Category: Policies

Trump Tweets ISIS and Bad Economic Numbers are Obama’s Fault, Both Not True

Twitter

In his Twitter account, Donald Trump fired off a tweet blasting President Obama’s decision-making for causing ISIS and a horrible economy, claims that are as far from reality as one can get.

Reality

What was crazy about Trump’s claims, that we are seeing worst economic numbers since the Great Depression, is that there is no reading of any data that puts our economy at the same level of the Great Depression or even the Great Recession.

Also there was this little thing of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs and economic report released just a day after Trump’s tweet which shows a bright economic outlook. Whoops!

The Labor Department report said employers added 255,000 jobs in July continuing the longest streak of private-sector job growth, the unemployment rate remains below the natural rate at 4.9%, and the labor participation rate went up, all beating economic expectations. In response to the report the NASDAQ surged so high stocks are into record territory.

The jobs report was so good that usual critic Jeff Cox of NBC said “It’s hard to find anything bad, even for a skeptic.“

The even crazier claim in Trump’s tweet was how “Obama gave us ISIS.” A quick history lesson, ISIS was formed in 1999 and greatly expanded in 2003 by former members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party who were out of a job after the George W. Bush-lead invasion of Iraq, which was based on faulty evidence. Donald Trump (as well as Fox News) can’t rewrite history here, Barack Obama was not a United States Senator until 2005, two years after the start of the invasion.

Fact is, over the past 2 years ISIS has been, losing ground, pushed out of key cities, and cut off from revenue producing oil fields. While ISIS still has the ability to inspire attacks in other countries, the multi-nation military response is working.

Finally, the “rise of Iran” may sound scary to some on first read, but as experts at think-tanks and NATO have argued, their rise is unsustainable, short lived, and a good thing as it will help towards stabilizing the Middle-East.

Trump Reportedly Asks Why US Can’t Use Nukes

Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. can’t use nuclear weapons, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on the air, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said on his “Morning Joe” program.

Scarborough made the Trump comments during an interview with former Director of Central Intelligence and ex-National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, who mentioned he knows of no peers that is advising Donald Trump.

Scarborough then asked a hypothetical question to Hayden about how quickly nuclear weapons could be deployed if a president were to give approval.

“It’s scenario dependent, but the system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision,” Hayden said.

Hayden was CIA director from 2006 to 2009 during the George W. Bush presidency. He was the National Security Agency director from 1999 to 2005, spanning the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

CNBC and others reached out to the Trump campaign via email and was awaiting a response.

(h/t Yahoo)

Reality

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he would not take nuclear weapons off the table, even going so far as using them on allies in Europe.

Media

Donald Trump and City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Now Also Feuding

After Donald Trump compared it to a “war zone” on Tuesday, the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, joined the parents of a dead soldier, our country’s fire marshals, Paul Ryan and a human baby as the most recent addition to Donald Trump’s ever-growing list of mortal enemies.

At a rally in Virginia, Trump said the city of 49,673, which he had flown into the night before, “looked like a war zone where you (once had) these massive plants,” according to the Associated Press.

Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, said the words came shortly before noon Tuesday.

Tuesday night, Harrisburg fired back, saying in a statement that Trump made “an unfortunate mistake” disparaging the city “after a mere glance from the window of his airplane.”

Mr. Trump has made an unfortunate mistake in disparaging Pennsylvania’s capital city after a mere glance from the window of his airplane. Harrisburg is renowned as the heart of our commonwealth and a capital of unique beauty and charm.

 

Mr. Trump should know that Harrisburg and its residents are an integral part of the United States, which he is vying to lead. Its rich history and natural beauty have won both the respect and acclaim of some of America’s greatest leaders and patriots.

(h/t Gawker, PennLive)

Trump: Incorrectly States Putin is ‘Not Gonna Go Into Ukraine’

Donald Trump said in an interview Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t going to go into Ukraine, even though the Russian military has intervened in the nation’s affairs since 2014.

“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not gonna go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down,” Trump said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Host George Stephanopoulos pushed back, saying, “Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?”

“OK, well, he’s there in a certain way,” Trump responded.

“But I’m not there. You have [President] Obama there. And, frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama, with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of NATO and all of this.”

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Ukraine isn’t part of the NATO coalition, so US soldiers would have no legal right to show up on their sovereign lands to fight and defend against Russian troops, risking a much larger conflict.

Instead President Obama, along with European countries, enacted sanctions against Russia. The sanctions have been very effective, which contributed to the collapse of the Russian ruble and the 2014–15 Russian financial crisis.

The result being the Minsk and Minsk II diplomatic agreements where Russia agreed to pull their military out of Ukraine.

Media

Trump Tweets Police Deaths Up 78%, When Actually Unchanged

Twitter

In a tweet Donald Trump repeated a previously debunked statistic that police officers killed in the line of duty by gunfire is up 78% this year. However the number of officers killed in the line of duty has not changed compared to last year.

Reality

This is a tragic stat which is why Donald Trump should not be dishonest with these figures.

The Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks officer deaths, reports that as of the time of Trump’s tweet 32 police officers have been killed by gunfire so far this year, while 21 were killed in line of duty by gunfire during the same period last year. That is a 52% increase.

But keep in mind that context is important. Overall the total number of officers killed in the line of duty compared to last year is unchanged, at 69.

Trump repeated a false statistic regarding officer deaths a week prior when he spoke at the Republican National Convention, but said police killed in the line of duty was up 50%, when at the time it was actually down 1%.

Donald Trump wants to claim Blue Lives Matter but he is willing to dishonor police by exaggerating real officer deaths to stoke fears for political gain.

Trump Invites Russian Hackers To Influence the American Election

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday invited Russian hackers to find and publish Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Clinton] emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That’ll be nice.”

The remarks came after Clinton’s camp said this week that Russian hackers were likely responsible for breaching the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year and leaking emails of top officials to WikiLeaks for publication.

The hack, which showed top staffers considering leaking negative information about Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, led to chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announcing her resignation.

“Russia has no respect for our country,” Trump said at the press conference. “And that’s why, if it is Russia, nobody even knows it’s Russia, it was probably China. … It shows how weak we are. It shows how disrespected we are.”

Trump also slammed the DNC for what was seen as conspiring against Sanders to ensure that Clinton won the Democratic nomination.

“I’m not gonna tell Putin what to do. Why should I tell Putin what to do?” Trump said. “It’s not even about Russia or China or whoever it is that’s doing the hacking. It’s about the things they said in those emails. They were terrible things.”

He also accused Clinton of being in on the conspiracy.

“Believe me, as sure as you’re sitting there, Hillary Clinton knew about it,” Trump said. “She knew everything. Debbie Wasserman Schultz could not breathe without speaking and getting approval from Hillary Clinton.”

Trump doubled down on his Russian hacker comments in a tweet after the press conference, but revised his language to say that if Russia already has emails, they should hand them over:

But his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, released a statement after the press conference that discouraged Russian involvement in a US election.

“The FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking,” Pence said in the statement. “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan issued a statement after the press conference pushing back on Trump’s comments.

“Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug,” Brendan Buck said, according to the statement. “Putin should stay out of this election.”

Clinton’s campaign also responded.

“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

This is a curious comment at a time when Trump’s Russian connections are being scrutinized. His campaign manager Paul Manafort, had worked as a consultant for the now-ousted pro-Russian government in Ukraine. And the Trump campaign worked like mad to include a more pro-Russian stance towards arming Ukraine to be added in the GOP platform.

Here’s what Trump is up to with the “Russia, please release Hillary’s 30,000 emails.” He’s intentionally conflating the State Department server with the DNC email hack so that in the minds of Americans, Hillary already had her emails hacked by Russia. But they’re two different email scandals.

Trump is trying to make them into one thing so he can say Hillary endangered national security when Russia hacked her email (which there’s no evidence they did.)

But… But… But… He was just joking!

I mean, this might have been an attempt at humor. At best one could argue Trump was half-joking, since a Russian hack would greatly benefit him and his chances of becoming president.

And if the argument really is that he is joking then to that we would say to even publicly joke that a foreign government spy on his political rival is in poor taste because it is rooting against an American, which is all beneath the office he is seeking.

But in the end… what is the punchline?

Media

Trump: Geneva Conventions Are ‘Out of Date’

Speaking at a press conference, Donald Trump agreed with the statement that the Geneva Conventions outlawing war crimes were “out of date,” and reiterated his support for “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects.

“Do you think the Geneva Conventions are out of date?” asked NBC’s Katy Tur.

“I think everything’s out of date,” responded Trump. “We have a whole new world.”

Trump repeated his much-scrutinized comments that NATO was obsolete. “Three days later, people that study NATO said, ‘You know, Trump is right.’ You know what, we have a lot of things that are out of date because they’re 20 and 30 and 40 years old.”

“What would you renegotiate?” asked NBC’s Katy Tur. “The enhanced interrogation aspect of it…?”

“Katy, I would renegotiate so much of everything,” he responded.

Tur asked the question again after he gave a long answer that nonetheless avoided the question: “The Geneva Convention and enhanced interrogation, do you think they should allow for that given the rise of ISIS?”

“I am a person that believes in enhanced interrogation, yes,” Trump responded. “And, by the way; it works.”

Reality

No it doesn’t.

Trump’s proposed reliance on tactics used by Bond villains as a practical response to the terrorist acts of the Islamic State should be leaving people feeling aghast and concerned.

Unlike fictional TV shows, like 24 where Jack Bauer runs around and tortures his way to the bad guy or movies like Zero Dark Thirty who include torture scenes that never happened which lead to the capture of Osama Bin Laden, reality is quite different.

Waterboarding, and other forms of torture, is considered a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions and is not reliable for obtaining truthful, useful intelligence.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that “the CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.” There was no proof, according to the 6,700 page report, that information obtained through waterboarding prevented any attacks or saved any lives, or that information obtained from the detainees was not or could not have been obtained through conventional interrogation methods.”

