Month: July 2018

Trump Has Upped His Lying Game

Buck Banks

14.3/day

“Until this month, President Trump had not made more than 60 false claims in any single week of his presidency. He has now made 100 false claims in each of the last two weeks,” the Toronto Star reports. “After shattering his old record by uttering an astonishing 103 false claims two weeks ago, an average of 14.7 per cent, Trump delivered precisely 100 false claims last week, an average of 14.3 per day.”

GOP Candidate Claims Christendom Under Attack

Buck Banks

“We are being told that Western civilization is the problem in the world. Outside of Western civilization there is only barbarism. … Our Judeo-Christian ethic is what is civilization. And that is what is under attack here and abroad. It also goes by a different name. Christendom. It’s under attack. And even speaking about it can bring you under attack. It has brought me under attack.”

— Kansas state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald (R), who is running for Congress, told a group of Republicans that “outside of Western civilization there is only barbarism,” CNN reports.

Government Can’t Find the Parents of 38 Detained Children

Buck Banks

38

Government lawyers said that “they cannot locate the parents of 38 migrant children under the age of 5, as a federal judge indicated he is open to extending the deadline for reuniting nearly 3,000 children separated from their mothers and fathers while crossing the US-Mexico border,” NBC News reports. “For 19 children, their parents have been released from custody into the U.S. and their whereabouts are unknown. The parents of another 19 children have been deported.”

‘Trump’s Trojan Horse,’ a Poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Buck Banks

Trump’s Trojan Horse
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Homer didn’t live long enough
To tell of Trump’s White House
Which is his Trojan horse
From which all the president’s men
Burst out to destroy democracy
And install corporations
As absolute rulers of the world
Ever more powerful than nations
And it’s happening as we sleep
Bow down, oh Common Man
Bow down!

There’s a Partisan Patriotism Gap

Buck Banks

76 percent

Overall, the YouGov poll found that 76 percent of Americans consider themselves “very” or “somewhat” patriotic. But between Republicans and Democrats, there were pretty big differences: A whopping 97 percent of Republicans placed themselves in the “very” or “somewhat” categories, compared with 71 percent of Democrats. That’s a gap of 26 percentage points. Even more starkly, 72 percent of Republicans consider themselves to be “very” patriotic (the highest level of patriotism), compared with 29 percent of Democrats — a 43-point gap.

Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Think Immigrants Strengthen the Country

Buck Banks

60 percent

Public opinion surveys have frequently asked the U.S. public whether “immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents” or whether “immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and health care.” The above figure shows the percent indicating that immigrants “strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents” from every question in the Roper Center’s iPOLL database from 1994 to 2017 (the last time the question was asked). Although views toward immigrants have varied over the years, more than 60 percent of the U.S. public indicated that immigrants strengthen our country in December of 2016 and in March, May, and July of 2017.

Mar-A-Lago Seeks Visas for 40 Immigrants to Work as Waiters

Buck Banks

40

President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club “has applied for permission to hire 40 foreign workers to serve as waiters during the winter social season in Palm Beach, Fla.,” the Washington Post reports. “The application filed with the Labor Department signals that — despite Trump’s insistence that immigration is holding down wages and crowding out native-born American workers — his club believes it cannot find any Americans willing and able to hold the waiter jobs.”