Sometime For Lulz He Reached For The Most Easily Discerned Lie

By the way, you folks are in here, the place is packed. There are lines that go back six blocks, and I tell you that because you won't read about it, okay? But there are lines that go back six blocks. There is such love in this country for everything we stand for.

— Donald Trump, CPAC Convention Speech, February 24, 2017

Gabrielle Bluestone's picture of the lines outside the Convention Center capturing the love in this country for everything he stands for:

Convention Center Entrance, Gaylord National Resort

Maybe it's just the thrill of getting away with one more gratuitously false claim that inclines our President to produce such unforced balderdash on a regular basis. Why else would he be inclined to mention what might or might not be going on outside the Convention Center, aside from the implication that what was going on outside would be suppressed: "I tell you that because you won't read about it, okay?"

Because, quite evidently, it didn't happen, as ascertained and documented photographically. Things that obviously didn't happen are often passed over without comment even in the best of journals, so, no you won't read about it. Okay? Six blocks worth of unecessarily specific exaggeration of the crowd size, though. That's man-bites-truth, and that's pretty printable.

And still,and yet, a significant number of Trumps followers will go away from the incident with the impression that the people who print what we read are holding something back.

Consigliere Steve Bannon named the press the "opposition party" at this same event.

Ex Post Shmooshaugh

Tree-Interrupted GMC Pickup Truck, February 2017

Smooshed

Tree vs. Truck, Santa Cruz, CA, February 20, 2017

Just a few houses away from here a 40-or-50-foot eucalyptus, bent by the ferociously windy day, gave, and, leaning, crushed a parked truck's cab, arching over the entire roadway, from front yard where it failed to front fence across the street, blocking the way with a 15 foot wall of foliage.

Eucalyptus Blocks Street, Santa Cruz, CA, February 20, 2017

It's laid there for a couple of days, long enough so that I'm going to have to find out what I need to do to help get it out of the way soon. I've just finished parting out our own leaner, a juniper inclined towards taking out the neighbor's roof, which the tree service left in chunks for me to deal with after they took it down a few weeks back.

I saw the juniper's great bulk listing farther to the west than it had ever done before one day, resting on a spindly gate post that it had never neared in the past. I considered the consequences of not doing anything about it, and eventually realized, late enough that evening that I couldn't actually make an immediate move but must wait until tomorrow to act, that it was essential to cast about for somebody to come by and cut down the poor tree before it found its own ruinous way to the ground. Most of my night's thoughts, substituting for restful sleep, turned toward such eventualities.

In the event the tree service came promptly and executed the task with dispatch. The consequences I'd spent the night rehearsing were averted, or, I should say, displaced a few houses over from the look of things.

Today In Presidential Paralipsis

"I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased."

February

But then, while we're at it, Kevin Drum:

… Republicans in Congress are rushing to do a big favor for oil companies that do business in Russia. It all has to do with Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which requires drilling and mining companies to disclose any payments they make to foreign governments. Back in 2010, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson—now our Secretary of State—opposed this provision. Here is Michael Grunwald in Politico:

Tillerson argued that forcing U.S. oil firms to reveal corporate secrets—such as paying foreign governments—would put them at a competitive disadvantage. He also explained that the provision would make it especially difficult for Exxon to do business in Russia, where, as he did not need to explain, the government takes a rather active interest in the oil industry.

Today, seven years later, Republicans confirmed Tillerson as President Trump’s Secretary of State, despite allegations that he’s too cozy with Russia. At the same time, the GOP is preparing to try to kill the disclosure rule created under Section 1504, despite warnings from international aid groups that the move would provide a wink-and-nod blessing to hidden corporate payments to petro-thugs.

This is likely to be the very first bill that Congress sends to Trump's desk: a big wet kiss to oil companies and Vladimir Putin. It's nice to know that we have our priorities straight.