A wonderful 2020 election

Millions of Americans are disgusted by their politicians' lies, prevarications, distortions, deceptions, and double standards.

The voters feel their disgust most acutely during elections.  Candidates' TV ads are especially obnoxious.

During the three years of Trump, hatred and anger that the two side have for each other has been increased by divisiveness that Trump has spawned and attendant charges and counter-charges of lying, fake news, treason, criminality, corruption, evil intent, and conspiracy.

Currently Trump and Obama are at verbal war with each other.

The charges and counter-charges, and the onslaught on Americans, will ramp up to intenser levels in the run up to November.

This is sickening to most average Americans.

There may be a way the American people can combat the politicians.

With imagination the 2020 elections might be turned wonderful.

[to be continued].

5/31/20
OK, here's my idea about how to make the 2020 Presidential election wonderful.

Get Trump, Biden, Obama and other prime actors relative to the Russia investigation and the Ukraine impeachment to testify under oath to Congress.

The Dems say that Trump has been guilty of serious wrongdoing amounting to impeachable offenses.

Trump adamantly says he has done nothing wrong, and he and the GOP say the Russia investigation was a "hoax" the impeachment was a "sham", and the Dems are guilty of an illegal coup against a duly elected President..

These are extreme charges and counter-charges, they have been going on for 3 years, and they will likely intensify leading up to November.

For three years, the voters have been inundated by mountains of information and contentions from each side about why its side is right and the other side is wrong.

Most Americans cannot process what been heaped on them and most Americans don't know whom or what to believe.

This needs to be boiled down by the two sides, and presented like a court case in Congress, and Americans need to see and hear what Trump, Biden, Obama and other prime actors say to Congress under oath.

If this happens, Americans who presently don't know whom or what to believe may, should be in a much better position to decide whom and what they believe.

That could make for a wonderful 2020 Presidential election.

Our country's dire condition

Our country is in the grips of an epochal, nationwide natural disaster.

The scale of the destruction the COVID pandemic is causing will be upwards of 50 times the most destructive natural disasters of hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires the country has experienced before.

Such previous natural disasters were localized, and the costs of the destruction were able to be managed with the resources and wealth of the United States.

Hurricane Katrina, which is rated the costliest of the country's natural disasters, cost 166.3 billion dollars. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-expensive-natural-disasters-us-153351513.html

The total costs of  the 9/11 attacks are very much higher than Katrina and can be deemed to include things such as the costs of operating Department of Homeland Security ($408 billion for first 10 years), the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ($1.3 trillion through 2011 and a total projected cost of  wars through 2050 of $4 trillion), and there are other separate categories of costs of tens of billions of dollars each. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-9-11-in-dollars/

The pandemic natural disaster is, in a short time frame of a few months, causing trillions of dollars of lost income to the American people.

Tens of millions of Americans, through no fault of their own, have been deprived of jobs they need to provide for themselves and their families.

Many other tens of millions of Americans, and the businesses they work in, are experiencing significant reductions in income.

The Federal government is providing trillions of dollars of funding to cover this huge lost income of the American people. The trillions of dollars are being paid and distributed to the American people in various ways.

State governments are providing funding through unemployment insurance programs.

Congress is confronting having to spend additional hundreds of billions of dollars to help state and local governments provide essential services, which governments have lost wherewithal to do, because of the pandemic natural disaster's impact on the economy and the resulting loss of tax revenues to the governments.

There is great uncertainty about when the economy will sufficiently recover so that Americans who have been impacted by the pandemic natural disaster will have jobs so they can provide for themselves and their families, and don't need further governmental funding to stay alive. In other words, more trillions of dollars of governmental funding may be needed.

All of the trillions of dollars of government funding are an imperative both for getting funds into the hands of Americans to be able to purchase food and other necessities they need to live, and also to keep the economy going by such Americans spending the funds to purchase things as they would do if they had not lost their incomes.

Currently, a main occupation of our Federal and state governments is managing the distribution of the trillions of dollars of Federal and state government funding to the American people. The distribution is being done on a necessarily rushed basis, and it is likely that much time and effort will be expended to try to "correct" "unjustified" distributions of governmental funds.

For years to come, our Federal and state governments will confront using their taxing, monetary and other powers to reduce the trillions of dollars of governmental debt that  has been and will be created in dealing with the pandemic. How the Federal and state governments do this will have large effects on businesses, workers, schools, hospitals and state and local governments, and this will result in years of political vying of competing economic interests of such persons.

