Mike Umberger

Avoiding

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Wow. So they ended their war without (1) removing IRI's enriched uranium, (2) without stopping IRI's ballistic program, (3) without ending funding for terrorists, and (4) without liberating the Iranian people.

Hope this is just an "interim" step on the road to accomplishing these goals (that they themselves set)

Fear that it is not.

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

Hug your kids. Tell them you’re proud of them or they did a good job so they won’t be as pathetic as this

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

unspeakably pathetic stuff from Trump here as he says he'd be honored to accept María Corina Machado's Nobel Prize if she wants to give it up to him

[Daniel Dale @ddale8]

President Trump's prime-time address was filled with various repeat lies that have been debunked over and over for months. A partial fact check:
- Inflation isn’t “stopped." As of September, the last month for which we have consumer price data, the year-over-year inflation rate had increased for five consecutive months; it was 3.0%, the same as it was the month Trump came back to office this year. (Even if tomorrow’s CPI report shows a sub-3.0% inflation rate for November, that clearly doesn’t mean inflation has halted entirely.)
- Trump hasn’t “settled eight wars” this year. His list includes an Egypt-Ethiopia diplomatic dispute that wasn’t a war, a mystery Serbia-Kosovo situation that also wasn’t a war, the war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that has never actually ended despite a Trump-brokered peace deal that didn’t involve the main militia group doing the fighting, and the Thailand-Cambodia armed conflict in which fighting resumed this month. Among other issues.
- Prescription drug prices aren’t falling “as much as 400, 500, and even 600%.” Those figures are mathematically impossible, since a reduction of more than 100% would mean Americans would *get paid* to buy medications.
- The price of eggs has indeed plummeted since March (though I've asked the White House where the "82%" claim comes from), but it's not remotely true that “everything else is falling rapidly.” Far more grocery products have increased in price than decreased in price this year. On average, grocery prices were up 1.4% between January and September.
- Crime wasn’t anywhere close to record highs under Biden, even during the 2021 murder spike that started in 2020 under Trump; crime in the US was far higher in the early 1990s and various points of the 1970s and 1980s than it has been under any president this century.
- There was no prohibition on the phrase “law enforcement” under Biden, as evidenced by the Biden administration repeatedly using the phrase “law enforcement.”
- Trump hasn’t secured “$18 trillion” in investment in the US this year. The White House’s own website says the figure is $9.6 trillion, and a detailed review shows even that is a wild exaggeration that counts a lot of vague semi-pledges and non-pledges and does other bad math.
- Trump didn’t inherit the worst inflation of all time; he inherited 3.0% inflation (or 2.9% in Biden’s last full month in office). Inflation did hit a 40-year high (not a 48-year high or all-time high) in June 2022, but that was more than two years before Trump returned, and it then fell sharply before Trump’s inauguration. Cumulative inflation under Biden was also far from the Carter-era record.
- Nowhere near “25 million” migrants entered the US under Biden, and Trump has never once substantiated his claim that “many” of these people came from prisons and mental health facilities. Experts on global prison policy have expressed bafflement at his claims that numerous foreign leaders emptied prisons to somehow send criminals to the US as migrants, and experts on Venezuela and “the Congo,” two countries he has repeatedly cited, say they’ve seen no evidence that has happened there in particular.
- Trump’s big domestic policy bill didn’t achieve his “no tax on Social Security” promise. It did create an additional, temporary tax deduction for people age 65 and older, but millions of Social Security recipients in that group, not to mention recipients under 65, will continue to pay taxes on their benefits.
- Trump said some states have just hit $1.99 gas. Not a lie, but needs some serious context: GasBuddy tells me it estimates there are about 75 to 100 gas stations around the country, out of *150,000 stations* it tracks, that were today offering gas for $1.99 per gallon or less (aside from special discounts). Similarly, the president said “much of the country” is now under $2.50, but only four states had an AAA average below that threshold today; the national average today is about $2.91.

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

This is the saddest most pathetic thing he’s ever done. Tell us more about how your father didn’t love you.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Trump: "Obama got a prize for doing nothing. Obama got a prize, he didn't even know what he got it -- he got elected and they gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country. He was not a good president."

[EU says Elon should not lie abt my blue check @emptywheel]

Step 1: Start a dumbass trade war with China (and Brazil).
Step 2: Lose Chinese soybean market to Brazil.
Step 3: Bail out your nutty right wing buddy Javier Milei.
Step 4: Lose soybean market to Milei, too.
Steph 5: Make taxpayers pay for your stupidity.

[The New Republic @newrepublic]

Our brains are not wired to comprehend presidential corruption on this scale. Nor is our government, I fear, equipped to address a financial scandal as enormous as the one.

https://t.co/RBx5zyY0Tw

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

“The end of the liberal world order” is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in conference rooms and lecture halls. But in war-ravaged Sudan, it’s a reality. @anneapplebaum traveled there and spoke with those who are living in this post-American world: https://t.co/A8p9pYrwHS

[Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter]

Happy Bobby Bonilla Day: Bonilla is set to collect another $1.193 million from the NY Mets today, as he will each July 1st through the year 2035.

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

It’s 50-50 that I know this guy

[NO CONTEXT HUMANS @HumansNoContext]

Meanwhile in America

[The New York Review of Books @nybooks]

“Trump’s imperialist ambitions are in some respects familiar from US history,” writes @fotoole. “What is new, however, is the fusion of different apocalyptic visions, one religious, the other techno-utopian.” https://t.co/bvffchTuew

[Krystal Ball @krystalball]

When they say “free market” they mean monopolies, union busting, govt handouts for giant corporations and the ability for oligarchs to rob ordinary people with impunity.

[Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov]

A reminder that this is the same administration that was last week lecturing the UK about "free speech"

[Classic Movie Hub @ClassicMovieHub]

What a day for Classic Movie Birthdays!
12 Classic Movie Birthdays Today 2/8 incl James Dean, Jack Lemmon, Lana Turner, King Vidor, Charles Ruggles... #botd https://t.co/PQznp12D8x

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

1. Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, has no qualifications for the job. He has never run a large organization and has no national security expertise.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Love when working class populism triumphs

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

Surprise!!

[Erica York @ericadyork]

lol oh really https://t.co/uDVSmA4ub2

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

@loosey__goosey I do have my moments. Robert Ingersoll, by the way….

[Mike Umberger @umberger72]

In Metropolis

[Classic Movie Hub @ClassicMovieHub]

Celebrating Oscar Micheaux today, born Jan 2, in 1884 - Over 35 films; wrote/directed/produced 1st feature-length film by an African-American (The Homesteader 1919); directed 2 films selected for the National Film Registry: Within Our Gates (1920) & Body and Soul (1925) #botd

[TCM @tcm]

As the year comes to a close, TCM remembers the performers, filmmakers and creatives we lost this year.

Through their art, they took us on journeys we will never forget.

Song and artist: "Life's a Trip" - @birdtalkermusic