At first you just shake your head when you see a statement
such as this from 1/10/2020: “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest in Recorded
History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.” (A Trump tweet)
So, what breakthrough did Dr Trump engineer?
As we all know, not a damn thing. This is simply another instance of Trump not
even knowing what he doesn’t know but being more than willing to toot his own
horn in ignorance. In truth, considering all cancers and all age and racial
groups, the incidence of cancer in America has steadily decreased from 1995
until the present!
In the
interest of truth, here are some facts: Trump’s proposed White House budgets would
have cut billions of dollars in funding to the National Institute of Health,
which would have also negatively impacted the National Cancer Institute if
Congress had approved it. However, the
Democratically controlled House refused to pass on a budget with those cuts. Additionally,
it is the fact that the NIH is in on the ground floor of almost all basic
cancer drug research in America. NIH
funding contributed to published research associated with every one of the
210 new drugs approved by the FDA from 2010-2016. And that trend
continues, not because of Trump efforts, but despite efforts to cut funding.
"My father
is German, right? Was German and born in a very wonderful place in
Germany."
Forget the typical overuse of superlatives (“very wonderful
place”) The moron in chef ‘s daddy was born in New York. Period. Just like his
obituary and birth certificate both state. Yet Trump has made this blatantly
false claim at least four Times since taking office. (and they said Reagan was
losing it?)
Also, this
week: While blustering and threatening Iran with retaliation for any attack on
"an American Base, or any American" in response to the killing of
Soleimani, Trump blithered: "The United States just spent Two Trillion
Dollars on Military Equipment."
But, it hasn't.
It is true that total US military spending over the last
three years (one of which was the Obama 2016 budget) (not “just”, as in
“just last week”) was about $2 trillion. Less than ¼ of that, about $420
billion, was on equipment procurement, per
one Todd Harrison, a defense budget
expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who, unprompted
added, “Trump either knowingly exaggerated, got mixed up, or didn't know and
didn't care enough to check.” I’m not
sure which option here is the worst.
In the interest
of brevity here are several more examples of bloviating Trump bullshit,
courtesy of CNN:
Veterans Choice: (allowing VA users to use non-VA
physicians, especially in regions where VA hospitals or clinics are
distant)
"One of my greatest honors was to have gotten CHOICE
approved for our great Veterans. Others have tried for decades and
failed!" -- December 31 tweet
The truth: Barack Obama signed the Veteran’s Choice
bill, co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders and the late John McCain in 2014.
Trump signed a bill which only made small modifications to it,
Trump claimed: “The ice caps were going to melt. They were
going to melt. They were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting
records, so OK, they’re at a record level.”
—Interview with Piers Morgan, January 28, 2018
Reality
Yes, polar ice is setting records—but for shrinking. On
February 13, 2017, the combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice coverage was 6.26
million square miles—the lowest since 1979, when satellites began to take
continuous measurements. That’s the equivalent of losing a chunk of sea ice
larger than Mexico, according to NASA. Arctic sea ice covered the smallest area
ever on March 7, 2017, according to NASA and NASA-supported scientists at the
National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. On the opposite pole,
Antarctic sea ice contracted to the smallest area on March 3, 2017, according
to the same source.
Trump said (September 2019):
That the “fake News” was reporting incorrectly that he had
stated his willingness to meet with Iran with no preconditions, and that he
never said anything of the sort.
Reality:
Trump had said in July 2018 and again in June 2019 that he
was willing to meet with Iran with no pre-conditions, and both secretary
of state Mike Pompeo and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed this to be
Trump's position during a White House press briefing five days before Trump's
tweet. (ouch!)
Trump said:
"We're taking in billions and billions of dollars from
China in the form of tariffs. Our people are not paying for it." (July 30 exchange with reporters) "And
it's been proven that our people are not paying for those tariffs." And:
"They're paying for these tariffs; we're not." (August 1 exchange
with reporters)
The sad reality:
A March, 2019, paper
from economists at Columbia, Princeton and the New York Federal Reserve (you
know, actual economists who know what the f*** they’re talking about) found
that the "full incidence" of Trump's tariffs has fallen on domestic
companies and consumers -- costing them $3 billion a month by the end of 2018.
The paper also found that the tariffs led to a reduction in US income, by $1.4
billion a month.
A separate academic paper also found that the tariffs led to
higher consumer prices. It estimated that the tariffs will result in a $7.8
billion-per-year decline in income.
Additionally, to date we have spent about $30 billion more
than usual in farm subsidies to help beleaguered farmers whose soybean crops
they can’t sell to China. That’s 6 “walls” worth of unplanned spending for
Trump's horrid tariff war, about which he continues to lie.
Pete Buttigieg's faith:
Trump claimed last week, while pandering to a gathering of
evangelicals, that Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is trying
to "pretend" that he is "very religious." Trump said,
"All of a sudden he's become extremely religious. This happened about two
weeks ago."
The truth: It’s impossible to determine the sincerity of
anyone’s “faith.” If it were possible,
the Evangelicals would have deserted serial philanderer, liar and humbug Donald
Trump, years ago. That having been said, Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, has
regularly talked about his faith since he announced in January 2019 that he was
launching an exploratory committee for a possible run for president. He also
spoke to CNN very candidly and at length in August about his personal years-long
religious journey.
In response to
Trump's claim, Buttigieg, in his disarming and typically humorous manner, said,
simply: "I'm not sure why the President's taken an interest in my faith
journey, but I certainly would be happy to discuss it with him. I just don't
know where that's coming from, you know – My faith certainly has been a complex
journey for me, as it is for a lot of people, but I'm pretty sure I've
been a believer longer than he's been a Republican."
And since I wouldn’t dream of trying to top Mayor Pete, I’m
going to close with that.
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