The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

MAGA: "Trump had the best economy ever in his first term and it's even better in his second!" Me: Trump was the first president since Herbert Hoover, in 1933, to leave office with fewer jobs than were present when he entered it. The past three months have equaled the lowest job-creation in such a span since, wait for it, COVID. MAGA: "Fake news! Fake numbers!" Me: :: I provide evidence to prove they're accurate :: MAGA: "Whatever. It's Congress that determines jobs anyway, not the president. Besides, Trump got bad economies from both O'Bummer and Slow Joe!" Me: I thought you said presidents don't determine jobs, so how can Obama or Biden be responsible for the economies Trump inherited? MAGA: "But that's different." Me: How so? Regardless, you've got things backwards. Obama inherited the largest recession since the Great Depression. Biden inherited the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu. Guess what? Both left Trump w...

I've previously broken down, via the Bureau of Labor statistics, how much better the economies were and are under Presidents Obama and Biden than it was under Donald Trump. At this, the only response I've received from Trumpers is: "COVID! Trump had the best economy in history until COVID and all the jobs under Biden are just the ones which were lost during it! COVID! COVID! COVID!" Never mind the fact Trump ignored the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu for roughly a month and millions more lives would be significantly/permanently impacted as a result, but I digress. I'll play their game. Donald Trump was in office for 3 years before COVID struck the U.S. Here were the jobs numbers by year: 2/17-1/18: 2.031M 2/18-1/19: 2.395M 2/19-1/20: 1.983M Total: 6.409M Let's contrast that with Obama's final 3 years in the Oval Office: 2/14-1/15: 3.011M 2/15-1/16: 2.634M 2/16-1/17: 2.440M Total: 8.085M In other words, nearly 1.7M more jobs were created in Obama'...

After pointing out the fact more jobs were created in the final 23 months of then President Obama's tenure than in the first 23 months of Trump's, I heard some skepticism about my numbers courtesy of Trumpsters. So allow me to delve deeper into my fact-check by fact-checking it. Let's start with President Obama. His final full 23 months in office were between 02/15 and 12/16. Here's the breakdown (these numbers come courtesy of the Department of Labor): 02/15: 248,000 (248,000 total) 03/15: 77,000 (325,000) 04/15: 300,000 (625,000) 05/15: 319,000 (944,000) 06/15: 170,000 (1,114,000) 07/15: 293,000 (1,407,000) 08/15: 122,000 (1,529,000) 09/15: 133,000 (1,662,000) 10/15: 339,000 (2,001,000) 11/15: 235,000 (2,236,000) 12/15: 280,000 (2,516,000) 01/16: 90,000 (2,606,000) 02/16: 232,000 (2,838,000) 03/16: 234,000 (3,072,000) 04/16: 211,000 (3,283,000) 05/16: 15,000 (3,298,000) 06/16: 282,000 (3,580,000) 07/16: 336,000 (3,916,000) 08/16: 135,000 (4,051,0...

Since Donald Trump has enjoyed talking up the economy since he entered the Oval Office, often declaring he's done a great job and the economy is the best it's ever been due to him, I thought I'd dig a little deeper into such claims. I looked at the beginning and end of terms for each of the past four presidents, three of which spent eight years as Commander-in-Chief. Only time will tell if Trump joins that club alongside Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. First, I looked at the average number of monthly jobs each of the four presidents created in their first two and last two years of their 8-year tenures, with the only exception being Trump, as he's been in office for just a little over 2 years to this point. Here's how those numbers break down, from the most average number of monthly jobs gained to the most average number of monthly jobs lost. Jobs Per Month 1) Clinton (01/94 - 12/94): +321,000 2) Clinton (02/99 - 12/99): +279,364 3) Clinton (02...

As I've written about previously, while I disagree with GOP front-runner Donald Trump 99% of the time, I do agree with him that the election system is severely flawed, if not outright rigged. That's not all that's rigged in this country, though. As Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has stated on multiple occasions, the economy is rigged. The wealthiest individuals can afford to hire accountants to find tax loopholes in order to pay less on tax day. Some can even go so far as to not pay any federal income taxes. If in any legal trouble, these same individuals can buy the best legal help in order to get the best deal possible. Not only that, but to start it all, odds have it they were born into a wealthy family and afforded some of the best education in the country. As Senator Warren said earlier this year: "There are two legal systems, one for the rich and powerful, and one for everyone else. It's not equal justice when a kid gets thrown in jail for stealin...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has frequently admitted he's not a scientist, but due to his recent comments, Democratic National Committee Communications Director Mo Elleithee added, "...Now we know he's not a mathematician or an economist either." This is because a day after Republicans took control of Congress and long after the economy began to show signs of improvement following the recession, McConnell made the following statement: "After so many years of sluggish growth, we're finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope; the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama Administration's long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress." Yeah, that's it... Unemployment is at 5.8 percent, far lower than where it had been previously, and yes, the decrease occurred prior to Republicans taking control Congress. The gross domestic product (GDP) also...

