The Sexual Misconduct Charges Against Donald Trump
Many women have come forward with accusations of sexual harassment and molestation by now President Donald Trump. Here's the brief YouTube video from this past November of 16 of the accusers in their own words:
The Washington Post has run an article listing the biggest lies of 2017: The biggest Pinocchios of 2017. Not all the Pinocchios are Donald Trump, but many of them are Trump or surrogates, so I post this here. The article is worth reading, but I summarize the biggest lies of 2017 here:
Trump: I just found out Obama wiretapped me
Trump: This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period
Trump: The Russia story is fake news
Trump: This is the biggest tax cut in U.S. history
Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury: The tax bill will pay for itself
Bernie Sanders: 36,000 people will die yearly if Republicans repeal Obamacare
Trump: No president has done more in so short a time
Senator Kamal D. Harris (D-CA): 129 million people with preexisting conditions could be denied coverage
Tom Perez, Democratic National Committee Chairman: Tax benefits for colleges and students were killed to give a tax break to private jet owners
Susan E. Rice, Obama National Security Adviser: We got Syria to verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile
Tom Perez, Democratic National Committee Chairman: Tax benefits for colleges and students were killed to give a tax break to private jet owners
Okay, where is the lie here?
Finally mentioning this just so you know, some issue with your pointing device causes you to very frequently miss the first character of a quote. This just happened again, and I fixed it in my above quote, but in your original you'll see that you said "om Perez" instead of "Tom Perez".
This one surprised me, too, because it seemed so minor compared to the others. Here's that part of the The biggest Pinocchios of 2017 article:
quote:Tax benefits for colleges and students were killed to give a tax break to private jet owners
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez was one of several Democrats (including Harris) who jumped on reports that there was a provision in the Senate tax bill that provided regulatory clarity on a tax that has never successfully been imposed on private jet management companies. Perez falsely called it a tax break that came at the expense of college students. The tax provision is so minor that the cost to the Treasury is under $50,000 a year less than the tuition and fees for one student at Harvard University.
I interpreted this as saying two things:
There's no actual connection in the tax bill between college related tax benefits and taxes on private jets.
Even if there were, the amount of money involved is so tiny as to affect only a single student at a premier university.
Your mileage may vary, but that's how I interpreted it.
nally mentioning this just so you know, some issue with your pointing device causes you to very frequently miss the first character of a quote.
It's not the pointer. It's strictly my use of the pointer. Is the error of some import?
o, not at all.
ou just seem like a precise kind of guy, so I thought the fact that it kept happening meant it might be something you weren't aware of - after all, who proofreads the paste of a cut-n-paste, so I figured it must have escaped your notice.
orget I said anything.
In short, calling the original statement a lie is pretty much indefensible. There is no reason for taking the benefit away other than to try to lessen the impact of the entire tax bill on the deficit.
I agree with that last sentence, but about the first, there was no connection in the Senate tax bill version between college related tax benefits and taxes on jet planes, but DNC chairman Tom Perez said there was. They didn't call it a lie, they called it a Pinocchio. See About The Fact Checker at the Washington Post for the details of their Pinocchio rating system. I assume that to make the list a statement had to achieve a rating of 4 Pinocchios, which they define simply as "Whoppers." More generally they seem to define a Pinocchio as a false or misleading comment.
I suspect that someone is trying to make the list l appear a bit less partisan by making sure there are a number of "lefty" lies on the list. I am not impressed.
I agree that the Perez comment shouldn't have made the list of top Pinocchios, but I do find the efforts of the media to track lies commendable and laudable.
No, that's not what he said. His statement was not intended to be taken to imply a direct one to one correspondence.
Here's what Tom Perez, DNC Chairman, said:
quote:Tax benefits for colleges and students were killed to give a tax break to private jet owners
To me this declares that there was "a direct one to one correspondence" between "Tax benefits for colleges and students" on the one hand and "a tax break to private jet owners" on the other, so we'll just have to disagree about the meaning of plain English.
quote:Let’s end tax benefits for colleges and students and give a tax break to private jet owners.
That is nowhere near as direct a connection as the other quote. In fact, it looks like nothing more than a sarcastic comment about how the bill hurt higher education and while benefiting private jet owners. It looks innocuous and deserving of maybe a single Pinocchio for getting it wrong that private jet owners received a tax break.
I hereby award the Washington Post four Pinocchios, and I now agree with you that that one didn't belong in the list. I'd argue the point with the WP, but I'm not a subscriber, so there are no comment channels open to me. The only reason I can read it at all is because I block Javascript on their pages. I should subscribe, but I already subscribe to the NYT, and I can't afford another subscription.
The provision for taxing grad students did not make it into the reconciled legislation according to what I read minutes ago on CNN.
Oh, that's wonderful news. I know people who would have been affected. They've been going crazy.
But the thing is, we already had this calculation back when the ACA was being debated.
