Progressives (Liberals)

More than 600,000 Americans have been diagnosed with the virus. I see no reason to believe a Fox "News" hack on something like that. I could find no other source for this claim.

That is nice but it is not what Biden said. Joe's phone is off the hook. One oar in the water. Etc.

I don't automatically put credence in local hacks, either.

Trump admits he makes things up

March 16, 2018 / 8:51 AM / AP

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-admits-he-makes-things-up/

President Trump has owned up to making things up.

For a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mr. Trump was by his own admission unprepared — deficient in the fundamentals of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship that he'd been railing about since the campaign.

He insisted to Trudeau that the U.S. was running a trade deficit with Canada, a statement contradicted by U.S. government statistics. He was winging it, he confided to donors at a private Missouri political fundraiser Wednesday night.
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"I didn't even know," he said. "I had no idea."

Others might be mortified at being caught short. Not this president.

Does the U.S. have a trade deficit with Canada?
Trump tells donors he made up claim in Trudeau talk

For Mr. Trump the showman, the episode illustrated his skill at improvisation. Still, it was a rare admission that he will say things without knowing if they are true.

Mr. Trump's impulse to replace facts has defined him as a politician and as a businessman before that.

Depositions reviewed by AP from his litigious years in real estate show a history of dodgy statements about his property and wealth. Asked once about overstating the number of units sold in a Las Vegas tower, he said he didn't intend his answer to be taken literally.

Mr. Trump's years of questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship showed a willingness to perpetuate myth that was seen again early in his presidential campaign, when he insisted against all evidence that Muslims took to the streets in New Jersey to celebrate the 2001 terrorist attack across the river in Manhattan.

In office, he routinely misuses numbers — trade statistics among them — and recounts events even if the facts don't fit.

Of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Florida, he said, "If you had one person in that room that could carry a gun and knew how to use it, it wouldn't have happened, or certainly not to the extent it did," a statement belied by the fact that the club had an armed guard on duty who immediately exchanged fire with the gunman.

In leaked audio of the Missouri fundraiser, first reported by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump says that in his meeting with Trudeau, he thought the U.S. must be running a trade deficit with Canada because the Canadians have been smart about trade and "we're so stupid."

"Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — 'Donald, we have no trade deficit.'" Trump recounted. "He's very proud because everybody else, you know, we're getting killed."

"I said, 'Wrong, Justin, you do.' I didn't even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, 'You're wrong.' You know why? Because we're so stupid. . And I thought they were smart."

Mr. Trump went on to say that his position was ultimately vindicated when he had U.S. and Canadian aides take a closer look at trade between the two countries. That conclusion is not supported by the numbers.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday insisted Mr. Trump was right, saying: "Well the president was accurate, because there is a trade deficit and that was the point he was making, is that he didn't have to look at the specific figures, because he knew that there was a trade deficit."

Canadian Foreign Affairs spokesman Adam Austin offered this counter: "According to their own statistics, the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Canada."

Mr. Trump mischaracterizes the trade balance by considering only trade in goods and ignoring services. On goods, the U.S. ran a deficit of $17.6 billion with Canada last year. That was offset by a surplus in trade in services.

Overall, the U.S. Census Bureau reports a U.S. trade surplus of $2.8 billion last year with Canada.

FACT CHECK: Trump's Claims On NATO Spending

July 11, 20185:43 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
13 November 2019, in Washington DC.

David Welna


President Trump has been making plenty of claims about how much the U.S. contributes to NATO while portraying other members of the alliance as deadbeats. Here is some of what he has said and how those statements stand up to the facts.
The Claim

Sitting down to breakfast in Brussels just before the NATO plenary session Wednesday, Trump accused NATO allies of being freeloaders:

"Many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money from many years back, where they're delinquent as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So if you go back 10 or 20 years, you'll just add it all up, it's massive amounts of money is owed."

False

The U.S. has not been stiffed for unpaid bills by NATO allies.

"There is no ledger that maintains accounts of what countries pay and owe," says former Obama administration National Security Council staffer Aaron O'Connell. "NATO is not like a club with annual membership fees."

NATO members did make a commitment four years ago to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. Just nine of the military alliance's 29 members are expected to reach or surpass that target this year.


The Claim

At the same pre-plenary breakfast, Trump excoriated Germany, the biggest economic power in NATO after the U.S.:

"Germany is just paying a little bit over 1 percent, whereas the United States in actual numbers is paying 4.2 percent."

True And False

Germany indeed devotes only about 1.25 percent of its GDP to defense. While it has boosted defense spending the past two years, Germany, like about half the other NATO members, does not plan to reach 2 percent by 2024.

But Trump's claim that the U.S. is spending 4.2 percent of GDP is at odds with the Pentagon, which puts it at 3.3 percent.

NATO scholar Garret Martin says in any case, U.S. defense needs vastly surpass those of its European allies.

