Volume XXIX, Issue II
BINGHAMTON REVIEW Editor-in-Chief Contents
P.O. BOX 6000 BINGHAMTON, NY 13902-6000 EDITOR@BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM
Founded 1987 • Volume XXIX, Issue II Jordan T. Raitses
Copy Desk Chief Elizabeth Elliot
Publishing Manager Patrick McAuliffe
Communications Manager Kayla Jimenez
Business Manager Alex Carros
Editor Emeritus Sean Glendon
Assistant Editor Taylor Dowd
Staff Writers
Thomas Casey, Howard Hecht, Dan Kersten, Aditi Roy, Luke Kusick, David Keptsi, Max Newman
Contributors
Adrienne Vertucci Dylan Klein
Special Thanks To:
Intercollegiate Studies Institute Collegiate Network Binghamton Review was printed by Gary Marsden We Provide the Truth. He Provides the Staples
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by Patrick McAuliffe & Adrienne Vertucci
5 A Daisy Blooms in a Field of Weeds by Dylan Klein 6 How to Win the Drug War by Pino Che 7 The Opioid Epidemic: How We Got Here by Dan Kersten 10 License to Bill by Thomas Casey 11 Police vs Rhetoric
by Alex Carros 12 The ABC’s of Hillary Clinton Scandals by Aditi Roy 15 Fact Checking the Fact Checkers by David Keptsi
Departments
3 Editorial 4 Campus Presswatch
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! Direct feedback to editor@binghamtonreview.com 2
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Vol. XXIX, Issue II
EDITORIAL Dear Readers,
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From the Editor
elcome back to your favorite publication. We are two months into the semester and Binghamton Review has published twice. Take that, Prospect, Impact, Asian Outlook, and Free Press. That being said, I appreciate the work of Binghamton’s satirical periodical, The BUTT. Good job, guys. This year started off interestingly for the Review. One of our articles sparked--for lack of a better name-a ferocious online media shitstorm. Across the nation, people were outraged at an almost non-issue. While we attempted to remain fair in our coverage and we actually updated as we got more information, outlets that picked up on the story blew the whole issue out of proportion. At the conclusion of the saga, our publication is satisfied with the University’s final response to the controversy. They apologized for permitting the poorly-thought-out name of an event for RA training. Additionally, we apologize for accidentally releasing the names of the RAs. We only wanted to criticize a university-sanctioned event’s name. I would also like to take this opportunity to mention a correction in our last issue. The centerfold displayed a “Dicks out for Harambe” spread which was broken by our printer. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the problem until it was too late. Furthermore, delays caused us to cancel our last issue which had been dedicated to the memory of victims of the September 11 attacks. I hope the rest of the semester will go off without further issues. Now that that’s in the past, this issue may or may
not get us killed by Hillary Clinton. Aditi’s “The ABC’s of Hillary Clinton Scandals” is both hilarious and horrifying. Similarly, “The Opioid Epidemic,” depicted in Dan Kersten’s article, gives a historical overview of the current crisis. On a lighter note, Patrick McAuliffe explored the various Pizza places in Binghamton. David Keptsi also provides commentary on the popular modern trend of fact checking; who fact checks these fact-checkers, after all? Thomas Casey will try to spark in you the indignant rage truly befitting a topic as insidious as government licensing. Alex Carros tackles the issues brought up by violent rhetoric espoused by some groups against other groups (vague enough for you to read it yet?). Honestly, I’m not even sure if “Pino Che” was writing satirically. I’m going to go ahead and say that he was and that it’s hilarious. Sincerely,
Jordan Raitses
P.S. What do you think of our new logo? Write to us at editor@binghamtonreview.com
Our Mission
Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run periodical of conservative thought at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free exchange of ideas and offer an alternative viewpoint not normally found on our predominately liberal campus. It is our duty to expose the warped ideology of political correctness that dominates this university. We stand against tyranny in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the principles set forth in this country’s Declaration of Independence and seek to preserve the fundamental tenets of Western civilization. Finally, we understand that a moral order is a necessary component of any civilized society. We strive to inform, engage, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.
Views expressed by writers do not necessarily represent the views of the publication as a whole. editor@binghamtonreview.com
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CPampus resswatch Original content are in quotes, responses are in bold. “Consequences of factory farming largely ignored” Brian Deinstadt, Pipe Dream “In recent years, liberal-minded activists and politicians have taken significant steps to improve the rights of those within the African American and LGBTQ communities, women and many others.” Nope. Not gonna say it. Too much to write in just one press watch. We’ll be sure to include an article on how much these liberal activists have helped in an upcoming issue. “While we sit back and debate the use of particular bathrooms or the sale of certain wedding cakes, millions of animals consisting mostly of cattle, chickens, pigs and turkeys are being held captive in unbearable living conditions where they are bred to die and harvested to eat.” Yeah, you’re actually right, we should stop talking about that shit. How about we just follow a libertarian approach and just let people do what they want? “Although I was a vegetarian for five years, I recently transitioned back after realizing there really is no karma-free way of being a vegetarian without sacrificing salutary needs. Vegetarians still consume eggs, milk, cheese, honey and other animal products, all of which are ethically indefensible, deriving from gruesome processes.” So you couldn’t go vegan? Isn’t that the option for exactly the moral squeamishness you’re describing? “In fact, Uma Valeti, cardiologist and CEO of Memphis Meats, argues that their synthetic meat tastes exactly the same as regular meat and is actually more natural relative to factory farmed meat due to its omission of antibiotics, which create immunities to disease among the animals and its exemption of growth hormones.” Wow! A company exec that talks up his own product? That’s a rare find. A great source for objective and unbiased taste/texture analyses.
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“Porn sets expectations” Sophia San Filippo, Pipe Dream “The increased feasibility of watching mainstream porn has birthed an abundance of perpetual viewers across communities and demographics. Pornography’s increased convenience and pervasiveness has resulted in a generation that is unconsciously being fed an off-kilter perspective about sex. This has resulted in less progressive attitudes toward gender roles, extolled belligerence and has clouded the importance of consent and placed an emphasis on body image.” So before internet porn, guys just sat around and jerked off naturally? Do you really think ours is the first generation of men who had access to porn? Where else did the trope of hiding porn mags under the bed come from? You’re second statement is also completely unfounded. The only actual statistic in this article is that men watch more porn than women (and at an earlier age). Why don’t you base your assumptions on data next time. “It is important to remember that there is no single attribute, look or body type that can define beauty or sensuality and that we ought not to base our notions of these concepts on what we see in porn or the media as a whole.” Once again, you act as though this is something new. No guy honestly expects all women to look like porn stars. If we did, we’d pretty quickly learn that that is not the case. Stop with the armchair commentary and watch something other than Don Jon. Maybe you need a more realistic outlook on life instead.
