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So in his big counter-response to Joe Biden’s whirlwind State of the Union Trump figures what he needs to do is make fun of his stuttering, then we have repeated reports from his former Chief of Staff who says that Trump repeatedly praised Hitler.
Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly tells CNN that former President Donald Trump openly envied the late Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the loyalty he supposedly inspired in subordinates.
In an interview with CNN, Kelly recounted how the former president would praise Hitler for his economic record while also saying he "did some good things" despite being one of the worst mass murderers in the history of the world.
"And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly told CNN. “I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
Trump also said that Hitler enjoyed "loyalty" from his top generals that the former president himself did not enjoy.
Kelly told CNN that he had to correct Trump on this misperception as well.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly said. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do."
Trump we already know, has a fetish for strongmen and dictators. He reportedly kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches on the table near his bed according to his late first wife.
A resurfaced Vanity Fair interview with Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, revealed some surprising facts about the former president—including the fact that he kept a book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet by his bed. The 1990 anecdote is notable given Trump’s recent anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, which President Joe Biden’s campaign has likened to the German leader. Ivana also said that an employee liked to greet Trump with a Hitler reference: “[W]hen he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, ‘Heil Hitler,’ possibly as a family joke,” the magazine’s Marie Brenner reported.
And there’s more.
On Friday at Mar--Lago Trump hosted Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, a Christian nationalist who has been described as a “neo-fascist dictator,” and “the Pimp of Putinism.”
He has been openly praising dictators in his rally speeches, as he did in this video from last year:
Yeah, fetish.
And in his great effort to gain more supporters and to debunk Biden’s claim that “Republicans want tax cuts for the rich so they can cut Medicare and Social Security” has also recently proclaimed that he wants to extend his Tax Cuts for the Rich which have blown a giant hole in the deficit.
Donald Trump pledged a fresh round of tax cuts if he wins the presidency, following up on legislation passed during his term in the White House that reduced levies on businesses and some households.
“You’re all getting the biggest tax cuts because we’re doing additional cuts and a brand new Trump economic boom like you’ve never seen before,” Trump said at a rally in South Carolina on Friday, a day before the state’s primary.
It’s questionable whether tax cuts have boosted the economy, but it’s clear from history that it always causes a giant jump in the deficit.
House Republican leaders have used this fact to call for spending cuts,3 but it does not address the true cause of rising debt: Tax cuts initially enacted during Republican trifectas in the past 25 years slashed taxes disproportionately for the wealthy and profitable corporations, severely reducing federal revenues. In fact, relative to earlier projections, spending is down, not up. But revenues are down significantly more. If not for the Bush tax cuts4 and their extensions5—as well as the Trump tax cuts6—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57 percent of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90 percent of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded. Eventually, the tax cuts are projected to grow to more than 100 percent of the increase.
And Trump thinks there can be cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
One year ago this month, Trump was attacking "potential GOP primary opponents" and "warning ... party leaders to stay away from the popular entitlement programs in their push to cut spending," causing a split in the GOP, Politico reported. "Lawmakers who once backed entitlement overhauls are now openly at odds with colleagues who’d prefer to soften their positions before they face voters in 2024. And a GOP presidential race that’s a referendum on Trump himself is now also becoming one on Medicare and Social Security."
But now, with all his Republican opponents gone, Trump himself is embracing cutting "entitlements," the life-saving programs Americans themselves pay into through deductions to their paychecks and through their taxes.
[…]
And now, on Monday, Trump told CNBC, "there is a lot you can do" to cut Social Security and Medicare.
“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen (video below), NBC News reports. “And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements — tremendous bad management of entitlements — there’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
This point of view isn’t a shock - if you listen to Ben Shapiro people shouldn’t be able to “Retire” at all unless they have a medical issue.
Ben Shapiro on Medicare and Social Security: "No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem."
Trump also has a track record and a history of making proposals to cut Medicare.
When former President Trump suggested possible cuts to Medicare during an interview on CNBC yesterday it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. While Trump has vowed repeatedly during the 2016, 2020 and 2024 election cycles not to cut Medicare, his actual record belies the rhetoric. Nevertheless, most cutbacks Trump has proposed or talked about relate to diminished payments to healthcare providers and hospitals and not Medicare recipient benefits.
