Rebutting Republican Propaganda

Follow FACTUAL NEWS on

Questions?

• HomeUpRebutting Republican PropagandaProtests against COVID DISTANCING funded by BillionairesFox News AdvertisersFox kills 10's of ThousandsOpioid Crisis caused by FDA & RepublicansInequality Kills Us AllFacebook posts worthy of BANNINGThe Religious VoteBillionaire's funding attacks on ProfessorsDisband the  ELECTORAL COLLEGE ?ALEC turns Disinformation into LawHow Millionaires don't pay TaxLame FECACTION REQUIREDSuper Pac Secrecy18 CEOs Stealing TrillionsRobots taking jobs - Social RevolutionSenators against Background ChecksMedicaid Coverage GapAnti-Parks RepublicansCPAC Bills 2021 •

•  •

Rebutting Republican Propaganda

REBUTTALS ( that pretty much answer all misleading comments from Republicans)

Trump lies 46 times at the debate

GENERAL   most used ----------------------------------------------

But all of this is just a TALKING POINT from billionaires funding MRC to get us to vote Republican -- instead of voting in our own Best Interest .   http://factualnews/atwebpages/politics/images_politics/Vote_in_Your_Best_Interest.jpg

Actually all of these posts are propaganda to get us to vote Republican against our Best Interest -- using Immigration, Guns, Gay Marriage, Religion, Abortion.

You realize of course that all this is more about getting us to
When people simply vote on 
Immigration, Guns, Gay Marriage, Religion and Abortion they end up with a 2017 Republican Tax Scam where 56 million end up paying MORE taxes in 2027 and earners below $40,000 pay MORE tax in 2023 ! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/10/paul-ryans-repeated-claim-that-everyone-will-get-a-tax-cut/

We must remember the reason for all these posts on guns, immigration and abortion -- to get us NOT to vote in our own Best Interest. 

 I think I'll vote on issues that are in my Best Interest -- not just on Immigration, Guns, Gay Marriage, Religion and Abortion !

Biden and Saunders get Fact Checked https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/

There's plenty independent studies -- here's one -- only 10% of FOX statements were true ! https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/tv/fox/

 When it comes to FREEDOMS USA is about 50th https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019?order=field_fiw_aggregate_score&sort=desc

Washington Post is in the top 3 -- Top 10 News Sources for Real Truth & Facts  https://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2017/02/01/10-journalism-brands-where-you-will-find-real-facts-rather-than-alternative-facts/

CNN:- Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn

Fifty Years of Tax Cuts for Rich Didn’t Trickle Down, Study Says. Tax cuts for rich people breed inequality without providing much of a boon to anyone else. It did did little to promote jobs or growth

TAX SCAM ----------------------------------------------

You promised to no longer charge income tax to single individuals earning less than $25,000 per year or couples less than $50,000.
Instead you created a Tax Scam where earners below $40,000 pay MORE tax in 2023 ! And Corporations pay 21% instead of 35% !
Increasing the Federal Debt by $1.5 trillion ! Now THAT'S BIG GOVERNMENT !

in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest corporations paid zero federal income taxes on $79 billion in income.
Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the previous 35% corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a tax REBATE of $4.3 billion ( at 21%). https://itep.org/notadime/

The Republican TAX SCAM -- http://factualnews.atwebpages.com/politics/Tax_Cut_Scam.htm
So that the Republicans could limit it to Increased Federal Debt of $1.5 trillion - -they scammed the working class instead of Corporations to reduce Corporate Tax to 21% from 35%

 

Why ? Cos it's rampant --
 here's where its coming from.

Propaganda Mills that can
get Trump re-elected:

Followers
55k

Competitive Enterprise Institute

11k

 CFG Action

1.3k

 Turning Point USA at UF

2.8m

 Being Conservative,

525k

 RedState,

1.2m Townhall.com
785k Hot Air
5.7m

 Judicial Watch,

5.4m The Daily Caller,
1.8m

 Media Research Center,

2.3m

 CNSNews.com,

244k

 Exposing Liberals,

213k

 Project Veritas,

3.4m

 MRCTV,

3.3m

 PragerU,

8.5m

 IJR Red,

1.3m

 Mark Levin,

1.2m

 Chicks On The Right,

999k

 Young Conservatives,

848k

 WND,

1.2m

 Newsmax,

1m

 National Review,

2m

 The Heritage Foundation,

310k

 Christian Coalition,

1.7m

 Heritage Action for America,

2.9m US Chronicle
Democrat

 The Discourse & Exchange,

3.2m

 Sean Hannity

1.9m Daily Wire
1.4m

 Turning Point USA,

2.9m

 NewsBusters,

396k One America News Network (OAN),
568k

 Carly Fiorina

5.7m

 Dr. Ben & Candy Carson

2.1m

 Ted Cruz

2m

 Rand Paul

325k

 Jeb Bush

24m

 Donald J. Trump

1.4m

 Marco Rubio

32k

 FreedomWorks,

This country is not broke taking care of the poor - it's from

Increased Federal Debt of $1.5 trillion with a 2017 Republican Tax Scam Bill where earners below $40,000 pay MORE tax in 2023 ! And Corporations pay 21% instead of 35% ! And 56.7 million Taxpayers will be paying higher taxes by 2027
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/10/paul-ryans-repeated-claim-that-everyone-will-get-a-tax-cut/

read the SOURCE FACT CHECK here
 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/11/10/paul-ryans-repeated-claim-that-everyone-will-get-a-tax-cut/  ---- their sources are the Joint Committee on Taxation. , Tax Policy Center and Open Source Policy Center tax model that was created by the American Enterprise Institute and a former economist at the Treasury Department