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Written by our Staff
“Editorial: Less is More” Editorial Board, Pipe Dream “Starting next week, the Pipe Dream Editorial Board will be publishing a once-weekly editorial to appear in our Friday issue.” Between this line and the title: I couldn’t agree more. Less Pipe Dream Editorials is definitely a plus. “Communication is the key to nearly every relationship that there is. And it is our hope that by introducing a once-weekly editorial, that we can further open the lines of communication, and hear more of what you — the students — have to say. We can now be more confident pieces that will repeatedly resonate with our readers each week, and never use the platform for content that may fall flat or go ignored.” So by decreasing how often you talk, you’ll be more open to communication? I feel like the relationship analogy is a good response to this too. If your relationship is rocky, the last thing you should do is speak less unless you want to end it. Maybe ghosting the campus comes next. “We want to ensure that each time you pick up a copy of Pipe Dream, you are reading the most meaningful content we can produce — content that caters to the intelligence of our readers and is worthy of your time.” Do I even need to say anything?
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A DAISY BLOOMS IN A FIELD OF WEEDS
A Daisy Blooms in a Field of Weeds By Dylan Klein
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recently graduated from the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, which happens to be one of the most consistent and aggressive liberal high schools in New York City; an encouraging fact for a budding Republican like myself. Not only is American Studies liberal, but the borough in which it is situated is one of the most liberal counties in the state, the Bronx. On top of that, New York is one of the most liberal states in America! When I first walked in through the doors at American Studies a little over four years ago, I was confident that the public school system would promote differences of opinion and political beliefs. Little did I know that there were many difficulties I would encounter as a Republican in such a liberal environment. The student body is very politically aware at American Studies; a lot of conversation in and out of classrooms is related to current topics in American politics. When something came up that interested a majority of the students in class, a discussion would ensue. Unfortunately, my peers had the ugly habit of name-calling whenever Republicans were mentioned. When affirmative action came into the conversation, someone was bound to let a comment slip such as, “Republicans are so racist.” When gender issues were brought up, one would say, “Republicans are so sexist.” This habit of creating generalizations about Republicans was frustrating to deal with. I kept thinking to myself, “I’m not racist, I’m not sexist, how can you all make such a general statement about a group of people (Republicans) with such varying viewpoints?” I believe I am one of many Republicans who feel discouraged by the fact that many (not all!) Democrats perpetuate a stereotype of the white, money-grubbing, self-important, protestant-values-or-bust Republican. When I told my peers that not all Republicans are racist and sexist, I was able to make them cease their generalizations for the period, but the next time class convened, many of them were back to their old habits. I am completely confident in saying that there were more Republicans than anybody would have guessed at American Studies, but they hid themselves due to the fear of what they would endure from opposing political views. Whenever controversial issues presented themselves in school, be it abortion or the Israel-Palestine dilemma, tensions between the two sides became heated rapidly. The argument then became the same as the arms race between the Soviets and the US; each side got louder and louder and whoever was able to be the loudest won. Due to the nature of American Studies and the Democrats’ 9-1 advantage, we always lost. Furthermore, those Republicans who just sat on the sidelines, looked at the battlefield and were convinced to remain mere observers. I believe that this is also apparent in our current national election. I would be shocked if there were not hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who are too afraid to admit that they support Donald Trump. Perhaps the most aggravating experiences I had due to my political viewpoints were those with teachers. They would, albeit rarely, tie in the material they were teaching by discuss-
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ing what was going on in American politics. They would go on to say such things as, “It is crazy to comprehend that anybody could think in such a way”, or, “Could any person in their right mind believe that?” They were referring to beliefs that were completely justifiable based on one’s own political views. This subtle assumption by teachers that we all think the same way or that there are some issues on which we should all agree frustrates me to no end. After reading this, one may ask if I regret going to American Studies. Unequivocally, I say NO! I am now more capable of defending my beliefs in front of other people and more adept at helping them to see from my point of view. It has also strengthened my belief in the importance of being different when being different means being who you are. I am now calling all people with even a semblance of political beliefs to do three things that will drastically improve the political environment in the United States. Avoid generalizations, as it is exceptionally difficult to make accurate judgments about large groups of people. Avoiding generalizations will allow us to see that a lot of the time, issues are not just Democrat vs Republican, but much more nuanced. Let us also foster appropriate discussions about all of the difficult issues we face in America. One of the beauties of living in this country is our ability to express how we feel. If we can have open and productive conversations amongst each other, there is a better chance that we can find new solutions and create real opportunities to work together. Lastly, let us stop refusing to work with one another just because we are members of opposing political parties. We have common beliefs, and much more can be achieved if we work together rather than if we butt heads at every turn.