In all of this, the United States is facing a national challenge probably on the scale and complexity of the challenge the country faced in fighting World War II.

The challenge calls for a unity of commitment by Americans to do what is necessary to reach the end goal, and that will entail a willingness of Americans to endure hardships and make sacrifices for the common good.

The national challenge needs a President whose leadership all Americans are willing to accept and follow.  This in turn needs the President to have the trust and confidence of the American people.

An important component of having the trust of the American people is that they believe the President is honest and inspires their loyalty because the President shows his paramount commitment to the country and them.  

Donald Trump fails the foregoing tests in the eyes of more than half the country, and it seems clear that Donald Trump is unable to do anything to change that.

The failures of Trump in the eyes of more than half the country impairs the ability of the country to succeed in getting through the nationwide natural disaster that has befallen the country.

See also You must get political and Covid liability precipice.

11/24/21

The long, complicated slog to dig out of the dire condition into which the United States was plunged by COVID-19 continues.

Pandemic engulfed America.
Desperate months of what to do.
Close schools, restaurants, bars: stay at home; keep hospitals functioning.
Massive gov't relief for businesses & workers.
Mental health problems.
Now the Great Resignation, the shortage economy & inflation.#alpolitics https://t.co/5BX7A5a2BE

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) November 12, 2021 

2/26/22
In January Katie Britt tweeted "President Biden is directly responsible for the inflation crushing hardworking Alabama families." In response I tweeted the below comment:

Katie Britt:
You are very deficient in your understanding of what has caused the current inflation.https://t.co/jP255g0NmU#alpolitics #alsen https://t.co/X7zIj1O9QC

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) January 13, 2022

Today I sent the below email to Dr Sutter, the author of the above article:

From: Rob Shattuck 

To: dsutter 

Sent: Sat, Feb 26, 2022 1:14 pm 

Subject: Follow up on your "Supply chains and the shortage economy"

Dear Dr. Sutter,

The GOP says the United States' supply chain and inflation problems are the fault of Biden's policies, which the GOP calls "failed" and "disastrous."

Your November 12, 2021 Alabama Today article  "Supply chains and the shortage economy" discusses why there has been a supply chain problem and that the government cannot be viewed as the cause of the problem or be looked to for solving the problem.

In May of 2020 I expressed that, as a result of COVID-19, the United States was facing a national challenge probably on the scale and complexity of the challenge the country faced in fighting World War II. I said, "For years to come our Federal and state governments will confront using their taxing, monetary and other powers to reduce the trillions of dollars of governmental debt that has been and will be created in dealing with the pandemic."  See Our country's dire condition.

After your article was published, I added to Our country's dire condition a link to your article, with my saying "The long, complicated slog to dig out of the dire condition into which the United States was plunged by COVID-19 continues."

The United States had never experienced anything like the pandemic that hit it in March 2020. No one knew what was needed to defend America and Americans against the onslaught of COVID-19 and no one knew what amount of stimulus/relief was needed to keep the economy from crashing or how the stimulus/relief could be most efficiently and effectively provided. In the mammoth governmental response that was undertaken, I think it was accepted that hundreds of billions of dollars could be ineffectively distributed or be subject to fraud, but t was also accepted that it was beyond human and legislative capabilities to fine tune the mammoth program to have notably better effectiveness and much reduced fraud, without risking not doing enough to keep the economy from crashing and providing the needed relief.

In the first half of 2021, inflation warnings about the effects of the stimulus and relief were made by Larry Summers and others. On the inflation question, I think it bears saying again that the United States was in an unprecedented situation, and no one knew how bad inflation could get or what could be done starting in mid-2021 to ward off bad inflation, taking into account what was still needed in the form of stimulus and relief to keep the United States going.

We have now learned a lot that we did not know before. We learned that a lot of relief money was saved and not spent when received, and then supported pent up demand that later got unleashed and contributed to the inflation problem. We have learned about the problems of restarting (or getting back up to speed) significant sectors of the economy, and these problems greatly contribute to the supply chain and inflation problems.

The GOP goes bonkers over Biden's policies, such as not maximizing energy production and paying people not to work, and the contribution those factors have made to the supply chain and inflation problems. Not maximizing United States energy production can be accepted to have had some effect on the supply chain and inflation problems, but the question is how much effect - negligible, substantial, quantifiable, not quantifiable. Part of the reason for this email is to solicit you, as an economist, to comment on much less would be the supply chain and inflation problems if Biden in January 2021 had taken steps to maximize United States energy production.

