President Trump is Outright Lying to Americans

You may not have noticed, but recently you have to do more and more of your own research to determine the actual facts that exist about issues impacting our country today.  As a commentary writer, who is retired, I have the time to do this, and am somewhat sensitive to quoted statistics that don’t make sense.

One recently quoted statistic by President Trump just got my full my attention. In a recent news conference celebrating the destroying of Venezuelan ships allegedly carrying drugs, the president stated that drugs “killed 300,000 in our country last year.”  Obviously, this was another swipe at the supposedly out of control societal ales which occurred under the Biden administration.

It wasn’t hard to check last year’s drug deaths since it is readily available from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. They reported the following:  “In the United States, in 2024, there were an estimated 80,391 deaths due to drug overdoses, which includes deaths from illicit drug use. This figure represents a significant decrease of about 27% from the approximately 110,037 overdose deaths estimated in 2023. The decline in overdose deaths is notable as it is projected to be the lowest annual total since 2019. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl remain the primary driver behind most of these deaths, although deaths from these substances also decreased substantially during 2024.”

Almost a quarter of million error in reporting this information to the American people.  Why do that?  Just for personal embellishment?  And how many more statistical falsehoods are being fed to Americans by the present administration for the same reason?  I have found many.

Rightfully so, most Americans simply accept these doled out statistics as factual because they are coming from the highest office in the United States government. So why would anyone in their wildest imagination assume they might be false?  And to make matters worse, the news media has been so successfully brow beaten by the ‘fake news’ label that they no longer even bother to question or correct these outlandish espoused statistics.

As someone degreed in statistical research, with a love for stats, I am abhorred at what is now taking place. But, obviously there is no end in sight to this foolishness, and it is now possibly to the point that no one should believe any statistics espoused by our government leaders.

Frightfully, I am talking about a very dangerous situation, the alteration of facts by government officials to comply with their agenda.  And we are not talking about some minor overemphasis just to prove at point, but major statistical atrocities.

So do your own fact checking if you really want to know the truth about important issues facing our country, because your research is the only one you can now trust.

It's Time to Stop the Perpetual Divisiveness

When a tragedy occurs in the magnitude of the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk one should take pause and remind themselves of the reality of what occurred; a sole heinous act of violence committed by a mentally disturbed individual.

However, apparently our society has moved beyond such logic, for instead of using such an event as a time for healing and bringing folks together, it leaders have chosen to politicize it and create yet more animosity and divisiveness among us as a nation.

Here is what President Trump said after the shooting:  “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the worst mass murders and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.” He then promised to find “each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone who brings order to our country.”  Trump cited the attacks on Rep. Steve Scalise, in 2017, and the attack on himself as examples of what he termed the Left radicalization against Republicans.

However, what he conveniently failed to mention were any attacks against Democrats, the most recent being the murders of Melissa Hortman, her husband, and dog.

Additionally, many conservatives have also inferred that there has been a nationwide war declared on the Republican Party and blame Democrats for Kirk's death.  Fox News host Jesse Watters called the death a "turning point," and MAGA architect Steve Bannon saying on his War Room podcast, "Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country."

Several other political commentators have echoed similar rhetoric.  For example Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said on X: "The Left (Democrats) owns what happened yesterday." Elon Musk wrote on X: "The Left is the party of murder." Actor and conservative activist James Woods wrote on X: "It's not gun violence, it's Democrat violence."

 

For the record, the shooter had no declared political party affiliation, but did come from a family of Republicans, and the Trump shooter was a registered Republican. All of which further illustrates the foolishness and intentional divisiveness fueled by these radical comments trying to link this shooting to a political ideology.

 

Former President Barack Obama said on X:  "We don't yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie's family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children."

 

Now, of all the responses I have cited, which one is the only one that promotes a healing and bringing together of our country rather than polarizing and dividing it further?  And which one doesn’t serve as a violent call to arms?

 

Obviously some folks just need to get a grip and stop the political grandstanding foolishness, before it’s too late to bring our country back from more violence, more divisiveness and more hatred of one another.

 

Charlie Kirk was a son, a husband, and a father who was senselessly killed by a mentally disturbed individual who apparently felt distain and animosity for his political agenda.  And sadly, we now have leaders who want to further sow more distain and animosity.

Let's hold everyone responsible

The horrific death of 12 year old Bryan Vasquez by an alligator attack was a tragedy that quite possibly could have been prevented.  And interestingly the media has chosen to focus its headline news on the past abuses the boy received from his caretaker.  The harsh reality is this young man was failed by the New Orleans Police Department, the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.  And none seem to be the center of media’s investigative reporting surrounding this child’s death.   Why the protective cover for these departments?   I believe if this child had not been disabled, of Mexican dissent, and from an economically challenged family, the coverage of this incident might have been entirely different.

