Trump Can't Fool Trump: A Good Jobs Report and a Hideous Truth

I try to chronicle the strange doings of President Trump every day on my blog. In this installment we learn that tens of millions of Americans must still be employed!

Who says so? You will see.

9/8/18: In case you missed the story, the good jobs report for August masks a hideous reality.

How do I know? Have I been reading “Fake News?” I admit I subscribe to the “failing New York Times” seven days a week.

But a front page story in the Times on Friday focused on the positive aspects of the report. “The American economy’s stamina was showcased Friday as the government reported that wages in August sprinted forward at their fastest pace since the recession ended and that the job creation streak extended to 95 months.”

The “enemies of the people” at the Times added: “the jobless rate remained under 4 percent, near territory not seen since the 1960s; and average hourly earnings rose by 10 cents, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier.”

Well, you cannot fool me with your Fake News! I am going to quote Donald J. Trump, the greatest president in the history of the Republic, previously the greatest businessman ever to walk the earth, or any planet, assuming there might be life in distant corners of the galaxy—such as Giant Ferret Women. If such lovely creatures did exist and ever saw the president they would definitely put on the moves in hopes of mating! That sexy orange coif, those jowls, that lumpy body! No Giant Ferret Woman could resist!

Wait. Where was I?

If there are giant ferret ladies somewhere in the universe they will definitely fall for this look!
It looks like two ferrets are mating atop the president's head.

Who am I to imagine that Trump ever lied about job numbers?

Yes, the economy. Friday the White House was touting the August report as “blockbuster” news. Press Secretary Pinocchio said Americans should run out in November and vote for Republicans, like lemmings.

Yes. The economy added 201,000 jobs last month. Yes. Non-farm wages are up, year-over-year, 2.9%. That’s the best yearly gain since 2009.

You still can’t fool me. I am going to quote someone Trump loyalists will find impossible to dispute. This man has made the bad news clear. He has warned that tens of millions of Americans still remain without jobs. They apparently live underground, occasionally sticking their heads out of doors, like Punxsutawney Phil, desperately looking for work. There are no jobs to be seen and they retreat to their loungers to await the coming of boom times.

Who says? Donald J. Trump says. And who am I to imagine that this great man might ever lie?

They give up looking for jobs; 93,000,000 unemployed.

In February 2016, with Obama holding the fort, Trump appeared on Fox News and made it clear to host Sarah Palin (remember her) that the nation’s unemployment situation was dire. “Well, if you really looked, Sarah, at the economy it’s been terrible,” Trump claimed. “We have 93,000,000 people out of work. They look for jobs, they give up, and all of a sudden, statistically, they’re considered employed.”

There might be fools who believed the good monthly jobs reports issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics back in those days.

Not Trump.

Those good monthly numbers—which Candidate Trump called “rigged”—showed that once the Great Recession ended in late 2010, the economy added jobs 76 months in a row, under Obama.

In January 2017, Sean Hannity blasted Obama one last time as he left office. It burned his ass, Hannity said, to listen to the outgoing president boast about the healthy economy as he returned to civilian life. Hannity was wise to the scam. The state of the economy was not good:

Well, facts, they paint a much different picture. Now, what is actually true, he oversaw the precipitous decline of the American economy, that’s a fact. And here’s why. Under President Obama we have seen the lowest labor participation rate since the 70s, 95 million of your fellow Americans are out of the labor force, he didn’t mention that tonight…”

So there you had it. Facts! Hannity facts! Trump facts! Holy-shit-facts!!!! Somewhere north of 90,000,000 Americans were desperate for work. Trump was warning voters not to elect Hillary. If they did the economy would crash, just as it had in 2008—because of Obama—when President George W. Bush was in office. The good jobs numbers that had been pouring forth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics since late 2010, Trump insisted, were fake.

First, he claimed the real unemployment rate was 15%. Then he said it was 18 to 20 percent. On August 11, 2015, when the official rate was 5.4%, Trump insisted “it’s probably 40%.”