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HOW TO WIN THE DRUG WAR
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How to Win the Drug War By Pino Che
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he “war” on drugs in this country began in 1971 by President Richard “Did Nothing Wrong” Nixon. Ever since its inception, the war on drugs has been rather lackluster. The vision of a war is a bloody battle in which both sides are constantly trying to aim at one another, kill the enemy, and ultimately have a final victor. It’s now 2016, yet we still haven’t won the drug war which barely seems like a war anymore. Sure, occasionally there will be a shootout between government agents and drug dealers/users but it’s barely anything. We don’t have squads lining up the street, open firing on drug dealers. We just throw them into prison where they continue to deal drugs or take drugs. It’s useless and we will never successfully end the drug war with this failed approach. Then in walks Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines. The Philippines drug crisis is far worse than ours, as they have judges and cops under drug rule. However, Rodrigo did not accept the fact that the drug war is unwinnable. He knew what to do. He has begun ordering the execution of drug dealers on sight by not only police but also citizens. Police in the Philippines are reporting a decline in drug trade by 80-90 percent. This is the war that America has been lacking! This is what we need if we want to win. Essentially what I am advocating for is a modern day execution of the drug war. If we are to have a drug war, it makes no sense to lose it. Rodrigo understands this by actually acting as if the war on drugs is a war. He is not simply keeping it going by constantly throwing people into jail and allowing drug trafficking to continue. Rodrigo’s popularity has also risen since his rise to power and his decision to mass murder drug dealers and traffickers. Now, we can argue that the war on drugs is not needed. I have heard this argument for years and I used to believe in it. However, that argument is unimportant to the major point of this article, which is that there is a right way to have a drug war and a wrong way. The right way has been done before, in Chile for instance. In all of South America, Chile is not only the most successful in terms of economic ranking, but is also the safest country in the region. Unlike its fellow South American countries, they do not have a major drug problem and cartels do not control large segments of the country. Certainly, other South American countries share in common outlawing narcotics, the so-called “drug war” is usually defined as simply outlawing the substances. However, Chile did not simply outlaw narcotics. Under the leadership of general Pinochet, drug distributors and traffickers were executed while labs were destroyed. He cleaned up the streets of Chile and made Chile Great Again. His model, the same model as Rodrigo even if he doesn’t know it, is a model that is shown to work. Maybe Rodrigo is taking the “right wing death squad” approach because he realizes that that too will make his country great again. Now should we expand this policy to the United States? I’m not too sure. Our drug issue is not as bad as the Philippines
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nor is it as bad as Chile’s was; however, it is a solution that has been proven to work yet is never proposed by our politicians. I wonder why? Human rights violations maybe, but at the same time that does not concern me. Executing people who are flooding our streets with heroin, crack and meth, should not be seen as cruel and unusual punishment, rather it should be seen as a noble thing. How dare people continue to get away with dealing crack to the inner city, simply getting locked up and continuing to sell drugs in prison! How dare we as a society value the life of criminals over the lives of children, the innocent who get mowed down in drug related crimes and are victims of drug addiction. It makes no sense to me as to why the lives of criminals should be held so high. “Ban it and the black market will supply look at what happens now!” Yes, thank you stereotypical libertarian, I understand economics. I understand economics enough to also realize that when money can still be made inside prison as well as outside, people are willing to risk 5-7 years in jail to make thousands of dollars. I don’t think that those who have chosen a life of crime deserve anything but a life of suffering. To conclude I want to leave off with the words of Richard Nixon, who, if he was still president would probably have won the drug war: “Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
Vol. XXIX, Issue II
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THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC
The Opioid Epidemic: How We Got Here By Dan Kersten
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he United States is in the midst of an epidemic. I am not talking about the Zika Virus or some other infectious virus or pathogen. The nation is gripped by a plague of heroin and opioid addiction. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.), overdoses involving the use of opioids have quadrupled since 2000. In 2014 alone, nearly 30,000 deaths across the nation were caused by opioids. Heroin-related deaths increased 26% from 2013 to 2014. Opioidand heroin-related injuries have increased in essentially every single demographic: no one sex, age, or economic group has been spared the devastation. Broome County, like most counties across the nation, has seen an increase in overdose cases. Of the 53 drug overdoses recorded in the County to date, 48 (about 91%) were related to heroin or opioids. That may seem insignificant, but compared to 2014 when there were only 39 overdose deaths or 2011 when there were only 13 overdose deaths, that is shocking. The future seems bleak as well. Broome County is projected to have an overdose mortality rate of 40.8 per 100,000 in 2016. The current rates in New York State and the rest of the United States are 9.1 and 9.3, respectively. As chef, author, television personality, and former heroin addict Anthony Bourdain asks in his CNN show Parts Unknown, “What happened? How did the kid next door, along with mom, pop, and grandma too, become users of hard-core illegal narcotic drugs, the worst drug, with the worst reputation?” This did not just happen overnight; this was decades in the making. In fact, I could discuss the history from the 1930s onwards. However, I will not have the space to do that and I imagine that many of you may get bored, stop reading the article, and return to playing Pokémon Go. I will focus most of the conservation in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond. Heroin has been claiming lives for decades now: singers Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin in 1959 and 1970, respectively, and comedian John Belushi in 1982 (actually died from speed, a combination of heroin and cocaine). Heroin was a drug for performers to use and abuse. It was also a drug of the inner cities. From the Fifties and through the Seventies, America’s cities were a hot spot for heroin abuse. Bourdain rather poignantly yet accurately assesses the situation, “Heroin was mostly seen as a poor people problem, somebody else’s problem. The sort of thing that musicians and criminals got into, marginal people, far from the white Main Streets of Mayberry, USA. What those people did to themselves, well, it was unfortunate, but not our problem. Until somebody broke into your house.” In the 1970s, the Nixon Administration stepped into the picture. Nixon, in the summer of 1972, started our nation’s War on Drugs. Among those drugs considered most dangerous was heroin, placed on the Schedule One list of drugs. Thus we began an era of criminalizing addiction—a mental disorder. For
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suburbia, little changed. Heroin was not a drug that “Mayberry, USA” used. It was the drug of poor people, of the wacky artists, of the urban crawlers. The crisis began to move in the 1990s, moving into suburbia. Not in the form of heroin, in the form of a pill: opioid pain medications, that is. Opioids were not a new item; they have been around for quite some time prior to the Nineties. However, their use grew rampantly in this decade. From 1999 to 2014, the sales of prescription opioid painkillers quadrupled according to the C.D.C. But who grew it, and why? The answer is multifaceted. It involves pharmaceutical companies, government regulators, and physicians. Drug companies did not properly research these drugs, releasing them with incomplete data and misleading advertising. Government regulators simply accepted the available science, approving the drugs on this incomplete data. Physicians, too, accepted and fed into the inappropriate data. The two latter groups could, and should, have looked further into the data and asked questions. They did not. Patients demanded pain killers and the doctors, many pressured to keep pain scores down to prevent poor hospital pain scores and risk payment delays or governmental sanction, gave it to them. The epidemic began. So how did this issue go from opioid medications to heroin or, as Bourdain called it, “the worst drug, with the worst reputation?” Federal and state governments saw the explosion of pain-killer prescriptions and decided to act. They made it harder for pain medications to be prescribed, not a bad start. However, they did not remember that these medications and heroin work in a similar fashion—they both affect the opioid receptors in the brain. In essence, the government allowed the progression from pain-killers to heroin by simply reducing the supply of opioid medications and little else. As Dr. Ruth Potee, a family physician in Western Massachusetts who was interviewed in Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, explained, “Everybody starts with pills. There’s nobody who goes from marijuana to heroin. There’s an in-between step. Always pills, it’s pills that people get from their doctor.” It should not come as a shock that soon after the increasing regulations on pills, heroin-related overdoses began to skyrocket. And like that, suburbia’s pain medication epidemic grew and turned into suburbia’s heroin epidemic. That is where we are today. Opioid overdoses are rising: whether it be heroin or opioid or synthetic opioid medications, like fentanyl which took the life of Prince just a few months ago. I wish that I could say that the crisis was plateauing. Sadly, the overdose rates continue to rise each year and, more than likely, will be higher this year than compared to last. The trend will continue. The epidemic grows stronger.
