December 26, 2021

"1. No, the Taliban did not seize $85 billion of U.S. weapons.... Note: This was the most popular article in The Fact Checker’s 14-year history."

From "The most popular fact checks of 2021" by Glenn Kessler, "The Fact Checker" in WaPo.

85 comments:

gilbar said...

it's Not SEIZE, if the things are left for you

tim in vermont said...

This didn't happen. The fact chuckers assured me that practically all of the equipment was rendered forever inoperable by US troops before leaving.

https://nypost.com/2021/09/01/taliban-throws-victory-parade-with-us-military-equipment/

And no, the evacuation flights did not largely contain young men of military age, those with the sharpest elbows, because if they did, that would look bad for Biden. And there are zero people left behind who fucked up and trusted us and worked for us. Because if we betrayed those who helped us, that would make Biden look bad.

Fact chuckers are always there to help true patriots see the truth!

tim in vermont said...

Maybe the number was not precisely 85 billion, though the pell mell evacuation did cause that amount of taxpayer money to be wasted this year.

There are lots of images on the internet of Taliban fighters posing with massive piles of cash, is there some accounting for that that the fact chuckers care to share?

tim in vermont said...

It's interesting to me that there are no fact checks of the story that James Biden cashed in to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars in contracts in Iraq. "Fact checkers" only exist to spin stories in favor of the Democrats and to bury stories which cast Democrats in a bad light.

The "fact checks" that show up first for Hunter Biden's laptop seem to consist mostly of attacks on the repairman who gave the laptop to the FBI. There don't seem to be any fact checks regarding the actual fact that it is Hunter Biden's laptop, because the motto of fact checkers when it comes to Democrats is "Ask me no questions, and I will tell no lies."

It's kind of quaint to see that you put any value whatsoever in these exercises in spin and propaganda.

Temujin said...

We'll know when those arms are used against other people in the near future, including perhaps, ourselves.

This is kind of a horseshit weaselword article of which Glenn Kessler is so famous. That there was a HUGE list of armaments and equipment left behind, in the hands of terrorists is not in question. Kessler's point is the dollar amount given to that list. Or that some of the goods might not work any longer. That doesn't matter a whit. When someone is shot by the guns we left behind, or strafed by a helicopter we left, or rammed by that Humvee we left, their last dying thought is not, "Well...that had to be a $150,000 Humvee, yes?"

We armed the Taliban at a level that surpasses many national armies scattered around the world.

These are the same people who sent arms to the Mexican cartels just a few years earlier, in a plan concocted by that Democrat star thinker Eric Holder. When those arms started killing innocents in Mexico and a US Border Agent, the press suddenly lost interest in the story.

How anyone has a job as a "fact checker" for a corporate news outlet these days is amazing. How embarrassing. I would liken it to being the Deputy Administrator of the Censor Bureau of the Government. It is literally a Narrative Checker and nothing else.

David Begley said...

Yeah. We abandoned the weapons. The Taliban didn’t seize a fucking thing.

FJB.

Drago said...

The Taliban did not seize $85B in weapons.

No Americans were left behind in Afghanistan.

There is no inflation.

There is no supply chain crisis.

Gas prices did not rise.

There is no border crisis.

There is no such thing as antifa, its just a myth.

No cities were burned in 2020.

Hunter Bidens laptop is russian disinformation.

Ashley Bidens diary isnt real.

January 6th was an insurrection!

There was no cheating in the 2020 election.

Fauci and Daszak did not fund gain of function research in Wuhan.

The China virus did not start in China.

Just 2 weeks to stop the spread.

Just get "vaccinated" and you can return to "normal".

Trump colluded with Russia Russia Russia!

.............

I wonder if there is a pattern here?...

Lurker21 said...

We sunk even more money than that into Afghanistan over the years, and what do we have to show for it?

That figure comes from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a federal official and his office. It's been misinterpreted, but to say the $86 billion in equipment is Trump's claim is also to misinterpret: the statistic and the meaning attached went through multiple hands and minds before it got to Trump, so it isn't exactly "Trump's" claim in the sense of him making it up -- or if it is Trump's claim, then it's his in the same way as Biden's Charlottesville comment or Psaki's bleach comment are, and fact-checkers should be really digging into them as well.

I'm not going to do a deep dive on this, but the head of SIGAR is actually an Obama appointee and his report is said to have been an attempt to paint Biden's withdrawal in positive terms. Maybe somebody should look into that.

Leland said...

