calling out blatant lies

Among many, the two most harmful ones now are these: first, that the US cannot compel El Salvador to return Kilmar Abrego; and second, that Ukraine started the war with Russia.

The second is just preposterous. In February 2022, the US government had good, ongoing intelligence that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. Many people denied it—including the Russian government—until they actually did it. (In the words of a review three days later in the New York Times, “The United States intelligence agencies unearthed Russia’s war plans”…”They got the timing of his invasion right almost to the hour.”) Does Donald Trump really think we can’t remember what happened just over three years ago?

The first is also transparently wrong. In fact, when the first contingent of deportees arrived in El Salvador on March 16, eight women and one Nicaraguan man were not accepted by the Salvadoran authorities. They were flown back to US detention that night, on the same US plane. (See the great writeup by jamess in Daily Kos.)

(April 18) Marcy Wheeler now has a great explainer on the bigger lie behind all the defamatory misrepresentations in individual immigration cases.

The Trump regime is built on a foundation of lies—about election integrity, immigrant crime rates, the value of trade, and the President’s own skills as a negotiator. As time goes on, they seem to get more ridiculous—and more dangerous. It’s important for us now to recall this saying, often attributed to Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."