Trump was fuzzy about numbers. He often is. No matter! By August 30, he had the rate nailed. “The real number,” he told a reporter, “I saw a number that could be 42 percent, believe it or not.”

Believe it or not!

In September 2015, Candidate Trump said the unemployment number was either 24% or 42%.

In October he said it was 32%.

By the start of 2016, he was claiming the Bureau of Labor Statistic had “cooked the books.” The jobs reports were “phony.” In February Trump revealed the truth. The unemployment rate was 35%! Or maybe 42%! It was awful either way.

In August 2016 he scoffed at the official unemployment rate. “The 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics.”

The shocking facts, as revealed by Donald J. Trump.

Even after he won election Trump couldn’t be fooled—and neither could his fans. “The unemployment number, as you know,” Trump told reporters in December 2016, “is totally fiction.”

Then he took charge. The Trump jobs boom began! Or so we were told. But Donald J. Trump himself, with the able assistance of Hannity and the rest of the hosts at Fox News, had tipped this liberal off. The numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics had to be wrong.

Here are the shocking facts, as revealed by Donald J. Trump! Starting from that figure of 93,000,000 unemployed, which he posited at the end of 2016, the Bureau reported that in January 2017, 259,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. The official unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent.

When the jobs report for February 2017, Trump’s first full month in office, was good, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the numbers might have been phony in the past. Now they were “very real.”

Only this liberal knew math! I had listened to Candidate Trump and his sidekick, Gelled Hair Sean.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 200,000 jobs were added in February 2017. The Bureau claimed the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.7 percent. But I was using Trump’s figures because I knew Trump never lies. He just can’t do it. He is the modern equivalent of George Washington with his little hatchet, facing a cherry tree of facts. He cannot cut it down and say he didn’t. And by his figures more than 92.5 million Americans still had to be seeking work!

I’m not crazy. I can’t deny addition and subtraction.

The economy has continued to add jobs every month since Trump took charge. The streak of 95 positive monthly job reports has continued through 2018. In nineteen full months since he first took office 3,583,000 jobs have been added to the U.S. economy (February 2017-August 2018).

The numbers must still be “rigged!”

Well, you still can’t fool me. I have a calculator and I know how to punch buttons. As of now, Trump can claim he has been adding 188,579 jobs per month. And the unemployment rate has officially dropped to 3.9 percent. But I was not born yesterday. I was born in 1949. I’m old. You can’t trick me again—like when I thought Obama was adding jobs 76 months in succession.

If we subtract all the jobs created under Trump, from the number of Americans who Trump and Hannity swore were crying out for work (we’ll use Trump’s lower estimate), then we find:

  93,000,000 Americans looking for work (December 2016)

  -    259,000 jobs added in January 2017

  - 3,583,000 jobs created since

 

  89,158,000 Americans still looking for work!

In other words, since I have listened to Hannity and Lou Dobbs and all the angry right-wing nuts, I know the horrible truth. The official unemployment rate can’t be right. The numbers must be “rigged.” By Trump’s own math, we know more than 89,000,000 Americans are still pounding the pavement, crying out, “Work! Work! I’ll even wait tables at Mar-a-Lago, but I need work!”

So I am going to try to estimate the true unemployment rate, using the kind of math Trump employed when Obama was in office. I am going to figure the rate is 39%. Or maybe 26%, or some other scary number, like 102%. Frankly, I don’t know. But it can’t possibly be as low as 3.9%.

Because I know math and I listened to Trump. 

I think we can all agree: there are almost 90 million Americans still desperately seeking work.
Just ask President Trump.
Or Hannity would do.

President Trump Tramples on the Rule of Law Again

I set myself the task of mocking the idiocy of President Trump every day; 

but I often point out ways in which he is dangerous.

Today is one of the dangerous days:

9/4/18: Just when you think President Trump might make it through an entire day without trampling on the rule of law, he puts on his golf spikes and starts poking fresh holes in the U.S. Constitution.

