TV News LIES

Donald Trump, the developer and would-be presidential candidate, portrays himself as a swashbuckling entrepreneur, shrewder and tougher than any politician, who would use his billionaire's skills to restore discipline to the federal government.

In his disdain of big government, however, Trump glances over an expensive irony: He built his empire in part through government largesse and connections.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other top House Republicans are warning President Barack Obama not to issue a proposed executive order requiring disclosure of political donations by federal contractors, calling it "a blatant attempt to intimidate, and potentially silence, certain speakers who are engaged in their constitutionally protected right to free speech."

The proposal, which has not been formally introduced by Obama yet, would require big federal contractors and their top corporate officers and directors, to disclose their political donations, even to outside groups involved in "independent expenditure" campaigns. Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are already infuriated by the move, and GOP congressional leaders in both chambers have come out against the initiative.

The Religious Right in America is lavishly funded and politically well connected. While the men who lead the fundamentalist Christian political movement hold different opinions about theology, they share a deep and abiding hostility to the separation of church and state.

They seek to inject religion into public schools, obtain taxpayer funding for religious schools and other ministries, roll back reproductive choice and deny civil rights to gay people. And they enjoy extraordinary influence in Washington, D.C., and in many state legislatures.

Just when it seemed the controversy over President Obama's birthplace had been laid to rest, a group of Southern California "birthers" had a rare day in federal court Monday to make their case that the president isn't a natural-born American and should be removed from office.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Buena Park minister Wiley Drake and leading birther litigator Orly Taitz a chance to challenge the summary dismissal of the case by a Santa Ana federal judge two years ago.

Today's marquee fibs almost always evolve the same way: A tree falls in the forest—say, the claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction," or that Barack Obama has an infernal scheme to parade our nation's senior citizens before death panels. But then a network of media enablers helps it to make a sound—until enough people believe the untruth to make the lie an operative part of our political discourse.

For the past 15 years, I've spent much of my time deeply researching three historic periods—the birth of the modern conservative movement around the Barry Goldwater campaign, the Nixon era, and the Reagan years—that together have shaped the modern political lie. Here's how we got to where we are.

Selective service records Donald Trump didn't want anyone to see show he dodged the Vietnam War due to a medical deferment, not a high draft number as he has claimed.

The records indicate Trump was granted a series of student deferments before graduating from college, and then was deemed physically unacceptable for military service after he graduated. The paperwork, obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration by thesmokinggun.com website, contradict what Trump has publicly said in recent days.