Month: January 2017

Badlands National Park Defies Trump, Tweets Climate Change Stats

Buck Banks

“Badlands National Park posted several facts about climate change on its official Twitter account Tuesday afternoon, sharing statistics that might contradict the beliefs of President Donald Trump’s new administration,” Time reports. “The Badlands National Park tweets come after Trump’s administration enforced a social media blackout on the Environmental Protection Agency, barring EPA staff from publishing news releases, blog posts or social media updates.”

Spicer Parrots Trump’s Lies About Illegal Voting

Buck Banks

The president does believe that, he has stated that before. I think he’s stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have presented to him.

— White House Press Parrot Sean Spicer, defending President Trump “for continuing to claim that millions of people voted illegally in the November election, despite numerous fact-checks and other studies that have debunked the theory,” Politico reports.

Federal Deficit to Rise Over Next Decade

Buck Banks

$10 trillion

“After seven years of fitful declines, the federal budget deficit is projected to begin swelling again, adding nearly $10 trillion to the federal debt over the next 10 years, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that reveal the strain that government debt will have on the economy as President Trump embarks on plans to slash taxes and ramp up spending,” the New York Times reports. “The new deficit figures will be a major challenge to congressional Republicans, who were swept to power in 2010 on fears of a swollen deficit and who have made controlling red ink a major part of their legislating under former President Barack Obama.”

Trump Lies About His Environmental Recod

Buck Banks

4

Number of “Pinocchios” the Washington Post gave President Trump for his claim in a meeting with business leaders that he had “received awards on the environment.” “Media outlets and environmental groups have tried to find evidence of this claim since 2011 but have come up short. We could not readily find references to Trump’s environmental awards in news coverage over the past 10 years. We checked with the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club, and none had any record of Trump’s environmental awards. In fact, environmentalists have criticized many of Trump’s projects.”

The Trump Combo: Ignorance and Certitude

Buck Banks

In manner and execution, and in his almost touching desire to be liked, Trump comes across not as larger than life but as one of the smaller people on the world stage. He always had a sort of oafish charisma: as we used to say at Spy, a hustler on his best behavior. In small groups, as many can attest, he has mastered the salesman’s trick of creating faux sincerity and intimacy when answering a question by including the first name of the person who asked it. … But no amount of grifter charm can conceal his alarming disregard for facts and truth. It’s this combination of utter ignorance and complete certitude that his detractors find most terrifying.

— Graydon Carter

We’ll Get the ‘Worst of the Worst’ for Labor Secretary

Buck Banks

It’s not like if you run a fast food company you’re hiring graduates of MIT or people that were gonna go work for Microsoft, you know. In the employment pool, you’re hiring the best of the worst. You know, it’s kind of the bottom of the pool. And at Hardee’s it was so bad, we were hiring the worst of the worst and hoping they would stay.

— Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder, quoted by CNN in 2011 speech.