Some 84% of the 100 economists reported that in the year since the tax cuts passage, it “has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans.” So where is all that money going? Where else? Share buybacks, which hit a record $1.1 trillion in 2018. Companies actually spent more on buybacks than on capital investments in 2018’s first half.
It didn’t boost economic growth that much, didn’t start a capital spending boom or U.S. manufacturing renaissance, didn’t bring overseas profits back home, and might have led to modest job growth but little discernible wage increases. And we’ll all be stuck with the bill for a long, long time. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-official-the-trump-tax-cuts-were-a-bust-2019-01-30

From December 2016 to September 2019: WAGES, ( plus health insurance, retirement and bonuses) AFTER Inflation decreased 4.33% in MANUFACTURING and decreased 0.22% Overall !
source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/data-shows-trump%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98blue-collar-boom%E2%80%99-bust-121836

Europeans are receiving Healthcare, affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, more... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/15/tax-day-us-europe

For The First Time In History, U.S. Billionaires paid a Lower Tax Rate than the Working Class: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/11/for-the-first-time-in-history-us-billionaires-paid-a-lower-tax-rates-than-the-working-class-what-we-should-do-about-it

ECONOMY --------------------------------------

Over the past 50 years, lots of things have changed in the United States. Here are a few examples.
1) A child’s chance of earning more than his or her parents has plummeted from 90 to 50 percent.
2) Earnings by the top 1 percent of Americans nearly tripled, while middle-class wages have been basically frozen for four decades.
3.)
68,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in 2018. (72k in 2017, 63k in 2016, 52k in 2015)
4) Nearly one in five children in the US are now at risk of going hungry.
5) Among the 35 richest countries in the world, the US now has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17469080/american-dream-steven-brill-inequality-poverty-tailspin

Its a straight line growth in wages from the Obama era. No change from Trump. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/646708799/fact-check-who-gets-credit-for-the-booming-u-s-economy

Unemployment is a straight line decrease from 2009 -- started by Obama !  https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm

Sep 2019: Two decades with no progress for the middle class': New census data shows household income is the same as in 1999 ! The share of Americans without health insurance rose for the first time in a decade last year and U.S. household income hardly budged. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-census/u-s-median-household-income-was-63179-in-2018-census-idUSKCN1VV1U3

Denmark McDonald's Workers Get Paid $20/HOUR ! And the Big Mac costs just 80 cents more . Thanks to unionization, they also get paid sick leave and overtime pay. Every worker gets 4 weeks Paid Vacation.
The U.K. brought in a national
minimum wage in 1999,  AND unemployment actually fell between 1999 and 2007 despite regular increases in the wage. .https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-mcdonalds-pays-20-hourly-wages-2014-10

Trump Is Falling Almost 1 Million Jobs Short Vs. Obama https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2019/07/05/trump-is-falling-almost-1-million-jobs-short-vs-obama/#3365bd0e8caa

All the things that really elevate American’s quality of life — healthcare, finance, education, transport, housing, and so on — have come to consume such a large share of the average household’s income that they have little left to save, invest, or spend on anything else.

And what’s worse, while the basics of life have seen massive inflation, wages and incomes (not to mention savings and benefits and safety nets and opportunities) for most have stagnated. The result is an economy — and a society — that’s collapsing.
https://eand.co/why-america-is-the-worlds-first-poor-rich-country-17f5a80e444a 

Most claims about job gains or losses from trade deals aren't credible https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/26/will-revised-nafta-deal-add-jobs-every-year

Trump consistently inflates the U.S. Trade Deficit with China. It was:

  • $380 billion in 2018,
  • $337 billion in 2017 and
  • $309 billion in 2016, 

according to the Commerce Department. Notice that it has continued to grow under Trump.

Countries do not make or lose money on trade deficits. A trade deficit simply means that people in one country are buying more goods from another country than people in the second country are buying from the first country. (Not as Trump says "
“China has been taking out of this country $500-plus billion a year for many, many years — many, many years.” )

 History shows us that government can create jobs and grow the economy https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2011/09/08/10257/government-spending-can-create-jobs-and-it-has/

PEW RESEARCH:- 89 percent of Americans (including 77 percent of Republicans) believe regulations on food production and packaging should be maintained or strengthened.
On car safety and efficiency, 87 percent of Americans (and 82 percent of Republicans) say the same.
On workplace safety, 86 percent of Americans (and 77 percent of Republicans) want to maintain or enhance regulations.
The only real skepticism is over environmental regulations, but even here 79 percent of all Americans (and 59 percent of Republicans) are in favor of regulation.

https://www.people-press.org/2012/02/23/section-2-views-of-government-regulation

GUNS --------------------------------------

Enough Gun Violence ! Is mental illness causing America’s mass shootings? No, --- research shows. And there is no statistical link between playing violent video games and shooting people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/08/05/is-mental-illness-causing-americas-mass-shootings-no-research-shows/

The semi-automatic assault weapons ban (and the limit of a magazine to 10 rounds) from 1994 to 2004 was riddled with loopholes, such as allowing copycat weapons to be sold, and exemptions that limited its effectiveness.
Nevertheless studies show that fewer people in the U.S. were killed as a result of mass shootings during the ban period.