Following a showdown like the one we just experienced through the government shutdown, talking heads on the cable news and talk radio like to the play the who-won-and-who-lost game, because I guess everything is a competition in this country and it allows them to fill air-time. Humorously enough, though, while without question, it was the American people who lost more than anyone during this shutdown, amazingly, many in the Tea Party feel they won. So, let me get this straight. The Tea Party shutdown the federal government, cost this country $24 billion, cost many people their jobs, and brought this nation to the brink of an economic-apocalypse, as multiple economists and investors labeled it, yet they somehow came out of this thing smelling like roses? Okay... Not only that, but according to polls, the American people were not at all happy with the shutdown, blamed the House Republicans (led by the Tea Party) more than anyone else, were not in favor of defunding Obamacare which th...

Over the past week, polls have shown that President Obama's approval ratings have yet to be hampered by the recent controversies surrounding the administration. A right-leaning columnist responded to this by saying, "Just wait a couple months, and his numbers won't be nearly as high as they are today." The thing about it is the economy has been improving under President Obama, and an increasing number of people are beginning to both see and feel that for themselves. It's one thing to simply hear politicians state, "Things are looking up," and quite another to actually see and feel these improvements for yourself. As long as things are looking up as far as the economy is concerned, chances are the president's approval rating won't drop too significantly. Where the president may be most likely to see a drop in his approval numbers is with regard to his personal likability. However, one doesn't need to like a person in order to think he or...

It's been a rough couple days for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when it comes to receiving harsh criticism from some unlikely places. A piece was released by the New York Times yesterday, where Walter De Vries - a longtime aide of Mitt's father, George Romney - criticized Mitt for multiple things, in particular his flip-flopping, and even went on to say he'd be voting for Barack Obama in November. Today, former Ronald Reagan budget director David Stockman had an op-ed published in The Daily Beast , where he, like De Vries, criticized Mitt Romney. In the op-ed entitled "Mitt Romney: The Great Deformer," the former Reagan budget director said, "Mitt Romney was not a businessman. He was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses." He also stated, "Bain's billions of profits were not rewards for capitalist creation; they were mainly windfalls collected from gambling in markets that were rigge...

I've heard and read numerous comments from Republicans that President Obama has done nothing but whine and blame his predecessor - George W. Bush - for everything. In conjunction with that, Dubya didn't appear at the Republican National Convention. It's as if Republicans want to pretend that those 8 years he was in office never happened. Believe me - I want to pretend that George W. Bush was never president either; however - he was. We can't just overlook the 8 years he was in the Oval Office and suggest that his decisions between 2001-2009 hasn't had any effect on us between the years of 2009-2012. When Bush left office in January of 2009, we were losing between 700,000 and 800,000 jobs a month. As we added close to 100,000 jobs in August of 2012 - marking the 23rd consecutive month in which we've seen such growth, are we to blame Obama for the lost jobs before he was president and praise Bush for the added jobs after Obama stepped into office? Republicans ...

Both President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, upon the start of the Democratic National Convention, have been asked the question - "Are we better off than we were four years ago?" I think this is a very common and understandable question to ask presidential nominees. However, I also think it's a very difficult one to answer. President Obama was recently asked a similar question - if he had to grade himself in his first term as far as the economy is concerned, how would he grade himself and he responded with "incomplete". Of course, the Mitt Romney team has jumped on this like a high-on-speed nymphomaniac on a giant carrot, thinking it's a dildo. Many liberals cringed when they heard the president utter that one word. My question is - how was he supposed to answer it? Considering the state of the economy at this current time, if Obama gave himself an A or a B, he'd be laughed at by Romney and company, and the public would probably ...

Make no mistake about it, I'm voting for Barack Obama in November. If Mitt Romney were the same guy he passed himself off as Governor of Massachusetts, I'd give him a fair listen and would consider voting for the guy. I would still likely vote for Obama, but this time around, I'm not even going to consider voting for Romney. He's now owned by the far-right. He's flip-flopped more times than Richard Pryor cursed. I just can't take him seriously, because I have no idea what to believe - which Mitt Romney is he? In light of the Supreme Court's healthcare ruling today, I heard many talking heads (a good chunk of them Republicans) say they'd recommend Romney go after Obamacare and say his first order of business is to repeal it (GOP would need 60 votes in the Senate, so that's not going to happen). I personally think it'd be pretty stupid for Romney to do this. While the economy has stabilized under President Obama, it has not improved dramatically,...