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By John Bossange
Over time, successful politicians of all parties have usually mastered the art of embellishing and exaggerating the truth or a falsehood. Slick politicians, especially those with backgrounds as trained lawyers, also understand how to be nimble, quick on their feet, capable of giving misleading and vague responses leaving a listener wondering if they even heard the question.
Occasionally a politician will tell an outright lie. However, that lie is usually told only once because history has proven that if repeated again, over time the lie will catch up to them and their credibility to tell the truth will prevent their re-election. For that reason, politicians have quickly veered away from a lie and moved the conversation to other important issues, hoping their mistake will be forgotten over time. As citizens we conduct ourselves similarly because we know our relationships and friendships will not last if we constantly lie.
Our political landscape changed when Kellyanne Conway publicly introduced the term “alternative facts” when defending MAGA candidate Donald Trump’s now famous term ”fake news.” Lies are now repeated time and time again under the cover of “alternative facts.” Even when challenged by scientists, economists, lawyers, judges, medical professionals, governors, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, world leaders, and our allies, time honored and proven truths are still denied, creating MAGAs own version of fake news.
Nothing illustrated their fake news more than the lies told by Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance during the recent two televised debates. Certainly Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz both did their share of embellishing some truths and falsehoods and exaggerating answers. But very seldom did they lie, and when they did, they did not repeat it. Instead they tried to correct themselves on stage or in conversation after the debate.
The lies told by Mr. Trump and recently by Mr. Vance have been repeated for years and have now become the foundation of the MAGA Party campaign platform. These lies are “alternative facts” creating ”fake news” of quotes spoken from the debate.
Fake News created by Mr. Trump:
“Every poll had us up 90, 92, 87, and one 92-6 %.”
“Haitian immigrants are taking over Springfield, Ohio.”
“The Governor of Colorado said Venezuelans are attacking his state.”
“Harris is a Marist, communist, fascist person.”
“Kamala supports performing sex changes on minors without parental consent.”
“China is building an auto plant in Mexico with Biden’s permission.”
“You know, the jobs, almost every one of them was taken by a migrant worker.”
“Biden signed a law for an abortion at the ninth month, and execution after birth.”
“They are going to take away your guns.”
“Crime is up massively.”
“Illegal aliens are coming from jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.”
Fake News created by Mr. Vance:
“We are the cleanest economy in the world.”
“I never supported a national ban on abortions.”
“Donald Trump peacefully gave over power on January 20th”
“Doctors are under no obligation to provide care to a baby surviving an abortion.”
“Donald Trump could have destroyed OBamacare (ACA), but he worked to save it.”
“25 million illegal aliens are taking homes from Americans, driving up home prices.”
“Just for an argument, let’s say that carbon emission are driving climate change.”
The MAGA party has discovered that over time, the repetition of lies works. Unlike political campaigns from our nation’s past where the truth held America together, the MAGA universe has tapped into the ease of blaming others for our nation’s ongoing challenges and looking for excuses not to accept our collective shortcomings. Lying has united the Party using its own versions of fake news creating an alternative universe. Lies about jobs, inflation, tax cuts, tariffs, the national debt, Ukraine, immigration, the climate crisis, and crime have solidified the MAGA base but have polarized the nation. Never before has lying worked so well for a presidential or a vice-presidential candidate.
For those who believe Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance have their best interests in mind and offer a pathway to a better life, don’t fall for that ruse. Mr. Trump has a long history of caring only for himself as documented by the hundreds who have worked for him in the private sector and dozens in the White House. He will lie and create whatever fake news it takes to protect his personal financial interests. Apparently Mr. Vance has accepted that type of fake news as well, although so far he has been more skillful covering his positions with slick, lawyerly language.
Kellyanne Conway’s announcement of “alternative facts” helped give birth to the MAGA party and to the world of conspiracy-based cults, now at the core of the Party. America deserves better. Let’s hope that enough Patriotic Americans can see the MAGA Party for what it really is: an alternative world of lies creating its own fake news designed to benefit a small circle of Mr. Trump’s wealthy friends and family members.
The Author is a retired South Burlington educator
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Categories: Commentary
Can we all say TDS much?
The biggest fake is that FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Now what government party will fix this problem??????
OH, I got my mask on everything is going to be ok!
I’m going to watch the news, so I get all the truth!
Perhaps if I eat more processed food and use more round up, my life will be better.