The NOPD’s delayed response to the reporting of the missing child was inexcusable, and employee repercussions need to be issued.  Additionally, a review of the child’s suffering abuses over the years provides no plausible reason for why the child was ever returned to the custody of his caretaker by the Department of Child and Family Services. And, after several previous complaints regarding alligator sightings in the lake where the boy was attacked, apparently the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries took little to no action.

This poor young child simply didn’t have a chance with all this stacked against him.

So when will the media take off the kid’s gloves and hold everyone accountable for their respective roles in this young child’s death, and stop using the child’s caretaker as the scapegoat?

Conspiracy theorists dash hopes for cancer vaccines

When I was just in my early to mid-twenties, I remember President Nixon promising to find a cure for cancer during his term as President.  Sadly, some 56 years later that promise has yet to come to fruition, and my departed wife was a testimony to that. There have been many conspiracy theories circulated about why this hasn’t occurred. The most prominent one being that drug companies do not wish to find a cure or prevention because that would kill their ‘golden goose’ of the tremendous profits they reap from the cost of their cancer treatment drugs.  And added to that theory is the fact that some of the recent ground breaking research regarding the treatment of cancer comes mainly from foreign countries.

However, recently there had been a new ray of hope in the prevention of cancer, but it too has most likely been doomed to failure by conspiracy theorists. The COVID epidemic lead to a new way of developing vaccines.  It is known as the mRNA technology.  Basically in the past, immune responses to diseases were created in our bodies through the use of vaccines putting a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. The first step of this procedure involved the actual growing of the disease in the lab, which was time consuming.  However, under ideal conditions this type of vaccine triggered our body’s immune system to develop a resistance to this disease, resulting in a total prevention or a less severe case.

In contrast, mRNA vaccines use a genetic code to tell the body’s cells to produce proteins that train the immune system to produce protection.  mRNA technology allows researchers to develop vaccines quickly since labs don't have to initially grow copies of the virus. It is important to note that both procedures involve the process of injecting a foreign substance into the body.

However, since the mRNA substance was not naturally grown, but instead manufactured in a lab, the conspiracy folks have had a field day.  Without going into a lengthy debate about the safety and total lack of understanding these folks had about the mRNA technology used in the development of the COVID vaccines, one simply needs to look at the data from Israel. They vaccinated early on more people with all versions of these vaccines than any country, and carefully monitored these folks.  Additionally, these new vaccines were used world-wide. According to the World Health Organization,13.64 billion people or 67% world-wide were initially vaccinated. This is far more extensive than any use in the U.S. and  provides significantly more data regarding their safety. They were safe, but of course some did experience side effects as do some with conventionally developed vaccines, but these side effects never received the same sensationalized media coverage that the mRNA side effects did.

However, one of the greatest benefits of this emerging mRNA technology was that it could finally lead to the development of cancer preventing vaccines.  But, sadly we can forget about that dream, because the present administration has just cut all funding for mRNA vaccines research.  Half a billion dollars had already been spent on this research development at various laboratories and universities, and now that background work has been thrown out and shut down.  However, ironically, China has increased support for this technology.

So hooray for the anti-vax, conspiracy theorists that President Trump has now infiltrated into the Department of Health and Human Services, along with Louisiana congressman Bill Cassidy and other Trump political loyalists, for they have successfully insured the continual survival of cancer in the U.S.  And you would think, of all loyalists, Rep. Steve Scalise would know better. Thanks ‘For Making America Great Again.’

A Time for Worry?

Should I be concerned? Two recent media reports that were pretty much glossed over started me thinking about what might be really happening in our country.  Last week the Smithsonian Institute removed from its display about the history of American Presidents all references to Donald Trump’s impeachment proceedings that occurred in 2019 and 2021. The impeachment proceedings reporting for former presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Jackson were left in place. To make matters worse, some of the text elsewhere in the exhibit still mentions that 3 U.S. Presidents went through impeachment proceedings, but the factual historical information detailing who they were now includes only two.

So are we now to the point of countries like China and Russian who forbid the mentioning of any historical events that run counter to the image the ruling power wishes to advocate.  China did this when it removed all references to its 2019 slaughter of pro-democratic demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.  All references to this incident are forbidden and lead to immediate arrest if mentioned publicly.  Additionally, in Russia, officials who opposed Joseph Stalin’s agenda were not only removed from their government positions but also from all photographs and history books.  And others just quietly disappeared entirely.