During the semi-automatic assault weapons ban (and the limit of a magazine to 10 rounds) from 1994 to 2004 --  fewer people were killed as a result of mass shootings . ( you'll like this - Bill Clinton got 2 pinocchios )  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/08/bill-clintons-claim-that-assault-weapons-ban-led-big-drop-mass-shooting-deaths/

(Note that it was Republicans in power in 2004 that allowed the ban to expire)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/qsJB0mDQ9LaDueNtmN11v1ETTnI=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/DLFOI5GSCNDB3HRC6W73D6NH2I.png

Scroll down the article and read that its the conclusion from a database on mass shootings by Grant Duwe, director of research and evaluation for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

That's an old study (2018) that did not use enough detailed data. The Washington Post on the latest study ( you'll like this - Bill Clinton got 2 pinocchios ) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/08/bill-clintons-claim-that-assault-weapons-ban-led-big-drop-mass-shooting-deaths/

Mass-shooting deaths were 70% less likely to occur during the 1994-2004 Federal ban period https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30188421

Yearly sales of Semiautomatic rifles averaged about 200,000 during the years of the 1994-2004 ban. In the eight years after the ban ended, sales averaged about 700,000 a year. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/aug/07/bill-clinton/did-mass-shooting-deaths-fall-under-1994-assault-w/

The GOP’s favorite gun ‘academic’ is a fraud https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/

Jimmy Kimmel responds to the mass shootings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=323&v=sB0wWEFIr50
Stephen Colbert on the shootings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dMgEwQYdog

Do 98 percent of mass public shootings happen in gun-free zones?
Trump lunged for a dramatic statistic without including necessary context. He earns Two Pinocchios.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/05/10/do-98-percent-of-mass-public-shootings-happen-in-gun-free-zones/

"Odessa shooter bought gun via private sale without background check" ----

Federal law barred Jody Lee Hunt from ever owning a gun. But when he wanted to buy one, it wasn’t hard: He found a seller online.
He was a felon who had spent time in prison for abducting a girlfriend. But he used the gun to kill his ex-girlfriend, a rival business owner, and two others.
He was supposed to be blocked by a federal instant background check database that licensed firearms dealers are required to query before handing weapons over to a buyer. But federal gun laws contain a major loophole: Transactions between private sellers and buyers do not require a background check.
Background checks are more effective when they work in tandem with additional requirements for fingerprinting and handgun safety training. The combination, experts say, has reduced firearm homicides, suicides and shootings of law enforcement officers, as well as illegal gun trafficking.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/us/guns-background-checks.html

The El Paso shooter had an AK47 .

Nobody needs a  high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines other than to kill a lot of people in a very short time period.

To "protect yourself" by carrying an AK47 high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines ( as did the El Paso shooter) ? Do you need this much fire-power to save somebody? Can you carry that rifle and magazines around with you all the time?
No, No and No !

 Florida gets a C- .......Texas gets an F https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/state-law/Texas/

ENVIRONMENT --------------------------------------

In 2015, reducing environmental risks could have prevented more than a quarter of the 5.9 million deaths of children under 5 years.
 https://www.who.int/features/factfiles/children_environmental_health/en/

Scientific consensus: Climate is warming from man-made change.
I wish it weren't true but I'd be very silly not to believe 99% of scientists.
Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense/
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

I think I'll go with the 12,000 academic papers https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99

And NASA https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

After a study of 12,000 papers from here https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326  “There was 99% scientific consensus in 2011 that humans are causing global warming.”

2019 STUDY: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware  could see $4.7 billion in health benefits in 2030 if they stick with current renewable energy standards, according to a new study from MIT. That’s about a 34% return on the $3.5 billion price tag associated with actually building out that infrastructure of renewable energy sources such as wind or solar farms.
THIS RESEARCH SHOWS THAT RENEWABLES PAY FOR THEMSELVES through health benefits alone.
 https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20807800/renewable-energy-health-benefits-research-mit-study-rust-belt

- the study was done by no less than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology !

No, 31,000 scientists have not said climate change is a hoax
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/30000-scientists-reject-climate-change/ 

The cost of doing nothing – or falling short of the ambitious goals – is greater than whatever sticker shock the Green New Deal might cause voters.
“Economists estimate that if we do not take action, we will lose $34.5 trillion in economic activity by the end of the century,” Sanders said.
“And the benefits are enormous: by taking bold and decisive action, we will save:-
--- $2.9 trillion over 10 years,
--- $21 trillion over 30 years, and
--- $70.4 trillion over 80 years.”

