Author – Katy Grimes
California has roughly 134,000 homeless people, amounting to one-quarter of the nation’s total homeless population.
In Will $1 Billion Spending on California’s Homeless Fix the Problem?, California Globe covered a myriad of issues surrounding California’s homeless explosion including how tiny houses in Los Angeles haven’t worked out as planned; they became tiny crack houses. The Homeless encampments along the sides of levees in Sacramento are now damaging the flood control structures, and also in the state’s Capitol, the homeless live in parks, in tents along rivers, on the streets and in alleys, and sleep at City Hall at night, after police were chastised for chasing them away.
With Gov. Gavin Newsom proposing in his May Budget Revise $650 million in grants to homelessness agencies and local government to help fund emergency shelters, housing assistance, and new construction, adding up to $1 billion in spending on the homeless in the Golden State, where is the money actually going?
Couple the more than $1 billion in state funding with “LA county and city governments collectively spend an astonishing $1.1 billion annually on the costs of dealing with its growing homeless population,” Craig Powell of Eye on Sacramento wrote in 2017, and many are asking, just where are the billions spent on the homeless actually going?
Sacramento closed the only city-run homeless shelter April 30 after spending $5 million on it. There were just 37 homeless people using it when it closed. The City is expected to open another homeless facility in July, “when the Capitol Park Hotel is set to open downtown with up to 180 beds,” the Sacramento Bee reported. The City will spend more than $23 million to open a 180-bed temporary homeless shelter at the Capitol Park Hotel downtown, where more than 90 elderly and disabled people currently live. They will be ousted.
The City of Sacramento will also spend $11.5 million in state funds and private funds to open a shelter in south Sacramento, and another on a shelter at a Caltrans-owned lot near the corner of X Street and Alhambra. Both of those low-barrier triage shelters will be in tent-like structures with 100 beds each.
One Man’s Story
In a downtown Sacramento neighborhood just south of the city, one group of neighbors formed an unofficial group to be able to communicate about the ongoing crime, theft, drug-related problems and homeless living on their streets. They taught each other how and when to involve the city and police in the homeless issues, when to call for help, when to report crimes, and the like. But they also began to recognize the homeless people living on the streets, and got to know a few.
Several neighbors began to help one fellow who told them he wanted to get clean. Initially they were unable to get him any help from the city or county until he agreed to move into a shelter. But the shelter was full of drug addicts, pedophiles and criminals, and he was trying to stay clean.
Because he was already on Suboxone, treatment of opioid dependence, and trying to rid himself of his drug addiction, many shelters would not take him. They considered Suboxone a drug and told his neighbor-advocates that until he was “off drugs” including the Suboxone, they couldn’t help.
So his neighbor-advocates appealed to the other neighbors in the group to contribute funds to help get him a long term motel room while he sought treatment. But finding help was a nightmare.They quickly found out there is no actual process to connect a homeless person seeking help with the necessary services for someone wanting to get off drugs, and off the streets, despite the millions of dollars being spent. There is not one office to go to for a coordination of benefits.
The Labyrinth of Homeless Programs – who are they helping?
The City of Sacramento has had in place the Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources which is still listed under the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. However, the Sacramento Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources had a name change and currently operates as “Next Move Homeless Services | formerly known as Sacramento Area Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources,” but is now a non-profit, not subject to California’s open records act.
The City touts a program called Sacramento Steps Forward, “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to ending homelessness in our region through collaboration, innovation, and connecting people to services,” the website says.
The neighbor-advocates for the homeless fellow contacted shelters and many city programs, before finally locating a “Navigator” with Sacramento Steps Forward, located inside the Sacramento Library downtown on the third floor. She wasn’t easy to find, and the neighbor-advocates wanted to know why she wasn’t visiting the homeless camps under the freeways instead of hidden away deep inside of the library.
Sacramento Steps Forward has an income of $14 million, $13 million of which is government grants, according to their 2017 IRS Form 990. Since 2013, Sacramento Steps Forward has received $53,438,945.
