Trump Is A Congenital Liar— When's The Last Time You Heard That From The Corporate Media

Truth Comes Out: J.D. Vance Has Been Eating Peoples' Pets In Ohio

Shocking poll results from The Associated Press-NORC: only 57% of adults think Trump’s campaign messages are rarely or never based on factual information. That leaves 43%… delusional? insane? treasonous? I don’t know what to make out of these people. Oh, but it's better than it used to be; this is from 4 years ago:

But let’s take his obviously fake call for free IVF coverage for all. Yesterday, Sahil Kapur and Dasha Burns noted that Republicans in Congress— basically all of them— are either skeptical or in opposition. Even Trump’s top suck up in the House, Marjorie Traitor Greene, said “I’m against health care for all, and I don’t support a plan right now to just pay for IVF. I think that’s opening up a door that Republicans aren’t willing to open. I’m not for government-mandated funding of IVF.”

And one of his Senate sycophants, Josh Hawley said it isn’t clear what Trump meant. “I got the sense maybe it was something that he thought of on his own and wanted to float out there. He doesn’t run his policy proposals by me.”

None of the Republicans who spoke to NBC News said they had heard from the president directly on his IVF proposal either, though it would need to be passed by Congress to become law. It reflects Trump’s often-haphazard approach to policy, taking positions without a plan to bring them to fruition or even running them by key allies in his party, whose support is essential to enacting them.

…[T]here is scant evidence of a Republican appetite for that plan in Congress. The party has rebelled against government-guaranteed health care and insurance mandates for a decade and a half since Democrats enacted some cost-free coverage requirements in the Affordable Care Act.

“I'm a little bit hesitant on an insurance mandate. Is there some other way that we could incent these sort of coverages through the private sector? That makes a lot more sense to me than a mandate,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who said he worries about the cost. “We got a lot of things we’ve got to pay for next year by extending the tax provisions. We’ve got to be mindful of that.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said mandates are “not my style.”

“I would prefer that insurance companies make that decision,” she said. “But I can say the Republican Party is fully on board with IVF, and I think it’s it is really important. We want to see more babies.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Trump hadn’t contacted his team about the idea. He said he has more questions than answers about it.

“Is it the government? Is it the private sector? We don’t know how much is going to cost. What will it do to the price of premiums?” Cassidy said. “You just got to figure that out.”

“The root of this is the kind of scare tactics being made that IVF will not be available, and that’s just not true,” Cassidy said.

Some wondered if Trump was serious about his call for government-mandated coverage of IVF, or whether he simply said it to mute Democratic attacks that a Trump victory would threaten access to IVF…

“I take it as just Trump’s way of saying he supports IVF,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)., who emphasized that she also supports legal IVF, which is backed by 86% of Americans, according to a CBS News poll taken in March, when the Alabama court issued its ruling that threatened to end IVF.

“I don’t know that we need to go so far as to mandate IVF coverage,” Lummis said. “It just drives up the price of insurance. And so I don’t know that I agree with him that it should be mandated.”

Still, Lummis and all but two Senate Republicans voted to block a Democratic bill to protect access to IVF earlier this year, saying the proposal was too broad. 

…Rand Paul (R-KY) said it'd be “ridiculous” to make IVF free.

“I’m all for people making an individual decision on IVF. But the government has no money. We’re $2 trillion in the hole, so I’m not for asking the taxpayer to pay for it,” Paul said. “People get emotional about an issue, so they decide to completely pander and go way over a position they never really supported because they’re afraid people accuse them.”

“I don’t believe things should be free, because that means— let’s say you’re not married or don’t have kids and don’t want kids. You shouldn’t have to pay for me to have kids,” the senator said in an interview. “That’s ridiculous.”

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said IVF is “a very fluid” issue and that he’d want to read any policy before taking a position. But government-guaranteed coverage hasn’t traditionally been a GOP position, “and I don’t think it should start being” one, he said.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), a former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee and a Senate candidate, said he hasn’t seen a Trump policy plan on IVF to evaluate.

“We’ll have to see what that looks like,” he said. “I don’t know what that would look like— to make it free.”

Democrats say Trump is lying and trying to bamboozle voters.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) burst out laughing when asked about Trump saying he supports mandating IVF coverage.