What now, you ask?

First, Trump puts his fat orange thumb on the Twitter button and pushes down hard on the scales of justice. This time he’s upset about the indictments of two Republican members of Congress.

Tappity-tap go the presidential digits:

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......

 ....The Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now. Same thing with Lyin’ James Comey. The Dems all hated him, wanted him out, thought he was disgusting - UNTIL I FIRED HIM! Immediately he became a wonderful man, a saint like figure in fact. Really sick!

And there in one tidy package you glimpse the “beauty” of Trump.

In just 95 words, without even checking grammar, employing the kind of “logic” any fifth grader could demolish, the President of the United States manages to:

1.    Undercut faith in the Department of Justice

2.    Sow doubt about the fairness of the courts

3.    Disrespect the rule of law

4.    Hint that Obama still can’t be trusted

5.    Not mention the indicted men by name

6.    Not talk about why they were indicted

7.    Label Comey a liar (and hope his fans aren’t keeping track of all the president’s lies—which are bountiful)

8.    Call Democrats “sick” (a favorite Trump Twitter ploy)

9.    Insult Sessions without having the nuts to fire him

It’s a giant package of stupidity, wrapped in a bow of ignorance; but there are a surprising number of Trump lovers who swallow it down.

(Note the “retweets” and “likes” when I checked at 9:22 this morning.)

I know it probably won’t help the greatest Trump lovers; but let’s try to sort this out in a sensible fashion. The Department of Justice is run by a Republican appointed by President Trump.

Trump can remove Sessions—and we all know burns with desire to do so. He doesn’t dare, at least until after the midterms. If he were to fire Sessions now most Americans, including many of his supporters would see it as increasingly clear proof of his intent to obstruct justice. Sessions gets it first. Trump puts a total stooge in his place.

Devin Nunes, maybe?

Presto: The stooge fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the “witch hunt” is ended.

No more annoying rule of law!

In the battle to conquer at least some small part of ignorance, I would like to point out that F.B.I. Director Wray, a Republican, appointed by Trump, has said repeatedly that the Mueller investigation is not a witch hunt.

By golly, you can even watch him say so on Fox News!

Indeed, even on the president’s favorite cable news channel, where logic usually goes to die, real journalists are increasingly restive. Brit Hume, senior political analyst at Fox, quickly counters Trump’s pair of tweets with one of his own: “Will DJT never learn that an attorney general’s job is not to play goalie for a president or his party, or any party for that matter?”

Amen to that.

I could also try to point out to rabid Trump fans that Obama is not some Muslim, born-in-Kenya, steal-all-the-guns boogieman. But that would require a great expenditure of words. The logic would still be lost.

So let’s point out that the Department of Justice regularly investigates politicians of all stripes.

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on fourteen felony counts in April 2015, when Obama was in the White House. Menendez managed to survive a trial, although this blogger thought he was a crook.

In many cases, however, the Department of Justice gets its man or woman. Prosecutors indicted Sheldon Silver, a powerful New York State legislator in 2015. This time they managed to prove that Silver was a bribe-taking bum, who pocketed millions of dollars over a period of ten years. Silver survived a first trial, only to be convicted in a second this past May.

You can easily look this all up. Trump could look it up himself, except for the fact he has the same intellectual curiosity as a clam.

And, unlike a clam, he’s a shameless liar.

No insult intended to clams.

If you’d like to be both appalled and amused go to Wikipedia for a list of “American federal politicians convicted of crimes.”

(There’s an even longer list of state and local politicians; but for our purposes today we can move on.)

Under Mr. Obama, the Department of Justice went after miscreants in bipartisan fashion. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, was famously convicted after sending pictures of his weenie to a 15-year-old girl. Rick Renzi, a Republican congressman, was acquitted on 15 felony charges! At last, an innocent politician….or, not. He was found guilty on 17 other felony counts. Dennis Hassert, a former Republican lawmaker was convicted of paying off a wrestler he had sexually assaulted when Hassert was coaching in high school. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), scion of a famous Democratic clan, was nailed for a felony after misusing $750,000 in campaign funds. Trey Radel (R-FL) got busted for cocaine possession. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) got nailed on 23 felony counts. Michael Grimm (R-NY) pled guilty to a single count of felony tax evasion. In return, Grimm avoided trial on nineteen additional counts and was sentenced to eight months in jail.