While Smithsonian Officials have denied that they received any pressure from the White House to make this change, Trump’s officials do control the funding for this institution, and in March, the US president signed an executive order to remove “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution’s properties and deny funding for exhibits that “degrade shared American values.”   Whatever that means!

The other media reporting that caught my eye was the abrupt firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after her reporting of the latest monthly job figures.  These figures indicated, contrary to what the present administration has been advocating, that the economy is back sliding, not flourishing.  This information comes from surveys returned by actual employers. The commissioner simply reports the numbers tabulated from these surveys, and contrary to what the present administration would like us to believe they are not simply pulled out of thin air. There is a factual paper trail. And often the previous month’s figures are revised due to the late submission of the employers’ surveys.  The commissioner has little control over this. So the fact that the two previous months’ job figures were revised downwards further showing continued back sliding doesn’t support the excuse that the commissioner was fired due to previous errors made because she changed the figures.   No errors were made, just 3 months of backsliding after late submissions were included.

I can only guess this was just too much for the present administration to bear, so as is usually the ‘persecuted soul ‘ game plan, Trump called the figures ‘fake news’ and ‘politically motivated’ just to make him look bad, and sought to remedy the situation by putting someone in there that will issue (manufacture) the "correct" positive ones that support  his claims.

In closing, should I be concerned that more and more instances of dictatorial, authoritarian tactics are being implemented by our President on our American institutions? After all, just look what has happened to my beloved "Sesame Street."

Senator Doctor Bill Cassidy will be missed

Everyone just needs to stop picking on our Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy for his support of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services.  It should be obvious to everyone that Cassidy’s endorsement of Kennedy was a political decision made by a politician, not a professional decision made by a knowledgeable physician.  Ever since Cassidy’s support of impeachment of President Trump, during his first term, resulting in his censorship by the Louisiana GOP, Cassidy has been on the chopping block as far as his re-election desires are concerned. 

However, Sen. Bill Cassidy was offered a ‘political golden goose’ when Kennedy was vetted by Cassidy’s Senatorial committee for appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Apparently from Cassidy’s perspective this was his chance for redemption in the eyes of the Republican Party and Trump, in particular. We learned later that if Cassidy had not given his approval, two or three other Republican committee members would have gone along with him and the Kennedy appointment would have failed.

However, the reality of this scenario was, it really didn’t matter how Bill Cassidy voted; he was already finished as a Louisiana senator. If there is one principle which President Trump does stand for, it is 'never forget or forgive.'  Cross him and you are done for!

Senator Cassidy has done more for our state than Rep. Johnson, Sens. Scalise and Kennedy combined, but he crossed Trump and that’s all that matters in today’s politics. It’s no longer about being a competent legislator serving your constituents in positive ways, but instead about unconditional, blind loyalty.

If one looks at Cassidy’s legislative track record, he has served Louisiana well, and he will be missed.  It is just a shame that he didn’t seal his legacy by protecting the health of our nation, by blocking the Kennedy, Jr.  appointment.

Budget smoke and mirrors

Am I missing something, or do President Trump and Elon Musk just think I am stupid, along with the rest of the public? With all this rhetoric about government waste and the need to decrease the out of control government spending, all of which is attributed to the Democrats, I am confused about recent budgetary developments within the Pentagon, specifically the Department of Defense, headed by Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth pushed out thousands of civilian workers, is reducing the ranks of top generals, and consolidating various commands all under the guise of saving money by eliminating what he deems as waste.  However, under Trump’s “one big and beautiful budget” the Pentagon will now receive a funding increase of $150 billion, for a grand total budget funding of over $900 billion.  Where is the savings in that plan? 

Additionally, while Elon Musk promised saving the government as much as $2 trillion, with President Trump claiming that even more than that figure would be saved by waste elimination through the DOGE program, the final figures don’t support either claim. The harsh reality is, according to Musk’s own testimony at an April Cabinet meeting, the savings would amount to $150 billion during the present fiscal year.  And that figure has just been wiped out by the proposed increased spending for the Pentagon.

And this fiscal smoke and mirrors game doesn’t just stop there, for the ‘one big and beautiful budget’ is now estimated, by the Congressional Budget Office, to increase the national debt by $3.8 trillion, peaking to $7.75 trillion by 2035.  This being the latest action from a party whose mantra has always been focused on reducing the escalated national debt caused by the Democrats.

Talk is cheap, but when it comes to tackling the runaway national debt, any actions to do so thus far has simply been composed of those peddling ‘snake oil’ to the U.S citizens.  Just how dumb do all these folks think we are, and when will we stand up and prove them wrong?