The Archives Reveal the Real Trump
06/05/18
News that has moved out the forefront of the news, but which is still extremely important and relevant in painting the true picture of Trump, is included under this ‘Archives’ section.
The Stock Plunge
03/24/18
Trump the braggart has stopped bragging! He’s maintained total silence on the subject since the stock market took a nose dive on 2/5/18. This is quite notable since he’s the first to regularly point to the rising market as evidence of the success of his presidency and economic policies. On the other hand, narcissists will never admit to any blame; so his reaction is quite predictable. His “non-reaction” also highlights the risks for politicians who take credit for soaring stocks, namely the fall!
Trump avoided any mention of the stock market during an economic speech in Ohio on Monday, February 5th, the day of the fall, and he ignored the questions reporters shouted at him as he returned to the White House after the markets had closed for the day. Also, he didn’t tweet about the subject Tuesday morning. Cat got your tongue, 45?
- At the close on Monday, 2/5/18, the Dow Jones industrial Average (DJIA) had fallen more than 1,150 points, the largest one-day point drop in history!
- On Thursday, 2/8/18, the DJIA then fell over 1,000 points, putting the economy in a bear market.
- During the business week ending on 3/24/18, the stock market took its biggest plunge in more than two years, wiping more than 1,100 points off the DOW in two days as a direct result of Trump’s irresponsible trade war with China.
State of the Union
01/30/18
Synopsis - Dubious Fact & Figures
On 1/30/18, Trump delivered his State of the Union speech, which was long on words and short on facts, as fact-checking has proven. One of the biggest applause lines in Trump’s State of the Union speech was when he declared, “The time for trivial fights is behind us.” Democrats and even many Republicans hoped it signaled a new day. It was false hope. Trump’s modis operandi is almost always to drive a wedge between the two sides of American politics, solidifying his poorly educated base of supporters and causing his critics to become outraged. Trump alluded to the same mythical brand of unity in his speech. “Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,” he said. The past 11 months, however, have proven over and over that Trump has little interest in making such unification a reality.
Trump is no stranger to hyperbole and straight-up false claims, and his first State of the Union was no exception. He said the United States is “now an exporter of energy to the world.” Wrong. He said Congress passed and he signed “the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.” Wrong. He said, “We have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.” That might be true, but because available records don’t go back beyond a few decades, so we simply don’t know. Trump even claimed that his tax cuts were leading to bonuses - many of which were “thousands and thousands of dollars per worker.” The most publicized bonuses, though, were generally $1,000. These are part of Trump’s everyday talking points, so hearing them in this speech wasn’t jarring. But it is notable that the White House uses bogus and unproven claims even on this important stage. Click here for fact-checking of Trump’s speech from the Pulitzer prize winning PolitiFact web site.
Clearly, the best speech of the evening came from representative Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) in his response to the State of the Union address. His clear message was that Trump and the Republicans had offered “one false choice after another” to Americans, “turning American life into a zero-sum game” in which the wealthiest among us score the most wins at the expense of the rest.
World Economic Forum
01/26/18
As Forum chairman Klaus Schwab introduced Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on 1/26/18, he drew some hisses when he said that the president could be subject to “misconceptions and biased interpretations.” When Trump took the stage, he received modest applause, but some people kept their hands at their sides. The crowd was largely subdued as Trump spoke, but there were boos and hisses when Trump took a swipe at “how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be.”
Interestingly, none of the past US presidents ever drew boos and hisses; nor did any of them ever inappropriately whine like a baby about the press at such an international meeting of world leaders.
Kudos to Senator Jeff Flake (Republican from Azizona)
01/17/18
Kudos to Senator Jeff Flake (R - Arizona) for his inspired speech on the Senate floor on 1/17/18, calling out Trump for launching a war on the media, comparing Trump to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and warning his colleagues that nothing less than American democracy is at stake. Click here for the full text of Republican Senator Flake’s remarkably accurate and much needed speech. Hopefully more senators will follow suit, get on board and do what they know in their hearts is the right thing to do by holding Trump responsible for his unchecked actions.