291 Trump lies: “We had probably the best economy in the history of the world…bigger than anybody”
WaPo made an adjustment and Trump has now lied 18,000 times. The comparison is staggering on Trump’s economic claims.
APR 03 2020“Again, we had the strongest economy in the world. We had our best ever. We had probably the best economy in the history of the world, bigger than China, bigger than anybody.”
Repeated 291 times
Trump normally just claims he once had the best economy in the history of the United States but here he even claims it was best economy in the history of the world. But it's not true even for the U.S. Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses and sent unemployment soaring, the president could certainly brag about the state of the economy in his first three years as president. But he ran into trouble when he made a play for the history books. By just about any important measure, the economy under Trump did not do as well as it did under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson or Bill Clinton. The gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 2.3 percent in 2019, slipping from 2.9 percent in 2018 and 2.4 percent in 2017. But in 1997, 1998 and 1999, GDP grew 4.5 percent, 4.5 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively. Yet even that period paled in comparison against the 1950s and 1960s. Growth between 1962 and 1966 ranged from 4.4 percent to 6.6 percent. In postwar 1950 and 1951, it was 8.7 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate reached a low of 3.5 percent under Trump, but it dipped as low as 2.5 percent in 1953.
Fact Checker rating: (three Pinochios)
Greg Olear is worth reading if only to remind ourselves that we have common cause despite all those lies.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN 2016, Donald John Trump made an impossible promise. “We’re going to win,” he said. “We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.” Four years later, Attorney General William Barr gave an interview to CBS News in which he coyly alluded to Trump’s campaign pledge. “History is written by the winners,” Barr replied, when asked how history would recall his decision to drop the charges against convicted felon and traitor Michael Flynn, “so it largely depends on who is writing the history.”
Given the trauma that Trump and his minions have inflicted on the American people these last three years, and especially these last three months, one might be forgiven for reading Barr’s comment as sinister gloating—a victory speech delivered by the Bond villain before starting the countdown on the bomb—rather than what it is: a sad, desperate attempt to shape the narrative by an owned man who knows he’s going down with the sinking ship.
[…]
Now we will rally behind Joe Biden—if not our preferred choice among the Democratic hopefuls, certainly not Moscow’s—and we will win the White House, keep the House, turn the Senate blue. And neither plague nor voter suppression laws nor Russian fuckery will keep us from the polls on November 3.
But we won’t stop there. In 2021 and beyond, we won’t rest until justice is served—until every last one of the Trumpist collaborators pays for his or her crimes. There will be no pardons. There will be no “turn the page.” There will be no quarter. There will be indictments, perp walks, convictions, long prison terms, asset forfeiture. And we will enact new laws to safeguard the republic, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
Has this been an easy three years? No. Have there been setbacks? Yes. Are people dead because of Donald John Trump and his mob overlords? Tens of thousands have fallen, needlessly. I’m not trying to sugarcoat the sodden urinal cake that the country has become on his watch. Things are, by any metric, bad—but nor are they hopeless. In six months, we will vote him out. In eight months, if not sooner, he’ll be gone. And then it will be our turn to right the ship, and write the history, and wipe the smirk off traitor Barr’s haughty face.
Now is not the time to lose hope. The enemy is on the ropes, and we must keep up the fight. The future is ours. Let’s take it.
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 12, 2020
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