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Additional Top-Bing-s Cost Extra By Patrick McAuliffe and Adrienne Vertucci
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he fall semester is now in full swing, and most of the student body should be pretty comfortably settled (as comfortably settled as a young adult with lots of stress and nagging existential dread can be). With the pressure of schoolwork, clubs, and social lives, why not unwind with the universal comfort food? That’s right, we’ve toured some of Binghamton’s local pizzerias and sampled their pies, as well as their general atmosphere and prices for those on a tight budget (so probably everyone). For a control slice, we’ll be getting one pepperoni piece at every restaurant. And yes, all of them deliver. Let’s dig in, shall we?
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irchi’s (along Vestal Parkway past Denny’s and KFC): You may have not-so-fond memories from GIM season and your unwitting participation in the Nirchi’s Diet. The actual restaurant itself may be a bit more enjoyable than their shits--I mean sheets of “pizza” from that Zombie Student Association meeting one time. The interior of their small building is pleasantly arranged like an Italian eatery, with dark wooden furniture comprising of both booths and elevated tables. You can sit on their sunny indoor patio, closer to the registers, or outside on tables lining the parkway. Pictures of local kids sports teams form a connection to the community. Their menu offers both square and triangular-shaped slices, with many more varieties of square pizza on display. I arrived, ordered two triangle slices - pepperoni and chicken bacon ranch - and a fountain drink, which came to $4.39 without tax or toppings. Depending on what you get on your pie, it can be a bit more pricey. It could be the triangle slices or whenever you order a slice of any shape individually, but the ratio of cheese to bread to sauce is much more balanced than a slice of sheet pizza. The taste of both is nothing exceptional - what you order is what you get - but the sauce on the pepperoni slices was a bit sweeter than I expected. Verdict: whatever your preconceived notions of Nirchi’s are from GIM samplings, it may be worth your time to visit in person considering they are so close to campus with such a large variety of products.
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ario’s Pizza (University Plaza, behind Tully’s and CopperTop): This one’s a bit out of the way in the plaza, but UP is small and you’re a smart kid. Upon walking in, there was the sense of a small-town pizzeria atmosphere. The dining area walls are painted dark blue, with booths and tables filling the carpeted room (surprising for a small operation). If I had to use flowery language, I would call it “quaint,” with “quiet class.” But you can’t eat class; their pizza lives up to the appearance. I ordered a white garlic pizza with my pepperoni, and with a fountain drink (free refills!) my total was $5.99 without tax. Yes, a bit more pricey than Nirchi’s, but the price covers all toppings, which were not nearly as exotic as Nirchi’s. The white pizza was very good, but had clumps of mozzarella - parmesan? Ricotta? Not too sure - unevenly distributed across the slice. The experience may have been improved with a more even distribution. For the pepperoni slice, however, the sauce was incredibly flavorful and exceeded expectations. Verdict: a conveniently accessible location may be offset by their above-average prices. However, if you find their pizza delicious and you have a little extra money to spend, Mario’s is a solid choice for pizzerias.
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izza Nia’s (corner of Rotary and Seminary Aves in Binghamton): If you’re looking for something very out of the way, this little joint will be right up your alley (although the neighborhood is fairly removed from any alleys). The familyrestaurant itself, which sells burgers and hoagies in addition to pizza, is incredibly small, with what appears to be living space right above it. Inside, one wall serves as a chalkboard menu facing opposite a dining counter with just four stools. Don’t come with a large party expecting adequate seating; though it may be small, think of it as eating in your own clean, bright kitchen. Here I ordered a sausage pizza with my pepperoni, as well as a can of soda. This combo came to $4.50 with no tax charged at all, but $0.25 for each topping (for a grand total of an even $5). The toppings themselves were not very well integrated into the pizza; what I mean is that it appeared to be made with just a piece of cheese pizza and the meat slices (yes, the sausage was an Italian sau-
“As the old saying goes, “variety is the spice of life,” and wasn’t Variety Spice the Spice Girl that loved doing pizza crawls?” sage sliced up) were put on top when it was recooked. The bread, cheese, and sauce all form a fairly thin combination, allowing for a bite that melts in your mouth. There may not be a hearty substance to the slices, but it simply means you could achieve your lifelong dream of eating an entire pie yourself. Photos of children and various other members of the neighborhood enjoying their pizza adorn the wall opposite the menu, providing little moments of joy during consumption, if that’s your thing. Verdict: as long as you have an easy method of transportation to the actual place, it’s easy to see yourself becoming a “regular” there, with a friendly owner and delicious pizza. But just you. Not much room for many others.
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rotta Azzurra (corner of Main and Oak Streets right before downtown Binghamton): Our last stop is one conveniently located along the West Side bus route into downtown Binghamton. As a general Italian restaurant, their menu covers pizza, subs, burgers, and sandwiches, among others. This could be the most diverse menu of all the selected pizzerias. The outside isn’t in the best shape unfortunately, and the inside is hardly an improvement. The layout is done in the style of a traditional Italian restaurant, but without adequate lighting and well-kept dining areas, the place looks rather sad. You probably wouldn’t care if you stumbled in after a drunken blur of a night and all you wanted was food, so let’s get to that. There is a wide variety of toppings, but you can only choose from what is currently already made. My pepperoni and barbecue chicken slices and can of soda combo came to $4.85 without tax, which isn’t bad. Like Pizza Nia’s, the slices here were thinner than expected, and while this didn’t cause too many problems, my pepperoni slice practically fell apart. Check yourself before you wreck yourself (and possibly your clothing from spilling). The barbecue chicken slice was still good;
if anything, it may have been a bit dry. Now where to sit….you have plenty of options, although they are mostly all regular tables. There is, in fact, a private dining area, but the sign barring entry to it forbids its use in a rather passive-aggressive way. And where exactly are the bathrooms? However, bonus points in the eyes of our Christian readers for an illuminated picture of Jesus near the entrance to the kitchen. Verdict: a great landing spot for your drunken crash and burn on the way home, but does the food quality make up for its depressing appearance and subpar customer service? Probably not. here are obviously more than these four pizza places around the Binghamton area, but there’s only so much pizza someone’s bowels can take (first part of Weird Al Yankovic’s “A Complicated Song”? Anyone?). We hope that this gives you an introduction to some local eateries, and maybe some ideas for where to order your next GIM feast from. It’s always good to get some variety. As the old saying goes, “variety is the spice of life,” and wasn’t Variety Spice the Spice Girl that loved doing pizza crawls? Yeah, we’re pretty sure that’s right. Happy eating!
