Today in history
“August 5, 1974, was the day the Nixon Presidency ended.... “On August 5, 2018, precisely forty-four years after the collapse of the Nixon Presidency, another President, Donald Trump, made his own public admission.”
Orwell on totalitarian history
“From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.”
Ministries of Truth at work
The Atlantic reports that the White House transcript of the Putin–Trump press conference alters the meaning of a key exchange. The Russian government’s transcript omits the exchange altogether.
Claude Lanzmann (1925–2018)
“A relentless interviewer, he used whatever it took — filming surreptitiously, posing as a French historian trying ‘to set the record straight’ — to pry astonishing stories out of his subjects.”
No science
“Mr. Trump is the first president since 1941 not to name a science adviser, a position created during World War II to guide the Oval Office on technical matters ranging from nuclear warfare to global pandemics.”
History, rewritten
My cable company summarizes a show: “The on-going protests in the U.S. lead to the end of the war and Richard Nixon securing the presidency.”
“Entirely made-up”
A made-up deadline, or so it seems.
A theory
“This account — as bizarre as it may seem at first glance — is actually more plausible than the story leaked to the Journal, the New York Times, and CNN.”
Decorum
Media decorum about brutal imaginings won’t help our democracy, or help what’s left of it.
Got warrants?
One warrant? More than one? Whichever. Seize! Seize!
The real fake news in Illinois
The Chicago Tribune reports on Liberty Principles and Think Freely Media, purveyors of pseudo-newspapers.
Barnum and Dennison
At Innovation Hub , a conversation about P.T. Barnum, touching on resemblances to the current president.
It’s Mueller Time
Robert S. Mueller III, that is.
Oil and water
“La verdad adelgaza y no quiebra, y siempre anda sobre la mentira como el aceite sobre el agua.”
Tea and truth
The words on my Celestial Seasoning tea-bag tag this afternoon are from Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.”
Felix culpa
Felix Sater. Felix Sater. Felix Sater.
Liar, scary
Bakari Sellers and James Clapper on Donald Trump.
Garg’s Law
Anu Garg: “Do not forward anything you’ve received online without verifying it yourself.”
It’s Mueller Time
A grand jury is at work.
In search of fake Time
The Washington Post reports that at least four of Donald Trump’s golf courses have displayed a fake Time magazine cover featuring Donald Trump.
“Fact from Fiction”
Teaching young people how to distinguish genuine news stories from falsehoods.
Trump trumps Integritas
The New York Times reports on the Trump Organization’s “coat of arms.”
Telling
Mark Shields: “President George Washington could never tell a lie. President Richard Nixon could never tell the truth. And President Donald Trump cannot tell the difference.”
“The individual who investigates”
From the historian Timothy Snyder, writing about the importance of distinguishing between truth and falsehood.
If ever there was a need for misinflammation . . .
Anthony J. Blinken’s opinion piece in today’s New York Times cries out for use of the timely word misinflammation, coined in these pages last year.
“Believe in truth”
From the historian Timothy Snyder, the tenth of twenty lessons on tyranny.
The Los Angeles Times on Trump
“Whatever the explanation, he is encouraging Americans to reject facts, to disrespect science, documents, nonpartisanship and the mainstream media — and instead to simply take positions on the basis of ideology and preconceived notions. This is a recipe for a divided country in which differences grow deeper and rational compromise becomes impossible.”
“Tapps”
Tweet, tweet.
Method and madness
Joel Whitebook, director of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program at Columbia University, writing about “Trump’s Method, Our Madness.”
Fake News, an icon
An icon by Louis Prado, from Noun Project.