I think the "paying people not to work" matter is complex. All I would say on that is I think it gives little support to GOP charges of "failed" and "disastrous" policies of Joe Biden. Your view on this is also solicited by this email.

In January, Katie Britt tweeted "President Biden is directly responsible for the inflation crushing hardworking Alabama families." In response, I tweeted .  "Katie Britt: You are very deficient in your understanding of what has caused the current inflation," and included in my tweet a link to this webpage.

After I send this email to you, I will copy and paste it at the end of Our country's dire condition.

I very much hope you will respond to this email, and, if you do, I will add your response to Our country's dire condition.

Thank you very much for your attention to this email, Dr. Sutter.

Sincerely,

Rob Shattuck

Re "total failure Biden's been [putting us on] our way to being a Third World country"
Please see email I've written to Daniel Sutter, Charles G. Koch Prof. of Economics at Troy University, posted at end of https://t.co/jP255g0NmU#alpolitics #alsenhttps://t.co/Hv9lQsXwEo

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) February 26, 2022

Do you think the U.S. inflation problem can be solved without the Fed greatly raising interest rates and inducing a recession?@alabamatoday @aprylmarie #alpolitics https://t.co/YzdSrwMduF

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) March 8, 2022

Thank you for Dan Sutter's article "War, policy, & high gas prices."
Hopefully article will improve campaign messaging by #alsen & other candidates about causes of U.S. inflation & what will reduce the inflation.https://t.co/jP255g0NmU#alpolitics https://t.co/YzdSrwMduF

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) April 11, 2022

7/10/22

In 2020 U.S. was in unprecedented dire condition; no one knew exactly re needed pandemic relief; chances were taken; fraud, waste & abuse ensued.
What do Katie Britt 's conservative principles say can be done now?https://t.co/jP255g0NmU#alpolitics #alsenhttps://t.co/7LBsq54mlS

— Rob Shattuck (@RobShattuckAL06) July 10, 2022

Mourning in America censorship

In the past 24 hours Facebook censored the Mourning in America ad that The Lincoln Project put out a couple of days ago, which ad caused Trump to do midnight rage tweeting against the leadership of The Lincoln Project. Below is the censored Facebook post. Following the below censored post is the fact checking link, and following that is an email The Lincoln Project sent out.

The Lincoln Project

May 4 at 6:02 AM · 

Donald Trump’s failed presidency has left the nation weaker, sicker, and teetering on the verge of a new Great Depression.

There’s mourning in America.

eye-crossed-out

Partly False Information

Checked by independent fact-checkers

 See Why 

-0:40

If you click on the "See Why" button in the middle of the above image, you will receive a pop up which has a link to https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/07/lincoln-project/mourning-america-ad-critical-trump-misleads-bailou/?fbclid=IwAR3Ri5bz-tE9wqGrYPgYwgWy3pyEuW1r6ZX5vabGRKOqpUA3BphuBED6tj0.

Lincoln Project’s “Mourning in America” ad critical of Trump misleads on bailouts

A group called the Lincoln Project, headlined by several high-profile Republicans and former Republicans who oppose President Donald Trump, recently released an ad that turned a famous re-election ad for President Ronald Reagan on its head.

The Reagan ad, "Morning in America," is one of the most celebrated campaign ads in history. Using optimistic imagery and themes to argue that the country was on the right track after the crises of the 1970s, the ad set the tone for Reagan’s landslide reelection victory.

By contrast, the Lincoln Project’s ad, retitled "Mourning in America," is replete with depressing footage of masked Americans and economic devastation. And it directly blames Trump for acting ineffectively on the health and economic fronts. 

At one point, the ad asserts, "Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street."

Trump tweeted his displeasure with the ad, ironically producing a banner fundraising day for the Lincoln Project. 

But is the ad’s claim about bailouts accurate?

While there have been high-profile examples of larger corporations being awarded loans from a primarily small-business lending program (and sometimes giving them back), this line in the ad is inaccurate. 

Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, has been tracking the federal response to the coronavirus-driven economic downturn. He said the dichotomy in the ad is wrong.

The coronavirus relief legislation passed so far, Goldwein said, "generally bails out everyone."

Role of the CARES Act

We should start by noting that Trump wouldn’t be solely at fault for any design flaws in the primary law for coronavirus relief, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act.