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LICENSE TO BILL
License to Bill
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By Thomas Casey
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he role of licenses is to protect the public. The state government will set up a educational requirement along with a fee that allows an individual to work in a certain position. There are plenty of occupations the public generally knows to be licensed. Doctors, accountants, teachers are the obvious ones. The government requires these individuals to meet educational standards because they hold positions that have a great deal of influence over public well being. Licenses are a form of assurance for the government that workers with high influence over the public well being are prepared for the job. Through licenses, the government can keep track of the powerful practitioners. Licenses give the government the authority to arrest anyone who practices without the license. The previously listed occupations have a clear purpose for licensing requirements. A clueless doctor could seriously harm patients. An inadequate accountant could distort an audit and deceive the public. A bad teacher could indoctrinate the youth with a deranged alphabet that begins with Q. Right, so those need protection, but how about a tour guide? Think the people who walk around parks or monuments and share fun facts. Does the government need to protect the public from terrible tour guides? There’s an important distinction to make here. I would sure hope that the South Dakota tour guides would know the names of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore. The public in general wants the tour guide to be good. We want all workers everywhere to be good! The question is if the tour guide’s profession is important enough that the state government should require potential guides to undergo government education and pay a fee to get a license. Also, the state government must arrest anyone who gives tours and doesn’t hold the golden tour guide approval badge. Now that’s not necessary. The point here is that, though we want all workers to be good, the government should not fiercely license a whole bunch of occupations. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what governments have been doing lately. Back in the good old days, circa 1950, about 1 in 20 jobs required a license from the government. Today, 1 in 3 jobs require a license. The good people at the Institute of Justice ran an extensive overview of the states for their licensing requirements. License to Work is an incredibly insightful study of states’ onerous licensing processes. The study found that all 50 states are guilty of upping the regulatory burden. The Institute of Justice report is amazing, and you should check it out to see how broken the seeming small time policy decisions can be. I want people to get angry. Licensing seems like a small time policy issue, but the government is wielding it cluelessly. One instance in particular really got me riled. A common license the government mandates is for commercial cosmetology. We’re talking haircuts and foundations here, nothing remotely close to endangering public policy. Think back to the doctor. Now she needed a license from the government because if she were bad, she’d sooner be jumping rope with your spleen than successfully operating on you. Consider the haircutter. If he’s no good, you’ll look like a weirdo for a few weeks. I emphasize
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that we surely hope that both the doctor and the haircutter are good. It’s just that only the doctor is important enough to have the government threatening arrest if she doesn’t get licensed. Ignoring that it shouldn’t be licensed in the first place, cosmetology is a ridiculously broad category. Leave it to the government to utterly botch the codified definition. Absurdly, an ancient art that requires no equipment whatsoever falls within the entrepreneurial death block of cosmetology. African style hair-braiding has existed long before petty state governments started throwing out arbitrary licensing rules. The braiding is technologically simple, but complex in practice. It’s also invaluable culturally. Commercial African hair-braiding began somewhat recently. Immigrants escaping war from the heart of Africa began seeking the American Dream in spectacular entrepreneurial fashion. Women arrived into this country without high school education, limited English skills and few contacts. They began making their way using the art of hair styling within their communities. We had a beautiful cultural exchange bringing economic prosperity to a new wave of Americans. Enter the government. I really, really get mad when the government is terrible. Seriously, take a guess as to how the government handled this situation. Tax breaks, promotions, a visit from the governor for a new doo? The government tried to arrest these women. You see, just because the braider consented to shape the hair, and the customer wanted to receive the service and there was very, very little danger involved doesn’t mean that we are “following public policy.” Our gracious, watchful government swooped in to arrest the hair-braiding menace before society crumbled. “No, no, no,” the government said (probably condescendingly). “You must first obtain a license in cosmetology before performing this service that poses no risks and that you are an utter expert in.” The government’s deal was that hair-braiders had to go to a 14-month cosmetology school and spend between $7,000 and $14,000 to get a shiny license. Until then, the braiders had to shut down. If they so much as touched another person’s hair, off to jail they went. The real kicker is that none of the cosmetology schools in these states have classes on hair-braiding, let alone in an African style. The whole requirement is an utter waste. A good deal of liberals I meet don’t understand what calls for “small government” are all about. The hair-braiding incident is a perfect example. At some point, the government became powerful enough to have full control over all things hair. Predictably, the government used this ability to strike against the people. And to whom did the government go against? Newly immigrated African women. I don’t want government to be able to send African women to jail because of hair-braiding. A bulky, bureaucratic government absolutely trashes the rights of the least powerful members of our society. The economy needs an effective, but small government presence. The elimination of horrible licensing laws is a good step towards a small government.
