Be Nice (or begone)

Again, since many can’t read WaPo (I subscribe) here’s an article that’s sort of a follow up to Trump’s characterization of Nancy Pelosi as a “Sick Puppy”. Her sin? Simply echoing the statements of the vast multitude of public health officials (you know, like medical doctors?), that the Trump administration, as, of course, dictatorially governed by Trump, himself (my words not hers) waited too long to take aggressive action on the current Corona virus endemic. This is an absolutely incontrovertible statement yet…!  

So yesterday, between semi-fawning softball questions regarding his “ratings” from A One America News Channel (think Fox, only worse) reporter, Trump called on PBS NewsHour reporter Yamiche Alcindor.

“

Mr. President, I have two questions,” she said. “The first is you’ve said repeatedly that you think that some of the equipment that governors are requesting they don’t actually need. You said New York might not need 30,000 …”

Trump didn’t let her finish. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “You said it on Sean Hannity’s Fox News,” Alcindor responded, accurately.”

(ed:)Yes, he absolutely did say that. Here’s the quote from the on-air transcript: “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

WaPo: So, Trump, after cutting her off in mid question said:

“Come on, come on. Why don’t you people — why don’t you act in a little more positive? It’s always ‘get ya, get ya, get ya.’ And you know what? That’s why nobody trusts the media anymore.”

(ed) So, asking the President what he meant when he said something on Fox News makes the reporter and, by extension, all media, “un trustworthy?”

WaPo: Alcindor, who is a black woman, tried to finish her question, but Trump interrupted again: “Look, let me tell you something. Be nice. Don’t be threatening. Be nice.”

(ed) Understand the context here. In Trump world, asking a legitimate question, if it also questions anything Trump did, will do, or has done, is “threatening?”  The term paranoid comes to mind, followed by narcissistic.

(WaPo again) Trump’s reaction to Alcindor’s question recalled past incidents in which the president has cast black female reporters as “stupid,” “a loser” and “racist.”

On March 13, when Alcindor asked whether the suspension of the White House pandemic office slowed the country’s response to the coronavirus, Trump called it a “nasty question.”  He got personal again Sunday with Alcindor, making what he seemed to consider disparaging comments about her career. “Excuse me,” said the president at one point, “you didn’t hear me, that’s why you used to work for The Times and now you work for somebody else,” a reference to the New York Times and PBS NewsHour. The president didn’t call on Alcindor to ask a second question, even though she had told him she had a follow-up.

But a few minutes later, in a display of professional support, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond handed the microphone back to the NewsHour journalist so she could ask Trump which public health experts supported his claims that more people would die from the economic impact of social distancing than from coronavirus infections. Trump didn’t (and probably couldn’t) give any names. (End of article)

This is simply puerile and sickening behavior from any chief of state. The fact that anyone believes this man any longer is frightening.  

The Great Bailout Saga

The Great bailout Saga or: Donald Trump is a Lying Liar

  Donald Trump tweet, per WaPo and all other news sources:

“Republicans had a deal until Nancy Pelosi rode into town from her extended vacation. The Democrats want the Virus to win?” Trump tweeted. “They are asking for things that have nothing to do with our great workers or companies. They want Open Borders & Green New Deal. Republicans shouldn’t agree!”

        This is so wrong that, as Nobel Physicist Wolfgang Pauli once described a student submission, “It isn’t even wrong!” In reality, Trumps tweet points out the reverse of the real issues which later, absent Trump’s interference, were hammered out into the massive relief bill passed by Both Houses of Congress. The crux of the partisan differences actually centered on “our great workers or companies,” especially workers and small businesses.  

        On St. Patrick’s Day, in a phone call between Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, the House Speaker requested that the top four congressional leaders begin negotiating a package rescuing the economy from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. What a concept, huh?  To actually have the four senior Congressional leaders sit down and cooperate? Republicans have derided Democrats for not doing so ever since Democrats, fueled by reaction to earlier Trump malfeasances, took control of the House. Mitch McConnell’s reaction? He told her that he would bargain only with Senate Democrats and their leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer.

         This demonstrates, as well as perhaps any other single factoid, the lengths to which McConnell and his puppet master were willing to go to control relief efforts and structure them to their (Republican) view of what is important in the current crisis. Mrs. Pelosi, third senior elected official in the USA, demurred, and as conditions grew more exigent, however, that turned out not to be the final word on the matter.  Pelosi and McConnell ultimately met face to face the at an all-leaders meeting he had called to outline his bill.  Pelosi showed up with “a laundry list” of what the Senate majority leader and other Republicans viewed (and Trump falsely tweeted) as liberal demands unrelated to the crisis. Make sure you get that, since Trump’s tweet implies that “the Green New Deal and “Open Borders” were part of Republican concerns. Neither was mentioned; Donald Trump is a liar.

        So, what were the sticking points?

         One principal one was that as McConnell structured the bill, a large chunk of money was, like Bush 43’s TARP, aimed at large businesses and Trump himself when questioned as to who would provide oversight as to how it was allocated and where, stated that “I will be that authority” (said the man who still hasn’t divested himself of interest in several failing hotels!).

        Even Senate Small Business Committee chair, Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, objected to the focus and lack of independent oversight of this huge amount of money. Rubio was concerned (justifiably, I would opine) as were Senate and House Democrats, and in fairness some other Senate Republicans as well, that this money would end up channeled to corporate fat cats and not reach small business and their employees who had far fewer “fall back” resources.

        Sen. Rubio said in an interview on March 20: “America’s more than 30 million small businesses — and the 59.9 million individuals they employ — today face the prospect of going bankrupt. They face this threat due to no fault of their own, but because of a global pandemic that takes human lives and grinds productivity to a halt. Congress must set aside our normal procedural and partisan games to act without delay.” “They don’t have a few weeks before they run out of operating cash. They are (often tearfully) laying off workers all over the country, by the minute because they have no choice,” Rubio then tweeted, later Friday. “Small/mid-size business owners are also employees themselves. The trauma this is inflicting on them, their employees and our country is severe. We don’t have the luxury of days to kick around ideas or try to one-up each other. We need to reach agreement and act now.”  

        While, possibly out of fear from Trump’s well-known tendency to “revenge smear” those who disagree, Rubio was addressing the earlier McConnell version and the focus on large corporate interests and minimal oversight.  

        Pelosi and Schumer were also concerned that, in the McConnell version there were no worker protections on the corporate rescue funds. No state and local bailout fund. Not enough spending for hospitals. Why such concern? Looking backward at the only real analogous bailout bill shows why.

