Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

Good morning, @realDonaldTrump has called into @FoxBusiness and is lying about tariffs and trade deficits again.

1. Tariffs are taxes paid by US companies and US consumers. To the extent any "billions" are "flowing into the treasury," it is from Americans' pockets, not China.

2. The U.S. trade relationship with China does feature a deficit with goods, but a SURPLUS with services. The U.S. services trade surplus with China was $40.5 billion in 2018.

Lie #3, The U.S. DOES NOT PAY THE MAJORITY OF NATO'S COSTS. @realDonaldTrump is referring to a 2% GDP defense spending commitment, but NATO IS NOT A COUNTRY CLUB.

He calls Germany "delinquent" because it spends 1% of GDP on defense, but THERE ARE NO DUES TO BE DELINQUENT ON.

LIE #4: The EU "was set up to take advantage of the United States."

I don't even know where to begin except to say that the EU began as an economic partnership because leaders recognized that the best way to avoid a third World War was to increase trade. europa.eu/european-union…

LIE #5: EU monetary policy is implemented to "take advantage of the United States." It is NOT.

LIE #6: "No one had heard of Jerome Powell" before @realDonaldTrump made him Fed chair.

LIE #7: "I have the right to fire [Powell]." He only can fire Powell FOR CAUSE/MISCONDUCT.

LIE #8: "My 'Plan B' with China is to take in billions and billions a month." -- HE IS SAYING HIS 'PLAN B' IS TO RAISE MORE TAXES ON AMERICANS.

LIE #9: TPP "was set up in order to take advantage of [the United States]" -- He appears to think TPP was like the EU, and that letting countries negotiate multilateral deals that include the US is a way to screw us (even though EACH COUNTRY NEGOTIATES INDIVIDUALLY).

LIE #10: "Almost all nations are abusers" / US "is the piggy bank" -- This is MERCANTILISM.

LIE #11: "The Europeans have taken advantage of us worse than China...they don't take our product, we take their products."

LIE #12: Angela Merkel "hates the United States worse than anyone I've ever met" because EU has antitrust laws and enforces them against US companies.

LIE #13: Trade with EU is unfair because EU "sends" Mercedes, BMW cars -- AMERICANS IMPORT THEM BECAUSE AMERICANS WANT TO BUY THEM.

LIE #14: Canada charges a "300% tariff" on Agricultural products.

LIE #15: Twitter "is making it very hard" for @realDonaldTrump to get out his...

...message." THIS IS A LIE.

LIE #16: Social media "very biased towards Democrats" because @realDonaldTrump is not getting as many followers. He is losing followers because Twitter removes BOTS and FAKE ACCOUNTS.

LIE #17: "They [Google] are trying to rig the election" -- This is false.

LIE #18: Google "was swamping us with negative stuff" during the 2016 election. -- This is a lie that he often repeats, which started spreading in a fake study promoted by Sputnik.

LIE #19: "I have been attacked for 2.5 years...by a phoney...dishonest group of people...in intelligence agencies."

LIE #20: "The reason [Democrats] are fighting so hard is the real stuff is going to be revealed."

LIE #21: "They spied on my campaign." The FBI conducted a COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION.

LIE #22: Mueller "terminated" Stzrok/Page texts "illegally" -- not even sure what this means. Mueller shouldn't have fired them?

LIE #23: "Much of the media is dishonest...and absolutely stone-cold crooked."

LIE #24: "I said I'm going to put people together"

The Obama administration DID NOT have a "zero tolerance" policy of separating ALL FAMILIES.

LIE #25: The border crisis would end "if the Democrats would get rid of the loopholes and fix asylum." -- By "fix" he means END asylum.

LIE #26: "Democrats want open borders"

LIE #27: "The wall is being built very rapidly" / "400 miles of wall" -- Neither is true.

LIE #28: "When you get an Obama judge, you get a loss."

LIE #29: "I've been very nice to [Iran]"

LIE #30: Tariffs would "end" China's ability to build military bases.

LIE #31: "We've been handing China $500 billion a year forever" -- Americans BUY GOODS MADE IN CHINA. THEY PAY MONEY FOR THOSE GOODS.

Lie #32: China "never pays us anything" -- he U.S. services trade surplus with China was $40.5 billion in 2018.

Lie #33: "We are the largest oil producer in the world *under me*" -- the US became the world's largest oil exporter UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.

Lie #34: The president is talking about more tariffs if he can't get a deal with China as if they would punish China. He's threatening to tax Americans' purchases of Chinese-made goods 25% if he can't a China deal.

