Fact-Checking Night Three of the DNC Convention [OPINION]

There was so much low-hanging fruit, but let's try to be chronological as some of the more noted speakers came onto our TVs last night during the third night of the Democratic National Convention, and are in need of some serious fact-checking.

Former First Lady in the Clinton Administration, New York Senator and the Obama Administration's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton:

"The wealthiest Americans got $400 billion richer during the pandemic."

Well, yeah that is kind of true, but it's more like almost $700 billion. She was using the liberal Americans For Tax Fairness for her statistic but knew it was misleading. When the pandemic first made economic impacts in February, massive losses by these same wealthiest Americans were absorbed.

Madam Secretary is suggesting that, because the stock market didn't shut down throughout the nation's COVID-19 shutdown, it must be unfair that the rich people were able to keep their riches in the market and allow their paid experts to find opportunities. Inconveniently for her and the Democrat Party is that the market has surged to over 28,000 after the pandemic's massive effect on the economy.

Do you recall when Hillary cried for the richest Americans who collectively lost hundreds of billions in February and March? No? Me either.

One closing suggestion on her economic point: you are likely to see some pretty good inclining numbers in the Clinton portfolio in this same timeframe but don't bring that up to her supporters. You'll be deemed a "hater."

"Remember in 2016 when Trump asked: 'What do you have to lose?' Well, now we know: our health, our jobs, even our lives."

Of course, all Biden supporters were nodding and high-fiving when she uttered this nonsense but let's examine the claim.

Madam Secretary has to have implied the pandemic result. Otherwise, I'm not sure anyone would know to what she could possibly be pointing.

President Trump declared a national emergency after just 52 days of the COVID-19 virus being detected inside the USA. This formal declaration opens up the nation's resources of multiple billion-dollar budgets for appropriate federal agencies and bureaucracies to combat any such disease being confronted.

In 2009, when the H1N1 pandemic struck the U.S., President Obama declared a medical emergency a bit quicker but the more vital national emergency executive declaration took 190 days.

Trump ordered the cancellation of all flights coming from China to the U.S. Joe Biden called it "hysterical" and "xenophobic." It likely slowed the spread, saving lives. The H1N1 "Swine flu" was determined to have started on a pig farm in southern Mexico. The Obama-Biden Administration never shut down the open borders to our south.

Let's compare the death rate in our nation from the end of Bill Clinton's first term in office to the end of Trump's first term in office. In 1995, the crude death rate was 8.722 per thousand Americans, and 2020 shows a very similar 8.880 per thousand Americans, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, the 2020 figure is with a significantly older average American, with a 38 median age in 2020 compared with a 33 median age in 1995, an increase of 14 percent.

I think most Americans can figure out that job losses and gains statistics are a strength for President Trump. Even before Trump was being accused of "ignoring science" or "exercising poor leadership" regarding the COVID shutdown, the job losses were colossal, but no serious thinker could suggest any president could the serious drop in the employment rate through the first 90 days.

In fact, look at the shocking rebound the employment gains have made since June 1.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren:

"I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans – plans to bring back union jobs in manufacturing and create new union jobs in clean energy. Plans to increase Social Security benefits, cancel billions in student loan debt, and make our bankruptcy laws work for families instead of the creditors who cheat them."

Sounds great Liz, but flies in the face of facts. First off, the Obama-Biden administration drove manufacturing jobs offshore, they didn't create them. In June 2016, President Obama took to the campaign trail on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Obama said that Donald Trump and his "magic wand" was not going to bring any meaningful number of offshore manufacturing jobs back into this country.

About one-in-six manufacturing jobs were lost in America between January 2008 and March 2010. Of course, President Obama didn't take office until January of 2009 but the job losses continued after the official recession ended in March of 2009.

From March 2010 until January 2017, manufacturing lagged in growth at a disturbing 7.7 percent. I will remind you that Obama-Biden remarks about this reality were that it was "the new normal."

Perhaps for them, but then came the Trump era. According to Forbes Magazine, in the first 21 months of the Trump Administration, 10 times the manufacturing jobs were created compared to the first 21 months in the Obama Administration.

Trump's lowering of taxes and deregulatory policies are what drove the jobs and prosperity back to America. A return to the Democrat Party rule as promised by Joe Biden means more regulations and higher taxes are coming our way should Biden defeat Trump on November 3.

A side note about Liz Warren's anecdotal of her personal life experience as a parent: she spoke of her Aunt Bee coming to her home and staying for 16 years to help raise their two children while Liz and her husband worked.

I couldn't help but wonder if she was plagiarizing once again, perhaps from the town of Mayberry, North Carolina where a one sheriff Andy Taylor, a widower, was raising his son, Opie, while he worked in law enforcement. Sheriff Taylor and Opie were also rescued by Aunt Bea who also stayed for many years, cooking fried chicken and butterscotch pecan pie.

Former President Barack Obama:

"Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before."

Is he seriously blaming 100 percent of the nation's fatal casualties determined to be from COVID-19 on President Trump?

Millions of jobs gone, but he left out that they are returning faster than all expectations just weeks later. As far as "those at the top," I feel extremely confident that the Obama portfolio thrived no less spectacularly.

Our reputation diminished? As the appeasing pushover who signs onto horridly lopsided trade and alliance agreements with major trade and military partners in Europe and Asia, perhaps. Diminished in the eyes of Iran who were given immense riches by the Obama Administration while they simply conceded that Iran's time to be a nuclear weapons power was a matter of "when," not "if." Sure, I can agree to that if that was the context. But it wasn't.

"For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves."

The first point I should make is that President Obama accepted his salary as president and his post-term pension. Donald Trump has donated his salary in each of his quarters as president and has pledged to sign off on any pension.

Secondly, personal gain is not something Obama should put any spotlight on. It was as shady then as it is now when, in May of 2014, the Obama Administration's Department of Education awarded the $360 million dollar contract to Pearson PLC to conduct the testing for the Common Core's national test results.

Pearson created a new publishing company just 10 months prior to being awarded the contract. That company was Random Penguin House, which signed the Obama couple to a $65 million book deal just three years later.

On July 26, 2019, the day after President Trump pointed to this shady deal (and only after being accused of something by a reporter that was proven false since), is the day the impeachment case was created against the president.

Ken Pittman is the host of The Ken Pittman Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Contact him at ken.pittman@townsquaremedia.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.