The trees and plants of the Amazon forest pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as part of photosynthesis. Destruction of the forest releases carbon stored in the trees and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide used by them.
“The Amazon forest holds something like 90 billion tons of carbon, and if that ends up in the atmosphere it’s not a good thing,”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-amazon-rainforest-fires/2019/08/27/ac82b21e-c815-11e9-a4f3-c081a126de70_story.html

NOAA: The warmest month overall in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record. The year-to-date temperature for 2019 tied with 2017 as the second warmest January–July on record. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-201907

The cost of renewable energy has tumbled even further over the past year, to the point where almost every source of green energy can now compete on cost with oil, coal and gas-fired power plants.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/05/29/renewable-energy-costs-tumble/#1d0e389ae8ce
The only thing stopping it is POLITICAL WILL the technology already exists ( electrical storage will improve , hydrogen fuel cells , pumped hydro and batteries, )

The estimated cost of measures to limit Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions can be more than offset by reductions in deaths and disease from air pollution, https://phys.org/news/2018-03-health-outweigh-limiting-global.html#jCp

The average cost of developing new power plants based on onshore wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), biomass or geothermal energy is now usually below $0.10/kWh. Wind costs $0.13/kWh. Power plants based on fossil fuels such as oil and gas,  range from $0.05/kWh to over $0.15/kWh.

Dorian’s appearance made 2019 the fourth straight year in which a Category 5 hurricane formed in the Atlantic — the longest such streak on record, Heat in the ocean is a hurricane’s primary source of fuel, and the world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the warming of the past 50 years. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content

Heat in the ocean is a storm’s primary source of fuel, and the world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the warming of the past 50 years.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content

Health savings outweigh costs of limiting global warming: study https://phys.org/news/2018-03-health-outweigh-limiting-global.html#jCp

Wind turbines kill far fewer birds in North America than do cats or collisions with cell towers. Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually — a small fraction compared with the estimated annual:-
6.8 million from communication towers ,
57 million power lines ,
214 million vehicles,
624 million from  glass windows, and the
1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats, 

Since that flawed 2015 Study, the bulk of scientific research suggests that Antarctica is losing more ice than it's gaining. A 2018 study that used the GRACE satellites to show that ice gains in East Antarctica haven't kept up with ice losses in the west, and that melting ice has added nearly 3 trillion gallons of water to the oceans over the course of 25 years. https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/2015-nasa-study-antarctic-ice-climate-change-skeptic?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5

A 2016 Union of Concerned Scientists study(pdf) found that the manufacture and operation of electric vehicles produced less than half the carbon emissions of comparable petrol and diesel-powered vehicles. But this calculation assumes energy used in manufacture does not itself come from renewables.  https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf#page=13

This was debunked years ago ! On the one hand we have a bunch of 49 former administrators, astronauts, and engineers who between them have zero climate expertise and zero climate science publications. 
On the other hand we have the climate scientists at NASA GISS who between them have decades, perhaps even centuries of combined professional climate research experience, and hundreds, perhaps even thousands of peer-reviewed climate science publications. https://skepticalscience.com/NASA-climate-denialist-letter.html

ESTATE TAX --------------------------------------

THIS IS A LIE! All property left to a surviving spouse passes free of estate tax.
Only estates worth more $5.49 million, pay Estate Tax (at 40 percent). However, family-owned farms and closely-held businesses may be able to pay less or pay in low-interest installments.

The people who pay it are among the country’s richest families. "Over two-thirds of these estates come from the top 10 percent of income earners and close to one-fourth from the top One Percent."

Only about 80 small farms and businesses paid estate tax in 2017, that's 1%.

TRUMP --------------------------------------

Trump said he was going to drain the swamp but all he did was fill his cabinet with big business lobbyists! https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/17/trumps-swamp-corporate-lobbyists-are-charge/

Trump laughs after audience member suggests shooting migrants – video. But he also gets the audience to laugh.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/may/09/trump-laughs-after-audience-member-suggests-shooting-migrants-video
 

Poverty rates among African-Americans and Hispanics are above 20 percent, far outpacing the poverty rate of 9.8 percent for the white, non-Hispanic population.  
40 million Americans are living below the federal poverty level. ($24,858 for a family of four)
Families  living on half that income, have nearly doubled since 1975. 
A low unemployment rate  hasn’t solved the problem. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/politics/poverty-rate-census-bureau.html

Under Trump  the gap in wages between races has grown.
Trump has sabotaged a law that guaranteed health insurance for many
African Americans.
He has undermined protections for voting rights.
His Justice Department has stopped going after police departments that discriminated against African Americans. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/what-did-african-americans-have-lose/594994/

"Factual Reporting: HIGH" https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/

Trump's voters have been unnerved by all of the racial conflict during his presidency, from the white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, to the El Paso, Texas, mass shooting.

