Countdown 31 Day Election

California 1 days until early voting

TRUMP-FACT CHECKING THE CLOWN SHOW           

Fact checking the Donald is like whack-a-mole they just keep coming up over and over.  The debate freak show was rife with streams of falsehoods that were overshadowed by his bullying  interruption style. Some of the more consequential lies are below:

Protection of individuals with pre-existing conditions:

Trump-“We guaranteed pre-existing conditions”

Everyone should be aware that the Trump administration, and his lawyers, 1 week after the election will seek a ruling by the Supreme Court that would eliminate insurers having to cover all applicants, and not to discriminate against anyone for having a pre-existing condition.  Not just the 20 million of the ACA but all insurance carriers will be able to discriminate if the Supreme Court strikes down the ACA. If this happens, without protection the insurers can then charge more for things like a female being a child bearing age, or have had Covid-19.   This decision could impact as many as 100 million people with the potential for rate increases on their insurance.

Trump’s guarantee of coverage for pre-existing conditions is in the form of an empty promise called an Executive Order.  The order does not change the law only that his intention is to keep the non-discrimination aspect of pre-existing conditions?  I have always wondered  just what is in the republican non-existent health care plan promised for the last 10 years.

Trump- Biden called My plan to ban Chinese travel as “xenophobic”

Trump: “I closed it, and you said ‘He’s xenophobic’”

Biden has never said these words, like with other topics trump’s favorite move was to put his words into Biden’s mouth.  The ban on Jan. 31 was the 24^th country and was not the iron clad ban as he described allowing 40,000 individuals coming from China, and not even banning Hong Kong.  Trump is conflicting a comment made by Biden in a tweet 1 day after the ban where Biden said; ”we need to lead the way with science—not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear mongering.” Not mentioning the ban at all in his comments.

Trump: “We’re doing record business”

Again no- the economy is not back to where it was in January and the prediction is that it may not come back for a year or two.  Records were broken in employment just as were broken in unemployment.  There has been only slightly over 50% recovery in jobs to date.  Airlines and Disney are laying off as much as 100,000 employees today, and many more will be coming as employers that had guaranteed to keep employees under the PPP act only until October 1.  This was a requirement to be eligible for loan forgiveness, that date has now past and here comes the corporate and small business unemployment onslaught. Hold on!  We still have the evictions and foreclosures to look forward to later in the fall. No we are not doing as well as he says.  Trump has yet to acknowledge that without getting the virus to a manageable level the economy will not return to any semblance of normalcy.

Trump; ”Millions of dollars”

This was his response to Mike Wallace when responding to a question about how much he paid in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017.  Trump may have reference to his companies payments for taxes by his employees? If so, his company paid them, and they are not his personal income taxes.  According to the NYTimes article he paid $750 in those years.  This is an extremely low amount for someone claiming to be a billionaire and for those who think he was a successful business man.  He avoided income taxes by claiming steep losses.  He has personal debt coming due to the tune of over $300  million dollars and no visible means of repayment during his next 4 years.  These loans are due in just a few years.

Trump: “This is going to be fraud like you’ve never seen”

This is in reference to mail in ballots, which has been going on since the start of this nation with the military always being able to mail in  their votes.  Every election mail in ballots have been used without fraud.  Trump thinks that the ballots that are returned undelivered, as a result of individuals moving, or that they are discarded due to irregularities such as names don’t match,  or the improper envelope, or whatever excuse has always looked at these ballots as fraud to sow division. 

Trump will point to all the significant numbers of ballots that are to be discarded for legitimate reasons not due to fraud and claim fraud.  This will be the rule not the exception where everyone registered to vote will be mailed a ballot.  This practice will have a significant numbers of returns by mail due to the individuals moving at one time ¼ of the population moves every 4 years, and those that did not go to the polls and let the elections commission they moved.   Since any registered voter moved he/she will be mailed a ballot to their previous address.  This ballot should be returned noting on the ballot envelope the instructions not to forward. 

Trump himself opened a commission to inquire about voter fraud.  His belief that there was rampant fraud in the 2016 elections.  After all, he could not have lost the popular vote, could he?  The commission found no fraud.  Over 57 million voters voted by absentee, mail in, or early in the 2016 election.

Biden: “We have a higher trade deficit with China than we did before”

It’s actually about the same.  Trump promised to close the trade deficit when he took office.  During his first years he failed, deficit went from $346 billion in 2016 to $419 billion in 2018.  The deficit fell last year to about the same as when he took office at $345 billion.  Latest data suggests higher trade deficits in 2019-2020.