[…]
However, what Trump did as President in terms of budget proposals went far beyond waste and fraud. Trump proposed substantial spending cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in every single one of his budgets as President, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the last budget the Trump Administration put forward in February 2020—the 2021 budget—included approximately $500 billion in net Medicare spending reductions over ten years, most of which would come from reduced payments to hospitals and healthcare providers. Though the cuts wouldn’t have affected Medicare beneficiaries directly, tighter eligibility rules for long-term care services would have limited access, saving $34 billion but putting care out of reach for some.
Tightening eligibility rules would otherwise be known as a “cut” because people currently on the system wouldn’t be on it anymore.
Since this statement was made Trump’s people have tried to argue that he wasn’t actually suggesting cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits, he was only suggesting cutting the overhead used to provide those benefits.
Trump's campaign quickly jumped into damage-control mode, sending out a press release saying that the former president's remarks had focused on "protecting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare" and that he "would get rid of waste and fraud."
Oh, right. sure. That old Reagan trope of “Waste, Fraud and Abuse.” Except that Medicare is already about 45% more efficient than private healthcare.
…this issue brief reviews the findings of 19 recent studies comparing Medicare and private health insurance payment rates for hospital care and physician services.
Key Findings
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Private insurers paid nearly double Medicare rates for all hospital services (199% of Medicare rates, on average), ranging from 141% to 259% of Medicare rates across the reviewed studies.
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The difference between private and Medicare rates was greater for outpatient than inpatient hospital services, which averaged 264% and 189% of Medicare rates overall, respectively.
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For physician services, private insurance paid 143% of Medicare rates, on average, ranging from 118% to 179% of Medicare rates across studies.
Across all studies, payments from private insurers are much higher than Medicare payments for both hospital and physician services, although the magnitude of the difference varies (ES Figure 1). Differences across studies may be due to a number of factors, including the representativeness of hospitals, physicians, and insurers used in the analysis, the data collection period, and the characteristics of the markets examined by each study, with some studies focusing on highly consolidated health care markets where providers have stronger negotiating leverage over insurers.
Also, Social Security is kinda efficient too.
The near universality of Social Security brings many important advantages. It provides a foundation of retirement protection for people at all earnings levels. It rewards personal saving and private pensions because it isn’t means-tested — it doesn’t reduce or deny benefits to people whose income or assets exceed a certain level. Social Security provides a higher annual payout than private retirement annuities per dollar contributed because its risk pool is not limited to those who expect to live a long time, no funds leak out in lump-sum payments or bequests, and its administrative costs are much lower.
Universal participation and the absence of means-testing make Social Security very efficient to administer. Administrative costs amount to only 0.5 percent of annual benefits, far below the percentages for private retirement annuities. Means-testing Social Security would impose significant reporting and processing burdens on both recipients and administrators, undercutting many of those advantages while yielding little savings.
So, yeah - “lots of things” you can do.
And the latest thing Trump has said is that he wants to Fake Elector “Patriots to go home” as he continues to attack Georgia Prosecutor Fani Willis.
"How can Fani Willis possibly oversee a case which is completely compromised and fraudulently brought by her and her highly paid lover?" Trump posted on Truth Social. "She NEVER paid cash as a reimbursement to him. If she did, where did she get the cash, an even bigger problem? She lied in order to get out of a problem. Very easy to prove!"
No, that hasn’t been proven. Wade, her father and even a Wine Tasting host have all confirmed that Willis tended to pay in cash. There is no valid evidence that Willis and Wade’s relationship started earlier than they said it did, other than an “assumption” and “conjecture” by her former friend and Wade’s divorce attorney. Judge McAfee has yet to rule on this issue [Edit: He just ruled] — and he could easily find in favor Willis and Wade based on the evidence provided.
Either way, none of that has anything to do with the merits of the case against Trump and his cohorts, several of whom have already pleaded guilty including Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro. Ruling against them wouldn’t invalidate the case, it just might be difficult finding a new prosecutor willing and able to take the case on.
Not that Trump will admit any of that.