--- Trump stoked weeks of racial animus beginning July 14 with his tweet that four congresswomen of color should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Three of the congresswomen were born in the United States and all four members are U.S. citizens.
--- On July 27, he attacked Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, one of the highest-ranking black Democrats in Congress, and called his Baltimore district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
--- The first weekend of August, two mass shootings in less than 24 hours — one in El Paso, the other in Dayton — provided another test for the president. In El Paso, 22 people were killed in and near a Walmart close to the U.S.-Mexico border after police believe the alleged gunman posted a statement online warning of a “Hispanic invasion” and mimicking some of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about immigrants.

Putting our troops in harms way in Saudi Arabia,  who's citizens killed 3,000 of us on Sep 11th ? When one Iranian accident killing a US Soldier could put us at war again ? 

 Unfortunately QuidProQuo Mulvaney didn't help change this analysis --- 

Trump and Giuliani blackmailing Ukraine, leaving it vulnerable to Putin’s aggression, in order to strong-arm their President into helping the Trump campaign defeat Joe Biden.

As the Washington Post said, “Mr. Trump is not just soliciting Ukraine’s help with his presidential campaign; he is using U.S. Military Aid, (the country desperately needs), to extort it.” https://www.salon.com/2019/09/10/trump-keeps-trying-to-find-a-biden-scandal-in-ukraine-but-he-cant-even-get-that-right/

 Biden’s actions as vice president, in demanding the firing of the Ukraine’s top prosecutor, did more to hurt his son’s company than anything else. https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10/rumors-joe-biden-scandal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/

Trump has made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 993 days https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/14/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/

BRITISH --------------------------------------

James Graham, who wrote "Brexit: The Uncivil War":-
Where actor Dominic Cummings plays the role and meets and hires Canadian Zack Massingham, co-founder of AggregateIQ, who offers to build a database using social media tools of voters who are not on the UK electoral register but are inclined to vote to leave. In a separate sequence, Arron Banks meets Robert Mercer, who discusses the potential of social media database tools.

AggregateIQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AggregateIQ 
AIQ created Ripon, Cambridge Analytica's campaign software platform, which was largely funded by the Cruz campaign.[1]

On 6 April 2018, Facebook suspended AggregateIQ from using its platform due to concerns of a possible affiliation with SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. Facebook stated, "In light of recent reports that AggregateIQ may be affiliated with SCL and may, as a result, have improperly received FB user data, we have added them to the list of entities we have suspended from our platform while we investigate."

On 20 September 2018, AggregateIQ became the first firm to be served a formal notice by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office for breaching the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation. T
A documentary in 2019 alleged that AIQ's business concept consists of collecting and analysing people's data in order to personalize political fake slogans.....
AggregateIQ was deeply involved in Britain's Brexit vote, thus manipulating the vote and persuading people to vote in favor of Brexit by posting lies to users, according to Nigel Farage's wishes. The company collaborated with Farage and with Steve Bannon.

Believe it or not the same guy's Computer Analytics that got Trump elected also got the LEAVE vote in BREXIT !
http://FactualNews.org/politics/robert_mercer_Trump_Puppeteer.htm#brexit

Talking of 2nd Amendment - checkout how Cambridge Analytica used the FB Personality Test data to Psychologically Target http://FactualNews.org/politics/robert_mercer_Trump_Puppeteer.htm#election

- SOCIALISM  -- BIG GOVERNMENT --------------------------------------

What are we missing as this propaganda from the rich, blinds us ?

Like most of Europe -- All of Bernie's Action Plan is clearly achievable within a capitalist system:-
Universal healthcare
Free/affordable public college
Transform our energy system
Overturn Citizens United so that politicians are no longer bought
Raise the minimum wage to $15
End the war on drugs
Rebuild our crumbling infrastructure
Raise taxes on the 1%
Stop endless military spending
Expand Social Security
End police brutality
Demilitarized the police

-- Yep - -That's Bernies Action Plan

follow-up

--- Most every Capitalist Developed Country in the world can afford Universal healthcare
--- Most Developed Counties in the world offer free College
---
Almost every source of green energy can now compete on cost with oil, coal and gas-fired power plants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/05/29/renewable-energy-costs-tumble/#1d0e389ae8ce .
--- Citizens United: Before, After, What’s Next?  https://sunlightfoundation.com/2010/10/19/citizens-united-before-after-what%E2%80%99s-next/
--- A study of
 137 minimum-wage increases, -- On average, minimum-wage increases eliminated jobs paying below the new minimum, but added jobs paying at or above the new minimum. The two changes effectively cancel each other out. https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/ 
--- US infrastructure is falling apart https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3
--- U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/u-s-military-budget-inches-closer-to-1-trillion-mark-as-concerns-over-federal-deficit-grow/

--- Social Security is looking like a pretty good investment these days. ... A young worker today with average career earnings will receive Social Security retirement benefits equivalent to total employer and employee retirement contributions plus a 5.7 percent annual rate of return
https://www.epi.org/blog/social-security-is-looking-like-a-pretty-good-investment-these-days/

Five myths about socialism 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-socialism/2019/03/01/692e1d84-3b73-11e9-b786-d6abcbcd212a_story.html

According to the World Bank, 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013; they are the world’s very poorest. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/opinion/poverty-united-states.html

I think the middle-class has already gone -- under 30 years of Republican rule: https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/