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Police vs Rhetoric
POLICE VS RHETORIC
By Alex Carros
I
t doesn’t seem like a week can go by without the political left asserting ad nauseum that the police are endemically and systemically racist, and that black Americans are being butchered by the hundreds because of it. Even at the funerals of slain police officers, they (in this case, the President) cannot seem to help themselves. Vacuous buzzwords like “institutional racism” and “white privilege” have become favorites amongst these shameless race baiters, including the especially fact-free movement known as Black Lives Matter. Not only are their indictments against law enforcement largely (almost entirely) counter to the facts; they’re unashamed demonizing of our men and women in uniform have actually led to the deaths of more black Americans than the supposed evil, racist criminal justice system. If we want to improve race relations in this country, it can’t be done by scapegoating the police or white Americans. For these reasons, Black Lives Matter has accomplished nothing towards actually improving black lives in the US. In fact, they’ve made it exponentially worse. For starters, almost none of their claims has any basis in reality. The infamous “hands up, down shoot” mantra, for example, was based on a provable lie: Michael Brown never had his hands up, had assaulted Darren Wilson, and attempted to reach for his gun. The supposed widespread, unapologetic shootings of unarmed black men? Not true: studies from Harvard and the University of Washington have both shown that black suspects are *less* likely to be shot than white suspects under similar circumstances. The unfair sentencing disparities between black and white convictions? Again, not true: a meta-analysis conducted by U.S Department of Justice titled ‘The Relationship between Race, Ethnicity, and Sentencing Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Sentencing Research’ found that these disparities “can be explained by differences in legally relevant factors such as offense seriousness, prior criminal record, and other legally legitimate factors” and concluded that “it is virtually impossible to statistically prove the existence of discrimination.” So why do black Americans seem to have more interactions (including violent ones) with police officers? Well, the simple inconvenient truth is that, proportional to population, black Americans commit more crimes than white Americans. Here are the facts: despite constituting only 15% of the population, blacks have committed 45% of homicides, 62% of robberies, and 45% of assaults in the country’s 75 largest counties. Black-on-white crime is eight times more likely than the reverse, and the number 1 leading cause of preventable death in young black men is other black men (for whites, it’s car accidents). Despite all of this evidence, Black Lives Matter bends over backwards to paint police officers as the bad guys rather than look at themselves in the mirror. And this wilful delusion has deadly consequences. Their rhetoric has not only inspired cop-killers in Dallas and Louisiana, but a nation-wide vilification of law enforcement that has caused crime-rates to skyrocket; our police now no longer feel wanted or appreciated (why should they?), so they have simply checked out of proactive
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policing. And as a direct result, black Americans are dying: in the countries largest cities (such as Baltimore), homicide rates have risen anywhere from 54% in Washington D.C. to 90% in Cleveland. If Black Lives Matter actually cared about black lives in this country, they would stop trying to pass the blame onto other people and take responsibility for themselves and for their own communities. The best place to start? Addressing the utter breakdown of the intact black family: from the 1960s to the present day, the single-motherhood rate in black communities has risen from 23% to 75%. As Barack Obama himself has said, “children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to dropout of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.” What is to blame? The welfare state that largely started with LB Johnson’s War on Poverty; welfare officers went door to door apprising women of their potential benefits so long as a man wasn’t in the household. And as one would expect, the rate of single motherhood skyrocketed. This isn’t unique only to black families, but to to white ones as well: single motherhood in white communities has jumped from the single digits to ~24% today. In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who would become a Democratic senator of NY) wrote the report, “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, had stated exactly this. If we want to truly improve the lives of black families in this country, it has to start with a return to personal responsibility and an obligation to one’s family and community. There is no bogeyman like institutional racism forcing black men to abandon their financial and moral responsibilities to their children and their children’s mothers. Rather, it is a pervasive and continuing departure from traditional moral values that is causing this perpetual social ill to plague the country’s inner cities. So before we all blame someone or something for our problems in life, maybe we should look inward and see what *we* could do better to improve our situations.
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ABC’S OF CLINTON SCANDALS
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The ABC’s of Hillary Clinton Scandals By Aditi Roy A: Arms Deals
Twenty countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation received $165 billion in commercial arms sales that were approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department when she was Secretary of State. These deals increased the military strength of countries like Algeria, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, all of which have committed heinous human rights violations.
B: Benghazi
What difference does it make that Hillary Clinton received hundreds of emails about the deteriorating situation in Libya and requests for increased security in the area that she chose to ignore? Or that there were no demonstrations or protests in Benghazi about a video insulting Prophet Muhammed that caused the attacks? Or that she claimed the attacks were caused by an internet video before they had even ended? Or that she lied to the families of the four dead Americans?
C: Clinton Foundation
According to the Clinton Foundation’s own tax returns, only 10% of its budget actually went to charity. It has accepted millions of dollars in donations from countries with gross human rights violations.
D: Debbie Wasserman Shultz
After the Wikileaks DNC email hack found that party officials had been actively working to sabotage the Sanders campaign, the chairwoman of the DNC resigned after the convention. After having lost her job for corruption, Wasserman Shultz was hired by none other than Hillary Clinton to serve as a surrogate for her presidential campaign.
E: Email gate
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used a private email server despite being warned not to. Of the 30,000 emails released, 2,000 were confidential, with 8 chains that included top secret information. There are 14,900 emails that have yet to be released in October, and 32,000 emails that she deleted. She used 8 cell phones during her time as Secretary of State, but the FBI was unable to get to them because she had her staffers destroy them with a hammer.
F: Filegate
The Clintons unlawfully obtained FBI files on their perceived enemies, most of which had served in previous Republican administrations. They also illegally released the personal files of the women who claimed that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted them. -see “R: Rape Apologist”
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G: Goldman Sachs Speeches
These private speeches were a big pay-day for Hillary. She received $675,000 from Goldman Sachs alone, and received $1.8 million for giving 8 speeches to large banks. Together, Hillary and Bill Clinton collected at least $153 million in speaking fees.
H: Haitian Earthquake Profits
While she was Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was in charge of overseeing the reconstruction effort, while Bill Clinton, already special envoy to Haiti for the UN, was the co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission and was to work side by side with the former Haitian Prime Minister. While the Haitians wanted to rebuild new roads and buildings, the Clintons and their mega donors had other plans. Bill Clinton and friends excluded Haitians from the decision making process, and not only did the relief efforts not benefit them, but lined the pockets of Clinton donors. The earthquake affected southern Haiti, yet nearly $124 million in U.S. relief efforts went to a textile factory that was supposed to create over 60,000 jobs and boost the Haitian economy. Instead it created 5,000 jobs and companies like Target, Gap, and Walmart benefitted from cheap labor and tariff-free products. Even the infrastructure projects did nothing to help the Haitians. One program was supposed to use $53 million to build 15,000 homes for Haitians, but instead spent $90 million building 2,600 homes. Dalberg was a company that was supposed to be determining relocations for those affected by the Earthquake, suggested moving the victims to highly unstable cliffs. Denis O’ Brien, an Irish billionaire who donated up to $10 billion to the Clinton Foundation, owned the cell phone company Digicell that was operating in Haiti before the earthquake. Hillary Clinton’s State Department wanted to fund a service that would allow Haitians to transfer money on their mobile phones. Not only did Digicell apply for that grant money, they paid Bill Clinton $225,000 for a sponsored speech in Jamaica, and Digicell ended up receiving the grant money. The Haitian government decided to give gold-mining concessions after 50 years of not allowing it in efforts to rebuild the country. The gold mining permit was given to VCS mining, whose board of directors include brother of Hillary Clinton, Tony Rodham. Six years later, Haiti continues to struggle with homelessness and faces a deadly cholera epidemic, which was brought to Haiti during the earthquake by UN aid workers.
