More Thursday Male Beauty

 

Trump's and the GOP's Big Lie About the Economy

One of the biggest public misconceptions over the last fifty years or more is that the U.S. economy does better under Republican administrations. Like most of the myths pushed by today's GOP this myth is untrue and historically the opposite is true: there is far more job creation under Democrat administrations and the increase in the federal deficit is either reduced or eliminated by Democrats.  The current state of the economy has been driven into the ditch by the Felon and rubber stamp Republicans in Congress and the Felon has exploded the deficit. An increasing number of surveys shown considerable percentages of American families are struggling to pay bills, buy food, and make ends meet. Nothing in the Felon's "big beautiful bill" helped average Americans. Social programs have been slashed, millions will soon lose healthcare coverage, and child nutrition funding has been cut - all so the very wealthy can have huge tax cuts and live more extravagantly.  Belatedly, the American public is believing that a Democrat controlled Congress would bode better for the economy and perhaps rein in the Felon's most disastrous policies.  A piece at Salon looks at this issue: 

Donald Trump lies. Telling untruths is not merely second nature to him; it is of the first order, automatic. He lies as naturally as he breathes.  From his claim to being a great businessman and dealmaker to calling himself not the worst president in U.S. history — which he is, by far — but the best, Trump has spewed a firehose of falsehoods to the public. But he has never reserved his lying only for his political opponents.

He has lied to his MAGA followers about, well, everything — bringing grocery prices down, ending this or that war “on day one,” the value of his cryptocurrency offerings, creating any number of “unbelievable” plans to fix our infrastructure, our healthcare, our economy. All those “beautiful” plans that were never plans but so-called concepts of plans. You know, back-of-the-envelope musings on critical national issues while heading off for another taxpayer-funded golf outing. Suffice it to say: If you can name it, Trump has lied about it.

Journalists often write of Trump’s Big Lie about how the 2020 election was stolen from him, but that is only one of the big lies Republicans tell, and it is not the one that most adversely affects working Americans.

The biggest lie is the one Republicans have told for more than half a century — about how they are better than Democrats at managing the economy. A majority of Americans have believed this for my whole lifetime. But with Trump’s wild mismanagement of the economy, public sentiment is finally changing. More people now trust Democrats on the economy, and for good reason.

The idea of telling a lie so massive that not many people would think that it could be made out of whole cloth comes from Adolf Hitler’s 1925 book “Mein Kampf.” The failed artist and future German führer thought that most people would not believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” This theory was later put to use by Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s propaganda minister, to scapegoat and dehumanize Jewish people, and it led directly to the Holocaust — a horrible truth many Nazi-curious conservatives love to deny.

Trump, a fanboy of ruthless dictators, was determined to stay in office after losing the 2020 election decisively in both the Electoral College and the popular vote to Joe Biden, and he naturally turned to Hitler’s technique.

The Republican’s lie on the economy is such a whopper — so “colossal,” as Hitler put it — that it has defined American politics for decades. That’s the ruse of the colossal lie, which is not merely the propagandist’s use of repetition (Trump’s main go-to move) but a sort of verbal legerdemain. People are cunningly led to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes and feel in their own pocketbooks.

As we head into the November midterms, and as candidates begin to emerge in the 2028 presidential race, it’s a good time to refresh our memories of how costly the GOP’s colossal lie about trickle-down economics, which began with President Ronald Reagan, has been for Americans.

Running for the presidency, the former Republican California governor and B-list actor said that giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations would “trickle down” benefits to the working people of America. This sounded good in theory, but it was “voodoo economics” in practice, as George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s opponent in the 1980 Republican primaries, noted — until he was chosen as the Californian’s running mate).

In his two terms, Reagan’s tax cuts increased the national debt from $1.1 trillion to $2.7 trillion. But that’s nothing compared to Trump. While occupying the White House, the president has increased the national debt by a staggering $11.6 trillion so far, an increase of more than 25%.

Democratic presidents have almost always done better — I should say much better — than Republican presidents in managing the U.S. economy. According to a 2016 academic study by Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson, this was true from the Truman administration through the first Obama term across all major macroeconomic measures: job creation, unemployment, national debt, GDP growth, growth in real wages and controlling inflation.