You can vote on immigration, abortion and Gays -- but I'll vote on what's directly beneficial to me. Healthcare, Free College, a $15 Minimum Wage, More Social Security and my city's crumbling infrastructure getting fixed.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT MEN NOT WORKING?
Government policy can make a difference, Furman argues. Improving education and access to college could help by making workers more attractive to employers. So would spending more on helping people find jobs, as other countries do. Providing child-care subsidies and paid leave could draw more men – and women — into the workforce. Expanding the tax subsidies offered to low-wage workers so jobs are more attractive would be a plus, too.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/08/15/men-not-at-work-why-so-many-men-ages-of-25-to-54-are-not-working/

You mean the happiest country in the world ? The United States came in 19th place.  https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-happiest-countries-united-nations-2019/index.html

They are not paying Health Insurance companies huge skim-offs nor paying Big Pharmaceutical Corps. exorbitant prices. Nor are they paying $693 billion per year for the Military. And nothing to pay for education including top Universities .

Having just listened to a Republican pontificate about "BIG GOVERNMENT taking away our freedom" -- at the behest of the Heritage Foundation.
Does BIG GOVERNMENT come at the cost of reduced freedom, weakened civil society, and diminished happiness? For the  world’s affluent democratic countries the answer is no. Many Americans don’t have access to high-quality, affordable health insurance, child care, housing, free college, 4 weeks Paid Vacation, Minimum Wage and senior care. This  diminishes not only Americans’ security but also their freedom: https://lanekenworthy.net/is-big-government-bad-for-freedom-civil-society-and-happiness/

MINIMUM WAGE --------------------------------------

Debunking the myth that higher wages lead to major job losses -- The conclusion is that low-wage workers received a 7 percent pay bump after a minimum wage law went into effect, but there was little or no change in employment. The study also showed that it would not cost jobs, even in states with large shares of minimum-wage workers.
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/2/20678821/15-federal-minimum-wage-increase-study

by economists at the University of California Berkeley

Not just CNN -- but Economists !! What CNN found was that higher minimum wages do not have adverse effects on employment, or the weeks or hours worked among minimum wage workers — even four years after minimum wages are increased. We didn't find adverse employment effects among women and minority groups, either. As a result, we determined that the United States can raise pay to $15 an hour by 2024 without hurting jobs, even in low-wage states.

A study of  137 minimum-wage increases, -- On average, minimum-wage increases eliminated jobs paying below the new minimum, but added jobs paying at or above the new minimum. The two changes effectively cancel each other out.
https://beta.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/05/raising-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cost-jobs-multiple-studies-suggest/ 

 findings suggest that employers may have preferred to hire or keep more-experienced workers when the minimum wage went up. That could theoretically disadvantage new workers entering the workforce for the first time. But Seattle’s current economic boom and labor shortage more than offset any such effect, he noted. The UW team also studied impacts on consumer prices, and found little to no effect in an array of areas, from groceries to retail goods to gas prices.  https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/seattle-s-minimum-wage-a-case-study/article_582c5c9d-f1f3-51a3-b1f0-eaed3159aef1.html 

The $15 pay increase for restaurant workers in New York City represented the largest hike for a big group of low-wage workers since the 1960s, according to a new study.
During the years it raised wages from $7.25 to $15, the restaurant industry out-performed the rest of the country in job growth and expansion.
The study suggests that increasing pay for restaurant workers — who make up the bulk of low-wage earners — might not harm businesses.
https://www.greenwichtime.com/technology/businessinsider/article/NYC-s-15-minimum-wage-hasn-t-brought-the-14292931.php

NYC's $15 minimum wage hasn't brought the restaurant apocalypse — it's helped them thrive https://www.businessinsider.com.au/nyc-restaurant-industry-thriving-after-15-dollar-minimum-wage-2019-8

Milton Friedman (Hoover Institute) admitted that pure Libertarianism is a sham .He at some point was in support of a guaranteed minimum income - to be clear …a guaranteed gov’t paid ANNUAL WAGE independent of employment . He called it The Negative Income Tax .

The FULL story NOT reported by the Heritage Foundation. Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would increase the pay of at least 17 million people, but also put 1.3 million Americans out of work, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office .  And it could also raise the wages of another 10 million workers and lift 1.3 million Americans out of poverty. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739607964/-15-minimum-wage-would-boost-17-million-workers-cut-1-3-million-jobs-cbo-says

The U.K. brought in a national minimum wage in 1999,  AND unemployment actually fell between 1999 and 2007 despite regular increases in the wage.

The federal minimum wage would have been $24.18 in 2020 if it rose in step with productivity.