The Form 990 shows they grant $10,032,858 to other organizations, and spend $1,341,111 on salaries and $220,055 in benefits, $99,087 in office expenses, $86,279 in travel, $22,521 in conferences and $116,972 in occupancy.
They have one full time employee who is paid $150,000 annually, making the travel and conference expenses questionable.
On the Form 990, they say, “Sacramento Steps Forward is responsible for distributing and managing federal funds granted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. During 2017, the Organization passed-through $10,032,858 in HUD grants to local nonprofit agencies…”
Sacramento Steps Forward is a passthrough, spending about $4 million in administrative costs in the meantime. Salaries, benefits, travel, conferences and offices total nearly $2 million.
Of their programs, the Winter Sanctuary is a seasonal emergency-shelter program for homeless men and women. However, according to their Form 990, this program is primarily funded by the County of Sacramento.
Next Move Homeless Services | formerly known as Sacramento Area Emergency Housing and Homeless Resources, last filed an IRS Form 990 in 2016 showing $5,499,756 in income. The treasurer was reported as making $502,840 in total compensation, and the CFO $208,810, however this income is from “related organizations.” The Executive Director makes $106,462.
A deeper dive finds that Next Move Homeless and Goodwill Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada merged in 2014, so Joesph Mendez is President of Goodwill, which pays him $502,840., and Connie Schulze is Chief Finance Officer at Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada and is paid $208,810. Both are listed on Next Move’s Form 990’s as Treasurer and CFO respectively. They are paid handsomely by Goodwill but work for Next Move, which is just a passthrough for federal funds?
This doesn’t add up. And it is particularly frustrating since despite that these are federal funds being used, they are going to a non-profit organization which is protected from the California Public Records Act. By design.
Goodwill Industries has had its own run-ins with the law, which makes it curious why the City of Sacramento would allow its spin-off to partner with Goodwill.
In 2012, Investigative reporter John Hrabe wrote: Goodwill “accepts millions of dollars in government funds, pays its top executives more than half a million dollars per year in total compensation, while simultaneously paying some of its employees less than the federal minimum wage. Some employees earn just 22 cents per hour.”
Hrabe explained:
“The practice of paying sub-minimum wages is legal thanks to a little-known loophole in federal labor law.”
“It is appalling that organizations that purport to assist workers with disabilities in job training, would hold them back by circumventing the standard of living that minimum wage provides other American workers,” Andy Voss, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Sacramento, explained to me via email.
In August, Voss’ group organized a protest of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada, which according to its most recent tax returns, paid its CEO Joseph Mendez $376,317 in total compensation. A dozen people from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network of Sacramento, Capitol People First, South Area People First and the Supported Life Institute took part in the Sacramento protest, which was a part of a nationwide campaign sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind.
As the merger with Next Move and Goodwill Sacramento occurred, Joe Mendez, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Sacramento Valley & Northern Nevada said this: “Goodwill’s mission footprint in Sacramento will be broadened by its relationship with Next Move. Our vocational programs will offer Next Move’s clients opportunities to develop job skills that are portable to other industries. The close mission alignment of our organizations creates a real opportunity to assist Sacramento homeless families move into stable housing situations and employment.”
That was in 2014. Where is the money going?
Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson is doing a week long special on homelessness in California. This video features Sacramento.
All photos are screenshots of Carlson’s video of Sacramento homeless, except the featured photo, taken near the author’s neighborhood. CALIFORNIA GLOBE
This will never change when there is so much money for the poverty pimps (NGOs, quasi-NGOs and government bureaucracies and politicians).
So glad that Dan & I left there a long time ago. It must be difficult for those of you who have family there. Thanks Jack for all the information you send on what is going on in good old Sacramento where I grew up. It was a different time. Glad I’m old now.
