Calling BS: The caravan, the Constitution and everything else

Election season is a busy time for a guy with a functioning BS detector and the wherewithal to point it at something.

This year, the lies have run so thick as to be almost impenetrable, all in service of the looming election. That’s because neither side knows exactly what will happen — only the Russians know for sure — and the water is only going to get muddier.

Locally, the largest, steamiest plate of BS has been served up by Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) as he defends his Congressional seat against challenger Kathy Manning. It comes in the form of a TV ad that somehow casts the expenses for Greensboro’s downtown performing arts center as a budget loss, and then pins the whole thing on Manning.

But Trump remains the king of BS, and his election-season pile is perhaps his finest work thus far. First, his cooperative media has painted an seasonal migration of poor and suffering people into an urgent national crisis. And our president described it on Twitter as “an invasion of our country.”

There is no migrant invasion, of course. But Trump has pledged to send 5,000 troops to our southern border anyway, and this week pledged to issue an executive order to rescind the part of the 14^th Amendment that describes the terms of naturalized citizenship: If you’re born here, you’re American.

You cannot nullify the US Constitution by executive order. And while I’m at it: The connection between Trump rallies and rhetoric to the MAGA Bomber, the temple shooter and the guy who wouldn’t shoot white people at the Walmart cannot be denied. Also, entitlement spending does not affect budget deficits. Voter fraud is not, with a few exceptions, committed by individuals at the ballot box. And Jamal Khashoggi did not pick a fistfight with a group of Saudi agents.

Whew. It’s election season, and I’m a busy guy.