Still, if you like audacity, all hail Mr. Grimm! Fresh out of the slammer, he decided to run for Congress again in 2018.

Alas, for those of us who like to make fun of Republicans, Grimm went down to defeat in a June primary.

It’s not hard to understand any of this, really. You just have to do a little reading—and a little less tweeting, if you’re president. We want the Department of Justice to go after as many crooks in government as they can find and convict them when the evidence merits it.

If a Republican is stealing—it’s a taxpayer’s dollar. It’s the same dollar if a Democrat steals it.

Or a Whig.

The two congressman indicted, but not named by Trump in his tweets, are Chris Collins (see: 8/8/18) and Duncan Hunter (see: 8/22/18).

I suspect the president didn’t want to name them simply because some of his supporters might google their names and not come away impressed by what they’d find. Collins has been accused of insider trading—and just to give you a taste—he and a few of his relatives and in-laws are accused of dumping stock they owned just before the price plunged. Collins and his crew kept their losses to a minimum and “chumps” got stock that promptly lost 90% of its value.

Hunter was indicted—along with his wife—and charged with misusing campaign funds (the same crime with which the Democrat, Jesse Jackson Jr., was charged). Among their many felonious indiscretions, the Hunters were accused of using $600 in campaign cash to fly a pet bunny along a family vacation.

That vacation was, of course paid for with campaign donations.

Less humorous, and just as flagrantly illegal, was the time Mr. and Mrs. Hunter purchased personal clothing at a golf course gift shop and claimed they had really been buying golf balls for “wounded warriors.”

It is true, of course, that the U.S. system of justice is imperfect. Collins and his pals, and the Hunters may even prove to be innocent; but the rule of law requires they be indicted if the evidence indicates crimes have been committed. Again, this is not hard to grasp; and you can’t grasp the truth if your too lazy to do anything but tweet, as Trump does every day, and read stupid tweets, as too many of his fans do, also every day.

The U.S. system of justice may be the best in the long history of the world; but problems abound—because it’s a system of men and women, not just a system of laws. Innocent individuals have been convicted of murders and sent to death row. Illegal immigrants do sneak into our country and do sometimes commit heinous crimes. See, for example, the tragic story of Mollie Tibbetts. Native-born Americans also commit heinous crimes. They shoot down concert goers in Las Vegas, mow down members of a church congregation in Sutherland Springs and massacre teachers and little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In our system of justice even the most terrible criminals are accorded the fairest possible trials. Real criminals sometimes get off when a dozen jurors can’t be positive they committed crimes they probably committed. Occasionally, police have been known to plant evidence. Prosecutors suppress exculpatory material. A crime lab technician forges test results. Poor defendants are often ill-served by bad lawyers—including one who repeatedly fell asleep during trial. Rich white people generally get off with lighter sentences and darker individuals get fined in similar cases or carted off to jail. More than two thousand men and women, convicted of crimes in past years, have been set free when new DNA evidence was used to exonerate them.

Those two thousand plus individual exonerated had already spent an average of 8.8 years behind bars.

So, you see: You learn a lot about how the U.S. courts function if you’re not simply too lazy to read.

You won’t learn anything, really—and you might end up dumber, in fact—if you are gullible enough to believe most of the president’s tweets.

Postscript: 

With the attention of the public directed elsewhere yesterday, Rudy Giuliani announced that once Special Counsel Mueller completed his investigation and reported to Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein, the White House would assert executive privilege.

In other words, the president would try to suppress any findings and the public would never see them.

Of course, President Trump insists he and his closest aides have nothing to hide. Even a clam wouldn’t fall for that line of b.s.