7/21/17: For those of us who enjoy mocking the
Trump administration this is a black day. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who
often left reporters and those watching on TV in stunned disbelief, resigns.
According to friends “Spicey” wearied
of insults hurled by the president.
His replacement, Anthony
Scaramucci, explainsthe president’s real problem to
reporters. He’s “doing a phenomenal job,” Scaramucci insists, “and we just need
to get it out there a little more aggressively.”
No problem. Scaramucci, “The Mooch,” is
on the job!
Meanwhile, Federal Aviation
Administration records indicate Trump is planning on
spending August 3-20 at his home/golf course in Bedminster. As for Congress, he
still thinks legislators should remain in session and get a healthcare bill on
his desk quick. (See: 7/21/17.)
Can Congress just mail the bill to
Bedminster?
___
7/22/17: The president rolls out of bed just after 5:30 a.m. in his Wonder
Woman pajamas and gets down to the business of governing! He warms up by
attacking The New York Times and
Washington Post in a tweet.
Why do these papers keep
insisting the Russian investigation matters! (See pretty much
everything above: 7/8-14/17, etc.)
At 6:35 he gets to the meat of the matter. No one in his administration has
ever seen a Russian, touched a Russian, talked to a Russian, heard a Russian
offer to fatten a bank account, or smelled a Russian fart. But if they did –
are you listening Don Jr. and Jared – don’t worry.
Trump tweets: “While all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think
of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS.”
The
pardon power, yeah, why would anyone
think about that?
___
7/23/17: Another Sunday tweetstorm brews up in
Trumpistan. Rap, tap, tap, go the presidential digits on the keys to his
iPhone: “As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at
this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians.”
“It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on
my back, do very little to protect their
President [emphasis added]”
Fortunately, there’s real news to report –
that is, any news that makes Orange Leader feel good, even when he looks in a
mirror and realizes his hair makes it seem like he has a dead fox sitting atop
his cranium. Tappity-tap-tap: “Thank you to @LOUDOBBS for giving the first six
months of the Trump Administration an A+. S.C.,reg cutting,Stock M, jobs,border
etc. = TRUE!”
Can’t we all just get along? Conservative
friends of the blogger who glance at these posts always seem so…mad.
Let us strive to find common ground. For
example, are monthly job gains good so far under Emperor Trump?
Yes.
Are they as good as under President
Obama, notorious Kenyan interloper, according to Trump?
They are not.
____________________
This is what we
liberals refer to as “using facts.”
____________________
We of the liberal persuasion will do our best to
outline relevant facts. Let us begin with a quick perusal of the Bureau of
Labor Statistics reports to form a picture of the growth of the job market in
recent years.
Unless I have made some minor error in addition
the total number of jobs added each year, once the Great Recession ended, would
be as follows:
2011:2,074,000
2012:2,176,000
2013:2,301,000
2014:3,004,000
2015:2,720,000
2016:2,345,000
2017:2,114,000
I added a chart later, which covers all of Trump's time in office.
Of course, conservatives once insisted job
numbers couldn’t possibly be that good. You may even remember that happy day
when Candidate Trump claimed93 million Americans were without jobs.
That claim was so far-fetched it seemed no one
who could count on fingers and toes and come up with anything close to “twenty”
would fall for it.
Yet many in Trumpistan did.
Suppose this claim had been true. Even if
we cut Emperor Donald I some slack, even if we ignored the entry of a couple
million young people into the labor force this year, even if we simply
subtracted the number of jobs created in 2017, it would mean at least 91
million Americans still lack employ.
Ten thousand baby
boomers retired every day.
Of course, I know my conservative friends like
to say the job gains under Obama didn’t hold up because the labor
participation rate plunged. Magazillions of Americans, they insisted,
had given up looking for work. So, we can check Bureau of Labor
Statistics and see what we find. That participation rate did drop from 66.2% in
January 2008 to a 62.7% in December 2015.
I would point out to my Trump-loving friends
that 10,000 baby boomers retired every day. I would do my best to explain how
this would impact the labor participation rate. Senator Rob Portman, an
admitted Republican, said as much, but in a different context, in a 2014
speech. This figure, 10,000, was reported first in the Wall Street
Journal. It was then analyzed by the Washington Post.
The Post agreed Portman’s figure was accurate, meaning 3.5
million Baby Boomers were bowing out of the job market every year. My friends
of conservative bent did not wish to hear such math.
