Here are fact checks of the speech:
As usual, Trump told lies. Sad!
Month: January 2018
State of the Union
I’m not going to watch the State of the Union address. I can’t stand to see and hear the lying bigot. I’ll read about it later.
The only speech I want to hear from Trump has to include “I was wrong to say a group of white supremacists included “very fine people” and I was wrong to say Haiti and nations in Africa were “shithole countries””. He will never say that because he doesn’t believe he was wrong and doesn’t want to offend the white supremacist part of his base.
He’ll get credit for acting presidential by giving a normal speech. The bar is really low for him compared to prior presidents.
Unemployment
He’ll take credit for the low unemployment rate which is largely a continuation of the trend under Obama. He’ll take credit for the low black unemployment rate but probably won’t note that it is much higher than the white unemployment rate. Having a racist in the White House will not improve that situation. Jay-Z was right to challenge Trump’s comments.
Remember when Trump lied and said that unemployment rates published by the government were phony and were really as high as 42%? Somehow, the same statistics are accurate since he became President.
Stock Market
Trump will take credit for the stock market rise and he deserves some of it because of his tax law giveaway to corporations and wealthy people. Trump has never acknowledged that the stock market did extremely well under Obama and he inherited a great trend.
The stock market is not the same as the economy. Only about half of the country own stocks either directly or through mutual funds and retirement plans. The other half has not benefited from the stock market rise. Most of the value of the market is owned by rich people. 10% of the country owns 84% of the stock market.
Bipartisanship
Apparently, Trump will call for bipartisanship tonight but I am sure he will soon go back to lies and name calling on Twitter. This is who he is. He’s been president for a year and has not changed. It is not constructive to call names like “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer” or “Crooked Hillary”. It is not constructive to lie and say Obama wiretapped him. It is not constructive to run a campaign ad that says “Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.” It is not constructive to lie and say Democrats want open borders. Trump only cares about his base.
Infrastructure
Trump is supposed to talk about infrastructure tonight. There is certainly a need for upgrades to roads, airports, water systems, etc. and this is a bipartisan issue. However, Trump’s plan is expected to be short on federal contributions and long on state, local and private funding.
Immigration
Trump will probably tell his lies about the crime committed by immigrants. Meanwhile, he is unwilling to do anything about the bigger problem of crime committed by white supremacists (who love Trump).
His terrible policies will also hurt the economy because of the economic contributions made by immigrants that will be lost through deportations or lower legal immigration.
Most American support DACA and oppose the wall. Thus, DACA should not be used as a bargaining chip to get the wall.
Trump may act presidential tonight but he will be back to his usual lying bigoted self in a day or two. That’s what has happened on the few occasions he has given an actual presidential-style speech. Sad!
Trump made 2,140 false statements in his first year
Trump made 2,140 false or misleading claims in his first year as president.
One of the worst things he does is repeating false statements after they have been disproven. He’s just a liar. Sad!
Income Tax Withholding
I get a monthly Civil Service pension. The federal tax deduction was lowered effective with the February payment. The new rate is only 83% of the old one. I doubt my actual taxes will be lowered that much. They may not be lowered at all since I live in one of the blue states Republicans want to punish. I changed it back to the old withholding rate.
The whole thing seems like a scam. Lower the rates now so people think they have more money and are more likely to vote for Republicans in the 2018 elections. Then, when they file their returns in 2019, they will see that the real tax decrease was not that low and they may even owe money. Sad!
Tourism to the US is down under Trump
Voters are leading efforts to end gerrymandering
This is an excellent article about how voters in several states have initiated efforts to end gerrymandering.
Covers: Ring of Fire
The most popular version of “Ring of Fire” was released by Johnny Cash in 1963.
Among the cover versions are these by Dwight Yoakam (1986) and Social Distortion (1990).
Covers: Bertha
The original version of “Bertha” was a live recording from 1971 on the album Grateful Dead. They never made a studio version. Here’s another live version from their Europe 1972 tour.
Los Lobos covered it on the 1991Grateful Dead tribute album Deadicated. They have played it live too. Here’s an example from 1992.
Man arrested after threatening to kill CNN employees
I don’t think this kind of stuff would happen if you didn’t have a president who calls the media the enemy of the people. CNN has received almost two dozen threatening calls. Sad!
Sad! 