I guess US troops were flying around that Blackhawk helicopter used to take down Afghanistan flags? At least the NYT was honest enough to point out the US just murdered a family and claimed it was a terrorist about to detonate a car bomb. The media can try to cover for Biden on Afghanistan, but the fact that "Let's go Brandon" is the most popular phrase in the nation says that people have not forgotten.

Big Mike said...

So not $85 billion, closer to “merely” $20 billion. A competent administration would have made the number very close to zero.

R C Belaire said...

So, now the officially sanctioned WaPo number is only $24B? This is good to know and remember for a time when the next Republican President bugs out of some 3rd-world s**thole he won't/can't be criticized if he leaves behind $24B or less in equipment.

Kai Akker said...

What a nebbish.

cf said...

yes, they are obviously gleeful and so proud that only $25 Billion dollars of incredible technology and equipment fell into Taliban hands.

#WorstRulingClassEver

Achilles said...

They didn't seize 85$ billion in US Weapons.

The Biden administration gave it to them.

Freely. With Malice.

The Biden Junta are enemies of this country and act like it.

Achilles said...

Does he fact check the Biden Regime's numerous lies about the thousands of US citizens abandoned in Afghanistan? All of the women in this cohort are most likely being raped on a daily basis by the people Joe gave 85$ billion worth of arms to.

Not to mention all of the Afghani "war wives."

But don't make fun of poor old Joe.

Or Ann will release her cruel neutrality on you.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Isn't it obvious that "fact check" columns are op-eds by another name?
Look at Kessler's bio on Wikipedia. There is nothing there that would make you think that he was anything other than a DC political journalist.

Zev said...

Oh, it was only $24 billion.
All good.

Fernandinande said...

The Magic 8 Ball says it was $84 billion (same answer twice in a row), and I trust it a lot more than I trust the WaPoo.

mezzrow said...

Stay tuned for a holiday update regarding the chocolate ration.

None shall speak of cream cheese this Christmas.

Bob Boyd said...

Kessler changes the subject to the amount of gear purchased for the Afghan Army. How much stuff intended for the use of US forces was abandoned?
Kessler doesn’t account for any of that. It’s political spin, nothing more.

Even if the his lower number was right, it’s a disgrace and shouldn’t have happened. These people had years to plan for an orderly withdrawal on our terms. Years. Yet it was a total cluster fuck. That is the fact he wants to deflect from.

Yancey Ward said...

24 billion dollars is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable.

Charlie said...

"Gee, I wish I could get past that Paywall!"- said no one.

Mary Beth said...

The fact checks appear to me to be things that are written by a reasonably intelligent person for readers who are either slightly less intelligent or who are looking for confirmation that their reaction to a statement/event was the correct one.

Evidence for or against something is cherry-picked but presented as complete.

cubanbob said...

There is no point in getting outraged. Presumably 81 million voted for this dolt. All because he wasn't Trump, a man of mean tweets and possessing a boastful personality. His actual job performance was ignored. Instead of primary issues such as exploding inflation, a broken supply chain, gifting billions in arms to terrorists, allowing unprecedented illegal immigration, creating again energy dependence amongst others the same 81 million dolts concern themselves with at best secondary or tertiary problems such as abortion, transgenderism while promoting destructive policies such as CRT, "equity" and caving in to foreign adversaries in economic issues and allowing those adversaries to encroach what we send more than $85bn per year defending. Unfortunately it appears the country has to crash and burn before the dolts realize they have a problem and finally help elect a president and congress that has the will do do the necessary measures along with the same at the state and local levels. Of course the dolts will never acknowledge they were instrumental to the destruction and ruin resulting from there choices.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

FB admitted to a court their type of "FACT CHECK" is an opinion. Has Wapo's "fact check" been tested in court?

Brooke Price said...

Does the name Kessler mean anything to anyone? Him as a fact checker?

John henry said...

Most of us can't access the WaPo article so we have no idea what Kessler is talking about. You usually, pretty much always, provide excerpts from articles to explain headlines.

Why not in this instance?

John LGBTQBNY Henry

Critter said...

I totally believe the fact checker, er Biden spokesperson. What price did they put on Bagram air base? Of course they ignore that in their fact check.

2021 was the year that most pe pole realized that fact checkers are just Democrat spin and lies by another name.

Kevin said...

If Biden were a Republican the exact same article would conclude:

Mostly True!

MalaiseLongue said...

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Justin_O_Guy said...

We did not Need fact checkers until the truth started coming out.

mikee said...

Iranian and American contractors fleeing the Revolution in Tehran in 1979 took a few minutes to wipe the computer system at the central parts warehouse and remove the backup disks. Literally, just a few minutes, or so I was told. This made the millions of numbered parts in numbered bins unsearchable in the giant warehouse, and the US military equipment taken by the Iranian Islamic revolutionaries sorely lacking in spare electronics and other consumable parts. Of such acts is history made.

Was any such work done at Bagram in Afghanistan? Not that anyone has reported. I'd think an enterprising US lieutenant or more likely a noncom could have taken some thermite grenades and driven a Humvee down the flight line on the way to the last flight out, disabling all the aircraft left behind, but apparently such thinking was either forbidden or just not considered. Pity. The person doing so would have been a legend in military circles.

n.n said...

Obama reordered lives and legal claims in order to redistribute $100 billion dollars to the Iranians.

Biden reordered lives and left billions of dollars in state of the art military hardware as housewarming "gifts" for the Taliban. Did we lose a carrier, perhaps two?

Demos-cracy is aborted at the Twilight Fringe.

rcocean said...

Yeah only $24,000 million. Thank God it wasn't $85,000 million - that's real money. In any case, Biden needs that $60,000 million for his Illegal alien payout of $400,000 per "mistreated" person.

Notice how George Bush has gone back on radio silence now there's a Democrat POTUS. I guess its clear now, who's side he was really on. Imagine if Trump had gotten us out of Afghanistan and bungled it like Biden, no doubt Laura and George Bush would've been writing letters to the WaPo expressing their "concern".

Skeptical Voter said...

It's not "seizing" if you inherit stuff.

papper said...

Glenn Kessler is a political hack. If you fact check it you get zero pinnochios, since it is completely true. Who reads him anymore?

BUMBLE BEE said...

How long will it be before unvetted refugees go BOOM? Or, perhaps, foul the water supplies? Sweden has cut it down to 20 bombings in 2021, and that represents a tremendous improvement over 2020. But you won't read that in any so called New York "news". The The head Rabbi fled Malmo yet?
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/fear-stalks-the-streets-of-malmo-and-council-has-no-answer-1.36583

n.n said...

24 billion dollars is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable.

The sum of temperature anomalies, asserting independence and diversity, globally, is around 1 degree. Catastrophic.

The sum of state of the art military hardware housewarming "gifts" is around $24 billion. Meh.

n.n said...

Unconditional surrender, [Catastrophic] [Anthropogenic] Immigration Reform, and nominally $24 billion in state of the art military party... What, favors? Nice... Ok (pun intended).

Joe Smith said...

'And no, the evacuation flights did not largely contain young men of military age...'

Some of the photos were posted of the inside of the planes packed with people.

It was very evident that 90% of the passengers were young males.

Bilwick said...

Brooke Price, I believe Kessler was comedian Jerry Seinfeld's neighbor before Kessler moved out and Cosmo Kramer moved in.




wildswan said...

Well, let's say that there was "only" 24 billion in equipment left behind. Then the Biden administration is saying that 62 billion dollars was sent to Afghanistan over twenty years which has completely disappeared. The country is not rich; it's over at the UN, begging bowl extended. 62 billion dollars turned into nothing. And Afghanistan has 24 billion dollars worth of things left to sell, but the country says it's poor. And the WaPo fact checking explanation is that is, basically, there is a mysterious Afghan Transformative Power changing money into sand and rock, so this 24 billion also will be sand and rock within 5 years. And so then further, it will soon be said, that the answer is, of course, to give the Afghans some more money because they've got hostages - which they must have transformed out of sand and rock since no one was left behind.
Let's Go Brandon. I'm Joe Biden and I approved this message

gadfly said...

Military generals, installed in Trump administration positions including Jim Mattis, H.R McMaster and Mark Milley, were adored by The Donald who imagined them as George S. Patten reincarnated. But they were also invested in maintaining the "forever" wars and foreign occupancies that fatten military budgets conveniently cover excess and unneeded spending.

Even dumb-shit Steve Bannon could not get answers from the military when he attended security meetings for Trump. Bannon insists that he frequently demanded the Pentagon answer basic facts about the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, including where billions of dollars in U.S. aid were going and how many troops and contractors were on the ground.

"They literally would not give you any information. And the information they gave you was bullshit. In every presentation, they say you're 18 months away from turning the war around. Always. You're always 18 months away."

Stories of unbelievably excessive spending to include the natural-gas filling station that should have cost $500,000 to build, was granted a $3 million dollar budget but actual construction costs reached $12 million and operational spending was $30 million more - with little demand to fuel natural gas vehicles.