It made them angry when I kept citing figures
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In fact, who can forget Candidate Trump insisting that Obama’s
good job numbers were one of the “biggest hoaxes in politics.” The monthly
numbers remained a hoax till he took office. Then the numbers became, in some
magical fashion, real. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said so himself, as soon as the first good reports were
issued for Trump. The numbers “may have been phony” before, Spicer informed
stunned reporters.
They were “very real” now.
Again, this humble blogger had a hard time
believing anyone could fall for such math-defying dung.
The economy had shed
4,000,000 jobs.
Today we find ourselves in a position to study
the job numbers for the first year of the reign of Emperor Donald I. Technically,
he should not get credit for all gains in January 2017 since he took over after
19 ½ days had passed. Still, we shall allow him all those gains. (We are if
nothing else, gracious in our assessment.)
As we can quickly see, if we grab our
calculators and start punching buttons, Obama added more jobs five years in
succession (2012-2016) than the Donald I in 2017. Finally, we should disabuse
our conservative friends of the idea that Trump “inherited a mess” when he took
office. For 76 months in succession, jobs had been addedto the U.S. economy, starting in October 2010.
By comparison, Mr. Obama did inherit a
mess. If we consider the last eleven months of 2008 and the first 19 ½ days of
January 2009 (assuming Obama could not cause job losses till he took the oath
of office at noon on January 20), we learn that he took over an economy
which had just shed 4,072,000 jobs.
Even Donald J. Trump can probably tell. Losing
4,072,000 jobs in one year is worse than gaining 2,000,000 + jobs annually for
six years.
What does that leave Trump to brag about when
comparing job numbers? True, gains could strengthen in months ahead. He could
outperform Obama in the end. We cannot know. We can, however, knock another
plank out of the argument that economic miracles have been performed since he
took office.
For those who love Trump, we also find that
labor participation rates have ticked down slightly in the last year.
Summing up, again focusing on facts, as far as job creation is concerned, Emperor
Donald is doing a good job.
He’s not doing significantly better than the man
who preceded him in the White House. In fact, he’s doing a bit worse.
And, just for fun, remember that Mr. Obama was
never accused of paying off porn stars during his time in office.
IN THE WAKE of the shocking attack
on Capitol Hill, a new myth began taking root in Trumpistan.
The thousands of rioters we
saw, dressed like Trump fans, were not Trump fans. The dread Antifa had struck
again. The president’s loyal defenders immediately began road testing that lie.
“If Antifa was there,” former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested,
“we need to root it out and to make sure that that’s called out because it
shouldn’t be blamed on groups that weren’t responsible.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz falsely claims XRVision has identified Antifa protesters.
____________________
“You, we, are the law-abiding citizens of this country.”
Mark Levin, wrongly reassuring Trump supporters ____________________
Such as people in red MAGA hats, carrying Trump flags. (It was good to see that Mr. Spicer hadn’t lost his talent for bullshitting and obfuscation.)
“I heard those reports, too, about possible Antifa infiltration,” said Newsmax host Chris Calcedo, during an interview with…Mike Lindell, of all people. Lindell could only frown and shake his head in disgust.
Hannity really wanted to know who the rioters were.
It was obvious from the start.
On Fox News, Lou Dobbs noted
that there had been “reports of instigators.” Sean Hannity explained, “We also
knew that there’s always bad actors that will infiltrate crowds.” Laura
Ingraham defended the mob that gathered to surround Capitol Hill, insisting that
the “an overwhelming majority of them, more than 99%, had to be, were peaceful,
but because of a small contingent of loons, these patriots have been unfairly
maligned.” Even better, the Washington Times reported that XRVision, a
company that markets facial recognition software, had scanned the members of
the mob who stormed the building. Yep! They were Antifa scum!
Rep. Matt Gaetz, that rare politician
who can match Trump for mendacity, heard the news and could hardly wait to
stand up in the House of Representatives and tell all his colleagues the good
news. Just hours after the attack, as lawmakers reassembled for business, Gaetz
insisted, “some of the people who breached the Capitol
today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and
in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.”
See! Trump’s “Law & Order” fans would never
break the law. Or, if they did, Trump would pardon them all.
