Today, our friend Keith reprised a post from ten years ago that brings to mind the quote, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Thank you, Keith, for this walk down memory lane and the reminder that lying politicians is nothing new (although I do think George Santos gets the grand prize for the biggest lies!)
George Santos is not the first politician to be caught in a lie. I wrote the following in 2013, before the age of Trump. You can tell as if it was written later, examples of his untruthfulness would be hard not to include.
On our way to school this morning, my son and daughter were arguing over who said what. My son told his sister that she is acting like a politician and uttered, “I am not mistaken, I was misquoted.” I almost ran off the road it was so funny. It reminds me that you cannot hide from your comments in this day and age. They may be taken out of context, but they have been recorded somewhere, so you cannot disown them.
Last year, Charles Barkley, the former basketball player and current sports analyst, got some flack for what appeared in his book. His classic response was he…
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The theory is that if the government provides substantial tax cuts, industry de-regulations, and negotiates trade agreements that favour the big businesses of the nation, those big businesses will earn higher profit margins, and will therefore use their additional wealth to build more factories, hire more people, create more jobs, increase workers’ wages and benefits. The workers will have more money to spend, will buy more ‘things’, thereby increasing the profits of the big businesses who will use that additional profit to … well, you get the picture, right? Sounds about right, don’t you think? Yes, it sounds good, looks good on paper or white boards in boardrooms and congressional offices around the nation … but it does not work in reality.
Ronald Reagan tried it in the 1980s, thus leading to some calling it ‘Reaganomics’. It did not work. The U.S. economy was in a slump when Reagan took office in 1981, so he did two things: lowered taxes and increased government spending. Now, at this juncture I want to take a minute to let you know that I do not intend to provide a lesson in economics. I am savvy enough, but I am not an economist, and I typically leave these discussions to fellow-blogger Erik Hare over at Barataria. But Erik sometimes goes into more depth than is needed, as he IS an economist. Since I am not, I will put what little explanation I deem necessary in layman’s terms. So, using an over-simplification to explain what happened under Reagan …
“Now that the treaty is over, we will see the development and deployment of new weapons,” said Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. The United States also is believed to be developing at least three new types of medium-range missiles — all of them intended to carry conventional warheads.
By Patti Davis
There is an inherently parental role to being president of the United States. The person holding that office is supposed to know more than we do about dangers facing the country and the world, and is entrusted with making the appropriate decisions to keep us safe and secure. The president is supposed to keep us from falling. What happens when the president is the biggest child in the room — any room? It upends the natural order of things as surely as if a child’s parents started throwing tantrums and talking like a second-grader.
What will happen if the country faces serious danger? I was 10 years old in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation about the Cuban missile crisis. I remember sitting on the floor in my parents’ bedroom watching him on television. I remember asking my father if we would go to war. He replied, “I hope not. But the president is doing the right thing.” Kennedy’s somber confidence did make me a little less afraid. At the end of the speech, he said: “The cost of freedom is always high — but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not the victory of might but the vindication of right.”
So, while we should not need the Senate to confirm that the press is not the enemy of the people, it is comforting to know that the Senate unanimously voted to confirm, for the sake of the madman in the Oval Office and his blind-faith followers who hang on his every word.
In addition, Trump has been applauded by businesses for rolling back or repealing workplace regulations – safety regulations – that were costing businesses billions of dollars annually. I don’t know about you, but I would rather see OSHA do its job in keeping workers safe than trust businesses to take matters of worker safety into their own hands.
The most recent jobs report shows that job growth is slowing and wage rates are stagnant. No surprise there, as the job growth rates over the first six months of Trump’s administration were merely a continuation of job growth under Obama. Slow job growth with stagnant wage rates is not exactly a win-win, and Trump has adamantly argued against a raise in the federal minimum wage.
The budget debate is just about to begin in Congress, and I expect it to be contentious, especially in light of funding that will be required to help with disaster recovery from Hurricane Harvey. One thing that is not needed, that will not help We The People, is tax cuts for large corporations and the top 1%.
Filosofa's Word 