"Everything should be immediately dropped and let the American Patriots 'go home,'" Trump posted. "Absolve them all from this terrible, and totally disproven, Witch Hunt! ELECTION INTERFERENCE in conjunction with the Crooked Joe Biden DOJ and White House!"
There is no evidence that Joe Biden interfered with the election. None. But there is evidence that Trump tried to change the outcome of 2020 using fake electors, that’s what this case and one of the Jack Smith cases are about.
But not only does Trump want his fake electors who tried to steal and election to go free — he’s also promised to release the” J6 hostages” on “day one” - who should be better known as the terrorists who attacked the Capitol.
Donald Trump on Monday pledged to free people jailed for taking part in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol as one of his first actions if reelected, calling them "hostages."
The rioters -- egged on by the then-president and fueled by his false claims of voter fraud -- stormed the seat of US democracy on January 6, 2021, in a bid to halt the transfer of power to Joe Biden.
Around 1,358 defendants have been charged in the 38 months since then, according to the latest figures from the Justice Department released last week. About 500 have been sentenced to prison terms.
Trump posted the comments on his Truth Social website, additionally promising to shut down the border with Mexico as part of his first acts if reelected, without providing details.
"My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!" he wrote late Monday.
Taking each of these bogus claims in order, Trump had previously tried to “close the border” when he was President and his plan was eventually shut down by the courts.
The Supreme Court on Monday certified its month-old ruling allowing the Biden administration to end a cornerstone Trump-era border policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court, a pro forma act that has drawn attention amid near-total silence from the White House about when, how and even whether it will dismantle the policy.
The two-word docket entry read "judgment issued" to record that the justices voted 5-4 in a ruling issued June 30 that the administration could scrap the "Remain in Mexico" policy, overruling a lower court that forced the policy to be reinstated in December.
His Title 42 plan was also canceled by the courts.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday formally ended a Republican-led bid to keep in place a Trump-era immigration policy that made it easy to expel asylum-seekers at the border following the official end of the Covid emergency declaration that was used to justify it.
The move was expected after President Joe Biden ended the public health emergency on May 11. In an order the justices ordered a lower court to dismiss the case as moot.
So the idea that he’d be able to just “close the border” without again facing the courts is just ridiculous.
More importantly, if you compare the Trump and Biden administration’s border policies - it remains a fact that Trump was far more likely to release apprehended migrants into the U.S.
In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did. These figures are important for understanding how each administration has carried out border enforcement.
During the Trump administration, DHS made 1.4 million arrests—what it calls “encounters”—in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 (24 months). Of those people arrested, only 47 percent were removed as of December 31, 2021, which includes people arrested by Trump and removed by Biden, and 52 percent were released into the United States. Under Biden, DHS made over 5 million arrests in its first 26.3 months, and it removed nearly 2.6 million—51 percent—while releasing only 49 percent. In other words, the Trump DHS removed a minority of those arrested while the Biden DHS removed a majority. Biden managed to increase the removal share while also increasing the total removals by a factor of 3.5.
He wants to “Drill, Baby, Drill” when the US is already at an all-time high an oil production.
The U.S. set a new annual oil production record on December 15, based on data from the Energy Information Administration. Although the official monthly numbers from the EIA won’t be released for a couple of months, we can calculate that a new record has been set based on the following analysis.
[…]
The EIA reports oil production numbers in multiple places. The U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil shows monthly totals and averages, but they are always a couple of months behind. For example, as I write this on December 14, the most recent month posted is September, and U.S. oil production up until then stood at 3.50 billion total barrels.
[…]
That means that on December 1, U.S. producers were only 190 million barrels from breaking the previous record. The most recent weekly production number from the EIA — representing the first week of December — was 13.1 million BPD. At that rate, it would take 14.5 days of December production to break the record. If we make a more conservative assumption of 13.0 million BPD, then it only changes the timing to 14.6 days.
Thus, it is a safe assumption that around noon on December 15, the U.S. set a new production record for oil
So we’re already drilling more than we’ve ever drilled before. And he thinks he’s going to improve on that?
