Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies.But as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.
Donald Trump’s mounting reversals, failures and betrayals make it increasingly clear that he is a fake and a fraud.
For many of us, this is affirmative reinforcement; for others, it is devastating revelation.
But it is those who believed — and cast supportive ballots — who should feel most cheated and also most contrite. You placed your faith in a phony. His promises are crashing to earth like a fleet of paper airplanes.
He oversold what he could deliver because he had no idea what would be required to deliver it, nor did he care. He told you what you wanted to hear so that he could get what he wanted to have. He played you for fools.
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A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump used for photo-ops at a campaign event last year.Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
Donald Trump’s mounting reversals, failures and betrayals make it increasingly clear that he is a fake and a fraud.
For many of us, this is affirmative reinforcement; for others, it is devastating revelation.
But it is those who believed — and cast supportive ballots — who should feel most cheated and also most contrite. You placed your faith in a phony. His promises are crashing to earth like a fleet of paper airplanes.
He oversold what he could deliver because he had no idea what would be required to deliver it, nor did he care. He told you what you wanted to hear so that he could get what he wanted to have. He played you for fools.
That wall will not be paid for by Mexico, if in fact it is ever built. If it is built, it will likely look nothing like what Trump said it would look like. His repeal and replace of Obamacare flopped. That failure endangers his ability to deliver on major tax reform and massive infrastructure spending. China is no longer in danger of being labeled a currency manipulator. The administration is now sending signals that ripping up the Iran nuclear deal isn’t a sure bet.
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A cardboard cutout of Donald Trump used for photo-ops at a campaign event last year.Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
A lot of people seem to be questioning President Trump’s mental health. This month, Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, went so far as to say he was considering proposing legislation that would require a White House psychiatrist.
More controversial is the number of mental health experts who are joining the chorus. In December, a Huffington Post article featured a letter written by three prominent psychiatry professors that cited President Trump’s “grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality” as evidence of his mental instability. While stopping short of giving the president a formal psychiatric diagnosis, the experts called for him to submit to a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by impartial investigators.
A practicing psychologist went further in late January. He was quoted in a U.S. News and World Report article titled “Temperament Tantrum,” saying that President Trump has malignant narcissism, which is characterized by grandiosity, sadism and antisocial behavior.
I don’t doubt that these experts believe they are protecting the country from a president whose behavior they — like many of us — see as dangerous. A recent letter to the editor in this newspaper, signed by 35 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, put it this way: “We fear that too much is at stake to be silent.” It continued, “We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.”
London may be the capital of the world.You can argue for New York, but London has a case. Modern London is the metropolis that globalization created. Walk the streets of Holborn, ride an escalator down to the Tube and listen to the languages in the air. Italian mingles with Hindi, or Mandarin, or Spanish, or Portuguese. Walk through the City, the financial district, and listen to the plumbing system of international capitalism. London is banker to the planet.
Erin Moran, the former child actor who played the sweet but mischievous Joanie on the television series “Happy Days” and “Joanie Loves Chachi,” has died. She was 56.
The Harrison County Sheriff’s Department in southern Indiana confirmed her death. Ms. Moran was found unresponsive Saturday afternoon and died in her home in New Salisbury, Ind., the authorities said.
An autopsy showed that she most likely died from complications of cancer, the sheriff’s department said in a statement on Monday.
Ms. Moran, who started acting at 5, got her first taste of television in a commercial for First Federal Bank. She went on to play minor characters on television and in film in the late 1960s and early ’70s. At 12, she landed her biggest role: Joanie, the freckle-faced troublemaker and sister of Richie Cunningham, the all-American teenager played by Ron Howard.
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Erin Moran, standing, with her television family on “Happy Days,” from left, Marion Ross, Ron Howard and Tom Bosley.Credit ABC, via Photofest
Aaron Hernandez, the former star tight end with the New England Patriots who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2015, hanged himself in prison on Wednesday, the authorities said.
He was discovered in his cell by corrections officers at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., around 3 a.m., the Massachusetts Department of Correction said in a statement.
Lifesaving techniques were attempted, and he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m., the department said.
“Mr. Hernandez hanged himself using a bedsheet that he attached to his cell window,” the statement said. “Mr. Hernandez also attempted to block his door from the inside by jamming the door with various items.”
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Aaron Hernandez, a former New England Patriots player who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2015, was found dead in his prison cell.Credit Elise Amendola/Associated Press
Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s grenade-lobbing pugilist of a chief strategist, has a fitting nickname for his West Wing office: “the war room.”
But more and more, war is being waged on Mr. Bannon himself. And it is unclear how much longer he can survive in his job.
His isolation inside the White House, after weeks of battle with senior aides aligned with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, appeared to grow even starker this week after Mr. Trump undercut Mr. Bannon in two interviews and played down his role in the Trump presidential campaign.
“I am my own strategist,” Mr. Trump told the New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin in an interview on Tuesday, a pointed reference to what aides described as his growing irritation that Mr. Bannon’s allies are calling him the mastermind behind Mr. Trump’s victory and the torch bearer for the nationalist, conservative brand of populism that has defined his presidency.
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Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, during a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last week.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
Lina Medina was born to a poor Peruvian family in 1933 and only 5 years old when doctors found what they believed to be a large stomach tumor. After a series of tests, it turned out Lina had a condition called “precocious puberty” and had actually been pregnant for seven months. She gave birth to a healthy, six-pound son just weeks later, by Caesarean section, as her pelvis was too small for a natural birth. The boy was named Gerardo, after the doctor who delivered him.
You hear it from Republicans, pundits and even some Democrats. It’s often said in a tone of regret: I wish Obama had done health reform in a bipartisan way, rather than jamming through a partisan bill.
The lament seems to have the ring of truth, given that not a single Republican in Congress voted for Obamacare. Yet it is false —demonstrably so.
That it’s nonetheless stuck helps explain how the Republicans have landed in such a mess on health care. The Congressional Budget Office released a jaw-dropping report Monday estimating that the Republican health plan would take insurance from 24 million people, many of them Republican voters, and raise medical costs for others. The bill effectively rescinds benefits for the elderly, poor, sick and middle class, and funnels the money to the rich, via tax cuts.
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President Obama signing the health insurance reform bill at the White House in 2010.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.