Rosemary
Rosemary it is so good to hear from you. You and Dan made a brilliant decision to move when you did. I am envious now, but it’s too late for me to get out. Just enjoy your beautiful home and all the low taxes and limited regulations knowing you did the thing. Meanwhile we shall struggle to make ends meet in this commie state that reminds more and more of East Germany every day.
No, it does not expose “dirty secrets”; it screws with the facts for the sole and entire purpose of supporting yours and Katy’s prejudices. Re the Capitol Park Hotel:
Yours: “They will be ousted.”
What Katy actually wrote: “The city is kicking them out, ….”
The truth: https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article229485194.html
Now, being forced to relocate in your 90s is no fun, but the hotel is in pretty crappy shape …
“Scott Rodd from the Sacramento Business Journal says the renovations would be significant.
“Many of Capitol Park’s rooms lack bathrooms and kitchens, and in some cases there’s no bathroom on the same floor,” says Rodd. “And so the total number of units, since they would have to add bathrooms and kitchens to some of them, would be reduced from 180 currently down to about 134.”
So public policy-wise, it’s probably the thing to do. But you couldn’t admit to anything so sensible, and write inflammatory posts to support a really savage point of view: yours, Katy’s and Tucker Carlson’s. I hope you all asphyxiate in that tiny, tiny, bubble.
Hey Jack, you ready to pay for abortions for trans-men, trans-masculine and non-binaries???
This is how freaking off the tracks the Demonrats are. Can you believe this?
https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/1144341924821852160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
What’s next? Paying for the diets of transfats???
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-Gtg3sVAAAepsL.jpg:large
https://youtu.be/sFBOQzSk14c
Come on, Jack … I want to CROW … and you won’t give me a venue.
Didn’t the ladies do well? I am so pleased.
And just let the Orange One open his mouth … just let him … the ladies will, figuratively (for the time being), pound his tiny crotch-grabbers to dust!
Oh, Joy! Oh, bliss!
Libby, you can crow, that’s fine. I don’t mind. And yes, your ladies did extremely well. I didn’t like their message, but they delivered it with style and class. They were very convincing and no doubt they will be believed by millions of voters.
“They were very convincing and no doubt they will be believed by millions of voters.”
But the reality will be, those are just words.
Yep, its just words to get elected. They lie to get votes, shameful, but an old time practice. I noticed a few of the more honest candidates actually admitted that their follow candidates were doing exactly that. Only voters could believe time and again that candidates can’t offer trillions of dollars in free stuff without having a plan for the taxpayer to pick up the tab. But, they (candidates) don’t want to say that, they just talk about the free part. Like I said, its just shameful. Remember Obama dollars? None of those idiot voters ever asked where Obama dollars came from!
Did you noticed during the last debate, the zinger commie-Kamala Harris said to quiet the other candidates, “People don’t want a food fight – they want to know what you’re going to do to put food on the table?” Of course this got wild cheers for audience. But, the better question to ask, the one that no democrat would ever ask a constituent is, “What is [your] plan to put food on the table? Because putting food on the family table really isn’t the government’s job!!!”
Government is only here to offer temporary assistance to those in temp need and long term assistance to those unable to care for themselves. It was never meant to offer everyone a minimum standard of living – that’s pure socialism and yet we see generations being raised on welfare. We’re creating tens of millions of people dependent on government to put food on the table and they will be casting a vote for yet more free stuff. The democrats are counting on it – that’s how they won CA.
Framers of the constitution wrote into the constitution that the people granted to the federal government specific functions, few rights and no provision for the federal government to assume or exercise any rights or privileges not delegated to it by the people.
However, politicians tend to take all the power and authority with which they can get away.
Lets assume many if not all go into public life with high moral standards and intentions. the reality is most soon become greedy and join the other leeches in an effort to suck as much blood as possible from the taxpayers.
Democrats say that government is a positive force for good (beyond peacekeeping and dispute resolution), and they intend to make it an even bigger force for good. (put food on your table, come on!) if they get into office.