In-fact, we’ve know for centuries that torture is not effective. Here is Napoleon’s own words on the subject:

“It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.”

Instead, rapport-building techniques are 14 times more effective in extracting information than torture and has the upside of not being unethical.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqf2RAMWgTQ

Trump to Look at Recognizing Crimea as Russian Territory

Donald Trump said that, if he is elected president, he would consider recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and lifting the sanctions against Russia.

Donald Trump said he would consider recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and lifting the sanctions against the country if he’s elected president.

At a wide-ranging news conference, Trump said he “would be looking into that” when asked about his stance on Crimea and Russia.

In February 2014, pro-Russian gunmen took over government buildings in Simferopol, Crimea’s capital, and held a referendum in March of that year in which an overwhelming majority of voters said they wanted to rejoin Russia. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin took advantage of a popular revolt which toppled Kiev’s pro-Russian government and annexed the territory shortly thereafter.

The United States, along with the European Union, has refused to recognize the annexation or the referendum legitimizing it, and has enforced sanctions on Russian state banks and corporations.

Trump’s comments on Crimea came during the same news conference that he suggested Russia hack Hillary Clinton’s email server to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” The remark has been harshly criticized, and the Clinton campaign said it has now become a national security issue.

(h/t Politico, The Atlantic)

Reality

Donald Trump has been making a lot of pro-Russian stances.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAy0R8JOWMo

Links

CSPAN video of exact question.

After Being Called Out Donald Trump Flip-Flips on Raising Federal Minimum Wage, Then Lies

Donald Trump says he backs raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour and that states should decide.

“Well, I would leave it and raise it somewhat,” the GOP presidential nominee told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Tuesday.

“You need to help people, and I know it’s not very Republican to say, but you need to help people,” he added.

“I would say $10, but with the understanding that somebody like me is going to bring back jobs, I don’t want people to be in that $10 category for very long. But the thing is, Bill, let the states make the deal. They’re not doing that for the most part.”Trump also accused former Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders of distorting his position on the issue.

“When Bernie Sanders said that I want to go less than what the minimum wage — I mean honestly, Bill, these people are lying so much and every fact checker said Trump never said that,” he said. “I never did say it. I believe it should be raised.”

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

However, Trump’s claim that he never wanted to go less then the minimum wage is a complete and total lie and we have the videos to prove it.

Trump’s public comments regarding wages being too high started in August, 2015 when during a speech he told Michigan auto workers right to their faces that they make too much money.

He said U.S. automakers could shift production away from Michigan to communities where autoworkers would make less. “You can go to different parts of the United States and then ultimately you’d do full-circle — you’ll come back to Michigan because those guys are going to want their jobs back even if it is less.”

Then during the 4th GOP debate on November 10th, 2015, Trump said he would lower the minimum wage during a Republican debate:

Taxes too high, wages too high.

And then on again on November 11th, 2015 during an interview with Fox News, Trump went the extra step to explain why wages are too high:

Whether it’s taxes or wages, if they’re too high we’re not going to be able to compete with other countries.

Is anyone really surprised that a billionaire businessman wants to keep American worker’s wages low?

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyZ3UhXhsg4

Hotel Fights Back After Trump Refuses To Pay

A Virginia hotel is fighting back against Donald Trump after the GOP presidential nominee criticized the air conditioning — or lack thereof — at a Monday event there.

“If we are in a ballroom, it’s not supposed to be so hot that everybody in the audience is using a fan,” Trump said during the campaign event at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.

And he threatened to not pay his bill for the room — a frequent move by Trump’s companies when he says he receives inadequate service.

“You ought to try turning on the air conditioning or we are not going to get you paid,” Trump said. “I pay my bills so fast with somebody good. With somebody average, I pay them OK. With somebody great, a lot of times I give them bonuses … This is ridiculous.”

Attendees at the event appeared warm and uncomfortable, and laughed when Trump commented on the lack of air conditioning.

On Tuesday, the hotel pushed back, saying it had operated the air conditioning fully and pointing to the number of people in the room as the issue.

“The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center is committed to providing exceptional service and accommodation for all guests and members of the community,” hotel spokesman Michael Quonce said in a statement. “The hotel’s HVAC system was on and working properly through the event. We made every effort to create a comfortable environment for all of our guests given soaring temperatures and a ballroom filled with hundreds of attendees.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Separate investigations have found that Trump has a pattern of not paying or underpaying contractors and individuals he has worked with, alleging that the work was substandard. And lawsuits show Trump’s organization wages Goliath vs David legal battles over small amounts of money that are negligible to the billionaire and his executives — but devastating to his much-smaller foes.

Reports published by USA Today and The Wall Street Journal in June found Trump’s companies were facing hundreds of claims that Trump has stiffed people he contracted with for decades.

Both reports analyzed court records and interviewed the people behind the claims, and found that the average working American that Trump has geared his campaign toward are some of the same people his business hasn’t paid.

Often, the issue is settled out of court for less than the sum owed under the weight of costly legal proceedings.

Trump maintains that he pays for adequate service and even pays extra when work is performed exceptionally well.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGcveNDzvE

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