        Here’s one example of many:  Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid out a total of $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving a combined total of $45 billion in taxpayer dollars through TARP. Read that again. 40% of tax-payers’ TARP bailout funds lined the pockets of executives whose lack of oversight (or even basic understanding of the nature of the fraud [read The Big Short] in which they were complicit) led to the housing bubble collapse.   Citigroup, as well, one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, gave employees $5.33 billion in bonuses for 2008. This is precisely what concerned Pelosi, Schumer, Rubio and others.

        “The major advantage that we had is, this is a crisis. And the Republican philosophy of little government, let the private sector do everything, diminish government, just doesn’t work,” Schumer later said in an interview with The Washington Post.

        One Senator, in particular was in the vanguard of those urging expeditious action on a compromise bill even before the real contention began.  Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) third senior Senate Democrat) was concerned, well before the rest of her colleagues, based on what she had witnessed in her home state, where most of the early US coronavirus cases were concentrated. Even during the first several weeks of the year, her expressed concern was that other Senate members weren’t taking this emerging public health crisis seriously. She quickly stopped going to in-person meetings and urged Schumer to hold conference calls instead. She was adamant that her own aides stay off the congressional premises as much as possible.

        On Feb. 26, in a retreat with other Senate Democrats, she delivered a stark and prescient message as national headlines started describing the mysterious outbreak at a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash.: “What’s happening in Washington State is coming to you.” Note that, as she spoke, Trump was still minimizing the whole affair.

                The final structure, syntax and limitations related to the second large “tranche” (borrowing a word from 2008 mortgage bundling scam) of spending, which cleared Congress on March 18, was largely a product of good faith bargaining between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi, even though loathed  by several Senate Republicans over paid family leave provisions. Interestingly enough, Sec Treasury Mnuchin seems to be an even-handed agent of bargaining here, since his immediate superior is far too contentious and of too little real understanding.

        Oddly enough, the federal employees paid family leave issue is, and has been, opposed by such notables as Senators Cruz and  Paul, both currently self-isolating and both continuing to draw their federal paychecks, unlike those other federal employees to whom they would deny that privilege. 46 other Republicans had also voted against an earlier paid family leave proposal.  Pelosi insisted, McConnell yielded. Through this entire process, there was no mention of either “Green New Deal” or anything related to “borders,” in direct controversion of Trump’s derogatory and contentious tweet.

        “What happened was that we kept our eye on what needed to be done, which really fit the national need — much more money for hospitals than they proposed, far more accountability on corporate bailouts than they proposed,” Schumer later said in a WaPo interview. “Money for state and localities, which they had none of. And more stuff for working and unemployed people, and they really, our Republican friends, didn't have much to say.”

        Except for one, that is: After all the hiccups and bloody shirt waving, one last complication arose when one single Republican Representative forced House colleagues to return to D. C. to ensure a quorum, vice a simple voice vote as proposed.  Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) raised procedural objections that required a majority of the House to be physically present to vote. In an interview Massie further stated that his real objection was that the bill would “raise the deficit.”  Analyzing that statement makes me wonder how he regarded the last three consecutive Trump budgets, all of which include massive deficits. (Can you say “Showboat?”)  Once they did return (or at least enough for a quorum), the House passed the legislation by voice vote shortly before 1:30 p.m. Friday and sent it to the president who signed it hours later.

         The legislation had easily passed in the Senate, with 88 yeas and no vote in opposition(!) Senator Patty Murray stood on the edge of the chamber for the vote, unwilling to enter a place that was about to close up for its own deep cleaning. Most senators don’t even know when they will return to vote again. She held her finger up waiting for a clerk to notice her, standing in relative shadow, before finally Senator Schumer pointed at clerks to recognize her. She gave the bill an enthusiastic thumbs up.

        Worthy of note and indicative of the nature if the Liar in Chief, no Democrats were (invited to be) present at the signing of what ended up as a bi-partisan effort to pass this critical legislation. Pay close attention to Trump’s characterizations of the Bill and those Democrats involved. If you are a working American and still support this man, get professional help.

Things in General 3/27/2020

Things in General

        Did I miss the revision to the OED which stipulated that, “From henceforth, the terms “picked out”, “chosen”, or “selected” must be supplanted by “curated”? How friggin’ snotty! Half the persons referenced don’t even know the meaning of the word.

        In like fashion, I really don’t think the flavor of my steak is enhanced by “hand trimming” or my cheeseburger by “hand crafting.”  Similarly, I’ve seen where “hand crafted” and/or “craft brewed” beers are made. Guess what? same stuff, same process, but in smaller quantities and more expensive in many cases. That is all.

        Let’s specify that, for the duration of the Corona virus scare, local merchants must stop using all the “we really care” euphemisms and simply state the obvious purpose of their new, compassionate, commercials: “Please, please, keep buying our stuff.”

        Car vending machines? Really?

       As we see more and more drugs attempting to supplant older but proven therapies, it seems the list of side effects, frequently described in softer faster speech, gets longer and more severe with each new one. One such is Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline’s “new” type two Diabetes drug which is exemplary. There has been an oral Glucose inhibitor (Metformin) available for more than 20 years but, ever anxious for a market share, GlaxoSmithKline pushed for approval of Avandia. The results? Avandia's side effects proved to include heart attack (reported by the FDA) and increased risk of heart failure. Bladder failure was another.  In 2010, Avandia was placed under strict restrictions owing to reports of tens of thousands of people who were inflicted with stroke, heart diseases and heart failure.

        However, by a 30 to 1 vote of an FDA panel, the restriction was removed by in 2013. (lobbyist influence, anyone?) In May 2010, GlaxoSmithKline settled over 700 lawsuits with nearly $60 million out of court in relation to claims brought against it. In July, it also settled over 10,000 lawsuits with over $460 million.

        Any guesses as to how GlaxoSmithKline will recoup these annoying financial side effects? How about 2019 profits (not sales, but net profits!!), of $6.71 BILLION? This was driven by their new Shingles vaccine, Shingrix. Not to worry, though, Shingrix won’t kill you, but it can cause: muscle pain, headache, shivering, fever, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, or, if you hit the jackpot, angioedema, swelling of the tongue, mouth, or throat, trouble breathing and/or low blood pressure.  NIH funding contributed to published research associated with every one of the 210 new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration from 2010–2016. As the taxpayers who fund the NIH, when should we expect our profit sharing checks?

       Apparently, Donald Trump isn’t he only moron using unproven medications to combat/ward off Covid. In Iran, a majority Shiite Muslim nation where, as a matter of religious doctrine, drinking alcohol is forbidden, insanity has, apparently, prevailed. I only dwell on this because it is a result of bad science and ignorance reminiscent of creationism.

