Paul Krugman with a trip down memory lane: You probably remember [the 1990s] as a time of prosperity — low unemployment and rapid economic growth combined with low inflation — marred by irrational exuberance in the stock market. Pets.com anyone? What you might not realize is how closely the economy of early 2024 resembles that of the late Clinton years. People might not be feeling the prosperity — or at least they say they aren’t feeling it, because there’s a huge gap between Americans’ positive assessment of their personal financial situation and their negative assessments of the economy. But by the numbers, things look pretty good. Notably, unemployment is actually a bit lower now than it was at the end of the roaring ’90s. He notes that inflation spiked in 2021-22 but that according to one good measure it’s actually come down to a level that’s barely above the Fed’s target rate. What about interest rates? Well, people have forgotten that interest rates were higher during the 90s and mortgage rates were even higher than they are now: Needless to say, the stock market was soaring as it is today.
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“Trump appears to have fallen asleep while listening to testimony — at times appearing to stir and then falling back to sleep. Trump’s eyes were closed for extended periods and his head has at times jerked in a way consistent with sleeping.” Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers, at his instruction no doubt, refused to stipulate that certain tapes and testimony are admissible. So this is what the prosecution had to do: They had to get the owner of the transcription service in the Carroll trial to testify too. Here’s one of the CSPAN tapes they want admitted. If this trial proves nothing else it shows his performative lies in living color. Just look at how adamantly he denies knowing these women. The trial proves he did.
It’s the vaccines Trump has downplayed his role in the vaccines ever since that incident even though he is dying to take credit for them. He impulsively waded into this again after the State of the Union address and it didn’t go well at all: All hell broke loose: It went on and on and on. There is obviously a group of anti-vax MAGAs who feel so strongly about this they are even willing to defy Dear Leader. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post reports on a new poll about this question: A Monmouth University poll Monday initially asked voters whether they would consider voting for Kennedy. Democrats were slightly more likely than Republicans to say they were. But then the poll asked people whether they were aware that Kennedy “claims that autism is linked to vaccines” and that he has floated a theory that covid was targeted at certain races. (Neither claim is based in fact.) About half of Republicans said they were aware of this; about 6 in 10 Democrats said they were.
Trump’s persona is not even “truthful hyperbole” Ahead of the 2016 election Donald Trump won, The New York Times cited a now-famous paragraph from Donald Trump’s ghost-written “The Art of the Deal.” David Barstow wrote: “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.” For example, in the now-infamous Trump University litigation, Mr. Trump was asked in a deposition about a script that had been prepared for Trump University instructors. According to the script, the instructors were supposed to tell their students the following: “I remember one time Mr. Trump said to us over dinner, he said, ‘Real estate is the only market that, when there’s a sale going on, people run from the store.’ You don’t want to run from the store.” No such dinners ever took place, Mr. Trump acknowledged. In fact, Mr. Trump struggled to identify a single one of the instructors he claimed to have handpicked, even after he was shown their photographs. Nonetheless, Mr.
Campus protests have them hot and bothered House Republicans want to launch investigations into federal funding for universities. Young-uns, like minority groups conservatives disfavor, ought to know their places and stay in them. But no. Around the U.S., students upset at the disproportionate carnage and destruction Israeli forces are visiting upon the Gaza Strip are acting out. Naturally, the Deputy Fifes in the House Republican caucus want to nip that in the bud. The Associated Press reports: House Republicans on Tuesday announced an investigation into the federal funding for universities where students have protested the Israel-Hamas war, broadening a campaign that has placed heavy scrutiny on how presidents at the nation’s most prestigious colleges have dealt with reports of antisemitism on campus.
Donald Trump has said many things that should have chased him out of politics a long time ago. But in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time Magazine this week he finally said something so outrageous that it could make a difference in this upcoming close campaign. When asked if states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban, Trump replied: “I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” In other words, he’s fine with whatever medieval torture a state might want to inflict. That wasn’t all. He went on to say that states prosecuting women who get abortions is none of his concern and said that he would reveal his position on a possible national ban on the widely used drug Mifepristone in two weeks. (The two weeks have passed and when Time approached him to see if he had an update he extended it.) He may be waiting to see if the Supreme Court lets him off the hook with a ruling in the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case which they heard last month.
Dr. Elias Doonesbury is a fictional “veteran psychologist” warning the world about Trump’s dementia But the real question is if he has a stiff gait. That’s the real sign of someone unable to perform the duties of president.
It’s not very convincing Trump is highly, highly unlikely to testify in his NY hush money trial but he has been arguing his case (sort of) outside the courthouse every day. The NY Times did a fact check and it’s a doozy He said: “He puts in an invoice, or whatever, a bill. And they pay it and they call it a legal expense. I got indicted for that. What else would you call it? Actually nobody’s been able to say what you’re supposed to call it.”— last Monday The Times calls this false. Of course prosecutors know what to call them. They’re invoices for reimbursement of the $130,000 (plus taxes and bonus) second mortgage Cohen used to pay off Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet before the election. They call Cohen’s payments “illegal campaign contributions” and the invoices “reimbursement intended to falsify business records.” In no way were they “legal expenses.” He said “Also the things that he got in trouble for were things that had nothing to do with me. He got in trouble. He went to jail. This had nothing to do with me.
Stephanopoulos brought the fire: No American president had ever faced a criminal indictment for retaining and concealing classified documents. No American president had ever faced a federal indictment or a state indictment for trying to overturn an election, or been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two other states for the same crime. No American president has faced hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for business fraud, defamation, and sexual abuse. Until now, no American presidential race had been more defined by what’s happening in courtrooms than by what’s happening on the campaign trail. The scale of the abnormality is so staggering, that it can actually become numbing. It’s all too easy to fall into reflexive habits, to treat this as a normal campaign, where both sides embrace the rule of law, where both sides are dedicated to a debate based on facts and the peaceful transfer of power. But, that is not what’s happening this election year. Those bedrock tenants of democracy are being tested in a way we haven’t seen since the Civil War. It’s a test for the candidates, for those of us in the media, and for all of us as citizens.
Probably Politicians who have faith in their leadership don’t need to lie as easily as they breathe.