(August 31, 2018 at 12:30 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

That's a volunteer who didn't get the memo, though it's easy to understand his confusion. Yes, he was told the press is the enemy of the people, so you would think that preventing a photographer from taking a picture of a protestor is what his Dear Leader would want. But if I recall correctly, wasn't he supposed to knock the crap out of the woman and trust his god to cover the legal bills? At the least, he should have groped her.

President Trump’s repeated claim: 'The greatest economy in the history of our country’

Quote:Now, in 40 different venues over three months, according to our database of false and misleading claims, President Trump has declared that the economy is the greatest, the best or the strongest in U.S. history. That’s a rate of every two days. In some cases, such as the rally in West Virginia — a rally, that like all of his campaign rallies was aired without interruption on Fox News — he repeated the statement as many as four times.

This type of presidential braggadocio leaves us with a conundrum. One could dismiss it a merely overheated rhetoric, as one historian suggested to The Fact Checker. (Another joked, “you should put these questions to a rabbi, not an economic historian.”) But is there a point at which the statement becomes its own form of truth through consistent repetition? The president has said it so often that by the end of the three-month period, he even quoted himself: "It's said now that our economy is the strongest it's ever been in the history of our country.”

. . . . . . .

Robert D. Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and author of “The Past and Future of America’s Economy: Long Waves of Innovation That Power Cycles of Growth,” said the GDP is not a valid measure of “the strongest economy” in the first place.

“It’s a bit like looking at the best-selling movie’s box office receipts,” he said. “It’s easiest to be the top-grossing movie today because there are more people in the U.S. than ever before and ticket prices are highest, because of inflation.”

Atkinson said a better measure is growth in productivity — the output per hour of work. “By this measure, the economy under President Trump is actually performing very poorly, compared to postwar figures,” he said. “In the six quarters since the president was elected, business labor productivity grew 1.4 percent per year, compared to periods in the 1960s and the period between 1996 and 2004 where it grew approximately two to 2.5 times faster.”

Everything old is new again.....

The thin-skinned president who made it illegal to criticize his office

Quote:The thin-skinned president of the United States was furious at his critics — like the congressman who wrote that the president was “swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation and selfish avarice.”

The peeved president wasn’t Donald Trump. He was America’s second commander in chief, John Adams.

Though Adams was a Founding Father of the United States’ democracy, he couldn’t abide personal scorn. In July 1798, he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts that, among other things, made it illegal to “write, print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings” against the president and other executive branch officials.

Trump invents Obama quote in tweet boasting of economic performance

Quote:Donald Trump has attributed a false quote to Barack Obama in a tweet about the US economy.

The president wrote: “’President Trump would need a magic wand to get to 4% GDP,’ stated President Obama. I guess I have a magic wand, 4.2%, and we will do MUCH better than this! We have just begun.”

But Mr Obama has never said this, and during his presidency GDP exceeded 4.2 per cent on three separate occasions.

Inexplicably, Mr Trump then proved the inaccuracy of the quote by tweeting a video of Mr Obama speaking in June 2016.

Government borrowing soars despite robust economy

Quote:As a candidate, Trump promised to eliminate the debt by the time he left office.

Quote:The U.S. budget deficit is reaching levels that are abnormally high for a robust economy, and lawmakers from both parties are proposing ideas that would make the deficit swell even further.

The government spent $895 billion more than it brought in from taxes and other revenue sources during the past 11 months, the Congressional Budget Office said this week, a 33 percent increase from one year before.

Typically, the deficit shrinks during strong economic times, as the need for costly government support wanes and tax revenue rises. In 2000, the last time the unemployment rate was at its current level of 3.9 percent, the government ran a surplus, meaning tax revenue eclipsed all spending.

The dynamic is much different now.

Corporate tax receipts fell 30 percent in the past 11 months, the CBO said, precipitated by the large reduction in rates from the massive tax overhaul passed by Congress last year. Spending levels have risen sharply as a result of a bipartisan agreement to shed budget caps put in place to maintain fiscal discipline and pour more money into both military and domestic programs.