       Nearly 300 Iranians have been officially reported as deceased and over three times as many are severely ill due to ingesting methanol because they wrongly thought it would shield them from catching coronavirus. This was reported by Iranian news outlets and reprinted in the WaPo today (Friday, 3/27).

        Numerous Iranian social media users have been touting and sharing false claims that a British schoolteacher and several others cured themselves of the virus by ingesting whiskey and honey, according to an Associated Press report.  Others suggested that drinking high-proof alcohol kills the virus. In fact, the proper Ethanol high proof alcohol might make one care less about the virus, but methanol, or wood alcohol as it is also known, while differing from fine Scotch by only one Carbon and two Hydrogen atoms (and some delicately nuanced flavorings), is far more toxic.

       The deaths are an exemplary result of a spate of fake remedies spread across social media, since many Iranians are suspicious of the government’s efforts to combat the spread of the virus that they initially downplayed. Sound familiar? One Iranian actual medical doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that the death toll from drinking methanol was actually more like 500, with 2,850 people made ill. With more than 29,000 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 2,000 related deaths, Iran has the largest death toll in the Middle East.

        Lest you think only Trump senior is a doofus, read this:

        Donald Trump Jr., promoted a story in (the ultra-conservative) Breitbart News with the headline “WHO Spread False Chinese Government Propaganda: Coronavirus Not Contagious Among Humans.” Don’t tell Iran, Italy, Spain, France or anyone else with half a brain.

That's about all I can stomach this morning.

More Lies My President Told Me Part Four

                     Well, here we are again, analyzing gross misrepresentations and outright lies

• “[The stock market] was a number that, frankly, would have gone and it would have been cut in half had the other person or the other party won. The number would have been cut in half.”

I only bring this up because it shows Trumps propensity for simply "making shit up". Trump inherited an economy that was in the middle of one of the longest post-World War II economic expansions on record. Most of the trends that Trump points to as "success" started under Barack Obama. In truth, most economic indicators from Obama’s last two years are equal to Trump’s first two and better in some areas. This is especially significant because all the "restrictive regulations" Trump has bitched about and killed to the extent that he can, were in place during this Obama recovery. There is no evidence that it would not have continued if Hillary Clinton had been elected and no evidence that electing a Democrat would cause an economic crash.

• “More than 300,000 people under Obama, 300,000 people left the workforce. Under just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people have joined the workforce and nobody believed that was possible.”

That’s true, what is missing of course is the reason why and what happened later in the Obama years. At best, this is merely grossly misleading. Barack Obama took office in the throes of an historic recession. Economic indicators were depressed and deficits (can you say bailout?) high, during his first two years in office, generally speaking, before embarking on a growth spurt for the rest of Obama's eight-year term. More than 5 million people joined the U.S. labor force during Obama's presidency, according to Labor Department figures. That’s all of the 300,000 back at work plus 4.7 million more. And Trump has a degree from Wharton? A marginal note from this or any discussion of jobs is that as the population grows (which it will do) the number employed would be expected to grow, essentially proportionally.

In 2007, when the housing bubble burst, there were roughly 121 million Americans working full time.  Part timers are almost impossible to statistically analyze. By the time of Obama’s inauguration that number had dropped to about 113 million. So, I could say, as Trump has, that under Bush 43, 8 million Americans left the work force. While factually correct, it wasn’t “W”s fault either. After dipping even more in 2009 and 2010, the number of employed rose steadily to 125 million full timers on Trump’s inauguration day.

In fact, the number of Americans employed full time rose by 8 million in the Obama years. Of course, over the Obama years the population grew by an estimated 20 million or so, so the number employed full time should have gone up. In fact, although I have a Master’s (unlike Trump) and took (and passed!!) Managerial Stats, I am only “spit balling” here since census data runs in 10 year cycles, but at a glance it appears that employment not only recovered Great Recession related lost jobs, but gains actually outpaced population growth during the last 5 or 6 Obama years. So there.

• “We've added 12,000 brand new factories and many more are coming in.”

You and I have an image of “factory” which generally involves a relatively large number of persons engaged in some sort of industrial endeavor, and therein resides the lie inherent in this statement. Trump began making this claim after reports that the manufacturing sector was entering a recession, but it is, at best, misleading. Trump is citing a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) database set known as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, but the hitch here is that a relatively large number (80%!!) of these are not what most people would call factories. 

One quick example: If the Duck Dynasty inbreeds have 3 persons making duck calls in a log cabin,  that’s, by the BLS definition, a "factory".  The data does, in fact, show that United States gained almost 10,000 additional "manufacturing establishments" between the first quarter of 2017 through the first quarter of 2019; and the number increased to above 12,000 in the second quarter of 2019. What is missing is the fact that there was a gain of 10,000 also in Obama's second term.) The hitch here is that more than 8 out of ten of these "manufacturing establishments" employ five or fewer people.

 The BLS confers that title on  any establishment "engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products," so that also means establishments "that transform materials or substances into new products by hand or in the worker's home and those engaged in selling to the general public products made on the same premises from which they are sold, such as bakeries, candy stores, glassblowers, (cottage dildo fabricators), and custom tailors." By this definition, a guy who makes birdhouses in his basement is a factory! This is the same general approach Trump used when he lied and claimed “Six new steel mills are opening” when the fact was that just three idle blast furnaces in two existing plants were turned on. 

In a similar “can’t help himself” vein:    

      

• “It's Michigan -- an important state. We brought back tremendous amounts of business, tremendous car companies coming in -- everything else.”

Well…. No, just no. Car manufacturing jobs have remained essentially flat in Michigan since Trump took office, at 42,000 as of November. When looking at parts manufacturing jobs, Michigan’s total for November was actually slightly below July 2016. As one old philosopher said, “The man who knows not and knows not that he knows not – he is a fool, shun him.”

And…

• “Just a few months ago, I visited the new Shell petrochemical plant in Beaver County at $6 billion, with a B, $6 billion. It is the largest investment in Pennsylvania history, we're ending decades of failed trade policies that devastated communities all across the state.”

By “We”, Trump must be confused, since he erroneously implied that the Shell plant he references is the result of his trade policies. The reality check is: In fact, Royal Dutch Shell announced the plant in 2012, under the Obama administration, after receiving one of the largest tax incentives in Pennsylvania's history. Final decision to build came in mid-2016, while Obama was in office.

Trump loves to turn his “rallies” (publicly funded campaign sojourns) into opportunities to attack local Democrats. Here he slanders Michigan’s Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who has two liabilities in Trump World: gender and party affiliation.