I: IRS Scandal
From its start, the Clinton Foundation has completely ignored the rules of the IRS. There were major errors in how donations from governments were reported in the Clinton Foun-
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dation’s 990 forms. Form 990 is what gives an organization its tax exempt status and include detailed financial information about its earnings and donors. It’s not the only time the Clintons were involved with the IRS. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, his political opponents and anyone who threatened his presidency had IRS audits conducted against them.
J: Julian Assange
Assange, the founder of Wikileaks confirms that Hillary sold weapons to ISIS. Wikileaks has 1,700 hacked Clinton emails, which contain proof that Clinton pushed for giving weapons to extremists in Syria and Islamic State.
K: Ku Klux Klan
Senator Robert Byrd was a Democrat from West Virginia who also started a new chapter of the KKK in Sophia, WV. He became a recruiter and leader of that chapter. Hillary Clinton has grilled Trump for being slow to disavow KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, yet she referred to Senator Byrd, as her mentor. Bill Clinton went on to justify his membership, as Byrd was “just trying to get elected” and “there are no perfect people”. We all make mistakes, but starting a chapter of the KKK in your hometown and actively participating in it for seven years is pretty unforgivable. Not to mention, Clinton has accepted over $20,000 from the KKK and she has been endorsed by KKK Grand Dragon Will Quigg.
L: Lying (about being under sniper fire)
Hillary claimed that in 1996 on her trip to Bosnia, she landed under sniper fire, and that she remembers running with her head down to the vehicle. Videos of the landing show otherwise. Clinton took her time to shake hands with troops and take photos, and even brought her then 16 year old daughter Chelsea, with her.
M: Margaret Sanger
Hillary Clinton says she is proud to stand with Planned Parenthood and praises its founder Margaret Sanger and even compared her to Thomas Jefferson. Margaret Sanger was a racist eugenics advocate. The goal of her Negro Project was to present women in the black communities with birth control because she wanted to “exterminate the negro population”. She hated charity organizations and believed that those who were poor were less intelligent. She spoke at the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan and believed that the greatest sin was bringing diseased children in the world.
N: Nigeria
Nigeria is one of the most populated and resource rich countries in Africa, and experiences a 50% poverty rate. It has also been called the most corrupt country in the world, as oli-
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ABC’S OF CLINTON SCANDALS
garchs take the money that is supposed to go to poor citizens, and put them in Swiss bank accounts. Bill Clinton received $1.4 million for 2 speeches in Nigeria by a businessman with close ties to the Nigerian President. Gilbert Chagoury has given $1 billion to the Clinton Foundation and worked with Mark Rich, who was on the FBI most wanted list for trading oil with the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran Hostage Crisis, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton during his presidency. Together, Chagoury and Rich sold Nigerian oil assets on the oil market for profit. This also profited the de facto President of Nigeria at the time, General Sani Abacha, who smuggled an estimated $8 billion and put them in European bank accounts, which Chagoury was later indicted for.
O: Omar Mateen’s father at Hillary rally
Omar Mateen was the terrorist who murdered 49 people in the Pulse nightclub shooting earlier this year in the name of ISIS. His father was not just at Hillary’s rally in Kissimmee, Florida, but seated right behind her while she was speaking. Seddique Mateen ran for president in Afghanistan and has a history of supporting the Taliban and using anti-American rhetoric on his television program. He also said that punishing gays was Allah’s job. Will Clinton disavow support from the homophobic Taliban supporting father of a terrorist?
P: Putin ties
Hillary Clinton has had a lot to say about Vladimir Putin over the years, and put Trump on blast for praising the Kremlin. But as Secretary of State, she oversaw a major technology transfer component of a Russian reset. Both U.S. corporations and Russian government officials were involved in the project, which also poured millions of dollars into the Clinton Foundation. John Podesta, her campaign chairman, was also involved with Russia, as he was on the executive board of a small offshore company where a Putin-tied Russian government fund transferred $35 million. Podesta failed to reveal this on his federal financial disclosures.
Q: Qatar and FIFA Donations
Hillary’s global charity has received up to $100,000 from FIFA on various occasions, in fact, several executives in soccer’s governing body had been arrested for corruption. Bill Clinton had been the chairman of the bid committee to promote the US to host a future world cup, but lost the 2022 bid to Qatar, which upset the former president. The Clinton Foundation received up to $500,000 from the Qatar 2022 committee, while the Qatari government gave up to $5 million. Hillary claims to care about workers’ rights and refugees during her presidential campaign to gain votes, yet takes money from these organizations that have subject foreign workers to slave status. There have been at least 1,000 deaths of foreign workers in the construction of Qatari World Cup stadiums, but she couldn’t care less.
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ABC’S OF CLINTON SCANDALS
R: Rape apologist
Clinton defended a child-rapist when she was a lawyer and did so by claiming that the 12 year old victim was fantasizing about older men. She knew this man was guilty, there are tapes of her saying that as soon as the lie detector determined that her client was telling the truth, she never trusted lie detectors again, and then laughed about it. Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey all accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. What does this have to do with Hillary? She hired private detectives to destroy their narratives so that Bill would be on his way to the White House.
S: Sick?
There has been lots of speculation about Hillary’s health lately, and rightfully so. She’s had brief seizures when being interviewed by multiple journalists, coughing fits, and has a paramedic with her at all times. Multiple physicians and neurologists have expressed concern about her health, including Dr. Drew Pinsky, who said he was gravely concerned about her health and healthcare. Eight days after his commentary, CNN cancelled Dr. Drew’s show, “Dr. Drew On Call”. Presidential health crises have a history of being hidden from the public. Voters have the right to know if they are actually voting for Hillary Clinton or Tim Kaine. Update: Clinton has in fact been diagnosed with Pneumonia.
T: Tyson Chicken
In 1978, Hillary traded cattle futures and made over $98,000 from a $1,000 investment with the help of a Tyson Foods attorney. Tyson Foods was mandated by state law, to properly dispose of chicken manure, but the law was never enforced by then Arkansas state governor, Bill Clinton. Seepage from the waste contaminated the drinking water of a community five years later, and 15 months passed before Bill Clinton declared it a disaster area.
U: Uranium One Sales to the Kremlin
Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Russia now controls 20% of all U.S. uranium production capacity. An investment bank with links to the Kremlin paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow and uranium executives involved had donated over $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. Ian Telfer, the head of the Russian government’s Uranium Company, secretly donated $2.35 million to the Secretary of State’s foundation, after which she approved the transfer of our uranium to Russia.
