Carly Fiorina Really Likes to Make Shit Up

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Carly Fiorina said this last night:

One of the things I would immediately do, in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class—Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn’t want to hear.

In real time, I mentioned that David Petraeus wasn’t “retired early” because he told Obama something he didn’t want to hear. He resigned after it was discovered that he was having an affair. And how about Jack Keane? Here’s what he said on Fox Business:

STUART VARNEY: Did you in fact, general, give advice to President Obama, which he didn’t want to hear and didn’t take?

JACK KEANE: No, I have never spoken to the president. That’s not accurate, and I never served this administration. I served the previous administration.

McChrystal, of course, famously resigned after he and his aides trashed a bunch of civilian officials in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Remarkably, though, Mattis and Flynn really did have disagreements with the White House. So Fiorina was 40 percent right. That kind of dedication to accuracy explains a lot about her tenure at Hewlett-Packard, I guess.

And as long as we’re on the subject of explicit lies, how about Donald Trump doubling down on his claim that he “strongly” opposed the Iraq War? Why is it that none of the other candidates have ever called him on that? Are they really that afraid of him?

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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