Today's JG rant: So much fake news, so little time

Re: Marty Lemert’s letter “Enablers such as Banks promote 'America Worst’” of Aug 16, 2019

Lemert manages to pack more fake news into 281 words than CNN manages in any particular hour.  About the only things missing were “Trump removed the bust of MLK from the Oval Office” and “hands up, don’t shoot.”

It’s very weird that Lemert would point out that Jim Banks voted to “gut our nation's tax base” when individual tax revenue to the IRS actually has increased about 2% year over year since the tax cut.  Corporate tax revenue in 2019 is expected to be 12% higher than in 2017 and payroll taxes raked in by the IRS are up by nearly 8%. 

I think the bump in tax revenues can be attributed to PDJT lowering unemployment to below 4% and increasing labor participation in America to all-time highs.  Simply put, more people working under PDJT’s robust economics equals greater tax revenues.

As deficits continue to rise, it's clear that we do not have a revenue problem.  Congress has a spending problem.  

Lemert then goes on to misstate PDJT’s quote to “the squad.”  He DID NOT SAY, “go back to where you came from.”  PDJT never demanded or even asked anyone to leave the good ol’ USA.  Rather he posed it as a rhetorical and likely sarcastic question, “"Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.” 

Lemert claims that the El Paso shooters manifesto “reads like the transcript of a Trump rally.”  Clearly Lemert didn’t take the time to read the manifesto where the El Paso shooter, among other things, assails corporate influence in government, worries indecently over automation and environmental issues.  Not exactly the stuff of a Trump rally.  More importantly, the El Paso shooter specifically attributes his warped views to the Christchurch, NZ Mosque shooter and his manifesto – not PDJT.    

Last, Lemert has to throw in the biggest media lie since the NY Times’ obscene 1930’s cover up of the Soviet Union’s genocide by famine in the Ukraine. Standing once again on the side of Stalinist thugs, American MSM and the Democratic Party continue misstate and twist PDJT’s words. The “very fine people” PDJT was referring to were responsible people who did not want a Stalinist mob airbrushing American history by unlawfully destroying our antiquities.  PDJT went to lengths on a couple of occasions in his statement to separate those fine people from white nationalist.     

No one should call Lemert “shortsighted”, when he is clearly just woefully misinformed.

NOTE:  Trump in context:

Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

Reporter: "George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same."

Trump: "George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?"

Reporter: "I do love Thomas Jefferson."

Trump: "Okay, good. Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now, are we going to take down his statue?

"So you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

"Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets, and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group."

Enablers such as Banks promote 'America Worst'

Rep. Jim Banks recently penned an oped bemoaning the fiscal irresponsibility of Congress (Aug. 5). He conveniently forgot to mention his irresponsible vote to gut our nation's tax base and give out trillions to the wealthy and to corporate interests. But in the wake of the carnage in Dayton and El Paso, I would like to highlight his other bankruptcy: his moral bankruptcy.

In Banks' recent Fort Wayne town hall, he could find nothing but praise for Donald Trump and his performance as president. By doing so, he endorsed and legitimized this president's hate-mongering and racist statements, including “go back to where you came from,” Baltimore being “infested” and immigrant “invasions.”

For a moment, I saw a glimmer of hope for Banks' soul when he tweeted that white supremacy and terrorism “should be named, targeted and defeated.” But the darker angels of his nature reappeared when he pronounced later that day that the violence was “perpetrated by extremists from both sides of the political spectrum.” His only evidence of this is that the Dayton shooter voted in a Democratic primary. In contrast, the manifesto attributed to the El Paso shooter reads like the transcript of a Trump rally.

This statement is Banks' version of Trump's “very fine people on both sides” false equivalency following Charlottesville. Banks then went on to accuse anyone who dared criticize the president for his continual fomenting of racial discord as “shortsighted.” Call me shortsighted, but I see clearly what this president and his enablers are doing to the country I love.

He is not promoting America First. He is promoting America Worst. Remember that history is farsighted. And posterity will remember your lack of moral fortitude.

Marty Lemert

Fort Wayne