“I understand she’s (Whitmer) not fixing those potholes. That’s what the word is. It was all about roads and they want to raise those gasoline taxes, and you — we don't want to do that. But she’s not fixing the potholes.” 

Michigan’s transportation department spends about $9 million a year repairing potholes. Transportation experts confirm that increased funding is needed to keep up with the state’s pothole epidemic. Whitmer took office in 2019 and proposed raising the state gas tax to round up new funding for roads, but the state’s Republican legislature so far has blocked her plan.  Make sure you grasp this. She wants to fix roads; Republicans deny the funding, and then they and Trump blame her because the roads aren’t fixed. Catch 22!

Ok, let’s interject some fun fuel factoids here. Every state uses gasoline taxes to widely varying degrees.  California at 61.2 cents per gallon is the highest. Michigan at 42.48 cents is 12 cents lower than nearby Illinois (54.98). Both have hard winters and significant resulting road damage. Most northern, high population density, states have the same concerns and, accordingly, fairly high gas excise taxes. Typically, the more southern the state, the lower the states gas excise tax. Who is the exception? Why, it’s our fair state of Florida which has zero frost heave potholes, but a 42 cents per gallon state gas tax, which dwarfs LA, MS, and Al, who average a mere 19.6 cents per gallon.

What is most interesting to me is that some poor souls believe that the President controls gas prices and that federal gas taxes keep increasing. The Federal gasoline excise tax has been constant at 18.4 cents per gallon since the Clinton administration! 

• “Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, AOC and the rest of the Democrats are not getting important legislation done, hence, the “Do Nothing Democrats” nickname. USMCA, National Defense Authorization Act, Gun Safety, Prescription Drug Prices, & Infrastructure are dead in the water because of the Dems!”

Trump loves to castigate Democrats because they haven’t sent him very many bills he likes since they won control of the House. There’s a reason for that – Mitch McConnell.   The House has passed many bills reflecting the Democrats' preferred approach, only to see them die in the Senate, in most cases tabled by the majority leader to avoid even publicly debating them.  Contrary to the claim, Democrats did press forward with approving the USMCA trade deal and the National Defense Authorization Act.

The House of Representatives has actually passed dozens of bills, including a broad expansion of background checks for gun purchases, but they have largely died in the GOP-controlled Senate. This is even sadder because after every mass shooting, Trump tells victim’s families he supports universal background checks and after the furor of the moment dies down, he once again "bends and spreads ‘em" for the NRA, pushing no real, tangible, initiatives. The even sadder part is this: A poll done by Johns Hopkins University and conducted among 2,703 adults — including 169 respondents who identified as a member of the NRA, found that 74 percent of NRA members supported requiring background checks for all gun sales. NRA leadership simply ignores this.

• “We're doing a lot on gun safety, and we're working with the NRA, and we're working -- you know, we tried to work with a Democrats, but frankly, they don't even want to meet.”

And,

• “Decades they've been talking about it. So, we're looking at background checks, and we're looking at putting everything together in a unified way so that we can have something that's meaningful.”

They’ve met, they’ve sent meaningful legislation to the Senate. Trump’s pet Senator, Moscow Mitch McConnell,has  killed each initiative. Trump spoke with National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre "and assured him that universal background checks were off the table," according to multiple news organizations.

And now one more gun lie, sadly closer to home and most or our hearts:

• “As an example, you take the Pulse nightclub. If you had one person in that room that could carry a gun and knew how to use it, it wouldn’t have happened, or certainly not to the extent it did, where he was just in there shooting and shooting and shooting, and they were defenseless.”

Again, a blatant lie. There was an armed person at Pulse that terrible night. An Orlando police officer, Adam Gruler, was paid to provide security for the club that night. He even traded gunshots with the gunman, Omar Mateen, near the club’s entrance. Realizing that, while he carried his issued service handgun, the shooter, Omar Mateen, carried automatic weapons, Gruler called a signal 43, which means "officer needs help". When help arrived minutes later, Gruler told them, “He’s in the patio!” and shot multiple additional rounds toward Mateen. Gruler had been a member of the Orlando Police Department since 2001. Trump must have known some of this when he fabricated the lie that there was no armed presence.

And, finally for this installment, Trump’s dislocation of his arm as he pats his own back and lies in the process. 

• “I gave away my salary. It’s, I guess, close to $450,000. I give it away. Nobody ever said, ‘He gives away his salary.’ Now it comes up because of this. But I give away my presidential salary. They say that no other president has done it. … They actually say that George Washington may — may have been the only other president to do — but see whether or not Obama gave up his salary.”

He does give away his salary. There the truth ends. His Red Hat brigade constantly praise him as the great humanitarian for doing so. He praises himself as well.  Of course, he can give it away, since he has no expenses and his spawn are running the business. He and his family (two of whom are on the federal payroll) often blur the line between official actions and private business interests, and he has refused to divest from his business.

However, Trump could save far more than he gives away if he’d just play golf closer to home. As for “They say no other president has done it.” No Jethro, "they" don’t say that. Here’s why they don’t:  Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy, both, like Trump, wealthy, gave their salaries to charity.  Barack Obama, who didn’t have the luxury of a large (and criminally under-taxed) fortune, still gave about $1.1 million to charity during the eight years he was president, His presidential salary during that period was $3.1 million, though he made millions more from sales of a book he actually wrote all by himself.

Ok, Ok. Stop begging, here’s one more. If this doesn’t make you laugh…

“You're not going to know what this means because I'm a big, like, student. I like academics, believe it or not. People don't know. My uncle was a professor for 35 years or something at MIT. I like that stuff.”

This from the guy couldn’t do an MBA after graduating with no honors of any kind from Wharton. This from the guy who has offered stunningly incorrect statements on almost anything he has ever spoken about. These include but are by no means limited to: repeated false and unscientific claims about GDP, taxes, trade, immigration, climate change and foreign policy, among other subjects.

And I do believe that’s all I have to say about that (for now)

Who'd Have Thunk it?

Today’s paper has comments from two Senators as disparate as possible, and I agree with them both.

        The first, Chuck Schumer, Senate Democratic minority leader, said that the best way to distribute relief money in these times of Corona virus would be to broadly expand and increase unemployment compensation across the board and to consider waiving rents and mortgage payments temporarily.

        The other, with whom I can’t recall ever agreeing, is Florida Senator Rick Scott, who opined that the focus of any direct payments should be to tipped and lower wage earning Americans and that we should not even consider “bailouts” for any industry.

