Documents show how Trump administration misled public on poverty levels - Polidicks

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/02/internal-documents-show-how-trump-administration-state-department-misled-public-on-poverty/ After a U.N. agency issued a report in May on the state of poverty in the United States, concluding that 40 million Americans are poor and more than 5 million live in “Third World conditions,” the Trump administration ridiculed the findings. In an unusually harsh statement the following month, the administration labeled the report “inaccurate, inflammatory and ir responsible,” and included its own data in a rebuttal. But according to internal State Department emails and a document obtained by Foreign Policy and Coda Story, a nonprofit crisis reporting website, the economic officials consulted on a draft of the rebuttal questioned the accuracy of the data the administration was citing. Their comments, typed into the margins of the draft or included in emails, were either watered down or ignored altogether. As a result, the statement the administration issued in June included misleading data and painted an overly optimistic picture of the American economy. Next to a line in the draft which reads: “The U.S. is entering a new era of economic growth and prosperity,” an official from the White House Council of Economic Advisers remarked that the economic growth had long predated Trump and said the trajectory might not last. “Already 8-9 years long … which started under Obama and we inherited and then expanded. But it will end prob in 1 – 2 years. So I’d not get into this,” the official wrote. Again, the final version of the statement, put out by the U.S. Mission to Geneva on June 22, ignored the suggestion and used the original language. In some cases, comments by the officials did prompt a change in the text. “Wages haven’t really picked up, other than for supervisors,” one official from the Council of Economic Advisers wrote in response to a line in the draft about salaries going up. The line was deleted from the final statement. “This triggers the left—best to leave it off,” the official wrote. The State Department’s response appeared to ignore the statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, relying instead on research compiled earlier this year by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which argued that only 250,000 people are living in extreme poverty. “What is your source for stating material hardship is down by 77 percent since 1980?” wrote Trudi Renwick in an email. It’s unclear from the documents whether she received a response. But the draft was modified slightly to say in the final version that based on “some measures of consumption” poverty was down 77 percent since 1980. The final statement cited the Heritage Foundation report, saying that most families living in deep poverty “have air conditioning, a cell phone, a computer, and a DVD player or similar device. Few have been evicted from their home or even had their utilities disconnected for non-payment. Hunger is rare.”

“Already 8-9 years long … which started under Obama Holy fuck I've had it with Republicans and their war on reality. We've gotten to the point where they will lie about things that are only around 10 YEARS AGO and fucking morons will believe them. Fuck off.

I mean Trump has been known to lie about things that happened ten seconds ago on live TV. It's not really a surprise at this point.

What poverty? There's no poverty in the US, everyone is a billionaire. The Free Market allowed everyone to profit from everyone else's hard work, naturally. The internet old me Europe is a war zone with brown people raping everywhere and no food. Go investigate them! /s

It’s classic GOP rhetoric: Democrat President fixes the economy, but gains aren’t seen until Republican gets in, who whined about how shitty his predecessor did, then brags about how well their economy is before ruining it and blaming the next guy for it.

"we did not trade arms for hostages"

Well of course not. Hostages have at least two arms most of the time so you clearly wouldn't be getting a fair trade!

lies brought to you daily by your government.