Lying for a Living

     The following is our President speaking to our fellow Americans.  This is a very scant collection just from the past 6 weeks.  Every chance he has, he misleads, prevaricates, and lies.  After 2 and a half years of this it is no longer reasonable to give "the benefit of the doubt".  I started to say it is no longer possible but, being familiar with many Trump supporters, that's just not true.  They have allowed and even enabled his lying for so long they now lie to themselves.  I think this must be a defense mechanism. 

     The following is not opinion, nor editorial.  It is direct quotes from the President of the United States and corresponding qualified data.  Would you hire someone who lies chronically?  Would you trust someone who appears incapable of telling the truth?  Would you build a relationship with someone whose default is to lie to you at every opportunity to ingratiate or aggrandize himself?

  Those questions are not rhetorical.

Environment

Donald J Trump:  “From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.”

Context:  According to the latest Environmental Performance Index, compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers, America ranks 10th for air quality. Australia, Canada, Denmark and Finland have cleaner air.

Context:  There are signs that U.S. air quality is deteriorating. EPA data show that there were more days of polluted air during each of Trump’s first two years in office than during any of the four years before.

Donald J Trump:  “Today the United States is ranked — listen to this — No. 1 in the world for access to clean drinking water.”

Context:   The U.S. has safe drinking water, earning the highest ranking, according to the Environmental Performance Index. However, that distinction is shared by nine other countries, including Canada, England and Spain.

Context:  The fact remains that many Americans in rural and impoverished parts of the country lack safe drinking water.

Donald J Trump:   “Thousands and thousands of tons of this debris float onto our shores after it’s dumped into the oceans by other countries.”

Context:  Trump often places the blame on Asian countries. In fact, the U.S. is a leading exporter of plastic waste.  Last spring, when more than 180 countries agreed to tighten regulations on the global trade in plastic waste, the U.S. opposed the deal.

Voter Fraud

Donald J Trump, June 23, 2019:  " Take a look at Judicial Watch, take a look at their settlement where California admitted to a million votes. They admitted to a million votes."

Context:  California did not admit that 1 million illegal votes were cast.  In the settlement, announced in January, California and Los Angeles County election officials agreed to start the process of removing the names of inactive voters from that county’s registration rolls.

Auto Industry

Donald J Trump, June 21, 2019:  “Many, many plants are now under construction in Michigan and Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida. They hadn’t built one in decades and now they’re all over the place.”

Context:   It’s not true that the auto industry hasn’t built a new plant “in decades.”  Bernard Swiecki, director of the Automotive Communities Partnership at the Center for Automotive Research, knew of only two new assembly plants under construction or newly announced —  a Toyota/Mazda joint venture plant in Alabama (announced in January 2018) and a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) plant in Michigan (announced in February).  Swiecki has a list of the 12 assembly plants that have been announced in North America since 2009. Four of those were in the U.S., while eight went to Mexico and none to Canada.

Trade/Tariffs

Donald J Trump:  “They (Japan) haven’t bought our beef since the year 2000.” 

Context:  U.S. beef exports to Japan have exceeded $1 billion every year since 2012, and Japan has been the largest export market for U.S. beef since 2013.

Donald J Trump:  "We’re also taking long-overdue steps to stand up to China’s chronic trade abuses. Have to do it. Somebody had to do it. They’ve been taking out of our country, for many years, 500 billion — with a “B” — billion dollars a year. And somebody had to say “no more.” And Obama-Biden didn’t say it. They just let it happen. And, in all fairness, so did other presidents. We’re stopping it. It’s stopped."

Context:  The trade deficit with China has never been $500 billion. Trump has been exaggerating it for years.  The trade deficit in goods and services with China was $308.9 billion in 2016, Obama’s final year in office, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The highest yearly deficit under Obama hit $333.5 billion in 2015. But the trade deficit with China has climbed higher under Trump, reaching $380.8 billion in 2018, the highest annual figure dating back to 1999, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Donald J Trump:  "Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S...."

Context: One of the latest papers published on the topic is by economics researchers from the International Monetary Fund, Harvard University, University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Using price data collected at the U.S. borders and at retailers, the researchers found “nearly complete pass through of tariffs” to America. In other words, little cost is falling on the Chinese manufacturers.