        For those who are unaware, the minimum wage for tipped employees is a whopping $2.13 hourly, which has remained the same for 29 years, while the cost of living has almost doubled over the same period. That is the same for the fine dining server who can expect perhaps hundreds in tips on a good night, and the Waffle House server who may struggle to make $45. Based on Consumer price index stats, in today’s dollars the hourly minimum is now $1.16 per hour! (If you are a WaPo subscriber, read this, for more on minimum wage and service personnel.)

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/08/living-without-living-wage/?arc404=true

        Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who has raved about 401ks garnering high earnings during the current (until Covid) economic boom has suggested allowing early “no-penalty” withdrawals. While that might be one option, I doubt that Trump has even considered that only 32% of Americans even have 401ks. Further, between 58% and 70% (depending on recency of survey) have less than $1000 in any form of savings vehicle. Worse yet, 45% say they have “none.” 

       Of course, some Republicans, (not all) simply fall back on the old British Conservative admonition, heard during the Irish Potato famine, which was that “They (the Irish, the poor, whatever) simply must learn to live within their means.” This of course belies the fact that then, as now, in many instances, it is the wealthy who determine the price of those “means.”

        Regarding bailouts for business: 2007-08’s TARP (Bush Commercial Banking bailout) in the final balance actually returned about $15 billion more to the Treasury than was spent. This doesn’t, however, consider inflation which lowers the return in today’s dollars to a still acceptable, but lower, “break even.”

        That wasn’t the issue with TARP. The question is, as some opponents believe, was too much money pumped into the plan and were those funds used wisely?  Critics (and anyone who read or viewed “The Big Short” should be a critic) also say the program gave banks a free pass for their financial mismanagement and gambling with tainted (and largely paper-only, grossly over- valued) funds.

         While I agree with that last proposition, I also believe that some profligate commercial banking firms, such as Bear, Stearns and a few others should have been allowed to fail, credit default swaps should have simply been nullified, and purchasers refunded their initial “bets.” I won’t go into “credit default swaps" in detail, since the very concept, itself, belongs in Las Vegas, not financial markets. 

       Since these were not “brick and mortar” banks servicing depositors, those hurt would have been in the main, large, and increasingly  speculative, investors, the damage would have been in an appropriate place (although, in truth, several of these profit driven investors were also large corporate and state employee pension funds, conned by what were, essentially, risk salesmen!)  

        This current situation is quite a different ballgame. To begin with, this is an outside agent, not an internal or greed driven malfeasance. Recovery from the 2007-8 housing bubble collapse was a long process, complicated by the fact that recovery efforts were in the main, focused on helping commercial banking houses recover from their own bad judgement and amplified by a drop in home values as a result which hammered many mortgage holders.   

 

     In 2008-2009 The average barber continued cutting hair and the average bartender probably saw business improve, because the housing bubble collapse was a top down problem, which had ripple effects to some but not all of us. Covid, on the other hand affects us all and, as totally appropriate as it is, "social distancing" hurts those who work in service industries most of all.

        If some businesses are temporarily hurt, it is likely that they will recoup current revenue shortfalls over time. If they are leveraged to the point of default in such a short time, perhaps they should reexamine their business plans. This is temporary, and the effects will be as well. In the meantime, relief efforts need to go where they are most needed as I outlined earlier. In this case one of my favorite senators (Schumer) and one of my least favorite senators (Scott) are both right!

Lies, Part Tres

Even More Lies My President Told Me

JAN 2020 (most recent)

• “ We ended the war on American energy. The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere on Earth.” Repeated more than 60 times

The claim that a “revolution in energy” began under or is a result of Trump administration action is a lie. We (The United States) have led the world in natural gas production since 2009 (who was President?) Similarly, crude oil production has increased markedly since 2010, reaching record levels in August 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. If there was a “war on American energy” it surely wasn’t waged by either of the two preceding administrations!

In September 2018, United States oil production surpassed both Russia and Saudi Arabia as the largest global crude oil producer. It is expected to hold that position, according to predictions from the International Energy Agency.

Now, the real issue re: American energy which Trump probably intended to reference, and which relates to his campaign gibberish related to “clean, beautiful, coal.” Production of coal, a major pollutant and carcinogen producer when burned, has sunk to less than half of 2008 levels and has seen very little increase under the Trump administration, which would seem to contradict said claims.

Yes, US carbon-based, non-coal energy production has reached an all- time high…almost entirely under the Obama administration. Some “war”, huh?

JAN 2020 (and other instances)

• “And the new bulb, I don't know if you see it, it’s on there. It’s a hazardous waste. When that bulb ends, you're supposed to take it to a certain dump and gingerly put it in because it’s loaded up with gasses.”

Trump is singling out those curly-cue compact fluorescent looking (CFL) bulbs, bulbs, which do contain mercury, like all fluorescent lights and tend to have harsher color quality. But Trump’s complaint is out of date. The intent of the law he refers to is to encourage energy savings. A CFL bulb saves an estimated $47 over the life of the bulb compared to an incandescent bulb producing similar light levels. So, Trump has singled out CFL bulbs, which by 2019 accounted for only about 5% of all sales of the classic pear-shaped bulbs.

In doing so, he ignores light-emitting diode, (LED) bulbs which are now the dominant environmentally friendly technology. They have no safety risks and provide comparable light at a cheaper lifetime cost than incandescents. This is vintage Trump, attacking a piece of environmental legislation for two specious reasons. The first, it’s an EPA based regulation which he hates in any form, largely because some such regulations make his corporate fan base be more environmentally responsible. Second, It’s an Obama era law.

• “U.S. Cancer Death Rate Lowest in Recorded History! A lot of good news coming out of this Administration.”

Well, yeah, the first sentence is true. The second sentence, however, is irrelevant, since the statistics are pre-Trump. Typically (see “oil production”) Trump again erroneously claims credit for gains made before he took office, and, appropriately, in the process earning a rebuke from the American Cancer Society.

The American Cancer Society’s chief executive, Gary Reedy, said in a responding statement, “The mortality trends reflected in our current report, including the largest drop in overall cancer mortality ever recorded from 2016 to 2017, reflect prevention, early detection and treatment advances that occurred in prior years.” What he doesn’t say, but is equally true, is that like oil production, gas prices and a host of other statistics, the President has nothing, nada, zilch to do with it. In fact, if crediting the President were appropriate, the largest single-year decline ever reported, when the rate fell 2.2 percent, occurred from 2016 to 2017, before Trump was inaugurated! It’s almost as if DaVinci were American, Trump would take credit for the Mona Lisa.

• “Right to Try. You know about Right to Try, right? They've been trying to get it for 44 years, Right to Try....Many people are being saved.” Repeated 33 times

This is a bit more obscure, and even its mention will be news to most Americans. The gist of “Right to Try” is that there has been an ongoing effort to allow non-FDA approved (but having passed Phase One testing) drugs to be used in cases where there is no other viable drug option and the patient wishes to be allowed this one last hope. Sounds good, right? I include this because even when stating a factual issue, Trump seems driven to gross exaggeration if not outright lying.

