Author: Ruben Bolling

I'm a last-minute addition to the New York Comic Con panel, "Comics & Politics."

Thursday, October 6, 2016, 8:00-9:00pm.

Location:  Room 1A24

Check back in this space for updates.

(I'll bring a few books for sale.)

Come on by for some laughs; buy me a beer afterwards.

UPDATE: For INNER HIVE members – at this event, if you discretely hand me the second-to-last word of the first sentence of the commentary for this week's comic on a piece of paper, and I will discretely hand you a Tom the Dancing Bug Prize. (And of course if you join now, you'll receive that commentary before the event.)

I rarely do this, but I'm posting part of the INNER HIVE mailing that went out this morning:

—

Now that Trump has essentially admitted he's been lying about Birtherism (all evidence has been conclusive and fully available since 2011), I'd love to write an essay about how Trump's birther lie is emblematic of his strategy / method for lying about everything.  It's got all the elements of Trump's con game:

– a particular appeal to racism
– responding to evidence by throwing out more innuendo and accusations
– "Many people are saying" "A 'very credible source' told me"
– I've got huge information / plans that I can't reveal now
– the "Believe me…" "Can I be honest with you" tells

Even his concession that the the President of the United States is legitimate was done in a way that maximized his self-interest: teasing an announcement (he admitted, "We have to keep the suspense going, okay?"), and then making it as part of a half-hour commercial for his new Washington, DC hotel.

Another interesting aspect of the way he lied about birtherism:  His co-author who worked closely with him on The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, wrote this insightful tweet:  

"Something I saw early on w/ Trump: most negative things he says about others are actually describing him. Read his tweets with that in mind."  

And with that in mind, here's what he said about Obama in 2011: that if he wasn't born in the U.S. (which we now know Trump knew wasn't true) he has "pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics."