2017 Jan 14^th

Donald Trump is not known for indulging himself in unnecessary press conferences. He had not held one for about five months until recently when he became President-elect. Some spectators, observing what will surely in later years be seen as a series of theatrical performances by the candidate, have hoped that Trump will leave his theater persona and become more Presidential. Ha!

Trump seems to have an allergy to the truth; if he can exaggerate, obfuscate or simply lie about some aspect of current policy, he will do it. In his press conference he said, “96 million people looking for a job and they can’t get one.” That is a bald-faced lie and Trump must know that it is a lie and he doesn’t care. That 96 million Americans are unemployed is not in doubt. What is simply not true is that these 96 million Americans are looking for work and can’t find it. Trump is not the only conservative who has used this lie to mislead Americans about the state of the economy; he is just the most recent.

96 million Americans are not employed but 96 million Americans are not looking for work. I am one of those 96 million and so is my wife and neither of us is looking for work. We are part of the over 40 million retirees among those 96 million. There are also college students, stay-at-home mothers and many others in that group who are not looking for work.

 Trump then goes on to lie about his tax returns. He claims he can’t release them because he is being audited. It’s true that he is being audited but the IRS has made it clear that being audited is not a bar to releasing the returns, Then he compounds that lie by declaring that nobody cares about his tax returns and that you can’t learn anything from the returns anyway. In fact, about 74 percent of Americans believe Trump should release his tax returns, so declaring that Americans don’t care is a lie.

The returns will tell us about his charitable contribution, or their absence; they will tell us to whom he owes money both foreign and domestic and they will tell us just how much of his millions of income he pays to support the country he wants to “make great again.” Does he pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes than his cook does?

He claims that the rise of the Islamic state is because Obama pulled our troops out of Iraq at the wrong time. This is another lie because the withdrawal of our troops was arranged by President Bush in 2004 in the “Status of Forces” agreement. This agreement meant our armed forces would be out of Iraqi cities by 2009 and completely out of the country by the end of December 2011. President Obama simply honored his predecessor’s agreement.

On a different note we have Betsy DeVos the nominee for Education Secretary who has nicely greased the palms of the primary Republican figures who will vote on her confirmation. It seems about 160 thousand dollars has found its way into the purses of the committee Republicans who will vote on her confirmation. It’s interesting that the Washington Examiner, a weekly right wing newspaper claims that these contributions won’t make a bit of difference. Wanna bet?