Right to Try wasn't a “44 year” protracted battle — the legislative idea emerged in 2013, never to get out of the House because of a Republican majority! (Trump typically falsely claims it was a 45-year or 50-year battle.) It was, however opposed by many health care providers and insurers. Unmentioned in all the hoo-hah is that the FDA already approves 99 percent of requests for access to similar unapproved drugs, but some supporters thought these policies (red tape) were too restrictive. Contrary to Trump's claims of “lives being saved,” only two patients have been treated under the act, and it is much too soon to tell whether it has saved any lives. Also, the bill was sponsored in the House by a Democratic Congressman (Trump “forgot” that part.)

A Trifecta of misinformation:

• “We're actually taking in more revenue now than we did when we had the higher taxes because the economy's doing so well.”
• “We had the greatest tax cut in the history of our country.”
• “We've cut your taxes like at a level that nobody could even think possible.”

(Repeated in similar form at least 184 times)

Essentially everything Trump says here is wrong.
Revenue hasn’t increased because of the tax cut or because of the economy. Revenue was estimated to keep going up, because the tax cut merely slowed the growth of revenue, it did not reduce it. However, revenue estimates have slightly declined for 2019 and 2020 since the passage of the tax cut. And revenue growth has markedly decreased down in the period after the tax cut, compared with the period before it. (this data is: Pre-corona)

As to the “greatest tax cut ever” (or similar misinformation) Trump’s tax cut amounts to just under 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product. President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut in 1981, was 2.89 percent of GDP. (yeah, that’s three times as large!) Trump’s tax cut is only the eighth largest tax cut — and even smaller than two tax cuts passed under Barack Obama.

What should be of far more concern to all of us, is that individual and some other pass-through tax cuts (see below) fade over time, terminating after tax year 2025, and become net tax increases starting in 2027, while the corporate tax cuts are permanent. “Pass-through” taxes typically relate to small business partnerships and LLCs, in other words, not large corporate entities (like the Trump Organization), whose tax cuts (unless we regain sanity) are to be permanent.

Putting the lie to all three statements: No, we are not “taking in more revenue”, It isn’t the historically “greatest” or “largest” tax cut, and yes, several have “thought it possible (and done it) on larger scales.”

• “President Obama left us 142 federal judges. Think of that. Who would think that's possible? One hundred and forty-two federal judges. So, we want to thank you very much, President Obama. Thank you. I mean, normally, when you leave office, you leave none.”

Ask Mitch McConnell, whose refusal to consider Judge nominees in the senate is the real reason there were 103 vacancies on the federal courts when Trump took office -- not through Obama's lack of effort. Senate Republicans simply refused to move on his nominations.

The 114th Senate not only confirmed far fewer judges than its recent other-party predecessors, but it stopped confirming them at a much earlier point. By the numbers: in the final two years of second term, while Senate confirmations for Reagan, Clinton, and Bush43 averaged well above 20%, the Senate confirmed just 4% of Obama Federal Judge nominees.

Mitch McConnell now is quoted thus: “There’s nothing we can do …that’s more important … than confirming judges as rapidly as we get them.” Obviously, he has had conversion experience after even refusing to consider two actually qualified Obama nominees to fill the spot with which Cavanaugh was eventually gifted. Blaming Obama for McConnell’s intransigence? Typical Trump.

I only add this because as a former teacher it is troubling.

• "We are supporting job training and we are supporting vocational schools, right? Vocational schools. You know, I said to the guys, I said these community colleges, they are wonderful, but nobody knows really what a community college is.” (Yes, Donald, many of us actually do know!)
• “So, we need vocational schools. Now, they call them, a lot of times, community colleges. I don’t think it’s an accurate definition.” (No, you moron, it isn’t because they’re two separate entities!)

What an ignorant horse’s arse! Vocational schools and community colleges are two different types of schools. I get that some may not know that, but I’d really like to think that the President, prior to speaking on education, a topic on which, apparently, both he and his soap heiress EdSec are abysmally ignorant, would learn enough about the subject to not come across as simply stupid.

• “We've achieved more in this month alone than almost any President has achieved in eight years in office, if you think about it -- if you think what we've done.”

Trump, here, is referring to the USMCA trade agreement, discussed in a previous blog. It is, as shown previously, at best a revision/rewrite/update of the Bush 41 NAFTA, with inserts from the TPP pact, from which he withdrew us from since it was an Obama initiative.

If Trump's biggest accomplishment in any month was passage of the USMCA trade deal, which simply revises key parts of NAFTA, it's ludicrous to claim this revision of an existing trade deal exceeds what many previous presidents have done over the course of their full terms. (FDR (New Deal) anyone? Jefferson (LA Purchase)? Ike, JFK (Cold War)?

And finally, simply because it so well illustrates the ease with which lies drop trippingly from the man’s lips, as well as the galactic scope his ego:

• “I don't know if you know this, but probably 10 years ago, I was honored. I was the man of the year by, I think, somebody, whoever. I was the man of the year in Michigan. Can you believe it? Long time. That was long before I ever decided to do this. (run for President)” Repeated 6 times

No Donald, no one “knows this” because it’s bullshit! Trump claims he won Michigan’s “man of the year” award. But there’s zero evidence this is true. The closest any investigator has come to identifying the place and time of said claim is that it appears Trump is referring to a 2013 dinner hosted by a Michigan county Republican Party organization, which presented him with token gifts — including a statuette of Abraham Lincoln. But a former Republican congressman who organized and hosted the dinner said Trump was not given an award and the group has never named a “man of the year.” Nevertheless, as of August, Trump had made this false claim seven times over three years. How needy can this poor schlub be? This is consistent, of course with his insistence that “his” Nobel prize was stolen by someone else”

• "I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, (ed: always with the “deal” schtick) I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something to do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war; I've saved a couple of them."

By way of explanation of this rambling blather: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Africa's youngest head of government. came into office in April 2018 after months of anti-government protests forced his predecessor to resign. He has been praised for introducing a series of reforms to Ethiopia, previously a tightly controlled, almost totalitarian, nation. These reforms included freeing thousands of opposition activists from jail, allowing exiled dissidents to return home, allowing the media to operate freely and appointing women to prominent positions. In October last year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - the only head of state to win the prize since Trump was elected in 2016.