IMMIGRATION --------------------------------------

This analysis found that crime went down at similar rates regardless of whether the undocumented population rose or fell. Areas with more unauthorized migration appeared to have larger drops in crime.
The data suggests that when it comes to crime, the difference between someone who is called a legal immigrant and an illegal one doesn’t seem to matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/upshot/illegal-immigration-crime-rates-research.html
--------------------------------

Read the article to find studies by:
Pew Research
Marshall Project
Uniform Crime Reporting program,
Cato Institute,
Governing magazine
University at Buffalo, SUNY,
The Upshot

------------------------
Unless of course they GERRYMANDER your State, use DARK MONEY to fund Candidates that are paid for by the rich, -- and cut your voting rights .

the Department of Agriculture estimates that about half (53%) of the nation's farmworkers are unauthorized.
In 2017 research conducted by the Cornell Farmworker Program, 30 New York dairy farmers told us they turned to undocumented workers because they were unable to find and keep reliable U.S. citizens to do the jobs.
A study commissioned by the dairy industry suggested that if federal labor and immigration policies reduced the number of foreign-born workers by 50 percent, more than 3,500 dairy farms would close, leading to a big drop in milk production and a spike in prices of about 30 percent. Total elimination of immigrant labor would increase milk prices by 90 percent.
The U.S. fruit, vegetable and meat industries are similarly at risk, and without the help of unauthorized workers, production would drop and consumers would likely see higher prices.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/illegal-immigrants-us-jobs-economy-farm-workers-taxes/

These people are so impressive -- thankyou for your bravery in sharing this.
EVERYBODY should listen to this -- so important to understanding why some kids might turn violent
But more than that -- how they may be turned !
https://www.kalw.org/post/conversation-two-former-white-supremacists-and-man-who-almost-shot-his-school

The Guy ( calling himself the "Crime Prevention Research Center") Behind the Bogus Immigration Report Has A Long History of Terrible And Misleading Research  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-guy-behind-the-bogus-immigration-report-has-a-long-history-of-terrible-and-misleading-research/

The GOP’s favorite gun ‘academic’ is a fraud
https://thinkprogress.org/debunking-john-lott-5456e83cf326/

 It was no less than Bill Clinton who instigated "Families who receive TANF must get a job within two years." 
https://www.thebalance.com/welfare-programs-definition-and-list-3305759

HEALTHCARE --------------------------------------

2022 Aug: Here’s how Democrats are bringing down costs for people on Medicare—and here’s what every Republican in Congress voted against:
✅ Capping insulin costs at $35/month
✅ Limiting drug expenses to $2,000/year
✅ Finally allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices

It is paid for in the same way that every other developed country in the world does -- they all have it ! So should we!

Every other developed country in the world has Universal Healthcare! So should we!  We already have it (to some extent) -- its called Medicare!


Our system has Insurance policies with limited coverage where people still go bankrupt, or have huge deductibles.
The uninsured went from 44 million before Obamacare to 22 million!

The Medicaid Coverage Gap
Thanks to 18 Republican States -- 4.9 Million Poor, Uninsured, Non-elderly Adults -- Go without Health Insurance
Obamacare (Affordable Care Act, ACA) expands Medicaid to all low-income individuals with incomes at or below 138% of Poverty ($27,724 for a family of three )
http://FactualNews.org/politics/Medicaid_Gap.htm

Nationalized health is not failing -- Go to page 9 to see how US Life Expectancy is trailing behind 9 countries -- yet spending is triple https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/Universal-Health-Coverage-and-Health-Outcomes-OECD-G7-Health-Ministerial-2016.pdf

 800,000 to 1 million Americans are crossing the border into Mexico each year for Healthcare https://www.newsweek.com/thousands-americans-cross-border-mexico-affordable-medical-treatment-each-1426943

The main advantage Medicare has over commercial insurance is its Cost Structure. Medicare pays physicians on average about 40% less than commercial plans.
Hospitals receive half to two-thirds from Medicare what they do from the private insurers.
And the US spends 3 times more on drugs than Europe.
Trump would kill this. 
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-04/hiltzik-trump-medicare
It also is Backdoor Privatization of Medicare https://socialsecurityworks.org/2019/10/03/trumps-executive-order-is-backdoor-privatization-of-medicare/

 

ELECTIONS --------------------------------------

Mitch McConnell could be purposely ignoring Election security.
Hear a security expert accuse McConnell of letting the Russians help Republicans win the election!
Our election technology is woefully inadequate and Republicans are doing nothing about it. But Russians are!
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4811684/mitch-mcconnell-purposely-ignoring-election-security&editTime=1564946137

How a McConnell-backed effort to lift Russian sanctions boosted a Kentucky project
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-mcconnell-backed-effort-to-lift-russian-sanctions-boosted-a-kentucky-project/2019/08/13/72b26e00-b97c-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html

Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states accept for voting. These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining a government-issued photo ID card.
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet

Republican politicians consistently conjure the specter of voter fraud as pretext to suppress legitimate votes.  https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth

Pillar of Law was set up to fight restrictions on campaign financing in the name of “free speech.”
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/03/22/donors-trust-doled-out-66-7-million-to-controversial-groups-in-2016/
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/category/spn/
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/spn/

 For only 12 of the 37 years since 1982 Democrats have had a majority in both the House & Senate  and out of that twelve there was a Republican President for 8. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Combined--Control_of_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives_-_Control_of_the_U.S._Senate.png  

The Democrats have tried to fix Healthcare and protect workers’ rights and keep the air and water clean. They’re trying to make college more affordable and end predatory lending practices. They’ve fought to make our financial systems safer and to improve public education.
The Republicans have fought it all. !
Its all clear from the voting record: http://factualnews.atwebpages.com/politics/rep_dem_Differences.htm

MILITARY SPENDING --------------------------------------

I guess then we should stop spending so much on the Military .
World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total.
U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined.
U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country – China.

