The Political Lies That Really Matter
From George Santos to Joe Biden, résumé padding is unacceptable. But it's all the lies about legislation we can't afford.
HD DownloadNewly elected New York congressman George Santos has "apologized" after getting caught lying about where he went to high school and whether he graduated from college. And where he worked after not graduating from college. And whether he is Brazilian. And Jewish. And whether his grandparents actually fled the Holocaust. And whether his mother died on 9/11.
Santos—who says he won't resign—is an extreme case, but résumé padding is nothing new in Washington. Who can forget Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's fraudulent—and ultimately apologized-for—claims of Native-American heritage? She apparently even plagiarized the "Cherokee recipes" she contributed to a 1984 cookbook called Pow Wow Chow.
There are folks like Sen. Dick Blumenthal (D.–Conn.), who lied about serving in Vietnam during a tight race but then claimed he didn't really do anything wrong because he only misspoke on multiple occasions and not all the time.
And of course, there's President Joe Biden, who dropped out of his 1988 presidential bid after he was caught lying about his own distinguished academic record. Incredibly, he even plagiarized the life story of a British politician whose family were coal miners. (Biden's were not.)
When politicians invent accomplishments and lie about their pasts, it reflects poorly on their character and shows an incredibly disturbing willingness to cheat in the pursuit of power. But the most harmful falsehoods that politicians tell aren't about the scholarships they didn't win, wars they didn't fight, or discrimination they didn't overcome.
They're about the laws they pass. Consider last summer's stupendously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which the president announced would shrink the budget deficit and reduce rising prices. Even outlets sympathetic to Biden weren't buying that.
What the bill actually does is create a vast number of complicated tax breaks and incentives aimed at "greening" the economy. It raises taxes enough to reduce the deficit by around $300 billion, which is just 2 percent of planned borrowing over the next 10 years. It does nothing to reduce our $30 trillion in debt.
Who is loaning the U.S. government those funds? The Federal Reserve mostly, which pays for all those treasury bonds by printing money out of thin air, the principal cause of inflation. Far from reducing deficits, Biden is making the government's long-term balance sheet worse: When he took office, the 10-year deficit was expected to be $12.21 trillion. By the end of his first year, it had climbed to a projected $14.5 trillion.
He has also misrepresented his record on job creation, tweeting in September, "Right now, I have the strongest record of growing manufacturing jobs in modern history." As The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler pointed out, Richard Nixon beats Biden handily on that count, with 1.3 million new manufacturing jobs back in the early 1970s compared to Biden's 630,000.
Biden also promised that he would end his predecessor's use of Title 42 rules to keep migrants from Latin America from entering the country while seeking asylum here. His flip-flop on that that has alienated even his supporters.
Of course, Joe Biden hardly invented political lying, especially among presidents. His recent predecessors in the Oval Office lied about everything everywhere all at once (Donald Trump), health care policy (Barack Obama), pretexts for war and torture, (George W. Bush), and sex (Bill Clinton).
From newly minted congressmen like George Santos to the president, we've come to expect—and maybe even accept—that our politicians are going to lie about their resumes and their personal lives. That's totally unacceptable.
But it's the lies about their policies that we end up really paying for—and that we really can't afford.
Produced by Nick Gillespie and Justin Zuckerman; Sound editing by Ian Keyser; Additional graphics by Danielle Thompson and Isaac Reese
Credits: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; KEN CEDENO/UPI/Newscom; Rod Lamkey – CNP/Newscom; PAT BENIC/UPI/Newscom; Cliff Owen – CNP/picture alliance / Consolidated News Photos/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/Newscom; Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA/Newscom; Alex Edelman – Pool via CNP / MEGA / Newscom/RSSIL/Newscom; Chris Kleponis – CNP/Newscom
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If they “cooperate “ after getting caught, well it’s ok then..
So much for libertarian free speech eh Reason.
If you can’t refute it, just delete it. 25 comments deleted. Hahaha.
Let’s try again.
What lies do we need?
All lying is COERCION, compelling others under the false authority of truth to act in the liars interest instead of their own.
We have already learned the hard way that lies need to be criminalized in court, to realize justice and in contracts to enable all trade in our economy.
Now with more communication than ever before in history, LIES are making communication little more than white noise. Nobody trusts anyone or anything.
It’s time that we must criminalize all lying in communication.
It will solve most of our problems with added benefits hahaha.
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.. lied about everything everywhere all at once….
Just LOL
Six years later and they’re still butthurt over losing a game of Trivial Pursuit to Trump over “Jerusalem”.
Liars, damn liars, and politicians.
+++
+1
Does this mean no more Sullum TDS articles? I bet not.
The solution to the problem of George Santos is his state. It’s up to the voters in his district to recall him, and his state for providing a recall mechanism.
It is NOT up to the rest of the country to expel him, it is NOT up to congress to expel him, etc. That’s not how our system works. And for good reason. A representative should not be subject to the veto of those outside his district.
Especially when his only crime was getting caught at what the rest of Congress considers business as usual.
Yes, Santos is a despicable animal. And he’s a duly elected congressman. But I repeat myself.
Certainly the House can expel him. It requires a two-thirds vote. They can also censure him.