The Reality here is that the UAR and Saudis were the principals who brokered the settlement and US involvement was minimal, if even of any effect. Incidentally, Trump has also publicly said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to convince North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un to give up nuclear weapons. (He hasn’t).

So, until the next edition…

More lies My President Told Me (part deux)

Lies My President Told me (part deux)

A brief redux on the “strongest economy ever” claims (made over 250 times)

Of course, “all things Obama” are the preferred target of these and similar Trump barbs, so let’s compare “Trump years” and “Obama years” and see if he’s justified in said jibes.

                                                2015       2016     2017      2018 

                                               Obama   Obama    Trump   Trump

Real GDP growth:                  2.9%     1.6%         2.2%      2.9%

Jobs created/month ($000s)   227        193           179         223

Inflation rate                          0.1%     1.3%        2.1%      3.9%

Real wage growth                 2.2%      1.3%        0.4%      0.6%

Mortgage rate (30 yr.)           3.9%       3.7%       4.0%      4.5%

Budget deficit                       2.4%       3.2%       3.5%      3.9%

Trade deficit                         2.7%       2.7%       2.8%      3.0%

Number uninsured (mill)      28.4                                      30.1

       From the above, it seems rather obvious that the Trump economy in 2017 & 2018 (last year for which complete data is available) was not as healthy as the Obama administration in most relevant categories, especially real wage growth. Note that real wage growth went down even as inflation, which erodes purchasing power, increased.

•   “Obama gave them [Iran] $150 billion...Got zero. He got zero out of it. He got zero. I'd love to have that money back. It’s a lot of money.” (January 14, 2020) This has been repeated in similar terms numerous times almost 100 times.

        No, just F***ing no! Trump wants Americans to believe that Barack Obama took money from the US Treasury and sent it to Iran.  He wants the Red Hat Army to think that the United States cut a check to Iran. He also always uses too high a figure when making this fallacious claim of $150 billion, for the assets involved. But this was always Iran’s money. There were billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks around the world because of international sanctions over its nuclear program. The Treasury Department estimated that, once Iran fulfilled other obligations, it would have about $55 billion left. The Central Bank of Iran said the number was actually $32 billion. So, Trump also lied about the amount released (not “given”) by a factor of three as well as implying (again falsely) that we gave Iran some of “our” money.

•  “We have some of the cleanest air and cleanest water on Earth. And for our country, the air is, right now, cleaner than it's been in 40 years.” (January 2020, and at least 20 other times)

While falsely asserting that the United States had the world’s “cleanest air” and “cleanest climate” and even the “cleanest water,” Trump withdrew the United States from participation in the Paris accord to combat climate change. The reality is a bit contradictory. 

       Here are some real numbers:

 The United States actually ranks 27th in the world, according to the authoritative Environmental Performance Index, a project of Yale and Columbia universities.

 It ranks 10th for air quality — but 88th on exposure to particulate matter, an indication of the health effects from pollution — and 29th for water and sanitation.

 The U.S. is tied for first place — with nine other countries — for the quality of drinking water.

       Total environmental change can be difficult to evaluate, since variations in these metrics can be slow to develop. As for whether things have improved under Trump, it’s difficult to track with available data but, in fact, the number of unhealthy days in the United States went up from 2016 to 2017, according to government data.  The Trump administration has taken a number of actions that could reverse, or slow gains made in air and water quality since 1990.

        An EPA study just released (in January 2020) shows that after improving for the better part of a decade, air quality in the U.S. is worsening again -- and could be associated with nearly 10,000 premature deaths.

        Fine particulate matter in the air Americans breathe fell by 24 percent between 2009 and 2016. But concentrations have increased by 5.5 percent in 2017 and 2018, and premature deaths associated with exposure to the dangerous particles spiked by 9,700 in 2018, the study said.

In total, the Trump administration has either repealed or drastically weakened almost 100 previous environmental protection rules in such areas as: air pollution and emissions, drilling and extraction, animals’ protection, toxic substances and safety, and water pollution.

In summary, Trump lied to begin with and has conspired to allow conditions to deteriorate further.

      In Ohio, January of this year, at one of the “Rallies” for which we taxpayers footed travel and security bills, Trump said this:

•    “We've brought a lot of car companies into Ohio, you know that. A lot of them coming in, a lot of them have already been brought in. (the observant reader will note that the Moron in Chief actually used “a lot” three times in two sentences!) They're coming in from Japan. They're coming in from all over the world. This is where they want to be. They want to be in the United States. That's where the action is. They're all coming back.” Later in the same speech: “Ohio just had the best year, economically, in the history of your state.”    

      No, they aren’t, and it didn’t, Donald.

The first lie is blatant and proven by the numbers. No car companies have come to Ohio during Trump's presidency, and jobs in Ohio motor vehicle manufacturing have actually decreased by 2,200 since January 2017 when Trump took office, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And yet, feeling that his average sycophant is too dumb to know better, he tosses out falsehoods, apparently feeling that Red Hats confer sheer stupidity.

       The canard of Ohio’s overall economy being the best ever is also provably in error. The Cincinnati Enquirer responded to the speech thus: "If you're looking at job growth, it wasn't Ohio's best year. December job numbers aren't out yet, but year-over-year growth through November was minuscule: 0.4% according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. That’s the lowest rate in the last 10 years," the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “The state was on track for a net job loss in 2019 for the first time since the recession. The preliminary November jobs report showed 4,400 fewer private jobs than in January."

        Being a veteran, (although not a client of the Veteran’s Administration) I found this claim especially offensive:

•   “I am such a smart guy. I said this is the most brilliant thing ever and I went back to my people and I said, you know, I have an idea. If veterans are sick, they can't get the kind of service they need, or they need a certain kind of a doctor. I have an idea. It's such a great idea. You're going to go out private. You're going to pick up a doctor. You're going to get yourself fixed up. We're going to pay the bill, right? And you know what happened? And I said how, how brilliant is that? They say, sir, we've been working on that for 48 years, but we've never been able to get it approved.” 

        Ignoring the fourth grade, “special class,” grammar and phrasing, the reality is that the concept to which he refers was already enacted  on August 7, 2014, having been signed into law by Barack Obama, as “Veteran’s Choice” several years before Trump would claim that it had been impossible to do.

        Trump’s VA secretary, Robert Wilkie, also distorted the facts. Citing (and blaming) “bad leadership” at VA, Wilkie claimed that it was by his own efforts that waiting times at VA medical centers were reduced and brought new offerings of same-day mental health service. The lie?  The study cited by Wilkie covered the period from 2014 to 2017, before Wilkie became VA secretary. Same-day mental health services at VA were started during the Obama administration.

