Why would any rationale human state lies that are so easy to fact check?
CNN Trump Claim Factcheck
CNN Trump Claim Factcheck
"THE PRESIDENT: You know, one of the things that people don’t understand, we have signed more legislation than anybody — we broke the record of Harry Truman. And they were saying, if we get this big tax break — because that’s the legislation of all legislation, that’s the biggest there is."This is kind of an interesting site. Trump Golf Count I haven't yet figured out how Fiscal Conservatives tolerate Trump's wasteful travel spending.
43 comments:
I don't know about pathological, but he certainly is a liar. And I don't know if this is seriously disputed. His supporters like that about him. The con man is an American type. It's why the musical is called "The Music Man" and not "Marian the Librarian".
--Hiram
I don't criticize Donald Trump's travel expenses or his vacations and whatnot. But what I do remember is how severely Obama was criticized for the same thing. What that tells me, reminds me really is so much of what we hear in the daily discourse is simply garbage. People who criticized Obama, and who are now criticizing Trump are not trying to comment substantively on the issues of the day, they are issuing propaganda targeted on their more mindless followers. We do it, they do it, and neither side should do it.
--Hiram
You're just noticing this now?
I think I have been commenting regarding this for a year or so.
However I am still surprised that so many of his True Believers seem to believe him?
And if they don't believe him anymore, what is the point of saying it?
Do the True Believers have the ability to supplant reality with his words?
Are they truly a cult?
I find it an interesting study in psychology.
Trump is a dishonest salesman, a type we all know. He's the guy who wants to sell you a real estate course, offered at a hotel, that he promises will make you rich. He is dishonest, but not in a way that's deceptive. We all know he is lying. Take one example. He tells us he won't release his tax returns because he is being audited. Does anyone in America believe this? Does even Trump believe this is remotely plausible? I don't think so. But the upside of this is the philosophical question is, is a statement that is so obviously untrue indicate an intent to deceive, a necessary element in a lie? Trump doesn't use words to convey meaning. For him they are a form of action, and actions are neither true nor false.
--Hiram
Trump is a con man, and there is a substantial history of con men in American life. Going back into history, I bet the Pilgrims came here based on representations that were perhaps, overly enthusiastic. For Ponce de Leon, there was that whole fountain of youth thing. Why are con men such common and persistent figures in our history and our culture? Why do they have such seeming power? There are lots of reasons why Trump won the election, to the extent that he did. But I believe a factor was this love of the con we Americans share, this need or urge to be deceived by someone who presents this wonderful image of a marching band, or a big win at the track, or a fortune that can be made on the phone flipping real estate. We know these things are untrue. But we want them to be true, and that's why we give the con man our cash, and in the case of Trump, our vote.
--Hiram
Make up your mind. Do you want Trump off golfing, or in the White House signing legislation and rolling back regulation?
Make up your mind. Do you want to criticize Trump for paying for his own travel while not taking a salary, or for being rich enough to do so?
As for lying, all politicians are liars. Trump is not a politician, but gets tarred with the same brush. Get over it. You have your choice of lies, some important and some not, and some more believable than others.
Do you want Trump off golfing, or in the White House signing legislation and rolling back regulation?
That was my argument when Jesse Ventura was doing football commentary while governor. At least when he was doing it, we knew where he was.
I am not too responsive to "I know what you are, but what am I" arguments. I was bored with them on elementary school playgrounds, and I don't think there rhetorical quality has improved since then. But actually, Trump is different in his brazenness. Some politicians try to deceive. So often, Trump doesn't even bother. He has a power based view of the world, and power is neither true nor false.
I have never been able to get over things. It may be a character defect.
--Hiram
I wonder if Germans who had a problem with Hitler becoming chancellor were told to "get over it". Why do we think that is such a compelling argument?
Fox News often presents these arguments that make no sense, and no one seems to notice. One I hear a lot is if you don't like tax policy, send the government a check. The problem is obvious. Disputes about policy don't have much to do with whether we should follow policies once they are decided. This has to be obvious to everyone. I may object to the location of a stoplight, but that doesn't mean I get to run it whenever I please.
--Hiram
The True Believers mantra when faced with one of Trump's bald faced lies...
"As for lying, all politicians are liars. Trump is not a politician, but gets tarred with the same brush."
This is the psychology that amazes me. Trump lies and his true believers try to blame the boy for saying that the Emperor is naked as a jay bird.
As for what I would prefer Trump to be doing. I would like it if he would learn the details and complexities of all these complicated issues. Ideally he would stop talking and truly start listening and learning.
Maybe he would not sound quite so uneducated when he speaks / tweets.
Jerry,
How do you personally rationalize Trump saying "Obama did not work enough and played too much golf."
With Trump's spending far more time away from the White House playing golf than Obama ever did?