With few exceptions, Democrats don’t always do as they had promised. Democratic presidents have a tendency to increased the size and power of the federal government.
Beginning with Andrew Jackson, Democratic Presidents have attempted and generally succeeding in growing the federal government by any means possible and do so without principle. Add in a favorable Congress, and they were able to get government mandated
expansion programs passed and signed into law.
However, government is incapable of mandating fairness or social justice, unless it’s willing to compel the governed to think and believe in lockstep — and how often does that succeed?
The problem is that what is fair to some is manifestly unfair to others, and no amount of government coercion can change that.
What this country desperately needs is a smaller less intrusive government, but based on some of the hand raising during the Democratic debates, your not going to get it from them.
Harold, I really enjoyed reading your comment. You obviously put a lot of thought into this and said some very important things,especially about our nation’s start and where we are heading. Well done my friend, very well done.
“However, government is incapable of mandating fairness or social justice, ….”
True. But it can jail the fraudsters, fine the polluters, and otherwise coerce employers caught discriminating against perfectly viable employees.
We will continue to do so, with or without your approval … just as soon as the TA is sent packing.
Harold: “Democrats say that government is a positive force for good (beyond peacekeeping and dispute resolution), and they intend to make it an even bigger force for good. (put food on your table, come on!) if they get into office.”
No, our argument is that government can be a positive force for good when used correctly. We are not blind to the ways government can be used for evil–if we were, we wouldn’t be protesting the horrific conditions in the border camps, or police brutality, or Trump’s travel ban. I never see a lot of right-wingers protesting these things–so it seems they’re OK with “big government” when it punishes the people they want punished.
Saw this tweet today from a Trump supporter railing against AOC for allegedly “yelling in a threatening manner” at border patrol (note: the DC Examiner reporter who broke this story was previously found to have fabricated a story on Muslim “prayer rugs” found at the border):
“If she hates our government so much, why is sh in government at all?”
This comment made me reflect on how much the right has changed in just a few years under Trump. In 2012, hating the government was basically seen as a qualification for office by Tea Party Republicans. But now those same “small government” conservatives are supporting big government ventures like building a giant border wall and nationalizing Facebook and Twitter to stop them from being mean to conservatives. And it just makes me wonder, were they always like this? They’ve always been in favor of a wall, so again, I have to assume that their real objection wasn’t to “big government” at all, it was to using government in ways they didn’t like.
It is also misleading to say that Democrats have expanded the power of the federal government without also talking about how Reagan, Bush, and Trump did the exact same thing.
Thank You Jack, I am inspired a lot of from articles I read, so I can’t take all the credit, however I was motivated by your posting of the Declaration of Independence.
After listening to it read, I wondered just how far from the original intent of the founding fathers we have drifted.
Lots of opions out there, but the common message is, We are so off course today, and given the undercurrent of today’s politics I have concerns about what’s needed in correcting our course.
Most disturbing to me is that that we have so much hate attempting (achieving) to divide the country if only for votes. So I tried to reason out the purpose of so much hate, if only to either better understand why.
Surely it can not just be because of any one man.
I hoped if you can understand the purpose of such hate and the political process driving it, maybe by sharing whatever you find could help someone else and so on. Seems to me, honest reporting of information is the only way to make a dent to resolve today’s issues.
I have mentioned it before, Post Scripts is a
great source of information. Tina (miss her posts)along with yourself and others have brought to light a lot of information that voters need to face the issues we have today.
“Libby, you can crow, that’s fine. I don’t mind. And yes, your ladies did extremely well. I didn’t like their message, but they delivered it with style and class. ”
Thanks for the compliments, Jack.
I agree that the female candidates outshone the male ones at the debates this week. (Except for Marianne Williamson. Despite being a human meme generator, she’s completely nuts.) I thought Biden was particularly weak and I really hope he’s not the nominee.