“Laugh out loud,” Warren said. “Donald Trump will say anything that he thinks might be one more vote in favor of Donald Trump. American women are not fooled. If we’re going to if the federal government is going to protect access to IVF and pay for it, we’ve already voted on that, and the Republicans all voted against it— including [Ohio Sen.] J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate.”

“Trump has no credibility on this issue. None. Zero. Zip,” she said.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), who has led her party in issuing supportive statements about IVF since her state’s court ruling, declined to say whether she has talked to Trump or his team about his IVF coverage mandate idea.

“President Trump has been the strongest supporter of IVF from the beginning,” Britt said. “So, certainly look forward to digging in, but I’m proud that he has been so vocal.”

Hopped up on chopped-up Adderall, causing Trump to sweat the way Nixon did, last night's debate was a typical Trumpian lie-fest. As expected, it was just one lie after another. Even conservative pundits like Fox's Brit Hume said Trump lost the debate. And now Kamala would like to treat the public to a repeat. “Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night. We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.” Lindsey Graham agreed, admitting Trump was unprepared and that his performance was a “disaster.” Chris Christie said that “Whoever prepared Donald Trump should be fired. He was not good tonight at all. She was exquisitely well-prepared, she laid traps, and he chased every rabbit down every hole.” And right-wing radio host Erick Erickson tweeted “Trump lost the debate, and whining about the moderators doesn’t change it. He didn’t lose because of their behavior. He lost because of his own performance while his lips were moving, not theirs.”

Not unrelated, a report was published yesterday by the NY Times noting that economists all say Trump’s campaign promises are unrealistic, like his pledge “to cut Americans’ energy costs in half in the span of a year, part of a plan to reduce inflation and drive mortgage rates back toward record lows. But economists and analysts— and Trump’s own record from his first term— suggest that it is unlikely that Trump can deliver on those promises. Trump’s vow to dramatically reduce Americans’ cost of living hinges in part on his plans to quickly expand oil and gas drilling and reduce government impediments to power plant construction, which he says would slash energy bills by ‘more than half.’ As prices fall, he regularly states, interest rates will come down, along with mortgage rates.”

He’s lying… just saying whatever it takes to win over desperate— and desperately stupid—voters. Jeanna Smialek and Jim Tankersley aren’t allowed to call Trump a liar so they wrote that “Trump has not cited modeling or other economic analysis to support his assertions. Economic research and historical experience suggest that presidents have only a limited effect on locally regulated electric utilities or on the cost of oil, which is a globally traded commodity… [E]xperts and past evidence suggest that Trump is over-promising on key economic issues related to prices and interest rates. And that fits with a pattern he established during his earlier campaigns— one in which he emphasizes big, catchy outcomes with little attention to costs or how he might make good on his pledges.”

Trump has been making a frequent pitch from the campaign trail. He will “issue a national emergency declaration to achieve massive increase in domestic energy supply,” he told an audience at the Economic Club of New York last week. Then, in his telling, gas prices will fall, dragging other prices down with them.

“We’re going down and getting gasoline below $2 a gallon, bring down the price of everything from electricity rates to groceries, airfares and housing costs,” Trump said. As inflation cools, he then implies, the Fed will lower interest rates: He has begun to predict that mortgage rates could fall to under 3 percent.

But that series of events seems to hinge in large part on energy prices falling sharply, which analysts say could be difficult to achieve.

…[S]imply churning out more fuel domestically would not necessarily make prices fall. Both demand and global output matter— factors that can be influenced by the health of the economy or even weather events like hurricanes that can knock energy infrastructure offline.

Power has been out in much of L.A. for the past 3 days. It’s back on right now but as I was writing the last paragraph, a Department of Water and Power worker knocked on my door. It’s over 100 degrees. I have no thyroid so I don’t feel very hot. I sweat and I feel cold and clammy. It’s awful but it doesn’t send me running to blast the AC. I’m the only one in the hood who doesn’t though. The guy from DWP said the power would be out again tonight if everyone blasts their AC and recharges their Teslas. I’m the only one in the neighborhood with a Prius. Everyone else has a Tesla, which sucks up an immense amount of electricity. What’s Trump going to do about that? If you're wondering how I'vee been able to keep the blog going, it's because I have a battery-powered generator, which is awesome, but not perfect since it only lasts for 24 hours at a time and then has to be recharged. I'm recharging it now (while my neighbors recharge their Teslas).