Lastly, he claims he’s going to let J6 attackers go free even though they stormed the Capitol, injured over 140 police officers, threatened to murder the Vice President and the Speaker, and tried to overturn Democracy.
Thursday, July 6, 2023, marks 30 months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of affirming the presidential election results. The government continues to investigate losses that resulted from the breach of the Capitol, including damage to the Capitol building and grounds, both inside and outside the building. As of October 14, 2022, the approximate losses suffered as a result of the siege at the Capitol totaled $2,881,360.20. That amount reflects, among other things, damage to the Capitol building and grounds and certain costs borne by the U.S. Capitol Police.
[…]
Arrests made: More than 1,069 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. (This includes those charged in both District and Superior Court).
Criminal charges:
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Approximately 350 defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, including approximately 110 individuals who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.
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Approximately 11 individuals have been arrested on a series of charges that relate to assaulting a member of the media, or destroying their equipment, on Jan. 6.
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Approximately 935 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. Of those, 103 defendants have been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
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Approximately 61 defendants have been charged with destruction of government property, and approximately 49 defendants have been charged with theft of government property.
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More than 310 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding, or attempting to do so.
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Approximately 55 defendants have been charged with conspiracy, either: (a) conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding, (b) conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder, (c) conspiracy to injure an officer, or (d) some combination of the three.
Pleas:
Trials:
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98 individuals have been found guilty at contested trials, including 3 who were found guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Another 24 individuals have been convicted following an agreed-upon set of facts. 51 of these 122 defendants were found guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers and/or obstructing officers during a civil disorder, which are felony offenses, including one who has been sentenced to more than 14 years in prison.
Sentencings:
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Approximately 561 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 335 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 119 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 19 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration.
As Steve Benen points out, Trump is the only person to run on the Willie Horton platform of promising to release dangerous criminals.
Steve Benen @stevebenen
As Trump eyes pardons for Jan. 6 convicts, remember: He's the first candidate in history to effectively tell the electorate, “Vote for me and I’ll deliberately release violent criminals back onto the streets.” https://msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-
But here’s the thing I want to know — Trump also claimed that the violent people who attacked the Capitol were “Antifa.”
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has privately blamed 'Antifa people' for storming the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, even though clear video and documentary evidence shows the rioters were overwhelmingly his supporters, Axios reported.
Trump made the remark in a 30-minute-plus phone call Monday morning with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Axios reported bit.ly/2K4mNM6, citing a White House official and another source familiar with the call.
However, McCarthy told Trump in the call, which according to Axios was tense and aggressive at times, "It's not Antifa, it's MAGA. I know. I was there."
This is a claim that he has repeated since.
Ahead of the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riot, former president Donald Trump baselessly cast blame on Antifa and the FBI as the main proponents of the attack.
“By the way, there was Antifa, there was FBI, there were a lot of other people there too leading the charge,” Mr Trump said at a rally in Sioux, Center Iowa on Friday, 5 January. “You saw the same people that I did.”
Mr Trump also said at the campaign event that he believed the audience on January 6, 2021 was the “biggest crowd, I believe, I ever spoke to—you never hear about that do you?”
He then turned to “the hostages,” seemingly referring to those arrested and charged for their actions on January 6. “The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody’s been treated ever in history so badly as those people,” he said.
So if Antifa was “leading the charge” - who exactly are these people he wants to release? Wouldn’t they also be “Antifa?” And why exactly would he want to release members of the deadly Antifa from jail?
Why would he do that?
He wouldn’t, unless, he knows damn well that the attack wasn’t “led” by Antifa. Members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leadership have both been tried and convicted of Seditious Conspiracy. They had a “Quick Reaction Force” across the Potomac with long guns ready to deploy, they had video conference meetings where they planned the attack, they had an internal “Ministry of Self-Defense” who organized the attack and they followed a document to occupy and take over the buildings called “1776 Returns.” It’s been clearly proven they had a coordinated PLOT to obstruct and block the operations of the U.S. Government.
It was his own supporters, acting on his instructions to “Fight like Hell or you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
These were terrorists following his orders, and that’s why he wants to free them all. He figures he’s going to need a pack of terrorists on his side.
Having his own pack of Brown Shirts just might come in handy.
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