Harvard Medical School produced a study in 2009 that indicated that 45,000 deaths each year due to lack of insurance. If we were to repeal the ACA and not replace it, we would go back to that situation we had before and there's no reason that people without health insurance would suddenly not die.
The blurb says that Harris incorrectly characterized the GOP plan as denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, and that she confused employer-provided insurance with individual insurance, and in that way arrived at a figure nearly an order of magnitude larger than the total number of people in the individual market regulated by the ACA. The bad math alone seems to make it a four Pinocchio remark.
Trump Admits What the Republican Tax Bill Was All About
The Republican tax bill has passed, President Trump will sign it, then it will be the law of the land. Speaking at today's signing President Trump made two admissions:
About corporate tax rate reductions: "That's probably the biggest factor in our plan."
There you have it from the horse's mouth: It wasn't about a middle-class tax cut, but cutting business taxes.
About the ACA's individual mandate repeal: "When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed. Because they get their money from the individual mandate. Obamacare has been repealed in this bill."
Trump is probably correct. Obamacare should now collapse since the funding for preexisting conditions is now gone.
Edited by Percy, : Correct that Trump hasn't signed the bill yet. Evidently there was no signing at yesterday's ceremony. Trump may wait until January to sign the bill.
No one captures the depth of folly of Trump's willful and ill-considered blunder of recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel by moving the American Embassy there from Tel Aviv better than Samantee Bee of Full Frontal. Enjoy.
quote:The war against terrorism has been rebooted on the basis of anti-Muslim bigotry, which undermines domestic law enforcement and anti-radicalization efforts. Authoritarian regimes around the world now shielded from human rights criticism feel more secure. Dissidents and democratic activists feel more lonely and abandoned. Fleeing refugees feel more desperate and friendless. The president is conducting delicate nuclear negotiations with demeaning pet names. Morale at the State Department is in collapse, leading to the hemorrhaging of diplomatic talent and experience. Trump has alienated important allies with demands for protection money. The United States has stepped back from effective economic competition in Asia, leaving China a more dominant regional power. Russia, in all likelihood, has helped elect a favorable U.S. president in the largest intelligence coup of modern history.
Trump has tried to undermine the credibility of important institutions the courts, the FBI, intelligence agencies, the media that check his power and expose his duplicity. He has used his office (and Twitter account) to target individual Americans for harm without due process. He attacks the very idea of truth in a daily torrent of despicable lies. The moral authority of the presidency is in tatters. He has made our common life more vulgar and brutal, and complicated the moral education of children. Racists are emboldened and included in the GOP coalition. He has caused a large portion of Republicans to live in an alternate reality of resentment and hatred, which complicates the possibility of governing and is likely to discredit the party among the young, minorities, women and college-educated voters for decades to come.
I hear attacks on Social Security and Medicare are next, because the tax cuts must be paid for, and the money has to come from somewhere. If it hurts somebody, damages a cherished institution, ruins relationships with allies, or just causes general chaos, Trump wants to do it. I can't help but see parallels of those complicit in Trump's government to those in Hitler's. It isn't like the evil is subtle.
I post a lot of editorials, those I think that best express with clarity our political predicament in this time of Trump. I hope people enjoy them.
Or can even read them. The NYT allows non-subscribers 10 free articles or columns per month for free, while the Washington Post allows no access to non-subscribers. You can get around this if you know how to disable Javascript for individual websites. Do this for the Post and you'll be able to read most of their content, though some things, like images and videos, can't be viewed.
By the way, I'm against stealing content, I'd like to pay for what I read, but there are many news websites out there and I, like many others I'm sure, cannot afford to subscribe to more than a couple of them. I wish there was a news consolidator site that provided access to all or at least many major newspapers for a single monthly fee.
Thank you for seeing, through the course of this year, an agenda that truly is restoring this country.
You described it very well, Mr. President.
You've restored American credibility on the world stage.
You've signed more bills rolling back federal red tape than any president in American history.
You've unleashed American energy.
You've spurred an optimism in this country that's setting records.
You promised the American people in that campaign a year ago that you would deliver historic tax cuts, and it would be a 'middle-class miracle.' And in just a short period of time, that promise will be fulfilled.
I’m deeply humbled, as your vice president, to be able to be here."
Because of your leadership, Mr. President, and because of the strong support of the leadership in the Congress of the United States, you're delivering on that middle-class miracle.
You've actually got the Congress to do, as you said, what they couldn’t do with [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska] for 40 years.
You got the Congress to do, with tax cuts for working families and American businesses, what they haven’t been able to do for 31 years.
And you got Congress to do what they couldn’t do for seven years, in repealing the individual mandate in Obamacare.
Mostly, Mr. President, I’ll end where I began and just tell you, I want to thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of America.
Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are making America great again.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-Ky): "You made the case for the tax bill. This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment for the Trump administration." He praised the president for tackling the "overregulation of the American economy." He went on, "You hold the record. Thank you, Mr. President, for all you’re doing."
Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis): Trump has "exquisite presidential leadership."
House Majority Leader Keven McCarthy (R-Calif): "We would not be standing here if it were not for you."
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex): "But for your leadership we would not be here today."
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah): "Mr. President, I have to say that you’re living up to everything I thought you would, Hatch said. You’re one heck of a leader, and we’re all benefiting from it. . . . You stop and think about it, this president hasn’t even been in office for a year, and look at all the things that he’s been able to get done, by sheer will in many ways."
Vice President Pence: "I truly do believe, Mr. President, that this will be remembered as a pivotal moment in the life of our nation, a day when the Congress answered your call and made history. But honestly, I would say to the American people, President Trump has been making history since the first day of this administration."
Housing Secretary Ben Carson: Thanked God for "a president and for Cabinet members who are courageous, who are willing to face the winds of controversy in order to provide a better future for those who come behind us."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un must be looking on in envy and contemplating a shakeup in his leadership cadre to fill it's rolls with those who can exceed the fawning sycophantry of Trump's bootlickers. Well, I guess better a groveler's race than a nuclear one.
In Wednesday's New York Times columnist Yascha Mounk wrote an opinion piece titled The Real Coup Plot Is Trump’s. It takes as an example of the Trumpian assault on truth the recent attempts to discredit the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. I've excerpted some of the high points:
quote:The Republican Party is no longer just obfuscating the truth or defending the president when he is accused of wrongdoing. Rather, Mr. Trump, Fox News and Republicans in Congress seem to be actively using falsehoods to prepare an assault on the institutions that allow American democracy to function. ... But the construction of an alternate reality that obviates the very possibility of conducting politics on the basis of truth is a novelty in this country. And it is increasingly becoming obvious that it will serve a clear purpose: to prepare the ground for egregious violations of basic democratic norms. ... The basic playbook is now familiar. At first, the most extreme partisans like Mr. Watters of Fox News float an outlandish idea. Then, supporters of the president who affect an air of moderation debate whether this idea is true in a seemingly evenhanded manner. Before long, Mr. Trump himself is spreading the claim, saying something like many people are asking questions about it.
One person telling one lie is easily shown to be a liar. But a hundred people telling a thousand lies quickly exhaust the ability of news outlets to disprove each claim, and of citizens to keep track of all the real and invented scandals. Overwhelmed by the noise, they take refuge in believing whatever their own team tells them. As a result, the public sphere quickly degenerates into a battleground in which opposing tribes string together words to wield as a weapon. ... The only effective way to stop the creation of an alternative reality that justifies any action whatsoever is for politicians who are trusted by their own side to call out shameless falsehoods. That is precisely what most mainstream conservatives are failing to do.
In the new American ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, Trump may have met his match when it comes to layering lie upon lie. Here's an approximation of a reporter's interview with Hoekstra that I pieced together from Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands just got caught lying about the Dutch:
Reporter: "Why in a 2015 conference did you say there are 'no go' areas in the Netherlands where radical Muslims are setting cars and politicians on fire?"
Hoekstra: "That's fake news."
Reporter: [plays video clip where Hoekstra says, "The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned....And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands."]
Reporter: "So why did you call it fake news."
Hoekstra: "I didn't call that fake news. I didn't use the words today. I don't think I did."
Needless to say this isn't going over very well in the Netherlands. Sample headline: "The new Trump Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, lies about his own lies."
Hoekstra was born in the Netherlands but was raised in the US. From the article I linked to at the top:
quote:Of the appointment, liberal politician Sophie in ’t Veld said: We are looking forward with interest to cooperating with Mr. Hoekstra. We will certainly remind him his roots lie in a country that values tolerance, equality and inclusion. We expect the representative of our friend and ally the United States to fully and wholly respect our values and to show that respect in all his acts and words.
Sounds like the Dutch are direct and to the point. I like them!
Odd. I have never had a problem accessing Washington Post.
You can get around this if you know how to disable Javascript for individual websites.
Okay. It must be because I use "noscript" with firefox.
Even with Javascript is enabled (I can't figure out how to disable Javascript in Chrome on my iPad - it may not be possible), any Washington Post article listed by Google News is accessible, so you can access any of the other Washington Post articles by taking the headline from the Washington Post site, searching for that title in Google News, then clicking on the link that comes up. You can also "spoof" the system and read any article at the Washington Post by replacing the Washington Post URL in the Google News URL with the URL of the Washington Post article you want to read.
I should add that lately, occasionally this doesn't work some days. The Washington Post may be working on disabling this loophole.
The Wall Street Journal is locked up tight. I haven't figured out a way to get in.
After the 10 free articles the New York Times appears to be locked up tight, too. Disabling Javascript used to work, but they closed that loophole a couple years ago.
I would really like to see nytimes, wapo, and several other papers get together and form a consortium. The idea would be that you could be a paid subscriber to the consortium, and then pick and choose which articles you want to read.
™ Version 4.2