The $2.2 trillion act, which Trump signed into law on March 27, 2020, included stimulus payments to most Americans, enhanced unemployment aid, loans for small businesses, and other relief measures. However, before it got to Trump’s desk, the bill had the support of both parties. It passed the Senate unanimously, and it passed the House overwhelmingly.

The primary way the bill helps small companies is through the Paycheck Protection Program.

Under that program, small businesses can take out federally backed loans through banks or credit unions to tide them through the coronavirus pandemic. The government will forgive the loans if the company keeps all of their employees on the payroll for eight weeks, and as long as the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities.

The Paycheck Protection Program attracted negative media attention when some larger employers, such as Shake Shack, secured small business loans. Criticism grew as the program ran out of money allocated under the CARES Act. Congress later provided funds for additional loans.

The Shake Shack loan appears to have been legal, since the program allowed loans for businesses in the food services sector that have more than one physical location and employ less than 500 people per location. Still, the negative attention led some of these businesses, including Shake Shack, to voluntarily give back their loans.

What does the data show?

The Small Business Administration, which is overseeing the program, has produced some broad breakdowns of how the first $342 billion in loan money was spent.

For assessing the ad’s claim, the most problematic cut of the SBA data concerns the size of the loans made so far. 

The breakdown shows that slightly more than 74% of the individual loans granted were for $150,000 or less, totaling $58 billion. Because most companies apply for the maximum amount allowable, and because the loans are capped at 10 weeks of payroll costs, a loan of this size is consistent with a company that has roughly seven to 10 workers, Goldwein said. (Because the individual loan amounts in this category were small, the sum of all these loans was equal to only 17% of the total money spent.)

From: Rick Wilson, The Lincoln Project
To: Robert Shattuck
Sent: Thu, May 7, 2020 8:26 pm
Subject: URGENT: We've been Zucked

Robert, we've been Zucked: Facebook is now censoring the ad that made Trump lose his mind.

You're not going to believe this — not much shocks me these days, but even I had to see it with my own eyes.

After our latest ad, "Mourning In America," made President Orangeface short-circuit and throw a rage-tweeting tantrum at 1am, his campaign spin machine went into "damage control" mode calling us "losers" and calling the claims in the ad "false."

👉 Rush $100, $50, or $25 to fight back now

Of course, we expected that. Because we know they're scared.

But now, less than 24 hours later — as if on cue — Facebook has slapped a "false" warning label on our video, telling its users to beware:

Robert, it's no secret that Facebook has stood by and done little to nothing as lie after lie — from the Liar-In-Chief himself — runs wild on their platform.

(Oh, and let's also not forget the conspiracy theories, foreign disinformation campaigns and negligence that got Mark Zuckerberg questioned by the United States Congress.)

But, this? This is an entirely different and dangerous kind of collusion.

👉 Contribute $100, $50, or $25 to fight back now

And what is Facebook's excuse for playing favorites with its recently-transferred former employees in the Trump campaign?

They say a "fact-checker" labeled our claim that "Donald Trump helped bailout Wall Street, not Main Street" was untrue.

....Really?

🚨 Millions of Americans are still waiting for their checks.
(USA Today, May 7)

🚨 Thousands of business owners can't get the loans they need to stay open.
(NBC News, April 27)

🚨 Multiple research reports show that only: "half of Americans say they got a stimulus payment, and only half of those say it was enough."
(Business Insider, April 29)

🚨 But Wall Street banks, hedge funds, huge corporations, and Trump's friends and donors, have cut the line and gotten millions they shouldn't have.
(Business Insider, May 1; The Washington Post, April 24)

Does that sound like "bailing out Main Street" to you, Robert?

Is that "Partly False?" Of course not.

We told the truth about Donald Trump...

He lost his damn mind over it on Twitter...

Attacked us in front of Air Force One...

Then sent his spin machine to discredit us...

And now his allies at Facebook are doing his damage control by censoring the truth he doesn't like.

So, on behalf of my compatriots at The Lincoln Project, let me be crystal clear:

We will never back down from this fight.

We will hammer him with the truth and the facts.

Donald Trump's failed Presidency has left the nation weaker, sicker, and teetering on the verge of a new Great Depression.

We're taking this fight directly to Trump and the people—and social media giants—that prop him up.

If you're with us, please pitch in what you can, right now.

This is what we train for.

Rick
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