So who was in charge of spending all that money on manpower, equipment, Afghani bribes and US bureaucratic endeavors? It wasn't just the tail-gunners who stopped the occupancy that has not been a real war for years.

rehajm said...

Glenn Kessler is a political hack.

...and to add the usual WaPo fact checker disclaimer- the WaPo Fact Checker column is op-ed, and is concerned with neither facts nor checking, and their website explains and confirms...

Clyde said...

Paywalls are counterproductive when people can't read your propaganda defending the regime.

Robert Cook said...

"Maybe the number was not precisely 85 billion, though the pell mell evacuation did cause that amount of taxpayer money to be wasted this year."

Not to mention the trillion+ dollars wasted on murder, torture, and terror in our 20 Years' War of Terror, a fortune stolen from the American people to enrich (in power or money, or both) the parasites of death: the planners, makers and purveyors of the instruments of war.

Narr said...

Glenn Kessler: fuct kacker.

Paul said...

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a fact checker to... and you dared not question it!

Tyrone Slothrop said...

So Biden only turned over $24 billion worth of armaments to the Taliban. I feel much better now.

Joe Smith said...

'Even dumb-shit Steve Bannon could not get answers from the military when he attended security meetings for Trump. Bannon insists that he frequently demanded the Pentagon answer basic facts about the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, including where billions of dollars in U.S. aid were going and how many troops and contractors were on the ground.'

You've made a perfect case for the Deep State and Military Industrial Complex all at once.

As for Bannon being a dumb-shit, you may not like his politics, but no sane person would call him 'dumb.'

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Pravda on the Potomac is not a reliable source of news or fact checking. Anything they say must be assumed to be a lie unless proven otherwise. Glenn Kessler is a prime example of a Joseph Goebels wannabe.

Robert Cook said...

Of course, there never would have been costly military equipment in the country to be abandoned there if we had never invaded Afghanistan, or maintained our presence as an invading force in the nation for 20 years. There was never was going to be a clean or satisfactory withdrawal from our failed quagmire there.

It's long past time we defunded the War Department. James Madison said it centuries ago:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

And:

"In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."

The Vault Dweller said...

I see this more on the Left than the Right, but it happens on both sides, however I think it is primarily a symptom of society getting more and more complex and people being exposed to more and more information, but there seems to be an increasing demand for "Experts" in all sorts of fields. The slew of "Fact-Checkers" seems to be an effort to sate that demand. If they can give people the feeling that they are an expert on fact checking, then there are loads of people who will happily accept their pronouncements, especially if those pronouncements jive with their political dispositions.

mishu said...

Lemme guess. He counted depreciation.

chuck said...

the parasites of death: the planners, makers and purveyors of the instruments of war.

I like to be more explicit.

WWI -- Wilhelm, Nicholas, and Franz Joseph, the last war of the nobility.
WWII -- Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, the first war of the socialists.

Amadeus 48 said...

I read "Braddock's Defeat" this autumn about beginning of the French and Indian (Seven Years') War. At the start of their retreat, the Brits spent two days burning their stores and were still angry that the French got some goods and captured some cannons. They spent a lot of energy over the next several years getting them back.

stutefish said...

I am not at all surprised that the most popular fact check article is the one that strives to put clothes back on the new emperor. Of course the half of the country that voted for Biden would be falling all over themselves to read anything that attempted to rehabilitate his image.

Bob Boyd said...

It's long past time we defunded the War Department.

There was a time not very long ago I would have dismissed this kind of statement outright without giving a second thought.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

gadfly,

"They literally would not give you any information. And the information they gave you was bullshit. In every presentation, they say you're 18 months away from turning the war around. Always. You're always 18 months away."

Yep. They literally would not give you any information. And besides, the information they gave you was BS. Anyone else here have a problem with those two sentences being next to one another?

Narr said...

The exact cash value of what was left behind is a secondary issue--it's more important to heed Madison and Robert Cook in cases like this.

On that score, there's a CSpan discussion on the theme, "do we really need a president?" I haven't watched it, but probably will eventually. The question strikes me as the flip side of the evergreen "is the USA ungovernable?" chinpuller.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

If the left want a lie to be true -they make it true.

If the left want the truth to be a lie, they make that true, too.

Static Ping said...

I sometimes get into this trap where if WaPo's fact check agrees with what I believe that I get to say "see, even the Washington Post agrees with me." This is a mistake. The Washington Post in general and their fact checking in particular are not reliable, not to mention obviously biased, and should be treated as untrustworthy in all situations. My recommendation is to ignore them; if they are actually telling the truth - not out of the question since liars will use the truth when it is serves their purposes - it will come out without giving them attention. Those who trust these people are fools.