I’m agree with the right, frankly moral obligation to censure him BUT not the power of “the in crowd” to toss him – he’s NY’s problem. Curious now why the Democrats are pressing for Biden to flee the scene – he has a rich, deep history of shameless lying about all manner of things during his many decades in the den of corruption that seems a fair assessment of DC. Ever see a DC denizen who left without greatly enriching himself/family/friends from the public trough?
The fact that I have even a few articles in the Woke MSM, about his numerous transgressions, just smells like they are looking for the least destructive (to them of course) way to do so – throw some fuel on the trash pile and see if others will do their dirty work for them.
Why am I so cynical? Maybe just Awake rather than Woke. And I am an equal opportunity critic – really want to see Trump’s EGO very far away in the rear view mirror. Appreciate the good things his policies did BUT my loyalty is to our future success, not to Trump’s EGO!
“His recent predecessors in the Oval Office lied about everything everywhere all at once (Donald Trump)”
But these guys can never seem to find a specific Trump lie when pressed. Instead they’ll point out braggadocio, exaggeration and blowhard boasts but never actual lies.
Joe on the other hand plagiarized a law school paper and a major speech,
claimed he had a full academic law school scholarship and was the only person to get one,
claimed he graduated top of his class,
claimed he was the first in his family to graduate college,
claimed he won international Moot Court competition,
claimed he graduated with three degrees,
claimed his son Beau died in Iraq,
claimed he had been to Iraq 40 times,
claimed he was a civil rights warrior, was arrested at a civil rights protest, and was arrested with Nelson Mandela in South Africa,
claimed he faced down a gang leader named “Corn Pop”,
claimed he was appointed to the Naval Academy,
claimed he was a truck driver,
claimed he grew up in a Puerto Rican community,
claimed he spoke to the “inventor” of insulin,
claimed his house burned down,
claimed he was shot at overseas,
claimed he visited the Tree of Life synagogue,
claimed he was a full professor at UPenn,
claimed his Uncle received a purple heart,
claimed his grandfather was a coal miner,
claimed he was a college football star,
claimed a drunk driver killed his family,
ad nauseam…
But Reason(s) is bravely “Both Sides”.
claimed he faced down a gang leader named “Corn Pop”
It was one little fight, then he had to move in with his auntie and uncle in Wilmington.
The Fake Prince of Brandywine.
Trump is a filthy, pathological chud liar and anything that comes out of his mouth needs to be fact-checked vigorously. Biden is…well, folksy! He just likes to spin yarn. You know, shave the factual edges off things to make them easier to be heard.
Well intentioned.
And this attitude is exactly what lead to the classified docs discrepancy.
Without almost any information, all of the media instantly knew “Well Biden’s wasnt as bad, certainly there was no ill intent” despite it being objectively worse on its face; one man had the ability to declassify things as president, one had no such power.
Is that where Corn Pop comes from? That is fucking hilarious
“But these guys can never seem to find a specific Trump lie when pressed. Instead they’ll point out braggadocio, exaggeration and blowhard boasts but never actual lies.”
Ditto Tony’s claim that Trump is “the worst criminal to ever hold office!!!!”
Crime(s), please?
-crickets-
And this (pace Brandyshit) is not an official elected by district.
the score of the Outed Elected Liars Maintaining Office is still like (D) 14 – 1 (R) lol
“If you get this thing (the vaccine) you aren’t going to get COVID! Arent going to transmit it!”
Joe Biden, in the context of him having an unconstitutional requirement for employees to get mandatory experimental injections.
That’s treason enough right there, to the constitution and the people. Hang him
Links to Washington Post for a record of Trump’s “lies.” Good Christ.
Well, we can’t have our politicians lying about the height of hamburgers now, can we?
The Post’s Trump Lie List is almost as bad as Politico’s. They took a bunch of wishes, prognostications, turns of phrase, and colloquialisms, literalized them and then called them lies.
“Trump called Melania his ‘significant other’, but there’s no evidence that she’s any more significant than ex-wife Ivana. We rate this lie five Pinocchio’s.”
“Trump claimed it was ‘Hotter than hell’, but there’s no evidence hell exists, and traditionally it was a lake of fire which is hotter than the 103 degrees at the Washington airport that day. We rate this lie five Pinocchio’s.”
The gaslighting is so obvious I’ve come to the conclusion that their readers didn’t actually care.
They just wanted their biases and hatreds reconfirmed so that they could feel smug and superior and be imbued with righteous indignation.
There’s a reason CNN’s ratings continue to drop, and there has been a major pitch regarding “America’s Mayor”; those ratings will be of interest, and you’ll notice CNN hasn’t yet offered “America’s Governor”.
We have a gold-standard of dangerous lies:
“You can keep your doctor!”
This was a bald-faced lie, issued by that lying pile of shit Obo (“Most transparent…”) which, by design, managed to gain support for the worst piece of government medical interference we’ve yet encountered, costing the taxpayers as yet uncounted expenses.
Santos’ lies, like Fauxcahantus, while despicable, are comparable to the lies told by ‘young earthers’ and commies: They are both stupid, but the first harms only those who buy the bullshit.
The later is hell on earth for everyone.
Yeah, my healthcare going up $200 a month was a lot worse than any effect this idiots lies will have on anyone. It’s
What we need about the lies of politicians is a bit more sense of humor.
The Santos trolling eg is now hilarious. Apparently he has been participating in drag queen contests for many years in Rio Carnival.
R’s really need to make that all an important teaching moment.