I’m so glad that I’m getting an amazing return on my tax bills, I hope Vermont doubles my taxes next year, then I’ll be living so much better!
Oh, perhaps if I give all my money to Montpelier……
I’ll own nothing and be happy!
Please make it so, that Montpelier can take all my money, and I can finally reach nirvana…….
You’ve got the right idea Mr. Bossange, please keep it up. Hopefully Montpelier will have total control of my life and I can find happiness.
Mr Bossange, you have a 1st ammendment right to state the “things” that you state here on this site. I also have the right to say that you Sir are full of prunes, which leads me to a question, how can someone so obviously full of prunes also be full of “crap” ? I’d have thought that the prunes would take care of the crap problem ?
dont worry, only MAGA republicans tell lies
Quite so, from bossange’s worldview, obtaining information from vtdigger, VPR, npr and nbc…and those super informed elites on the view. bossange is the product of liberal, elitist propaganda and programming. Vermont’s own VTNEA pushes this product out with every student in public school. There is no hope for bossange and hundreds of thousands of Vermont residents, the liberal worldview they believe in is the precursor to marxism and a totalitarian state. Best just to leave bossanges rants alone, ignore the lies and hate- and continue on living your best life.
You gloss over Kamala’s and Walz’s totally vapid non campaigns that have zero substance. Which Kamala do you think you are going to get. The defund the police, no cash bail, Marxist Father, tax to death “the rich”, no fracking, Green New Deal Trillion $ boondoggle ( which Kamala was the tie breaking vote that passed it), no private insurance ( Medicare for All) disaster, failed border CZAR , that has flooded our country with criminals and fetanyl. And managed to LOSE 300,000 minor children in the process. Huge monetary/ economic policy failures that have plunged our nation into huge inflationary dislocations that are crushing the middle class. And saddling our nation with crushing Multi trillion $ debt. Kamala’s answer? Higher taxes and more government programs. She has no idea of how to GROW an economy unlike Trump who has a proven record of jump starting our economy to levels unmatched by any other president with higher wages and unmatched unemployment #s for women, blacks, Hispanics.
Trump on the other hand has a hugely successful RECORD of managing our economy and foreign policy as well. Trump was getting us out of Afghanistan with aplomb with zero casualties over 18 months unlike Biden and Harris ( last one in the room) got 13 of our soldiers killed and probably 1,000s of afghans murdered after their horrendously botched withdrawal.
And by the way allowed the Taliban to plunge Afghan women and girls back to the Stone Age. So much for standing up for women’s rights.
Open your eyes to the level of political hatred and violence that The Democrats have unleashed on our Nation. The years of denigrating the Holocaust survivors who know that Trump is not any where close to Hilter, or Julius Caesar. All spawned by election denying Hillary Clinton who claimed the 2016 election was “stolen” from her. Eight years of calling him a threat to democracy, of calling him Hilter have given us two assassination attempts and wrecked civil political discourse.
John Bossange these are what facts (That Mr. Hassler stated) look like. In your case you must have been confused because you forgot to fact check your claims. You showed no proof of them being fact checked.
Why do we waste time on this clown? As Bugs Bunny famously said, “What a Maroon!”.
Unfortunate, Mr. Bossange, that you were an “educator”. Unsurprising that you are in Chittenden County.
The best thing to do with this character’s articles is when you see his name, delete them. Not worth the time to read. I see frustrating comments—a waste of time, a poisoned mind. He obviously writes these articles to see the responses and gets a high mental kick. He obviously feeds off the remarks. This is my onlyy time I’ll respond to such crap.
Obviously, in the real world, it was the Hillary Clinton campaign that established lies as the basis of all DNC existence.
Is this the same John Bossange who stated he was an educator a while back? I guess that’s his bragging right? As I look at the decay of our education system from the so-called educators we have today, it’s pretty pathetic, educated fools.
Now the genius has figured out politicians may fabricate, mislead, and downright lie,
at a moment’s notice, I guess when Biden & Harris state the ” Border is closed “, the economy is booming, and what about Harris stating she was meeting with Biden and he had no mental deficiencies in the last three years, by the way, where’s Joe ???
I think John has a bad, a really bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I can’t wait to see his posting after Trump is sworn in, in January 2025
Mr. John Bossange, are you a fact checker??? I see no statements from you to prove these statements Mr. Trump has made are false
Actually all those things are true and you’ve been duped. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Get some help man! Maybe Pfizer will make an experimental injection for TDS.