Lie #35: "We have tremendous support from every angle" -- support for @realDonaldTrump is down in many key states and with almost all demographics except white people without college degrees.

Thread by @AndrewFeinberg: "Good morning, @realDonaldTrump has called into @FoxBusiness and is lying about tariffs and trade deficits again. 1. Tariffs are taxes paid b […]"
 
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Now that Robert S. Mueller III has https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-to-testify-to-congress-in-open-session-about-his-investigation/2019/06/25/dde8c95a-975b-11e9-916d-9c61607d8190_story.html?utm_term=.d4d1f4759b28 (agreed) to testify before Congress, some commentators are rushing to declare that “expectations” could be dashed. And some Democrats are also downplaying expectations, apparently fearing they will fail to produce a dramatic breakthrough moment.

But there is a way that House Democrats can use Mueller’s testimony to expose an important and somewhat overlooked aspect of President Trump’s misconduct and, crucially, its consequences as well.

Handled correctly, this could shine further light on one of Trump’s biggest crimes — by which I mean moral crimes: the degree to which Trump’s obstructive conduct actually did frustrate an investigation into a foreign attack on our political system, and how he obscured his own eagerness to work with Russia in spite of it, in various nefarious ways.

The former special counsel https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-to-testify-to-congress-in-open-session-about-his-investigation/2019/06/25/dde8c95a-975b-11e9-916d-9c61607d8190_story.html?utm_term=.d4d1f4759b28 (will appear in open sessions) before the Judiciary and Intelligence committees on July 17. Mueller has already telegraphed resistance: In his recent public remarks, he vowed that if he appears before Congress, he will “not provide information beyond that which is already public.”

Still, there is at least one angle that could prove fruitful. Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade outlined a detailed case that Mueller’s report shows that efforts to obstruct the investigation by Trump and his associates might have actually worked by limiting what Mueller’s investigation was able to establish about efforts to conspire with Russia.

Democrats can use the Mueller testimony to pull on this thread in a variety of areas: ...

The big picture here: Trump didn’t merely commit extensive and likely criminal obstructive acts to protect himself from scrutiny. He also obstructed an investigation into a foreign effort to sabotage our electoral process. Trump also eagerly encouraged and sought to profit off that interference and even sought profitable dealings with Russia, both of which he and his top associates concealed from the public.

Mueller can shed light on this larger tale of wrongdoing.
 


Over the weekend The Washington Post published a https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-clinic-of-last-resort/2019/06/22/2833c8a0-92cc-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a_story.html?utm_term=.9e3e9565fe68 (heart-rending description) of a pop-up medical clinic in Cleveland, Tenn. — a temporary installation providing free care for two days on a first-come-first-served basis. Hundreds of people showed up many hours before the clinic opened, because rural America is suffering from a severe crisis of health care availability, with hospitals closing and doctors leaving.

Since the focus of the report was on personal experience, not policy, it’s understandable that the article mentioned only in passing the fact that Tennessee is one of the 14 states that still refuse to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. So I’m not sure how many readers grasped the reality that America’s rural health care crisis is largely — not entirely, but largely — a direct result of political decisions.

The simple fact is that the Republicans who run Tennessee and other “non-expansion” states have chosen to inflict misery on many of their constituents, rural residents in particular. And it’s not even about money: The federal government would have paid for Medicaid expansion.

So if rural America is suffering, a large part of the explanation is gratuitous political cruelty. This cruelty has denied health insurance to millions who could have had it with a stroke of the pen. And rural hospitals are closing, rural doctors leaving, in large part because people can’t afford to pay for care.

...

While rural Americans often tell reporters that they feel neglected and ignored by big-city coastal elites, the people preventing them from getting health care aren’t in New York or D.C., they’re in their own state capitals. And these state politicians hold power in large part thanks to the strong Republican leaning of rural voters.

But why are Republican state-level politicians so determined to punish their own base? As I said, it’s not about the money: Rejecting the Medicaid expansion actually costs a state jobs and hence revenue.

Some of it may reflect the general meanspiritedness, the embrace of cruelty, that was already infecting the G.O.P. even before Donald Trump, and has now become one of the party’s defining traits. Yes, that’s harsh, but you know that it’s true.

There’s also, I suspect, an element of cynical calculation. As I said, rural voters often complain that national elites don’t care about their needs. Well, one way to make people feel hostile toward those elites is to block their access to federal benefits, and hope they don’t realize who’s actually causing their misery.

Is it conceivable that conservative politicians have that much contempt for their base? Yes.
 
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