So how many fools looked at this particular fact check?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

gadfly said...
Military generals, installed in Trump administration positions including Jim Mattis, H.R McMaster and Mark Milley, were adored by The Donald who imagined them as George S. Patten reincarnated. But they were also invested in maintaining the "forever" wars and foreign occupancies that fatten military budgets conveniently cover excess and unneeded spending.
....


Wow, gadfly, that was an impressive "own goal" you just scored there.

So, your basic argument is that there's a Deep State, they're corrupt and bad for America, and they hated Trump.

Which, apparently, is why you support Biden.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
Of course, there never would have been costly military equipment in the country to be abandoned there if we had never invaded Afghanistan, or maintained our presence as an invading force in the nation for 20 years. There was never was going to be a clean or satisfactory withdrawal from our failed quagmire there.

Who'd you support in 2008? Obama "Afghanistan is the real important war". McCain?
Or did you jerk off on the sidelines?

The people who Trump opposed were teh ones who got the US sos deep into Afghanistan. Are you going to admit you fucked up by opposing Trump?

Or are you the pathetic loser we all think you are?

Richard Dillman said...

WAPO fact checker is an oxymoron. This statement is true.

n.n said...

It's long past time we defunded the War Department.

But first the trillion dollar social industrial complex that normalized 9/11.

Quaestor said...

It has already been established in court that "fact-checkers" are peddling opinions rather than literal truth.

Bob Boyd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
wendybar said...

Is anybody else as sick of the lying Pravda media as I am. I hope each and every liar gets Karma thrown at them that hurts when it hits. THEY are helping Obamites divide this country. THAT is the transformation he was planning, and so far it is working. Ever notice how happy Obama is??

Robert Cook said...

"Who'd you support in 2008? Obama 'Afghanistan is the real important war'. McCain?
Or did you jerk off on the sidelines?"


I voted Green Party, as I have since 1996. Not because I believe the Green candidate will (or can)ever win, but because the Green Party is not the Democratic or Republican party, essentially two poles of a uniparty that serves the wealthy and powerful while pandering to the people, all the while shitting on us. I will not give my imprimatur to the non-choices of either pole of this uniparty.

"Are you going to admit you fucked up by opposing Trump?"

Trump? Hahaha! A crude and obvious flim flam man for most or all of his public life. That he entranced (and still entrances) so many Americans simply shows how easily (and likely) a Hitler could one day occupy the White House.

Bilwick said...

Surprise! Cookie supports the Green Party, the party that has just the right combination of junk economics, magical thinking and statism where he can feel at home.

Drago said...

Greg The Class Traitor (to The Poor Man's LLR *****, gadfly): "Wow, gadfly, that was an impressive "own goal" you just scored there."

gadfly has never posted anything that wasn't an "own goal".

Robert Cook said...

Bilwick,

Get back to me when the Green Party is culpable in the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims* of pointless failed wars they have started.

*(Including US soldiers killed in combat or by their own hands, or maimed physically and/or emotionally by their experiences.)

Bilwick said...

The Green Party is culpable of promoting statism, and statism has already killed millions if not billions. But I'm sure if somehow the GP got total control of the Mailed Fist, they would all become total pacifists, right?

Drago said...

Robert Cook: "Bilwick,

Get back to me when the Green Party is culpable in the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims* of pointless failed wars they have started."

Why?

You've already demonstrated you are unwilling to accept the reality of 100 million murdered in the name of communism in the 20th century, so what would be the point of arguing over what the Green Party would do if it ever got power operating under the same philosophy?

You'd just deny it anyway.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
Get back to me when the Green Party is culpable in the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims* of pointless failed wars they have started.

Did the Green Party support "Black Lives Matter" last year?
Because that's led to "the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims" caused by the criminals of BLM no longer restrained by the police.

The best you can say about your support for the Green Party is that your'e a pathetic wanker, sitting on the sidelines while pretending to play.

You can support the Republican, support the Democrat, or sit on the sidelines and do nothing. Your "vote for the Green" is essentially a vote for whoever wins. Which makes you a voters for every single US war, and all "the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims" caused by those wars.

Enjoy your bloody hands

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
"Are you going to admit you fucked up by opposing Trump?"