I decided to ‘fact-check’ Mr. Bossange because he offered no source references to his claims, and when I searched for the first instance of “Fake News created by Mr. Trump:” I found one reference; which was, oddly enough, this article on VDC. Otherwise, my search results stated:
No more results found for “Every poll had us up 90, 92, 87, and one 92-6 %.”
Of course, what more should I have expected from a former Burlington Middle school principal who, despite receiving more school funding than almost any other school in the world (yes, in the world), then managed to oversee an education system in which almost half his students didn’t learn to read, write, or do arithmetic to grade level.
I stopped fact checking Bossange after the initial search. But if anyone else wants to substantiate Bossange’s other claims, please be my guest, and let us know what you find.
No Mr. Bossange you are wrong. Biden and Harris are the liars. Right now Biden is calling Hurricane Helene destructive forces and deaths on misinformation and not themselves for delaying any response for days!!!! At least 232 deaths, babies and a new mother dying with her twins and Biden won’t take any responsibility for the delay is unconscionable!!!! He blames Trump for spreading misinformation. President Trump was not at fault —he was there first. Where was Biden, where was Harris??? Nowhere to be found. FEMA was late getting there too. Get your facts straight.
You were an educator. Did you tell children that because of climate change -they were all going to die so it was fruitless to want to achieve academic excellence or to go after their dreams? Did you tell children that if they were born white-they should be ashamed of being an oppressor? And if black- being oppressed??? Oh yes, if they had never had radical discriminatory thoughts previously, they do now!!! And what about gender ideation—were you grooming children to get them to change their gender??? Walz in Minnesota took a child away from the parents to become a ward of the state in order to have gender reassignment medications and surgery without parental consent….is that you Mr. Bossange??? That’s Harris and Walz. Mr. Walz wants tampons in boys bathrooms-is that you too Mr. Bossange!!! A teacher who doesn’t care about the mental health of their students —who wants to indoctrinate them into an angry chaotic world where God, hope and their parents don’t exist. That’s marxism -get rid of the nuclear family and have complete control and that’s the vp and Walz.
VT Democrats are exclusively focused on hating Donald Trump.
VT Republicans are exclusively focused on helping Vermonters.
Re: “VT Republicans are exclusively focused on helping Vermonters.”
Apparently, not all Republicans. I’m beginning to wonder about Phil Scott and John Rogers. After watching Rogers debate Zuckerman last night, advocating for limiting gun ownership, and stating that his policy choices haven’t changed from his days of being a democrat (policies that put us in our current dire straits), it seems that Scott and Rogers are ‘trojan horses’.
Last year it was Liam Madden. Clearly, the concept of party affiliation has been corrupted too. And in the final analysis, that may be a good thing. Judge the policies and outcomes of your representative’s so-called ‘public service’. Don’t confuse their personal success with your own.
Is John Bossange real or a ghost writer for Joy Reid (MSDNC wingbat?) Maybe needs to stop watching the View, he sounds a lot like those brooding bitter hens.
I will say the party of joy, unity and co-existance is falling short in their messaging. Divide and conquer it is apparently. Perhaps the Truth behind all the propaganda, psyop tactics cannot be comprehended by low vibrational flesh vessels, no matter the degrees they possess or are they possessed? Some will ascend to higher existance while others will flounder and remain woefully ignorant – given over to reprobate minds. Free will.
He’s real. Retired South Burlington educator.
Thank you for the clarification – here’s hoping that taxpayer funded pension holds up in the hyper-inflated vapor paper casino – aka NYSE. I’m sure the investments reflect the Blackrock/Vanguard takeover of everything so they can rug pull it all by shorting and contorting. Carry on!
Re: “…hoping that taxpayer funded pension holds up in the hyper-inflated vapor paper casino – aka NYSE. ”
Your comment provides me an excellent opportunity to reiterate (yet again) the real problem with teacher and government ‘defined benefit’ retirement programs. It doesn’t matter how well or poorly these pension nest-eggs perform on the stock market. It’s the ‘benefit’ these retirement programs promise that’s cast in stone. If the investment under performs, as they have been doing on a regular basis, taxpayers must make up the difference.
As a taxpayer, I’m willing to invest in a retirement program IF it’s a ‘defined contribution’ program. In a defined contribution program, while we agree to provide a specific ‘contribution’ to a retirement fund, we don’t agree to guaranty its investment results. As the saying goes: “Past performance is not a guaranty of future results.”