V: Vince Foster
He was Bill Clinton’s childhood friend who “committed suicide” when he was supposed to testify to Congress against Hillary Clinton. He reportedly used a gun which was still in his hand, but the first person to arrive at the scene claimed there was no gun. There was also a ripped up, forged suicide note found in his briefcase. He is just one on the list of over 112 people linked to the Clintons that have been killed, which is referred to as the Clin-
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BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM ton Body Count. These include people who were supposed to testify against them or helped expose their corruption. The cause of death for each case is alarmingly suspicious. For instance, one of the more recent deaths include Seth Rich, who Julian Assange hinted as being the source for the Wikileaks DNC email hack, was shot multiple times in the back, and his death was reported as a robbery even though nothing was stolen. Could some of them been a coincidence? Sure. But over one hundred people dead is no accident. How many more people do the Clintons have to have killed before the mainstream media stops brushing it off as a conspiracy theory?
W: Whitewater
When Bill and Hillary were partners in a law firm, they collaborated with their other friends to circumvent federal regulations by using fraudulent real estate loans. After the FBI completed its investigation, Bill and Hillary were the only ones involved in the incident who were not indicted or destroyed. Clinton had help stealing hard copies of the billing records while she was a partner at the law firm and erased their electronic versions. A set of these documents were recovered outside Hillary’s private office in the White House. See Vince Foster: another set of these records were found in his attic years after his death.
X: XL Pipeline
Hillary Clinton received $1.6 million for her speeches from two Canadian banks that have financial ties to TransCanada, the owner of the Keystone XL Pipeline. This might be problematic considering she now opposes it and has been backed by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. Steyer had previously donated over $100 million for Obama to block the Keystone XL Pipeline. Talk about conflicting interests.
Y: Yugoslavia Bombings
When she was First Lady, she urged Bill Clinton to conduct a 78-day NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia against the Serbs, even though the Serbs were no threat to the U.S. The bombings caused people to flee the conflict in all directions and created the ethnic cleansing they were supposedly trying to prevent.
Z: Zeifman
He was the Chief Counsel fired Clinton from Watergate Investigation It’s not surprising that the most corrupt presidential candidate was also involved in the biggest political scandal in American history. Then 27 year old Hillary Clinton worked in the House Judiciary Committee as a staff attorney. Jerry Zeifman was the Chief of Staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who says he fired Clinton because she was dishonest, tried to violate the Constitution and the rules of the House, the committee, and of confidentiality. Sources for all of the above can be found on our site: http://www.binghamtonreview.com
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FACT CHECKING THE FACT CHECKERS
Fact Checking the Fact Checkers at the First Debate By David Keptsi
After the mess that was the first presidential debate, many people were driven to fact checking websites to try to make sense of the B.S. coming out of both candidates mouths. Unfortunately the same websites/publications that have a supposed duty to objectively fact check the debate seem to have been either purchased by foreign interests or are outright trying to push an agenda with the selectiveness of their fact checking. As such, I have decided to fact check the fact checkers. While I would love to criticize the New York times fact check, they were so highly selective with what they chose to fact check that only minor points were truly covered. While the fact checking on NPR’s website was also quite egregious, at least they provided a transcript so it’s easy to see what they left out. The following are the particularly annoying mistakes made by NPR in their coverage.
H:
“I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future. That means jobs in infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean renewable energy and small business because most of the new jobs will come from small business. We also have to make the economy fairer. That starts with raising the national minimum wage and also guarantee, finally, equal pay for women’s work.” The part of that statement fact checked was raising the minimum wage, the note given was that the minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009. That wasn’t really worth fact checking, but it seems even worse in light of the following statement on equal pay for women’s work. Fact Check: The wage gap is a myth that simple observation of economic data can dispel. The wage gap between single men and single women is practically nonexistent and much of the statistical difference comes from married women who drop out of the workforce to care for their children in addition to different general career choices among the genders.
T:
“Thousands of jobs leaving Michigan, leaving Ohio, they’re all leaving.” The fact checkers nail trump here by saying the unemployment rates in Ohio and Michigan are lower than the national average. Fact Check: Unemployment rates themselves are kind of iffy and the government uses them to manipulate public opinion. First off there’s several different levels of classification for unemployment not to mention another measured factor called labor force participation which is much lower than employment. In fact if you look at the data, you can compare unemployment with labor force participation and you can see the government is pretty clever in making it look like the unemployment rate went down more than it actually did since the peak of the recession. Unemployment has dropped from a peak of 10% to 4.9 today( a 5.1 drop) but Labor force participation has also shrank
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from 65% to 62.8% showing that a significant amount of people stopped looking for work, lowering the official unemployment rate and making our recovery from the recession seem faster than it actually is.
H:
“The kind of plan that Donald has put forth would be trickle-down economics all over again.” Fact Check: Okay this is more of a bad move on Hillary’s part than something requiring a fact check, she’s likening Trump to Reagan and republicans love Reagan. Way to give him more credibility Hilldog.
T:
“Let me give you the example of Mexico. They have a vat tax, we’re on a different system. When we sell into Mexico there is a tax when they sell an automatic sixteen percent approximately. When they sell into us there’s no tax. It’s a defective agreement.” Fact Check: It actually almost sounded like Donald Trump was going to support free trade here but he just decided to counter bad tariffs with more bad tariffs. I’m surprised this didn’t go fact checked as it’s a pretty big point. Apparently NAFTA actually obtained 0% tariffs on many select American goods, which is pretty good. Although I have a feeling these select goods are only produced by certain companies and the whole deal reeks of corporate welfare but I may be wrong, and so far the data outweighs my feelings.
H:
‘Well, let’s stop for a second and remember where we were eight years ago, we had the worst financial crisis the great recession, the worst since the 1930s. That was, in large part, because of tax policies that slash taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street and created a perfect storm” Fact Check: The bush tax cuts were not the primary causative factor of the housing crisis. The housing bubble in a nutshell was a combination of several factors. Investors gambled on risky mortgage securities that they believed had a much lower chance of defaulting than they actually did. The reason they didn’t expect such huge rates of default was because the data they used assumed that the banks which issued the mortgages, actually ensured that the people getting them could pay the rates. A bunch of people were buying houses that couldn’t afford them previously and increased demand drove real estate prices up. Once people started defaulting on their mortgages, real estate prices stopped rising, and the investors had to dump their now toxic assets, bursting the bubble. You can blame the banks lowering the standards on their loans or you can blame the people stupid enough to buy things that they should have known they actually couldn’t afford. Also, recessions are a typical part of business cycles and are pretty much unavoidable every few years. (In fact, we’re actually due for another quite soon!)
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