THE ELDERLY --------------------------------------
Senate Republicans Set Sights On Cutting Social Security
https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2018/10/16/senate-republicans-set-sights-on-cutting-social-security/#31db52ee5da1

ABORTION --------------------------------------

Infants are very rarely born alive after abortion procedures, and if they are, doctors do not kill them. OF COURSE ! https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/health/abortion-bill-trump.html  All this pales into insignificance compared to the far more deaths of pregnant women when complications arise and they can't get a life-saving abortion.

Can you see how abortion is used to divert our attention away from issues that financially impoverish us -  so that the rich can continue to control the country aided and abetted by us voting Republican?

EVERY MINUTE 146 women become pregnant who did not plan or wish it !
The Global Gag Rule on international family planning prohibits any U.S. family planning aid from going to groups that provide abortions or speak out about the issue of abortion (even using their own private, non-U.S. funds).
It will only lead to MORE, illegal, abortions !

RELIGION --------------------------------------

6 reasons religion may do more harm than good
https://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/6_reasons_why_religion_does_more_harm_than_good_partner/

Through consensus voting, the Jesus Seminar has concluded that only about 18% of the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels can accurately be assumed to be his own. Other votes rejected:- the virgin birth, biblical statements that have Jesus proclaim himself the Son of God or the Jewish Messiah, and—the cornerstone of the Christian faith—Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead.
The Seminar has also concluded that Jesus apparently had four brothers and may also have had sisters but no father named Joseph.
The story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution as recounted in the New Testament was suggested by prophecies in the Hebrew Bible "that early Christian storytellers arranged to have fulfilled as they told and retold the story."
What the Seminar has shown is a Jesus who was a social critic and sage. He was a rebel who led a revolution against repression but who harbored no divine pretensions.

They arrive at their conclusions by scrutinizing the social, literary, linguistic, political, and religious environment in which Jesus lived, as well as that of the 75 years after his death, before the Gospels were written. Most scholars know that Jesus' disciples did not write the four gospels;  --- much later advocates composed these gospels. They worked from oral traditions and lists of sayings or miracles.
They maintain that an early compilation of Jesus’ sayings existed, as well as some of those of John the Baptist, which the writers of Matthew and Luke independently drew upon 75+ years later. They explain the resurrection as "the internal experience of Jesus’ disciples" that was later misunderstood to be historical truth.

https://www.westarinstitute.org/projects/the-jesus-seminar/

The Forged Origins of the New Testament
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_40.htm

I know you want to ignore SCIENCE but you can't ignore HISTORY !

-----------------------------

I just saw "The Family" on Netflix. The Fellowship
Every February since 1935 there has been a "National Prayer Breakfast". Every President since Eisenhower has attended.
What most folks probably don't know is that it originated in 1935 when 19 businessmen, in Seattle, got together to figure out how to stop workers from Unionising.
They are now a network of prayer cells 20,000-strong, "a veritable underground of Christ's men all through government."
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/secretive-christian-group-heart-d-c-politics-ready-its-close-n1040011

OPIODS --------------------------------------

The root cause of this Opioid Epidemic is the FDA's illegal approval of Opioids , -- bribed by the Drug Cos..
And Republican's Bill to curb the DEA
http://factualnews.atwebpages.com/politics/Opiod_Crisis_History.htm

ENDANGERED SPECIES --------------------------------------

Unable to kill or neuter the act legislatively because of strong support for the law even in the Republican-held Congress of the first two years of his presidency, Mr. Trump now is eviscerating it by gutting regulations that made it effective. Perhaps most crucially, the rule diminishes “critical habitat” protections, like those for areas formerly occupied by now-endangered species, though such habitat is the only hope many depleted species have for eventual recovery. 
The tragedy of this situation is that the Endangered Species Act has been such an enormous success in the United States that it is the model for other countries around the world.
The Endangered Species Act is our legal recognition of the stewardship responsibilities of our dominion. To take it apart is to contribute to the thanklessness — one might say contempt — for what has made our nation great.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/opinion/endangered-species-act-trump.html

BALTIMORE --------------------------------------
In 2014, Maryland elected Larry Hogan, a Republican suburban real estate developer, as governor. Hogan put less pressure on state offices to work closely with the Baltimore’s police.
"The police vented about the impossibility of doing their job in a department in meltdown. They were bitter about being constantly “drafted” into mandatory overtime — departures and anemic recruiting had left the department with only 2,500 sworn officers, down 500 from five years earlier."

The city initiated the process after the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, and it calls for major changes in the way officers interact with citizens. The court has done its job and reviewed the decree and determined that it’s fair, adequate, and in the public interest.

 

============================

They want to ban "people who get paid to lobby cannot donate to politicians." -- isn't this always going to be unconstitutional and never get past the Supreme Court? for Represent.us

===========================