No investment firm would ever make such a guaranty. But Vermont taxpayers, apparently, don’t understand the difference between ‘defined benefit’ and ‘defined contribution’ programs because they keep electing representatives that either don’t understand the difference or take advantage of voter ignorance to feather their own nests.
Bossange, by the way, has one of these ‘defined benefit’ retirement plans and is, apparently, willing to lie in order to protect it.
Jay,
We should operate on a cash basis, teachers get all benefits in the year they are earned, so we don’t indebt our children and so people can see how much they are actually getting paid. Have the teachers buy their own benefits.
Then there will be change, when teachers realize how much their health benefits are taking from their paycheck there will be a massive cry for change.
This would be true for all public servants. Until they can see how much of their pay check is being wasted, they will never change.
Re: “We should operate on a cash basis, teachers get all benefits in the year they are earned, …”
Neil, that’s precisely what a ‘defined contribution’ benefit does.
Somebody needs to go over to John Bossange’s house and remove all the rope, dangerous medicines and sharp objects so when he wakes up on Nov. 6th and finds out Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States he doesn’t hurt himself.
So much anger here. Relax. It’s called – an opinion that’s different than yours.
Why then doesn’t PBS, MSNBC, CNN, VT Digger, or any “news”paper published by New England Newspapers contain different opinions by a wide variety of voices then?
Obviously, few in VT are accustomed to this.
I’d say demand that all news agencies attempt it as if this were still a country that enjoyed a free press. And btw, freedom of speech and of expression of course permit “anger” since it’s a normal human emotion…. and often tends to crop up amongst the masses when a nation is being taken siege by Communists, aka: the U.S. DNC.
As soon as Bossange used the word “slick” to describe Vance in his first paragraph, we all knew where his script came from and who pays him…. There are thousands of examples of other “reporters” using the same exact word to describe Vance on every mainstream newscast from Oct 2. That is some impressively coordinated propaganda, no doubt.
Correct. It’s called Operation Mockingbird https://www.newstreason.com/post/truth-proof-the-cia-is-responsible-for-fake-news.
https://totalityofevidence.com/mockingbird-media/
Although Wikipedia calls it an “alleged” program, together with the marxist takeover of education, the results over the last few decades are pretty clear…a large percentage of people are sheep and will believe whatever MSM repeats often enough, of which Bossange is just one..
While John Bossange has every right to express his thoughts and opinions, I think I have finally identified what makes his writing so exasperating. He writes in the same style as those who have written op-ed pieces, columns, and letters to the editors of my local papers—The News & Citizen and Stowe Reporter—week after week for the last eight years.
What is significant about the last eight years? This is the length of time which spans the beginning of Donald Trump’s first term in office until the present. Although I do not recognize any journalistic integrity about it, I’ll call it Gaslight Shotgun Journalism.
What characterizes this form of writing is an incessant blast of unvetted, mainstream media-recycled, shopworn, debunked allegations and disproven accusations taken out of context. It is almost as if the writer thinks that if he or she can blast hundreds of little pellets of these “facts,” which they smugly assume the reader will accept as self-evident truth, we’ll simply believe what they say because we’re overwhelmed by both the sheer volume and repetition of ad hominem barbs, and the vituperative spirit in which they are delivered.
And it’s fascinating that the longer Trump has been out of office, the more vitriolic these rants have become. Regardless of when these pieces were written—while Trump was in office or after—the goal has been to inflame public opinion against him for one reason: to somehow remove him from office or to prevent him from getting back in.
Gaslighting is a tactic of manipulation and intimidation which uses lies, distortions, and undocumented false narratives to gain control and make the person being gaslighted think he or she is deceived or going crazy, when, in fact, it is an attempt, at best, to veil the deficiencies of the gaslighter’s position, and, at worst, to hide more nefarious intent. It’s also a form of projection in which the gaslighter accuses the person being gaslit of the same things of which he or she is guilty.
Most of these writers have no respect for the dignity of their readers, which is evidenced by their assuming or hoping that the readers will robotically and uncritically believe everything they read, and swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
It is, therefore, incumbent upon us as responsible citizens to be prepared with and informed by the truth so that we can recognize the counterfeit when it is being blasted at us.
John Bossange, we’re on to you.