Trump is still the best:
"A spurious fact check analysis from factcheck.org about Donald Trump’s announcement speech in New York City on Tuesday has been circulating around the media. Liberal outlets such as the Washington Post and CBS News have gleefully referenced it in their columns. The larger meaning is clear: They are attempting to extinguish a flame, lit whence they know not.
The fact check is most interesting for what it omits. To be sure, some of the fact check’s content includes rather wonky quibbles about what the effective rate of unemployment might be—they contend it’s less than Trump’s figure of 18 to 20 percent. Another quibble is over the growth of the first quarter, which Trump claimed was unique in being below zero. Other areas are of the fact check are less objective.
In his speech, Trump commented on the job market: “A lot of people up there [Trump motions to members of the audience on the balcony] can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs because there are no jobs.” Factcheck.org responds in a rather autistic fashion by stating that there are in fact some jobs available in America, and then proceeds to provide the exact figure. Now most normal people understand the colloquial expression “there are no jobs” as to mean that it’s a really tough job market. I’m sure that many readers would agree with that assessment of the economy, perhaps from direct experience.
Another point in the fact check is that Trump should not purport to be able, as president, to tax Mexican goods, as this is a policy that could only be established in the legislature. Trump has often referenced in his speeches, and repeated in his announcement speech, that he would impose a 35 percent tax on Mexican manufactured goods, specifically Ford cars—in effect a tariff. This envisioned tariff would be in retaliation for American companies’ perfidy in off-shoring their manufacturing plants, and for countries such as China and Japan manipulating their currency. It’s a creative idea, in contrast to the staid refrain from the other Republican candidates that the way to address the trade deficit is to practically eliminate environmental and other regulations. In other words, rather than leveling down to the atrocious working standards of China and Mexico, Trump proposes an alternate route, one which the financial community finds abhorrent. The extent to which the financial community and the average worker’s interests coincide I leave for the reader to surmise.
Factcheck.org primly corrects him: “But only the Congress, not the president, can impose taxes.” Obviously. All legislation must originate in the… legislative body, the Congress. By this ridiculous standard, the same fact checkers should have taken issue with Obama discussing his prospective health care legislation while campaigning for the 2008 election, which also must be passed in Congress. This is, of course, what transpired, at the president’s behest. The president practically always has to negotiate with Congress (which is not to open the can of worms which is executive actions). So readers can disagree—as surely some do—as to the merits of Trump’s ideas vis-à-vis trade, but certainly the man, as a bona fide presidential candidate, has the right to extol these ideas in his speeches. Whether or not he can first persuade the American people, and then Congress, to the wisdom of these ideas is to be seen.
Trump recites a hypothetical conversation with the CEO of Ford—whom he knows personally—in his speeches. In this imaginative dialogue, Trump threatens the tax on imported cars, and the CEO ultimately relents, agreeing to bring the manufacturing plant back home. This satisfactory denouement brings the audience to euphoria. It’s an excellent rhetorical device to make the significant issue of trade, and more specifically our trade deficit, concrete to the audience. And it clearly illustrates Trump’s vision towards ameliorating this problem. Naturally he is simplifying to some degree what would actually be involved. He’s not writing a policy paper for a think tank; he’s speaking to ordinary Americans. Yet again, this creative flourish is too much for the autistic minds of factcheck.org."
http://www.unz.com/article/a-spurious-fa...ps-speech/