The owner of the Myrtle Beach, SC 707 Gun Shop must be generating a lot of attention with his latest ad in the free advertising newspaper that's distributed free in pizza joints, cleaners and other stores frequented by locals and tourists alike around here.
Check out the image above and the NEWS WEATHER FORECAST, which features a caricature of President Trump and the text line:
"STORMY, with SCATTERED LIES, SLIGHT CHANCE OF TRUTH IN THE MORNING."
That's pretty ballsy, considering that Trump is popular among many locals here, and I would guess extremely popular among gun owners -- of which there are many.
But this guy's right on with his message, whatever his motivation.
Trump's Lies Catalogued
The Washington Post, in this May 1 article, catalogued 3,001 false or misleading statements by Trump since taking office in January 2016. The Post's Fact Checker says that's an average of 6.5 per day. So obviously, that Myrtle Beach gun shop owner is right on target.
As we all know if we've been listening, Trump loves to repeat his lies -- as if that makes them true. According to the Post, through May 1 he had repeated 113 false claims more than three times each, and had falsely claimed that he passed the biggest tax cut in history 72 times, when, in fact, bigger tax cuts had been enacted seven times.
One claim that really irks me is when he has claimed repeatedly (41 times by May 1) that Democrats are to blame for not passing legislation to save the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program, established by President Obama. In fact, Trump killed that program and then held it hostage trying to force Democrats into supporting funding for his wall. That was Trump's idea of a "good deal."
It just goes on and on to the point that most reasonable people don't really believe anything he says. How can you when you realize the simple truth is that Trump lies.
Of course, as this Politico Magazine article points out, lies by presidents are not unusual. Like Politico notes, Richard Nixon said he was "not a crook." Ronald Reagan said he wasn’t aware of the Iran-Contra deal. Bill Clinton said he "did not have sex with that woman."
Then Politico adds, "But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true. (Compare that to the politician Trump dubbed “crooked,” Hillary Clinton: Just 26 percent of her statements were deemed false.)"
Repeatedly, Trump has denied "collusion" with the Russians to rig the 2016 presidential campaign. A "witch hunt," he has repeatedly claimed.
Well, the special counsel's investigation into that and related matters has now been underway for a full year. There have been indictments. White House staff and Trump associates have been interviewed and some may be squealing. It's clear from his Twitter feed that Trump is squirming.
I suspect that we'll see soon enough if Trump's denials about that constitute his biggest lie of them all -- or not.