Gaetz smirked as he spoke, because that’s the
only expression that registers on his face, and cited the story in the Washington
Times, and the proof supplied by XRVision. So the myth was born. The myth took root. The people who
stormed the halls of Congress on January 6, were not Trump supporters at all.
They were just America-hating, flag-burning vermin.
XRVision promptly notified the
Times that they had no idea what the newspaper was talking about.
The Times had no choice
but to issue a retraction,
noting, that “an earlier version” of the story they had published and the
dimwitted Rep. Gaetz had happily cited, “incorrectly
stated that XRVision” had “identified Antifa members among rioters who stormed
the Capitol Wednesday. XRVision did not identify any Antifa members. The Washington
Times apologizes to XRVision for the error.”
It didn’t matter. The lie
spread. And lie became myth. It has often been said that people believe what
they want to believe. More apt to say that people believe what they must. Faced
with bleak evidence of what they had become, supporters of the president had to
tell themselves that what they witnessed on January 6, was not what they had become.
Mark Levin, host of a nightly show on Fox News, condemned the rioters, as any
sane person would.
Then he assured his audience, Trump
lovers all, “None of you had anything to do with it….You,
we, are the law-abiding citizens of this country.”
Greg Kelly, a top host on Newsmax, took one
look at that vast MAGA crowd that gathered to hear Trump speak that fateful day.
That vast throng, wearing Trump
hats, waving Trump flags, and gathered to “Stop the Steal” as their banners
proclaimed, yes, those were Trump fans.
Patriots, all.
When people in that crowd
roared approval, when the president told them to march to Capitol Hill and
fight like hell – no, no, no. Those weren’t Trump supporters who marched. Whose
feet started to shuffle. Kelly looked at the Trump hats on their heads. He
looked at the Trump flags they used to break out windows and crack cops over
the heads. “These people don’t look like Trump supporters,”
he reassured Trump supporters who looked exactly like those people did.
“Trump supporters,” he added, “don’t do these
things.”
On his show, Sean Hannity feigned confusion. “I’d
like to know who the agitators were,” he said.
It was obvious from the start.
*
FACTS MATTER. Evidence counts.
Or it should. So, let’s consider the people who have been arrested and charged so far.
Many of the insurrectionists told reporters on the scene and investigators
in coming days that they had answered the call to “save the country,” issued by
President Trump and his enabling pals.
(Sean
Hannity, for one.)
Among those taken into custody, for example, we had:
…Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70, an
Alabama grandfather who drove to Washington to attend Trump’s “Save America
Rally” in a red GMC Sierra pickup packed with an M4 assault rifle, multiple
loaded magazines, three handguns and 11 Mason jars filled with homemade napalm,
according to court filings.
His grandson, Brandon Coffman,
told the [Associated Press] on Friday his grandfather was a Republican who had
expressed admiration for Trump at holiday gatherings. He said he had no idea
why Coffman would show up in the nation’s capital armed for civil war.
And we had this guy:
Also facing federal charges is
Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., a Georgia man who in the wake of the election
had protested outside the home of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump had
publicly blamed for his loss in the state. Meredith drove to Washington last
week for the “Save America” rally but arrived late because of a problem with
the lights on his trailer, according to court filings that include
expletive-laden texts.
“Headed to DC with a (s — ) ton
of 5.56 armor-piercing ammo,” he texted friends and relatives on Jan. 6, adding
a purple devil emoji, according to court filings. The following day, he texted
to the group: “Thinking about heading over to Pelosi (C —’s) speech and putting
a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.” He once again added a purple devil emoji,
and wrote he might hit her with his truck instead. “I’m gonna run that (C —)
Pelosi over while she chews on her gums….Dead (B —) Walking. I predict that
within 12 days, many in our country will die.”
Meredith, who is white, then
texted a photo of himself in blackface. “I’m gonna walk around DC FKG with
people by yelling ‘Allahu ak Bar’ randomly.”
Someone involved in the group text grabbed screenshots of the
threats and contacted the F.B.I.
Agents tracked the would-be assassin to a Holiday Inn not far
from the Capitol shortly after. There, they “found a compact Tavor X95 assault
rifle, a 9mm Glock 19 handgun and about 100 rounds of ammunition, according to
court filings. The agents also seized a stash of THC edibles and a vial of
injectable testosterone.” Just about the perfect mix if you had half-baked
dreams of mayhem in mind.
This mob didn't need any more incitement than the president had already provided.