Not to manage the HUGE PUBLIC EXPENSE to support his life style. Far more than any POTUS salary.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with Trump playing golf. He is a management guy, he doesn't work on an assembly line. While I don't think Trump is engaged with policy in the way he should be, playing golf has nothing to do with that. There is a certain gotcha quality to this argument since Trump made it so frequently about Obama, I suppose, but there are so many gotcha arguments that can be made about Trump, the result is they have lost whatever effectiveness they might ever have had. Even I find Trump's outright contempt for consistency to be endearing. As a critic of logic, it's one of the things I grudgingly admire him for.
I don't know, but my guess is that people stick with Trump for several reasons. Some of them similar to why folks on my side stuck with Clinton. From the Clinton side of things, we were invested in him. Rejecting him would mean rejecting all the effort we put in electing him. For another, we needed him in the job. For Trump people, to begin with, they knew what he was when they voted for him. Nothing with that has changed. And Trump is delivering. He got his tax cut to satisfy the Republican donors, and he is appointing right wing judges which is the top priority of much of his base. So in terms of substance, what's the point of rejecting him now?
--Hiram
Donald Trump’s Mental Faculties Continue to Erode
The biggest surprise of Trump’s first year is his hard-right economic policy
Laurie,
I don't know if he is getting worse however I certainly agree...
He is not getting better.
His True Believers seem oblivious.
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!
"The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history."
NYT: U.S. to Roll Back Safety Rules Created After Deepwater Horizon Spill
I personally am not a big fan of Governmental Regs when The costs are SO HUGE.
I think the drillers are pretty motivated to ensure it does not happen again.
"I personally am not a big fan of Governmental Regs when The costs are SO HUGE."
BP didn't suffer the Deepwater Horizon costs because of regulation. They suffered those costs because they cut corners for years.
"I think the drillers are pretty motivated to ensure it does not happen again."
Just like there were never any oil spills after the Exxon Valdez, right?
Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump’s New York Times interview is a scary read
Pathological liar wise, Trump rode to political promise on the claim that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Now that was a lie, and I believe Trump knew it was a lie.
Does anyone here believe that Trump was telling the truth about Obama's birthplace? Does anyone here believe that Donald Trump was also telling related lies on the matter, that for example, he had sent investigators to Hawaii to check out the matter?
--Hiram
Sean,
You are correct and I am sure BP will take great care to ensure they never incur a disaster like that again.
Laurie,
It is too bad Trump's "handlers" can not keep him under control. He does say the dumbest things when he is free speaking.
Hiram,
Jerry may believe Obama was not a citizen...
I don't believe anyone thought Obama was not a citizen. Trump was just saying that to imply something else, to basically attack the legitimacy of the Obama presidency.
--Hiram
"I am sure BP will take great care to ensure they never incur a disaster like that again."
Are you familiar with BP's record?
Telegraph: A History of BP's US disasters
BP Corporate Rap Sheet
2 Points:
1. That telegraph record seems incredibly great given the size and complexity of what they do, and the number of facilities, contractor companies involved and 75,000 direct employees.
2. None of the fines for those issues came close to their $64 Billion Deepwater whack...
The question as always is how much are we willing to pay for perfection?
90% of perfect is easy / cheap
95% of perfect is normal / normal
99% of perfect is hard / expensive
Perfect / No Errors is outrageously expensive and nearly impossible
"None of the fines for those issues came close to their $64 Billion Deepwater whack..."
And, at least $18B of that whack were tax-deductible because the law allows companies to treat such expenses as ordinary business expenses. Are you glad to be footing the bill on their behalf?
No one is expecting or demanding perfection. Just a reasonable level of expectation and then true accountability when something goes wrong. There's not a damn thing wrong with BP having to shell out $64B for that disaster. Consider that there are still over 20,000 gallons of oil in Prince William Sound 29 years after the Exxon Valdez.
I am happy fining companies when appropriate.
I am not supportive of punishing whole industries with additional regulations just because something bad happened once or twice.
That just increases costs for all of us. And makes US businesses less competitive.
"I am not supportive of punishing whole industries with additional regulations just because something bad happened once or twice."
When the "once or twice" are major events like Deepwater Horizon, you better well believe that additional regulation is required. You think the fishermen dealing with reduced yields or the tourism industry that depends on beaches care about whether or not the industry has to pay a little more attention to what they're doing?
And it ain't just the Gulf that feels the impact.
BP Spill Residue Found in Minnesota Pelican Eggs
Sounds good as long as folks are willing to bear the high costs of seeking perfection.
Unfortunately ~50 years of history has shown that many US Consumers are not willing to pay more for product from highly regulated countries. :-(
You can't assert with a straight face that the U.S. oil and gas industry is choking from over-regulation.
