Wow -
What an Insightful and Profound Statement
(That was
in July 1920 and here we are today)
This
synopsis from Salon.com – Donald J. Trump has lied an average of 13 times a day since becoming
president.
That means
that between
the day of his inauguration (January 20, 2017) and August 5, 2019, he has
made 12,019 statements that were either false (flat out lie), or was misleading
in one way or another – that according to Washington Post fact checkers.
While that
averages out to 13 such statements a day since Trump assumed office, the number
has increased recently. Since April 26 alone, when he made his 10,000th false
or misleading statement, he has averaged 20 such statements every day, or one
every 72 minutes.
His latest string of lies is from his New Hampshire
rally speech comes here
from CNN fact checking seen below – Note: I picked the juicy ones:
He said he was once named Michigan's “Man of the Year.” That sounds
impressive, but there is a significant problem here. Nobody has been able to
find any evidence of Trump receiving such an award.
What
Trump said: He first
publicly uttered the claim on November 6, 2016, two days before the election,
when he was making his successful last-ditch effort to win Michigan: “I've been
fighting for the car industry for years. I was honored five years ago as 'Man of
the Year in Michigan.' That was a great honor for me.” (he said at a rally in
Sterling Heights, MI).
He put icing on that cake and described
a controversy over his supposed “Man of the Year” acceptance speech saying: “During my speech, all I talked about
is what Mexico and these other countries are doing to us. And especially what
they're doing to Michigan. That's all I talked about. And I was criticized.
They said: “Donald, speak about something else.” I said, no. What's happening
is horrible.”
Trump has
repeated versions of the claim at least six
times since, including at a roundtable with corporate leaders in MI in 2017.
Then again
at a rally in WI this past April. At this NH rally, he seemed to
acknowledge it sounded odd that a non-resident of Michigan would win such an
award saying: “In fact, five or six years before I even thought about running,
for whatever reason they named me “Man of the Year in Michigan.” I asked: “How
come?” I didn't even understand it myself. When I was named “Man of the Year,”
I wasn't even political. That was years before I did this. But I was always
complaining that our car business is being stolen.”
No
evidence at all: The
Trump campaign never responded. None of the searches brought up anything.
Huffington Post went on a similar research journey and also
found nothing. The website reported that the Michigan Chamber of Commerce said
it didn't give out an award like that; Trump was never on the Detroit News's
annual “Michiganians of the Year” list. Also, former Gov. Rick Snyder's office
was reportedly no help. Trump has never mentioned the alleged honor on his
Twitter feed.
Trump has
received some “Man of the Year” accolades: Time magazine's “2016 Person of the Year,” and the “Statesman
of the Year” award from the Republicans in Sarasota County, FL. None of
the awards were for being Michigan's top man.
Additional Trump False Claims and Statements:
The VA
Choice Program: During
his NH rally, Trump again claimed that he passed VA Choice while no other
President before him could saying: “And this from, forever, five decades, we
passed, for our great veterans, VA Choice and VA accountability.”
The Facts
First: Trump did
not get the Veterans Choice program passed, nor had there been an unsuccessful
50-year effort to get it passed. The program was signed into law by Obama in 2014.
In 2018,
Trump did sign the VA MISSION Act, which expanded and changed the Obama-signed
Choice Program.
On Iran: Trump again claimed that Obama paid
$150 billion to Iran and another $1.8 billion in cash saying: “You saw we ended
the Iran Nuclear Deal disaster. How about that? We pay them $150 billion. $1.8
billion in cash. Cash, cash, cash.”
The Facts
First: The second
figure is roughly correct, but the first is exaggerated.
The 2015
nuclear deal allowed Iran to access tens of billions in its own assets that had
been frozen for decades in foreign financial institutions because of sanctions;
experts say the total was significantly lower than $150 billion. Note: Trump
did not invent the $150 billion figure out of thin air: Obama himself mused in
a 2015 interview about Iran having “$150 billion parked outside the country.”
But experts
on Iran policy, and Obama's own administration, said that the quantity of
assets the agreement actually made available to Iran was much lower. In 2015,
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew put the number at $56 billion.
PolitiFact reported that Garbis Iradian, chief economist at the
Institute of International Finance, put it at about $60 billion. And, Adam
Szubin, a senior Treasury Department official testified to Congress in 2015 that the “…usable liquid
assets would total a little more than $50 billion.” The rest of Iran's foreign
assets, he said, were either “tied up in illiquid projects that cannot be monetized
quickly, if at all, or are composed of outstanding loans to Iranian entities
that cannot repay them.”
As Trump
regularly notes, the Obama administration did send Iran $1.7 billion to settle a decades-old dispute over
a purchase of US military goods Iran made before its government was overthrown
in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Obama administration also used the timing of when this cash payment was delivered as
leverage against Iran to release several American prisoners.
The Trump
Border Wall: Trump
claimed that the wall on the southern border is currently under construction
saying: “It is being
built. A wall that's lying on the ground in a very important section ... and we
build a brand new 30-foot steel and concrete wall.”
The Facts
First: Trump
correctly noted that the wall being built is renovation of current barriers.
Zero additional miles of border barriers had been erected as of mid-June,
contrary to his previous statements that new wall was being built.
About 50
miles have been built over his two-and-a-half years in office, but all of them
are replacement barriers rather than additional miles. According to CBP, 47
miles “of new border barriers in place of dilapidated design had been completed
as of June 14.”
The
Washington Examiner then reported on July 20 that the total was up to 51 miles of
such replacement barriers, but that no additional miles had been built.
(Note: CBP did
not respond to requests for updated information in the wake of that Washington Examiner
story.)
Trump
Trade Tariffs: Trump
again argued that Americans have not been paying for the tariffs imposed on
China, saying: “We're taking in billions of dollars; we're not paying for it.”
The Facts
First: American
importers make the actual tariff payments, and economic studies have found that
Americans, not people and companies in China, have borne most of the cost.
A March paper from economists at Columbia, Princeton, and the NY Fed
Reserve found that the “full incidence of Trump's tariffs have 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 domestic
income by $1.4 billion a month.
Note: Trump’s White House Economic Report of the President also acknowledged that
American consumers do pay for some of the tariffs. Specifically, domestic
producers, according to the report, benefit from price increases from the
tariffs, but “off-setting these benefits are the costs paid by consumers in the
form of higher prices and reduced consumption.”
My 2 cents: How about a great big oops at this point as
I conclude with this: How can anyone have an iota of trust in this man as
president or anyone serving as our president who lies with such reckless
abandon?
Finally, this
Trump whopper from The Hill – again he complains about winning the 2016
election but losing the popular vote now to “find out” (he claims) that Google
cheated him and he actually won both the EC and popular votes. His comment is simple
and stunning and of course via a tweet:
Conspiracy Nuts of a Feather Flock Together
Thanks for stopping by.
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