The first moderately hopeful signs are emerging regarding the coronavirus crisis — but those will also bring new challenges, both in public health and in politics.
In Europe, the two worst hot spots, Italy and Spain, are beginning to cool, even though their problems remain severe.
In New York, by far the worst-hit U.S. state, there has been a notable drop in new hospitalizations related to the coronavirus — even as the Empire State recorded its highest one-day death toll, with 731 new deaths, on Monday. Continue reading.
President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping arrive at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People on November 9, 2017, in Beijing. Credit: Thomas Peter, Pool, Getty Images
He confuses tariffs and interest rates, and invents phantom new steel plants.
At one point during his latest interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump mixes up tariffs (a kind of sales tax imposed on imported goods) with interest rates, which are the extra money you owe when you take out a loan. Bob Davis, the journalist conducting the interview, corrects the president. It’s the kind of verbal slip that could happen to anyone. Except that Trump, after acknowledging the error, flips back around and makes it again later in the interview.
And it’s not just some random issue where he can’t keep the words straight. Trade policy is, along with immigration, one of his signature issues where he personally has really made a mark and is governing in a way that other Republicans probably wouldn’t. During the 2016 campaign, it was routine to warn that Trump’s blundering ignorance on trade matters would end up tanking the global economy. That hasn’t happened, and in reality, the continuation of the steady recovery that began midway through Obama’s first term has been the clear bright spot of Trump-era America.
The following article by Damian Paletta and Jeff Stein was posted on the Washington Post website September 10, 2018:
Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett said Sept. 10 he couldn’t explain President Trump’s false tweet about the economy. (The Washington Post)
The White House’s top economist on Monday acknowledged that President Trump had made a false statement hours earlier when he used a pair of statistics to describe the strong economy.
Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, speaking in the White House press room, said he did not know how Trump obtained the false information.
“The history of thought about how errors happen is not something I can engage in, because from the initial fact to what the president said, I don’t know the whole chain of command,” Hassett said.
The following article by John Wagner and Josh Dawsey was posted on the Washington Post website December 9, 2017:
President Trump speaks at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
PENSACOLA, Fla. — What has become President Trump’s calculation — and great hope — amid the spiraling Russia investigation, his historically low poll numbers, troubles abroad, uneven legislative progress and the seemingly never-ending chaos emanating from his White House can be summed up in one sentence, he said here Friday night.
“With us it goes up, and with them it goes down, and that’s the end of the election,” the New York real estate developer-turned-president said of the stock market, predicting his reelection three years in advance.
Trump showed up in vintage form for 76 minutes Friday night, mocking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Apprentice” ratings, joking that Hillary Clinton must have listened to “the Russians” when she didn’t visit Michigan or Wisconsin in the 2016 election, and torching protesters from the “resistance” while twirling and holding his arm up, as if to carry a sign. Continue reading “In Florida, Trump banks on economy outweighing his many woes in campaign-style speech”
The following article by Kevin Shih was posted on the Conversation website February 23, 2017:
Immigrant Elon Musk isn’t taking anyone’s job: he’s created thousands at Tesla and SpaceX. Stephen Lam/Reuters
Immigrants have long been a scapegoat when economies are sputtering, jobs are being lost or security is a concern.
President Donald Trump’s planned wall along the Mexican border, for example, is premised on the notion that immigrants are pouring across the border (they’re not), taking Americans’ jobs (they haven’t) and committing a disproportionate share of crimes (they don’t).
The following article by Tom K. Wong was posted on the Center for American Progress website January 26, 2017:
AP/Gerald Herbert The historic Treme section of New Orleans, October 2012.
Introduction and summary
As the Trump administration begins to implement its immigration policy agenda, the issue of local assistance with federal immigration enforcement officials is back in the spotlight. So-called sanctuary jurisdictions are one focus of that debate. Sanctuary counties—as defined by this report—are counties that do not assist federal immigration enforcement officials by holding people in custody beyond their release date.1 Using an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dataset obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center,2 the analyses in this report provide new insights about how sanctuary counties perform across a range of social and economic indicators when compared to non-sanctuary counties. Continue reading “The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy”
The first moderately hopeful signs are emerging regarding the coronavirus crisis — but those will also bring new challenges, both in public health and in politics.