As Blinder and Watson concluded: [T]here is a systematic and large gap between the U.S. economy’s performance when a Democrat is president of the United States versus when a Republican is. Democrats do better on almost every criterion.

We can tack on Biden’s term as well, which, amid the global inflation spikes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down supply chains, recovered far better than any other advanced country. As The Economist put it at the time, the quickly recovering economy under Biden was “the envy of the world.” People may not have felt “the vibe,” but things were on the right track by all standard economic measures.

In addition, in 2021, the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed with bipartisan support to rebuild or upgrade the nation’s aging transportation, water and broadband systems. The following year, the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act was enacted and called for microchip manufacturing to be started up in rural areas, mostly Republican-voting districts. Unlike Trump, Biden understood that the president is charged with working on behalf of all Americans, not just those who voted for him.

Since the Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, about 70% of all jobs have been created during Democratic administrations, and in recent decades, the percentage is more than 90%. Of the 11 recessions the country suffered between 1953 and 2020 — when the pandemic began — 10 began while a Republican was in the White House.

What Blinder and Watson studied was independently updated in 2024 with similar findings of a “striking” positive difference on the U.S. economy when a Democrat is in the White House. One doesn’t need academics or economics experts to tell that Republicans never look out for the interests of the working class, or even the middle class. But for those who still like evidence, a series of charts by Steven Rattner and graphic artist Taylor Maggiacomo tell the story of Trump’s promises on the economy and his results so far.

What these charts cannot show is the long-term economic disaster of lost markets for farmers and U.S. manufacturers caused by Trump’s tariffs and his disparagement of our trading partners, or what it will mean to our economy as countries move to de-Americanize their tech — which they must do to protect themselves from Trump.

Democrats are not only better stewards of the economy, but they also want the wealth created by American workers to be shared more equitably and for the social safety net to be made more robust, so Americans can better weather any financial vicissitudes.

Do I need to point out that Republicans have little to no desire to help workers and those in need, outside of, say, charitable contributions or church work? Indeed, rather than looking out for the poor or loving the stranger — and growing increasingly annoyed by those darned Biblical verses about a camel passing through the eye of a needle — the wealthy and powerful long ago undertook to remake American Christianity.

As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte recently noted, the right’s perversion of the message of Jesus knows no bounds; to justify their greed and avarice, they are taught that it is inconceivable to be Christian and vote other than Republican, which is yet another colossal lie by the GOP.

Public sentiment about which party does best in managing the economy has finally shifted to Democrats in the face of Trump’s gross mismanagement of the recovering Biden economy. Trump’s tax cuts, tariffs, attacks on education and journalists, his disparagement of historical allies and his war of choice with Iran have undermined nearly every aspect of what has made the United States prosperous.

But it is up to journalists to regularly tell this truth to the public in the face of the colossal Republican lie about the economy that began with Reagan, a man who had the sheer audacity to claim that the budget deficit was affected by restaurant servers not declaring their tips.

Today’s Republicans are even more Dickensian, focused as they are on deporting hard-working immigrants who long to be American citizens and taking healthcare and even food stamps away from struggling American families.

Why are Republicans terrible with the economy? Because they do not believe in government — unless it helps them.

Thursday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Wednesday Male Beauty

 

The Felon's BBC Lawsuit Backfires

The Felon likes to file lawsuits to intimidate both critics and the news media outlets that accurately report on his failed policies and misdeeds.  Often the targets of the Felon's intimidation either roll over and pay money to make the lawsuits go away or reach some other kind of settlement. One such defendant, the British Broadcasting Corporation ("BBC") is not rolling over as the Felon expected and the rules of federal court discovery in lawsuits now has the Felon - and other Trump family members - dodging depositions where testimony would be under oath and perjury charges could be applied to parties giving false testimony (the only thing that comes out of the Felon's mouth). The Felon hates anything and any forum where he is not free to lie at will. As pieces in the New Republic and Politico lay out the Felon is again trying to dodge being deposed and is claiming to be unavailable until after the court ordered discovery period is over.  Hopefully, the court will force him to testify or dismiss the case with prejudice so that it cannot be revived down the road.  Here are excerpts from The New Republic:

[The Felon] President Trump is trying to get out of testifying in a lawsuit that he initiated.  As part of his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, Trump was scheduled to sit for a deposition with the U.K. broadcaster’s lawyers on Friday. However, according to a court filing Tuesday, the president’s attorneys canceled the session, saying he would be unavailable for about two months, well after the discovery period in the case ends, Politico reports. . . . The broadcaster is trying to get a federal judge to force Trump to commit to a date for the deposition.