“It’s not just irresponsible, it’s wildly irresponsible,” said retired senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who added that lawmakers are pushing the deficit higher because of political expediency.

“If you are seeking elective office, the hardest thing in the world is to say, ‘I’m going to raise your taxes or cut spending on popular programs,’ ” he said.

Among the Republicans, the loudest voices recently have come from outside Congress.

“With a booming economy, full employment, a soaring stock market and record asset values, we should be shrinking the deficit, not growing it,” Mitt Romney, a Republican and Senate candidate in Utah, wrote on his campaign website Monday. He said other conservatives have largely been “silent” on the issue since President Trump took office.

Yet there are signs the borrowing binge has only begun.

Fact Check: Who gets credit for the booming U.S. economy?

Quote:The U.S. economy is chugging along. Employers added 201,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate held steady at a low, 3.9 percent. Average wages in August were nearly 3 percent higher than they were a year ago.

Who should get the credit for that strong performance?

At a campaign rally in North Dakota last week, President Trump boasted that he's responsible for the economy taking off like a "rocket ship."

But Trump's predecessor wants to remind everyone that the countdown began on his watch.

"When you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let's just remember when this recovery started," former President Barack Obama told supporters Friday at the University of Illinois.

Quote:So while the White House can certainly point to some yardsticks that indicate a meaningful turnaround on Trump's watch — including small business sentiment, business investment and goods-producing job growth — broader measures of the overall job market and wages show the economy continues to follow the steady, upward glide path that began under Obama.

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Quote:“The president asks me all the time, ‘Why did Roy Moore lose?’” Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, recently said at a New York fundraiser.

He has also complained that aides publicly admitted mistakes earlier this year over their handling of allegations that former White House staff secretary Rob Porter was emotionally and physically abusive toward his two ex-wives. “You should have never apologized,” he told a group of communications aides, according to two people. “You don’t ever apologize.”

‘Never give an inch’: Trump keeps touting perceived failures as successes

(September 12, 2018 at 1:17 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

Government borrowing soars despite robust economy

Quote:As a candidate, Trump promised to eliminate the debt by the time he left office.

Quote:The U.S. budget deficit is reaching levels that are abnormally high for a robust economy, and lawmakers from both parties are proposing ideas that would make the deficit swell even further.

The government spent $895 billion more than it brought in from taxes and other revenue sources during the past 11 months, the Congressional Budget Office said this week, a 33 percent increase from one year before.

Typically, the deficit shrinks during strong economic times, as the need for costly government support wanes and tax revenue rises. In 2000, the last time the unemployment rate was at its current level of 3.9 percent, the government ran a surplus, meaning tax revenue eclipsed all spending.

The dynamic is much different now.

Corporate tax receipts fell 30 percent in the past 11 months, the CBO said, precipitated by the large reduction in rates from the massive tax overhaul passed by Congress last year. Spending levels have risen sharply as a result of a bipartisan agreement to shed budget caps put in place to maintain fiscal discipline and pour more money into both military and domestic programs.

“It’s not just irresponsible, it’s wildly irresponsible,” said retired senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who added that lawmakers are pushing the deficit higher because of political expediency.

“If you are seeking elective office, the hardest thing in the world is to say, ‘I’m going to raise your taxes or cut spending on popular programs,’ ” he said.

Among the Republicans, the loudest voices recently have come from outside Congress.

“With a booming economy, full employment, a soaring stock market and record asset values, we should be shrinking the deficit, not growing it,” Mitt Romney, a Republican and Senate candidate in Utah, wrote on his campaign website Monday. He said other conservatives have largely been “silent” on the issue since President Trump took office.

Yet there are signs the borrowing binge has only begun.

Duplicity is not his problem, he has no principles.  He is however willing to act as though he did for the right price.

How stupid are trumptards?  There does not seem to be a bottom to that hole.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/angry-t...hurricane/

Quote:Angry Trump supporters turn on GOP Senate candidate after he admits 3K Puerto Ricans died from hurricane

The WLB makes up a lie and his asswipe supporters fall right into line.  I think we need to deport trumptards.  To Mars.

I think the real crime here is that a conservative stuck up for the truth. Conservatives hate that shit.