling speech today" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, this thread was actually started back in January when former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump gave a speech in which he confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi and made number of other errors. Yesterday, the thread added seven new pages of posts due to a press conference that Trump held at Mar-a-Lago. Posters live-posted throughout the event and provided a running commentary. The tone of yesterday's discussion was set by the first poster to comment on the press conference who wrote, "Good lord, this man is totally detached from reality...". In many ways the press conference was simply a repetition of Trump's greatest hits and most of his answers could have been easily clipped from any of his recent rallies. Typical of Trump, he spewed a cascade of lies and misinformation. For instance, Trump claimed that he had attracted crowds on the National Mall that were larger than Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington speech. He also described a near death experience in a helicopter in which he was flying with California politician Willie Brown. Brown later said that he had never been in a helicopter with Trump. On the other hand, California Governor Gavin Newsom said that he and Trump used a helicopter to tour fire damage during Trump's time as President but that they didn't come close to crashing. Trump may have confused Willie Brown with former Governor Jerry Brown who was also on the flight. Trump also claimed that he had given Israel the Golan Heights. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 after occupying them since 1967. The mainstream media has spent two days debating the difference between Tim Walz "serving as a Command Sergeant Major at the time he retired" and "retired as a Command Sergeant Major". Yet, Trump's slew of lies will get very little attention. Another thing that has constantly bothered me about media coverage of Trump is the practice of cleaning up Trump's way of speaking. Trump will ramble incoherently from one topic to another and back again, hardly making any sense at all and the New York Times will report that "His wide-ranging remarks were sometimes meandering." That's like saying that Fidel Castro's famous 7 hour speeches "ran a little long". Technically accurate but hardly conveying the truth. Even worse was when Trump was asked whether he would ban mifepristone, a drug used in medicated abortions that account for about half of U.S. abortions. Trump's answer was, "You could do things that will be — would supplement absolutely and those things are pretty open and humane, but you have to be able to have a vote. And all I want to do is give everybody a vote, and the votes are taking place right now as we speak." How did the New York Times cover this gobbledygook answer addressing one of the most important issues of concern to voters? It ignored it completely.