“Nearly eight months into discovery, after seven depositions of BBC witnesses, and with only two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin wrote in the filing. “There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff.”

Trump’s lawyers had reportedly agreed in July that Trump would testify on October 16 as long as both sides agreed to keep the location and other details secret. But on September 28, the president’s attorneys said that the previously agreed date no longer worked. This past Friday, they finally suggested moving the deposition to the second or third week of January, nearly one month after the discovery period ends.

Now the BBC’s lawyers want the judge on the case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, to add the deposition’s scheduling to the agenda of a hearing scheduled for next week.  

Trump sued the BBC last year, claiming the broadcasting company funded by the British government defamed him by deceptively editing one of his speeches on January 6, 2021, for a documentary aired one day before the 2024 presidential election. 

Since then, the lawsuit has backfired for him, as the court ordered the release of Trump’s finances, as well as records from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Even Trump’s children are dodging subpoenas from the BBC’s lawyers for records related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection.   

The BBC is trying to get Trump’s case thrown out entirely, pointing out that the documentary never aired in the U.S. and that the south Florida federal court where Trump filed the lawsuit doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case. Trump’s refusal to testify on camera is probably going to help the BBC’s efforts and expose his attempts to browbeat news organizations he doesn’t like. 

The piece in Politico notes how the Felon has avoid being deposed in other lawsuits of his own instigation:

In 2023, Trump dropped a lawsuit he’d filed against his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after a judge ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the case and refused further requests to change the established date. Trump said through a spokesperson that he had elected to “pause” the suit, rather than cancel a campaign rally he had planned in New Hampshire for the same day as the testimony. The suit was never refiled.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Tuesday Male Beauty

 

Trump’s October Surprise: Helping Russia Again

Continuing the theme of yesterday's posts, there is much discussion of the Felon's decision to ignore a law he signed himself last month and to stop sanctions against Russia and to import Russian diesel supplies.  The move is claimed to be an effort to reduce diesel prices domestically, yet the Russian imports would do little to actually lower prices even though some in MAGA world are ignoring that reality, not to mention the fact that the USA is EXPORTING diesel stocks. An easier way - although still not very effective - way to reduce domestic diesel prices would be to cease diesel exports, something the fossil fuel industry would likely oppose. Thus, the correct take away from the Felon's action is that the real motivation is to help Putin and Russia with millions of US dollars flowing into Russia from the USA.  As noted, it makes it difficult not to see the Felon as a Russian asset perhaps compromised and reeled in by Russia as far back in the late 1980's. The Felon's behavior betrays decades of America's efforts to promote democracy abroad and displays his catering to dictators - or in the case of Putin - war criminals.  It's an embarrassing time to be an America when treason is on display at the White House. An column in The Atlantic looks at the Felon's deference to Putin:

It rained most of Sunday in Washington, as the remnants of Hurricane Isaias washed over the East Coast. Unable to golf, and stuck inside the White House, [the Felon] President Trump spent part of his morning on social media touting the size of his rallies and defending Christopher Columbus. He also declared that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt strikes against each other’s energy infrastructures. Except that he hadn’t first confirmed that with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—and Russia spent the hours that followed bombarding Ukraine with missiles and drones, hitting a Kharkiv power plant.

Trump’s inability to bring the Iran war to a close has left him incensed but also oddly paralyzed, two people close to him told us. One of them, an adviser, said that Trump “is used to snapping his fingers and having the whole world—Republicans, world leaders, the media—come to attention, and he is losing his mind that Iran won’t listen.” Iran has resumed menacing oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and the average price of diesel in the United States has crossed the $6-a-gallon mark, raising the cost of goods that travel the nation’s highways on trucks.

Republicans are panicked that those high energy prices could help Democrats take control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, which are now only three weeks away. Trump has been searching for a scapegoat, and appears to have settled on Ukraine. Although blaming a European country that’s fighting for its existence for the rise in global oil prices might seem implausible, Trump seems to prefer that to accepting responsibility for his decision to attack Iran. His broadsides against Ukraine, moreover, are consistent with his decade-long deference to Vladimir Putin.

