Goodbye spin, hello raw dishonesty

THE latest big buzz in the United States is about Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general. It turns out that he lied during his confirmation hearings, denying that he had met Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. In fact, he met twice the Russian ambassador, who is widely reported to also be a key spymaster.

Not incidentally, if this news hadn't come to light, forcing Mr Sessions to recuse himself, he would have supervised the investigation into Russian election meddling, possibly in collusion with the Trump campaign.

But let's not focus too much on Mr Sessions. After all, he is joined in the Cabinet by Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, who lied to Congress about his use of a private email account; Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, who lied about a sweetheart deal to purchase stock in a biotechnology company at a discount; and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, who falsely told Congress that his financial firm didn't engage in "robo-signing" of foreclosure documents, seizing homes without proper consideration.