But whoever it ends up being, I hope we will have even more Republicans than in 2016 who decide that Trump’s character, daily divisive attacks, and lack of competence just aren’t worth whatever policy victories he gets for your side. Every person on that stage was more qualified and competent than this man, and would not pose nearly the national security risk he does. His bizarre story about stopping an attack on Iran because he wasn’t informed of civilian casualties until ten minutes before it was scheduled is either a lie or evidence of dementia. His other comments this week indicating he has no idea what “bussing” or “western-style liberalism” refer to indicate a crippling lack of knowledge and/or a declining mental state.
I think in 2016 many Trump voters hoped that the office would humble him and he would stop tweeting out personal attacks toward citizens and corporations that displeased him. Right-wingers hated when Obama did this–remember the “beer summit?”–and Trump has taken it to new extremes, finding new people to feud with every week. This is not strength.
A more important weakness is his constant bowing to dictators in ways that right-wingers couldn’t have imagined under Obama. (Well, that isn’t necessarily true–they imagined Obama doing it a lot. Trump has actually done it.) At the same time Trump is crowing about meeting KJU in North Korea with no conditions and getting nothing in return, people are digging up old tweets of Trump supporters working themselves into a frenzy by imagining Obama doing that exact thing. How can this hypocrisy be allowed to stand unchallenged?
Trump also joked with Putin this week about their mutual hatred for journalists (Putin has them killed). When asked by a reporter if he would tell Putin not to meddle in the election again, Trump responded “That’s none of your business.” (So much for transparency.) When he was in Putin’s presence and was asked again to tell Putin not to meddle, he turned to Putin with a smile on his face and said “Don’t meddle in the election.” Putin responded with laughter. Again, if this had happened under Obama right-wingers would be screaming about how humiliating it was for our country. And they’d be right.
The Mueller report shows that Trump knew Russia was meddling at the time he was denying it, and eagerly benefited from the attack. This alone makes him a national security risk even if you ignore his incompetence and appointments of compromised people such as son-in-law Jared Kushner to positions that require security clearances.
It is time to do what many NeverTrumpers did in 2016 and choose principles over party and policies. Trump is a danger to our country. He is the most intentionally divisive president in modern times, and has never once tried to appeal outside of his narrow base. I can only hope many who voted Trump in 2016 see the error of their ways and vote against him in 2020.
Son, Ya’all got a big hole in that fence. Most of what yer sayn’ is not worth spit.
Lordy Load, why do ya git so bowed up
(bowed up fer Yankees means that someone is ornery as all git out).
Round these parts we learned early on not to drink crick water down stream from the herd.
And seems to us folks, what yer passin’ on (bein’ polite)is bout the same as herd water.
Not even an attempt at a rebuttal. Pathetic as usual, Lone Star.
LOL – Let’s see how many Pinocchios she gets from the WaPo?
https://www.blabber.buzz/conservative-news/604455-she-lied-kamala-harris-says-she-was-in-second-integrated-class-in-berkeley-but-yearbok-pictures-prove-shes-lying?utm_source=c-am&utm_medium=c-am-email&utm_term=c-am-ATT&fbclid=IwAR0M-4WiHX1rmhWkOmp-VhWRjahZONOSMEJ_TWcxJsxbDK2urtWS7HKlOdI
With this group of Demwit Socialists, we’re gonna need Pinocchios by the trainload!
ROFLMAO…good one J.S.
How many has Trump received?
Dang, ifn’ that comeback wasn’t as exciting as a mashed tater sandwich.
Not as many as Obama. LOL
As usual, Lone Star, you don’t answer the question because you can’t bring yourself to answer the question. I raise serious points, and you respond with a boring gimmick. What do you think this proves?
Peggy: “LOL – Let’s see how many Pinocchios she gets from the WaPo?”
Me: “How many has Trump received?”
Peggy: “Not as many as Obama. LOL.”
Peggy, this is a lie.
