30 Barbies: Not good at parenting or at the maths. By Hal M. Brown
After I posted this Substack I found the above on X showing Trump as the Grinch. Then I found a lot more:
In the past few days we’ve had Trump or his minions prove that they probably failed their math (or as the Brits say “maths”) in grade school.
Let’s start with the most ridiculous:
Who gives their kid 30 dolls?
Related story: 'Gasping when they heard that': Ex-Trump aide says president's new remark shocked his team. They had the Trump Grinch picture I used in this Substack. Call this Dollgate.
No doubt a lot of people were comparing Trump to the Grinch.
Then we had this story:
As of May 2024, there are 291,000 migrant children who arrived in the US as unaccompanied minors who were set free and never given a date to appear in immigration court — meaning there is no way to track their whereabouts.
That is in addition to the 32,000 children that Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities released into the US with hearing dates but then failed to show in court, according to the 14-page report — which tracked a period from October 2018 to September 2023.
One federal whistleblower said that she believes many of these vulnerable kids could already be in the hands of criminals and sex traffickers.
Over a five year period 32,000 children didn’t appear in court when they were supposed to. One, count them, one federal whistleblower said they could be in the hands of criminals and sex traffickers. What the hell does “many” mean? Sure, they could be. But then again, how does she know?
How about this one?
Trump’s Cabinet members, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, spoke in glowing, sycophantic terms about their boss. But Attorney General Pam Bondi took it a step further, claiming that Trump had actually saved the lives of around two out of three Americans. Bondi cited recent fentanyl seizures as the reason for this supposedly momentous accomplishment.
What about DOGE, you might ask?
DOGE says it has saved $160 billion. Those cuts have cost taxpayers $135 billion, one analysis says.
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, says it has saved $160 billion through its push to root out wasteful or fraudulent government spending. But that effort may also have come at a cost for taxpayers, with a new estimate from a nonpartisan research and advocacy group estimating that DOGE's actions will cost $135 billion this fiscal year.
The analysis seeks to tally the costs associated with putting tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly fired workers and lost productivity, according to the Partnership for Public Service (PSP), a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on the federal workforce.
PSP's estimate is based on the $270 billion in annual compensation costs for the federal workforce, calculating the impact of DOGE's actions, from paid leave to productivity hits. The $135 billion cost to taxpayers doesn't include the expense of defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE's actions, nor the impact of estimated lost tax collections due to staff cuts at the IRS.
Then there’s the word Trump says is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. Trump hasn’t claimed that his tarriffs have saved the government, and you, one red cent. I have to hand it to him for not trying to spin that falsehood.
Oops…. refer to my first example. He’s admitting indirectly that the tarrifs are actually costing money for parents doing their Christmas shopping.
There are a few numbers that Trump can’t ignore. These are those coming from the Stock Market. He has a way to admit that the numbers are bad but has a way to spin them.
Trump insisted that Joe Biden — who has been out of office for three months — is to blame for the stock market's plummeting in response to Trump's sweeping tariffs.
As for the rest of the economy:
Whether it is Trump’s ability to estimate crowd sizes or characterize vote counts (remember his non-landslide landslide), his ability to play fast and loose with numbers is a model for his sycophants to emulate to curry favor with him. They just make up impossible numbers to show how well they are doing their jobs and he smiles and nods in approval.
I suppose one could say that it is human nature to see what one wants to see or not see even if it contradicts common sense. After all, as I wrote about yesterday, Trump looked at a fake photo of Abrego Garcia's hand and didn’t see that that it was a really bad photoshop with the added M,S, and 3 off-center.
I did a better job putting MAGA there and I am an amateur:
Back to the dolls. Even Trump’s two dolls is probably double the number of dolls a sensible parent would give to their child for Christmas. Unless they are giving their child a Barbie and a Ken most would give their child one doll. We don’t know how many dolls Trump gave Ivanka for Christmas. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave her an entire set of Barbie fashionista dolls.
What better way to teach her how to look the way he wants her to look.
all those barbie references, and not one featuring ICE barbie Kristi Noem? not one w christofacist barbie Leavitt? not one w evil clown barbie pam Bondi?
Hal!!! they were dancing (gyrating) before your very eyes! I keep wondering whether my deep, reflexive hatred of them is some kind of latent misogyny. then I'm all, nah, I feel the same about Patel, vance and musk and the male members of his disastrous clown car cabinet.