Trump? Hahaha! A crude and obvious flim flam man for most or all of his public life. That he entranced (and still entrances) so many Americans simply shows how easily (and likely) a Hitler could one day occupy the White House.


Trump: Someone who won the Presidency, then set out to actually do what he promised to do (move US Embassy to Jerusalem, end the Iran deal, renegotiate NAFTA, etc.)
Someone who, when given the chance to use massive Federal "Emergency Powers" at the start of the Covid pandemic, instead embraced Federalism, told the States to solve it each in their own way, and focused on backing up the States, and doing things that only the Federal Gov't could do (like Operation Warp Speed)

You have to be pretty fucking stupid to try to compare Trump to Hitler

Robert Cook said...

"You can support the Republican, support the Democrat, or sit on the sidelines and do nothing. Your 'vote for the Green' is essentially a vote for whoever wins. Which makes you a voters for every single US war, and all "the deaths, maiming, torture, and homelessness of the mass victims" caused by those wars.

"Enjoy your bloody hands."


Nope. It's voting for the Republicans or Democrats that guarantee America will carry on with our bloody behavior abroad. Your pitiful and mendacious attempt to turn my refusal to support the Republicrats' policies with my vote into support for or complicity with America's wars is childish.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
"Enjoy your bloody hands."

Nope. It's voting for the Republicans or Democrats that guarantee America will carry on with our bloody behavior abroad.


Wrong, as usual. "Not to decide is to decide". There's only two candidates who can win. you can choose not to vote, you can vote for Santa Claus, you can vote Green, all are the same thing.

In no case are you trying to make the situation better.

jpg said...

$85b, give or take, was left abandoned to the merry men of Afghanistan. "Seized" is moronic knitpicking.

Robert Cook said...

"You have to be pretty fucking stupid to try to compare Trump to Hitler."

It's really more of a comparison of the credulity of American voters and those in Germany, who, brimming with resentments, readily allowed themselves to be seduced and bamboozled by a demagogue's pandering to their fears and prejudices. So, too, with Trump's hypnotized adherents.

Trump was never as driven as Hitler, who actually believed in his cracked ideas. Trump doesn't believe in anything.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
It's really more of a comparison of the credulity of American voters and those in Germany, who, brimming with resentments, readily allowed themselves to be seduced and bamboozled by a demagogue's pandering to their fears and prejudices. So, too, with Trump's hypnotized adherents.

So you're stuck on "pretty fucking stupid"

People voted for Trump in 2016 because Hillary was and is so repulsive and corrupt that they figured they didn't have much to lose.

Working class people voted for Trump in 2016 because teh Obama Admin sucked for them. Now, if you're a pinheaded moron, you might call that "brimming with resentments"m, but anyone with a functioning brain calls that "punishing Parties for their failures", or "voting".

"Trump's hypnotized adherents"? not, it's "Trump's hypnotized opponents" who are wandering around in an f'ed up mental haze.

Trump was never as driven as Hitler, who actually believed in his cracked ideas. Trump doesn't believe in anything.
I don't give a shit what any politician believe. I care what they do.
What Trump did pre-Covid was to successfully work to make life better for the bottom 60% of teh US economic pyramid

What Trump did in Covid was not abuse "Emergency powers", and be far more Federalist than any US President since 1900, other than possibly Reagan or Coolidge, would have been.

As someone who doesn't like dictators, that's a big win.

And since Biden, despite the vaccines and everything we've learned about fighting Covid, has killed more Americans with Covid than Trump did, we have pretty definitive proof that Trump's hands off approach did not make things worse

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Here Cookie:

https://hotair.com/headlines/2021/12/28/why-are-hispanic-voters-in-this-pennsylvania-city-shifting-towards-the-gop-n438033

One main conclusion: The social constraints that were once a barrier to voting Republican have eroded, in large part because the strong economy during much of Mr. Trump’s term caused many Latino voters to give the party a second look.

“You had a set of Latino voters who weren’t especially partisan and who had seen it as socially unacceptable to vote for Trump in 2016,” said Carlos Odio of Democratic-aligned Equis Research, which conducted surveys and focus groups to understand the shift. “‘My friends and family will be mad at me if I do this.’ You need a justification to do it.”

“The economy, the issue on which they trusted Trump, unlocked the door to embracing him,” Mr. Odio said.


So, these are the voters "brimming with resentments, readily allowed themselves to be seduced and bamboozled by a demagogue's pandering to their fears and prejudices"?

Robert Cook said...

Keep on believin', champ!

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Yes, Cookie, I will keep on believing reality, rather than you. I note you don't actually try to offer any countering data