While I was unable to find a counter of the number of Pinocchios per president, the fact-checker behind those Pinnochios, Glenn Kessler, says that Trump has told a total of 10,000 lies since he became president. (This does not even include lies told before becoming president, like his birther lies about Obama, his lies about Ted Cruz’s father having something to do with the JFK assassination, his lies about seeing video of thousands of Muslims celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey, or the lies about his finances and sex life he told newspapers and gossip columns under the false name “John Barron.”)
While I was unable to find Kessler’s estimate of the number of lies told by Obama, there is no evidence that he came close to having as many Pinocchios in the Washington Post as Trump.
Trump lies more than most politicians on both the left and right. This is a fact. Do you really deny this fact? If so, why?
Why are you laughing at your own lie, Peggy? Obama did not get as many Pinnochios from WaPo as Trump. According to the Post’s fact-checker, Trump has told over 10,000 lies since his inauguration, and that doesn’t even include the lies during his campaign or his long career of leaking fake news about himself under the psuedonym “John Barron.” How many Pinnochios should you get for your false claim about Obama and Trump’s Pinnochios?
Not as many as Kessler claims. Shame on you for spreading lies. Liars/you need to stop calling other people liars.
——
Washington Post’s 10,000 Trump untruths is about 25% fake news:
“President Donald Trump, according to one well-publicized tally, has told 10,000 whoppers during this presidency.
His falsehoods include such incredible claims such as accurately stating the number of new jobs since the election. Or Trump saying he signed executive orders that he did, in fact, sign. Or claiming that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wants corporate taxes to increase, worker wages to rise, and stock buybacks to end, wants 401(k) values to “dissipate.”
If those don’t sound so fraudulent, that’s because they’re not. The Washington Post’s count of what it calls “false and misleading statements,” and what other media outlets quickly short-handed to “lies” by Trump, is itself inflated.
Sensing that the fact checkers are a bit too quick on the draw, I decided to review a series of contentions made by Glenn Kessler and the fact-checking team at the Washington Post. Rather than review all 10,000, I focused on the most recent 50 claims in both “economy” and “jobs,” mostly because I’m confident in the subject matter, and the data is well at hand. I found 27 out of 100 Trump comments to be defensible if not unimpeachably accurate.
—
Kessler, to his credit, responded to a number of questions about his rankings.
“Many of the economic comments you have highlighted would be in the Two Pinocchio range [on its 1-4 scale], in which important context is missing or factual information is exaggerated (i.e., lowest unemployment rate in history, when the data only goes back 30 years, or describing the low as current when it took place a while ago),” he said in an email. “As you well know, ‘literally true’ comments can be misleading without the proper context, especially in the economic sphere.”
Kessler also said the newspaper has only used the word “lie” once — about Trump’s comments on Stormy Daniels hush money — and tries to distance its assessments from that word. “We are always careful to say this is a list of false or misleading statements, but I obviously can’t control how other people write about our work,” he said.
I also asked Kessler about his criticizing Trump for not including context, but not providing context in his criticism, particularly when such surrounding information would be helpful toward the president.
For example, I pointed out that, while the U.S. is not the fastest growing economy in the world, as Trump has stated, it is nonetheless the fastest in the developed world, which the Post did not point out. “Your point about growth in the developed world is a fair one and I will consider adding that context, though that is not what Trump said,” he said.
I also asked Kessler whether Trump deliberately exaggerates to get “caught out” — so that he can insert into the public discussion an underlying claim that’s mostly true. “I covered Trump 30 years ago as a business reporter and he’s no different now than when he was then. He’s never been especially accurate,” he said.
It’s also important to stress, that the Washington Post exaggerating the truth about Trump is not to say that the president isn’t uniquely untruthful. Even if you accept the 25% figure I come up with, and give another 5%-to-10% leeway for comments pretty close or almost true, Trump does spout untruths on a daily basis, sometimes wildly at odds with the facts.
But it also seems that fact checkers, like Kessler, have a reflexive bias toward declaring Trump comments as untrue.