"We're not comparing apples to apples," notes Martin, a lecturer at American University's School of International Service. "The United States is a global military power with global military commitments.

"NATO and the trans-Atlantic geographical area is only a part of what the United States military does. That's not necessarily true for most of the European members of the alliance."
The Claim

At a July 5 rally in Montana, Trump said this about NATO funding:

"We're paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 percent to protect Europe, and that's fine."

Confusing

Trump did not say 70 to 90 percent of what. It's true that if the overall defense budgets of all 29 NATO allies are tallied, the U.S. defense budget accounts for about two-thirds of that total. But as noted above, American defense expenditures are for much more than just protecting Europe.

"There is a common budget that all NATO allies pay into," says O'Connell of NATO's direct expenses for shared headquarters and exercises. "It's about $2.8 billion and the U.S. pays 22 percent of that, not 90 percent."
The Claim

Trump sought to take credit in Brussels for NATO allies spending more:

"This year, since our last meeting, commitments have been made for over $40 billion more money spent by other countries."

Exaggeration

NATO reported on July 10 that spending by European members increased from last fiscal year to the current fiscal year by about $35 billion.

The increased spending predates Trump.

"I think once the trend started changing in 2014, that created momentum even before he became president," says Martin. "Now maybe there's a bit more urgency now because he's blunter than his predecessors in criticizing his European partners."

Despite Trump's complaints about American outlays for NATO, the U.S. is actually spending more in Europe than when he took office.

"Actions speak louder than words," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters as the NATO summit got underway. "Since Trump became president, U.S. funding for military presence in Europe — the European Deterrence Initiative — has been increased by 40 percent."

That spending was approved by Congress, where both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly approved resolutions this week backing NATO.

I think it’s a significant comment in favor of Liz Warren for Biden’s VP that big money donors are trying to convince Biden not to choose her.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/donors-pressure-joe-biden-to-not-pick-elizabeth-warren-as-vp.html

I don't care who is the VP is. I will crawl through broken glass to vote for Joe Biden.

#believeallwomen #meetoo was a fraud movement and you and your fellow lefties have proven it to be true.

Me too. I still think it’s noteworthy that big money is afraid of Liz Warren.

Pics, or it didn't happen.

A "fraud movement"???

"#believeallwomen" was marred from the beginning; it should have been called "#listentoallwomen" or something like that. "Belief" is something which characterizes a form of faith — "I don't know this for a fact but I will accept it as true". That's fine for a religion or a personal worldview but it doesn't cut it in science or law. This unfortunate hashtag highlights the difficulties incurred when trying to translate a complicated concept into as few words as possible. But using the phrase to indict an organized political effort as a "fraud movement" is just as stupid as uncritically believing all women. Sometimes you have to use a little perspective.

"#metoo" has been around longer and it's difficult to see how it qualifies as a "fraud movement". Women (and men) describe incidents of sexual harassment that they've experienced and endured. These accounts have awakened a lot of people to an ugly fact of social life. Again, the stories shouldn't just be believed for the sake of political correctness, but in this case, we don't have an expressed imperative to do so in the hashtag.

She's more dangerous to them in the Senate. Which is why I like her in the Senate. Though if the Senate is balanced and if McConnell is still holding his seat: her being there as President of the Senate to break ties might be nice. But lets face it, being at evens would stop both Democratic and GOP initiatives requiring more than a simple majority with or without her being VP..

Evidently everyone doesn’t think so. Like the ones trying to talk Biden out of choosing her for veep.

Feminism is a fraud movement. They speak out only against who they oppose politically. The ignore Islam and other cultures which devalue a woman's worth. They are not champions for women they are propagandists and manipulators valuing color over merit among other things.

You can't even talk Biden out of his basement.

Not being able to speak to their motives all I can do is suggest a couple of things, one is that they feel they can beat her in next re-election, it isn't as if they have another favorite for VP. They honestly believe she'll hold down the turnout if she's named. They worry about both their ages and they'd like to see a younger or a minority candidate.

The major reason I'd like to see her stay in the Senate is because she will hold big business' feet ro the fire.

I like Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, Amy Klobuchar, Staci Abrams. I see them as potential Presidential material.

Joe has hinted at only going one term. My fear is that this will make him a lame duck from Jan 21, 2021 on. If that's true, then of course Elizabeth Warren becomes more attractive as a VP.

Since Jesus took his body from a woman, it is woman rather than man who best represents the humanity of the Son of God - that's what the a feminist of the Middle Ages - among others like about sex - taught.

Saint Hildegard von Bingen's (1098-1179) controversial ideas resulted in her being reprimanded by other clergy, but because the Pope respected her as a seer, she went unpunished.
(She was a poet, author, philosopher, theologian, singer, musician, composer, playwright, artist, architect, biographer, doctor, botanist, herbalist, visionary, preacher, seer, prophet and became a Saint and Doctor of the Church.)