I don't know either way, however I am still willing to discuss the costs / benefits of the regulations... Instead of just assuming that "regulations are all good and all necessary".
And remember how to boil a frog...
"I don't know either way"
The five companies with the largest operations in the U.S. (ExxonMobil, BP, Valero, Chevron, and Marathon) have a combined net income over the last 5 years of about $275B.
"I am still willing to discuss the costs / benefits of the regulations"
The cost to BP of Deepwater Horizon was $64B (pre-tax). That would pay for 2,807 years of the post-Deepwater regulations -- for the entire U.S. oil and gas industry -- that Trump seeks to remove.
BP Numbers
Pretax Income
2012 8.96B
2013 17.29B
2014 958.36M
2015 (7.45B)
2016 (3.15B)
My numbers are after-tax (net income line).
My point was that penalties like those incurred upon BP for Deepwater should be more than enough to ensure the companies behave themselves. No more regs required.
"should be more than enough to ensure the companies behave themselves"
But it never is. Just like states with the death penalty still have murders.
20 years after the S&L crisis, banks speculated wildly on real estate loans and tanked the economy. Companies are still caught cooking the books even after Enron (HP alone has had two major restatements during that time, for instance.) Every mining disaster in this country is invariably turns up questionable practices by the mining company. How many misdeeds has Wells Fargo had in recent years? Was Volkswagen dissuaded from its emissions scandal by looking at what happened in the GM ignition switch fiasco, or the Ford Pinto?
At some point, if companies aren't going to live up to their obligations to society, then government has to require that they do so.
So the answer to companies violating regulations is more regulations???
That is about as silly as MN changing the buffer strip law from 16.6 feet to 50 feet... When they are not even enforcing the 16.6 foot strip...
Instead of punishing the poor farmers and fixing the problem...
Just pass more stringent regs that punish all farmers...
Now we know that Enron, VW, Wells Fargo, Financial firms, etc all broke laws and were punished for doing so. Yet the answer from Liberals is more Regs, Auditing, Paperwork, etc. Well I assume that is good for government Bureaucrats, not likely too good for American Workers.
As for the "Great Recession"... There were many greedy people hard at work during that period. They included financial firms, government regulators, home owners, etc... Hopefully most of them incurred some negative consequences for their role.
"So the answer to companies violating regulations is more regulations???"
Sometimes, yes. Consider how we approach criminal law, for instance. We've strengthened laws against drunk driving, domestic violence, drugs, etc. when we've felt that the existing laws weren't doing enough to protect society.
I see those laws as something totally different.
Sarbanes Oxley and other similar laws are incredibly prescriptive and expensive in nature.
Where as DUI limits, domestic violence, drug laws are very simple... (ie no audits, no regulators, punished if caught, etc)
It would be like if you allowed my "Good Parent Laws" to go into affect... A great way to help millions of children, yet socially unacceptable...
So why do Liberals want to pass Regs to prevent business errors. Yet they will let anyone have and raise kids as poorly as they wish? Always puzzles me.
To continue that thought... We know how to help almost every child be successful...
The prescription has been proven over and over.
- Two educated responsible mature parents (sex to me is optional) who make the time to nurture, love, coach, correct, provide for, etc a child or children.
- One or both Parents actively collaborating with the kid(s)' Teachers and making sure that homework is done and that the child does not stray down dark paths with questionable peers.
Maybe we need more regs on Parenting... Then there will be less concern about drugs, DUI, domestic violence, generational poverty, etc.
"So why do Liberals want to pass Regs to prevent business errors. Yet they will let anyone have and raise kids as poorly as they wish? Always puzzles me."
People have rights endowed to them by the Constitution. Corporations are legal constructs permitted by the government. Big difference.
Families technically are also legal constructs...
Just think of all the parental rights, child, marriage, divorce, adoption, welfare, etc things we have put into the legal systems.
And having successful families is at the core of America being successful and children being raised well. Much more so than Sarbanes Oxley and all the other regulations that you aggressively support.
Looks like a lot of Republicans don't share your confidence in gas and oil companies.
WaPo: Trump Admin Plans to Allow Drilling Off All U.S. Waters
"Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, who has said: “I’m not in favor of offshore drilling.” A catastrophe on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil leak in 2010 would be disastrous for one of the state’s most precious resources, the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) is opposed out of concern over drilling’s impact on the state’s natural resources. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fired off a letter to the Interior agency that issues permits saying the state “strongly opposes any waters off our coastline being considered for inclusion in this leasing program,” citing its $44 billion beach tourism industry that creates more than 300,000 jobs.
...
Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, where beach tourism on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts generates nearly $50 billion dollars and a half million jobs annually, according to a Florida Atlantic University report, said Thursday that he adamantly opposes drilling off the state’s coast and requested a meeting with Zinke."
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