         Not only did Wilkie lie, but the numbers prove it: By 2017, the wait time at VA improved to 17.7 days, while increasing to 29.8 days for private doctors. Wait times at VA medical centers were shorter in all specialties except orthopedics. According to the study, the number of patients seen yearly in VA increased slightly between 2014 and 2017, to about 5.1 million. VA patient satisfaction also rose, according to patient surveys cited in the study.

        So, Not only does Trump falsely claim this could never have been approved until he became President -- he only signed an updated version of the (very slightly modified) law signed by President Barack Obama -- he also concocts  a story about how Veterans Choice was all his idea!

        Well, that’s all for now, kids. Never fret, there are far more lies to dissect.

Lies my President Told Me (abridged) Part 1

Lies My President Told me (abridged) A Partial History

       Every Trump statement of “fact” referred to herein has been proffered multiple times in some version and as recently as January 2020.

·       “To help you keep your family farm and keep it in the family, we virtually eliminated the deeply unfair estate tax or death tax.”

       This is a huge exaggeration.  Trump often claims he saved family farms and small businesses by gradually reducing the federal estate tax. The rate (40%) actually is unchanged, but the threshold was raised.  The first part of the quote is pure propaganda. Reducing the estate tax primarily benefits the very wealthy.  The estate tax rarely falls on farms or small businesses, since only those leaving behind more than $5 million paid any estate tax at all in 2016. When Barack Obama was elected, the threshold for estate tax was $2 million dollars total estate value. During the Obama years, that threshold was raised to over $5 million.

       The Trump administration, abetted by a Republican Congress, has increased that threshold to over $11 million.  According to the Tax Policy Center, just under 5,500 estates in 2017 — out of nearly 3 million (a bare .14% of all estates) were even subject to estate tax! This was before the Trump limit increase! Of those, only about 80 taxable estates were farms and small businesses. The relatively few farms and farmers involved are a far cry from the small “family” farmers Trump panders to in the statement.

       On the other hand, in typically self-serving fashion, he also has managed to markedly increase the untaxed cash he can leave to his relatively useless offspring.

·       “They (referring, one supposes, to Democrats) want open borders …essentially what they are saying is they want crime. Now they say they don't want crime but that's what you get with open borders.”

        This has been repeated numerous times and in various contexts. His sycophant fan base believes it because he says it. The problem? Most independent research contradicts the idea that illegal immigrants bring more crime.

      A 2018 peer reviewed study published in the journal Criminology, by Michael Light, a criminologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, evaluated these allegations by determining whether places with higher percentages of undocumented immigrants have higher rates of violent crime such as murder or rape. Note that  this is “apples to apples”, undocumented status vs crime frequency.  The results are revelatory. 

       States with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares in the years 1990 through 2014. Comparable statistics were found in another study by the same researchers that looked at nonviolent crime, such as drug arrests and driving under the influence (DUI) arrests.

        Even the libertarian Cato Institute (hardly a pawn of Democrats) in 2018 looked at 2015 criminal conviction data among undocumented immigrants in Texas. Texas in of primary interest because it is one of the relatively few states which records whether a person who has been arrested is in the country illegally or not. Researchers found that criminal conviction and arrest rates in Texas for undocumented immigrants were lower than those of native-born Americans for homicide, sexual assault and larceny.

       No compilation of this nature would be complete without Trump’s being in high dudgeon due to individuals being less that idolatrous towards him.

·       “Another Fake Book by two third rate Washington Post reporters, has already proven to be inaccurately reported, to their great embarrassment, all for the purpose of demeaning and belittling a President who is getting great things done for our Country, at a record clip. Thank you!”

       The book referenced is, of course, "A Very Stable Genius," by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. While Trump apparently disdains it (he doesn’t read, so he cannot possibly be referring to actual material therein), the book has received rave reviews for its level of detail and insights into the Trump presidency. Much has subsequently given nods of confirmation by those who know. No "proof" of any sort has emerged to suggest it was inaccurately reported. Although Trump refers to the authors as "third-rate" reporters, both have won Pulitzer Prizes.

·       “The economy is the best it's ever been in -- we have never had an economy like this in history.” Repeated 257 times

       Simply put: bullshit! By just about any important economic metric, the economy today is not doing as well as it did under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson or Bill Clinton — or Ulysses S. Grant, for that matter. 

One last one for now:

·       “Today we just had passed the USMCA. It's going to take the place of NAFTA, which was a terrible deal.”

       Always with the references to “deals.” You know, as in the title of the book he didn’t actually write? Trump constantly maintains that he significantly overhauled the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He would like for us to think he completely threw out NAFTA, a Bush 41 initiative, and replaced it with as Monty Python said so often, “something completely different”.  

       The truth is that it’s not close to a total trade revolution, as Trump promised, although  USMCA does make some changes to modernize trade rules in effect from 1994 to 2020, and it gives some wins to U.S. farmers and blue-collar workers in the auto sector.

       In fact,  economists and auto industry gurus think USMCA is going to cause car prices in the United States to rise and the selection to go down. (Good for Detroit, bad for us consumers.) Surprisingly, some elements of the “new” deal were "borrowed" (copied) from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, the trade deal which Trump scrapped at the start of his term, principally because it had an Obama/Clinton connection. As of December, 2019, the “new” agreement was altered slightly in order to win the votes of House Democrats.

       Previously, the "new" agreement was 95 percent the same as the old NAFTA; now it's more like 85 to 90 percent. The bottom line: Trump didn't burn up NAFTA, He made some modest modernization adjustments.   

       For simplicity’s sake, let’s look at how this claim to change really works. Remember, candidate Trump promised to completely throw out NAFTA and TPP. But did he?

Trump's biggest talking point has consistently been better access to Canadian markets for U.S. American dairy farmers but, “What was eventually agreed upon will have probably the least impact, in dollar terms of the entire agreement!” (CNN)

       Canada reportedly agreed to give U.S. dairy farmers access to about 3.5 percent of its almost  $16 billion annual domestic dairy market. Under the deal, the Canadian government will be allowed (yeah, we're allowing Canada to do what they as a sovereign nation can do with or without our consent!) to compensate dairy farmers hurt by the deal.

       But…Canada had already agreed to open up wider access to dairy markets under the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which Trump withdrew in January of  2017. For this agreement Canada also won a key concession from the U.S., which agreed to preserve a trade dispute process that Ottawa pushed hard to maintain. Canada relies on the settlement process to protect its lumber producers from US anti-dumping tariffs.

       In essence, Trump scrapped the names NAFTA and TPP, blaming his predecessors for “bad deals,” then, having changed relatively little concrete material, renamed them and took credit for having reinvented the wheel.