A U.S. president siding with the Kremlin is quite an October surprise. But in just the past few days, Trump appears to have fully turned against Ukraine. He announced on Friday that he had reached an agreement with Putin to import Russian diesel fuel, undercutting the new sanctions bill against Moscow’s energy industry that Trump signed into law last month. Even if the roughly 2.25 million barrels headed to the U.S. only marginally ease fuel costs, the deal allows Trump to tout efforts to help Americans while also providing Russia with additional revenue.

Despite the opposition of European allies and some Republicans on Capitol Hill, [the Felon] Trump has followed up by placing even more pressure on Ukraine. He called for Zelensky to be replaced.

Ukraine has expanded its strikes deep into Russian territory in recent months, targeting the larger nation’s oil refineries. Those attacks sparked an energy crisis in Russia and were cheered across Europe—but not in the White House. Russia imposed a ban on diesel exports in response, which added more pressure to global diesel markets already under strain from the war in Iran. Zelensky told Trump and his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner that he was willing to stop attacking Russian oil refineries if the Russians halted attacks on Ukrainian power plants, a White House official told us. But Trump doesn’t see the strikes as equivalent—and demanded that Ukraine first stop attacking Russian refineries, the official said. Zelensky refused.

[The Felon's] Trump’s next move against Ukraine came, as it so often does, after a phone call with Putin. . . . Trump spoke with Putin on Friday to wish him a belated birthday, even though some in the White House counseled against the call, the adviser told us, believing it would yield little. During the 90-minute conversation, Trump told Putin that he would lift the sanctions on Russian diesel exports.

That undermined sanctions applied in 2022 and undercut the tougher Russian-sanctions bill that Trump signed last month; the law was named in honor of one of its champions, the late Senator Lindsey Graham. A bipartisan group of lawmakers was infuriated by the move, and some Republicans denounced Trump for siding with Putin. Four GOP senators—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of ⁠Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and John Curtis of Utah—joined some of their Democratic colleagues to release a statement yesterday saying that lifting the sanctions “runs directly counter to that law” and that the U.S. should not provide “Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians.” . . . . Even if Trump wouldn’t fully support Ukraine, officials in Kyiv had hoped he would not actively hurt their cause. That hope may be fading.

Recent talks between Kushner, Witkoff, and Putin have included the promise of massive business deals that Russia could strike with U.S. interests once the war concludes, according to reports. Ukrainian officials have long believed that Trump’s foreign policy focuses on opening up business deals—and the potential enrichment of the president’s family and friends—over the defense of democracy, human rights, or territorial sovereignty.

Ukraine was already bracing for a difficult winter. Moscow has escalated its attacks on Ukraine’s cities. It has grown its missile stockpiles and debuted a jet-powered drone that Ukrainian defenses have had difficulty stopping. Europe has tried to fill the gaps left by Trump’s indifference—and the U.S. being bogged down in Iran—but Zelensky’s aides believe that Putin will use the winter to pummel their cities before making another lunge at Kyiv in the spring. If, suddenly, Ukraine were left without U.S. intelligence or American-made weapons, Kyiv might be in its most vulnerable position since the first days of the war.

Trump’s admiration for Putin has been one of the most enduring geopolitical subplots of the past decade. . . . . he has refrained from holding Putin to account for helping Iran, even after American intelligence agencies revealed that Moscow gave Tehran targeting information to strike U.S. military assets in the region. Some of Trump’s closest outside advisers have privately wondered what Putin has done to so thoroughly enthrall the president . . . .

Though Putin has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court, Trump welcomed him to Anchorage last summer. Trump’s move to undo the diesel sanctions could provide a boost to Russia’s faltering economy. And he has overruled the objections of some in his own party by inviting Putin to this winter’s G20 summit, which the United States is hosting at a Trump-owned golf course in Doral, just outside Miami.

If Putin accepts the invitation to that December meeting, it would be the first time he has attended a multilateral summit in a Western country since his invasion of Ukraine. Zelensky has said he’ll be there, and is hoping to meet with Putin to negotiate the end of the war.

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Monday Male Beauty - Pt 2