Here’s a selection of Trump statements that Kessler’s team said were “untruths” that just aren’t.”
continue to chart…
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/washington-posts-10000-trump-untruths-is-about-25-fake-news-2019-04-29
You should also enjoy this Chris.
The Massive Lies Of Past Presidents Make Trump Look Honest:
“What the media rarely include in their assessment of Trump’s truthfulness is that all presidents lie. In fact, since John F. Kennedy, every president has lied about far more serious things than Trump’s embellishments about his wealth, his girlfriends of decades ago or the size of his inaugural crowd.
The monumental presidential lie of the last half century is President Nixon’s denial of White House involvement in the Watergate burglary. Nixon lied until he was forced to release tapes that proved his part in the cover-up, which forced him to resign.
Some historians have tried to equate Reagan’s Iran-contra affair with Watergate, but Iran-contra was not Watergate redux. Reagan did not try to cover up Iran-contra, but directed his attorney general to conduct an immediate and thorough inquiry. Unlike Nixon, Reagan did not approve wiretaps, did not direct the IRS to examine people’s tax returns, did not compile an enemies’ list, and did not attempt to manipulate the FBI and the CIA in their investigations. Reagan approved the arms-for-hostages deal to save American lives — Nixon tried to contain the Watergate scandal to save himself.
As we now know, President John F. Kennedy covered up his precarious health (he had Addison’s disease, a serious hormonal condition), denied his many extra-marital affairs with gangster molls and Hollywood stars, and lied about a non-existent “missile gap” in the 1960 presidential race. Once elected, he allowed the Pentagon to announce that no missile gap existed.
President Bill Clinton narrowly escaped impeachment for lying about his Oval Office affair with Monica Lewinsky (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”). President Obama lied almost daily about his health care proposal, promising, “If you like your health care plan you’ll be able to keep your health care plan.” That lie helped secure the passage of Obamacare and compelled four million Americans to seek another health care plan.
The most consequential presidential liar was Lyndon B. Johnson, who repeatedly promised during the 1964 presidential campaign, “We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” At the very same time and with Johnson’s approval, the Pentagon was drawing up plans to send the first wave of more than 100,000 American servicemen to Vietnam. Johnson’s macho determination not to “lose” Vietnam led him to keep increasing the number of American troops until they reached over 500,000. His strategy produced ever mounting U.S. fatalities, reaching a total of 58,000 by the time fighting ended in 1973.
Trump is not guilty of any lie, falsehood, fabrication, false claim, or toxic exaggeration that equals the lies of one past president whose Alamo-sized ego caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and another chief executive who denied his serial adultery. Most Americans can see the difference between an out-and-out lie and self-evident hyperbole, even if the mainstream press and Trump’s political opponents cannot or will not.”
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-massive-lies-past-presidents-make-trump-look-honest
Peggy, the claim was about, in your words, “Pinocchios from the WaPo.” Since Kessler is the only person who awards those, your claim that Obama received more than Trump is wrong even if you disagree with Kessler’s methodology.
The MarketWatch article you shared concedes that most of Kessler’s work is right. It also suggests that Trump is “uniquely untruthful” and concedes that he “lies on a daily basis.” Did you not read the whole thing? While it takes issue with some of Kessler’s conclusions it generally supports my claim that Trump lies more.
The Heritage article starts by saying Trump’s lies about his infidelity don’t matter, than says that Clinton’s lies about infidelity were more significant. It ignores Trump’s lies about his campaign members having no connections to Russia while the FBI was investigating that very thing. It arbitrarily decides that Dem presidents’ lies were “more significant” than Trump’s as an excuse to ignore the sheer volume of Trump’s lies. It also falsely claims that Reagan did not try to cover up Iran-Contra. So of the two article you presented, one of them supports my case more than yours and the other is just terrible argued and nakedly partisan. All to support your bizarre claim that I lied by pointing out your false claim about the Washington Post. Typical.
Sorry for posting what was essentially the same comment twice–I thought that comment got lost, given that it didn’t post for three days.