The Father of Fake News

[fiorello]

4. He did much, much more than that

Reagan was the spiritual father of GW Bush and godfather to trump.

Without the Internet and social media, Reagan had to resort to direct statements and innuendo. If he never quite reached the carelessness, nastiness and dishonesty of a Trump twitter, but he came close.

80% of pollution comes from plants and trees.

Plagues of locusts, weed epidemics , etc., etc., why have these been happening? It's because the federal government banned the use of DDT" DDT was a very nasty pesticide-its ban actually improved pest control, as the pests had quickly acquired immunity.)

The percent of your tax dollar taken by the federa government has doubled over the past 20 years. (It had actually increased by 12%.)

And so on.

I need to bring up my memory of "There he goes again: Ronald Reagan's Reign of Error" to remember them. Their summary:

'Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen recently wrote: “This president is treated by both the press and foreign leaders as if he were a child.” “His occasional ability to retain facts is cited as a triumph when it should, in fact, be a routine occurrence…” '

( https://blog.nader.org/1983/12/02/ronald-reagan-reign-of-error/ )

There were Reagan's signature stories about "welfare queens". (When challenged as total fiction, his press secretary responded: "well, it's a good story. It made the point, didn't it?)