State of the Onion, 2020

Last night Donald Trump delivered a tearful State of the Onion speech.  I say tearful with both meanings of the word tearful in mind.  First, it means a sadness where tears well up in the eyes and then, tear-full (TARE-ful) in that Nancy Pelosi tore it up at the end.  Trump broke out his greatest hits to the applause of exactly 196 Republicans and one turtle.  Like most Trump speeches, his remarks were filled with fun facts.  When I say facts here, I’m referring to Rudy Giuliani truths, where truth isn’t the truth.  Rudy was spot on with his analysis of this administration and The Donald didn’t disappoint.  Not since Trump claimed an American invented the wheel has he spouted such “new knowledge.”  I call profound statements made by Trump, with no basis or foundation in any reality known to mankind, “new knowledge.”  It is new in that nobody “knew” it before and it is knowledge because so many mouth-breathing MAGA hatters really believe this stuff.  Leonidas from Greece is no longer around, having died over 5,000 years ago, to claim that it was he who took his potter’s wheel and used it to make a wheelbarrow, and not some unnamed American with U.S. Patent  #000001.  Trump thinks it was Fred Flintstone from the town of Bedrock, Kansas (a well-known KC Chiefs fan) who invented the wheel.  The patent status is still under a cloud because Barney Rubble has made a counterclaim.

Pelosi Rips Trump a New One (speech)

State of the Onion

Trump stated, “I am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been.”  This is absolutely true if you are the President of the United States, a member of congress, a member of Trump’s family, work on Wall Street, own Amazon, or generally don’t work for wages.  Trump’s own Labor Department reported that “median weekly earnings fell 0.6% in inflation-adjusted dollars in the second quarter, compared to the same time period of 2017.  When you are a billionaire, inflation doesn’t hurt much.  The cost of the fuel for your private jet just went up but you can write that off as a business expense.  But, when you are deciding between your rent, food, and your child’s medication, but don’t have enough income to afford all three, inflation matters.

Adjusted GDP

Trump continued the speech by paying homage to Richard Nixon, the 1919 White Sox, Charles Ponzi, P. T. Barnum, and Pinocchio, when he claimed, “From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy … enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts.”  Where can we begin with this one?  The largest tax cuts in history were under Ronald Reagan whose cuts represented 2.89% of GDP where Trump’s amount to just 0.9%.  Trump’s tax cuts take the number eight slot for this century.  It would seem that Trump not only slept through geography in school but math was also a snore-fest.

Job Growth under 3 presidents compared

He babbled on, “Since my election, we have created 7 million new jobs.”  Here he takes credit for the 300,000 jobs created under Obama while Trump was just the president-elect and not yet in charge.  He seems to think that he can make that claim because his mere election was enough for the economy to improve. Under Obama’s last three years job creation numbers were 227,000 per month.  Under Trump’s first three years, he has averaged only 191,000 per month.  So, for Trump’s first three years he missed Obama’s numbers by a mere 1,296,000.  These fake news numbers are brought to you by Trump’s own Labor Department.

Note what Trump "inherited" from Obama

The beat goes on with, “In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working-age people dropped out of the workforce.  In just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people, working-age people, have joined the workforce.”  What Trump and his applauding Republicans in Congress seem to selectively forget, it was Obama that took office during one of the most disastrous economic situations since the Great Depression, not Trump.  The Great Huckster would have you believe that he inherited a disaster from Obama, just as he would have you believe he was born into poverty (in a manger) and is a self-made man.  When Trump took office, the economy was already improving and the labor force participation-rate was 62.8%.  Now, under Trump, it is 63.2%.  Trump can therefore claim a 0.4% improvement here that is still 2.4% lower than pre-recession numbers.

Trump addresses 196 Republicans and 1 turtle

The Trumpster went on to say, “Since my election, the net worth of the bottom half of wage earners has increased by 47 percent — three times faster than the increase for the top 1 percent.”  Here I would challenge Trump to find anyone in the bottom half of wage earners who wouldn’t trade their “47%” improvement with that of almost anyone in the top 5% who hold almost three-quarters of all the wealth in the U.S.  You can’t measure the net worth of someone in debt and if anyone should know about being in debt, I would rate Trump an expert in the field.  At this point, I think Pinocchio not only needs a nose job but a change of underwear too.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Trump on oil and energy, “Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far.”  What he fails to acknowledge is that the U.S. led the world in natural gas production in 2009, and took the lead over from Russia and Saudi Arabia in oil production in 2013.  Trump can only take credit for not screwing up a good thing.  That is, if you can count improving our fossil fuel economy and screwing up the environment in the process as a good thing.  He wasn’t through with his energy boasts when he added, “With the tremendous progress we have made over the past three years, America is now energy independent.”  Hold on Pinocchio; let me open up a window to give that nose some room to grow.  If we are energy independent, why did we import almost 10 million barrels of oil per day from around 90 different countries in 2018?

We still import oil

Trump on “factory building” said, “After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration, with thousands upon thousands of plants and factories being planned or built.”  Here Trump conjures up visions of steel mills and auto assembly plants when the numbers include any establishment that makes components into a new product.  By that logic, a new fleet of ten Taco Trucks would count as ten new factories.  More than 80% of the new “factories” employ fewer than five people.

Trump Opens Another New Factory

To cap off the evening’s festivities, Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh.  The conservative talk-show host shed a tear, along with many other Americans, when the announcement was made.  Not all tears were for the same reason.  Like Trump, Rush has different views on a variety of topics.  Rush has denied climate change (like Trump), was addicted to opiates which probably caused his total deafness (now has dual Cochlear implants), is famous for his racist beliefs, ridiculed Michael J. Fox claiming he was faking his Parkinson's (Trump mocked Serge F. Kovaleski’s arthrogryposis),  and denied that smoking (first and second-hand) causes cancer and that it takes over 50 years for even cigarette smokers to get cancer.  Rush recently announced he has advanced lung cancer at age 69.

Young Rush Limbaugh when he believed smoking didn't cause cancer.

Rush is also noted for his misogynistic statements like, “The sexual harassment crowd,” he said. “They’re out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them.”  Rush compares women to cats, “My cat comes to me when she wants to be fed. She’s smart enough to know she can’t feed herself. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. And she doesn’t have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat’s taught me more about women than anything in my whole life.”   Rush also said on women, “I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”  Rush should know all about women, he is now on his fourth wife.

Rush and Donald, like brothers from another mother.  Rush now joins Paul Harvey and Lowell Thomas as radio personalities who have won the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Paul Harvey and Lowell Thomas were glowing examples of what excellence in radio broadcasting was all about.  Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump are prime examples of the lowering of national standards and expectations.   That whirring sound you hear is from Paul and Lowell spinning in their graves.

Lowell Thomas

Paul Harvey