Fact Checker: Trumps claim that 2 million or 3 million criminal aliens are here illegally

Democrats swallowed these two giant myths and it cost them the election

Easily the most ridiculous argument this year was that the DNC was some sort of monolith that orchestrated the nomination of Hillary Clinton against the will of “the people...” Much more at link.

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders’ supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach. Much, much more at link.

Honesty, RIP: Facts take a beating across US

Source: AP, by Matt Sedensky

Trump supporter? Root for LSU; Hillary backer? Pull for ‘Bama

"LSU won by two in 1984, and Ronald Reagan stormed the White House. LSU won by a point in 1988, and George H.W. Bush whipped Michael Dukakis. LSU won in 2000 and again in 2004, and so did George W. Bush.
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Alabama hammered LSU in 1992, and Bill Clinton took the office. The Tide shut out LSU in 1996, and Clinton took out Bob Dole. Alabama in 2008 – under Nick Saban – beat his former team 27-21. That was the year Barack Obama won his first term. In 2012, a T.J. Yeldon screen pass did LSU in, and Barack Obama won again.”

The main thieves who took those lost US factory jobs? Robots

Source: AP, by Paul Wiseman

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Despite the Republican presidential nominee's charge that "we don't make anything anymore," manufacturing is still flourishing in America. Problem is, factories don't need as many people as they used to because machines now do so much of the work.

America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to $1.91 trillion last year, according to the Commerce Department, which uses 2009 dollars to adjust for inflation. That's a notch below the record set on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007. And it makes U.S. manufacturers No. 2 in the world behind China.

Trump and other critics are right that trade has claimed some American factory jobs, especially after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 and gained easier access to the U.S. market. And industries that have relied heavily on labor - like textile and furniture manufacturing - have lost jobs and production to low-wage foreign competition. U.S. textile production, for instance, is down 46 percent since 2000. And over that time, the textile industry has shed 366,000, or 62 percent, of its jobs in the United States.

But research shows that the automation of U.S. factories is a much bigger factor than foreign trade in the loss of factory jobs. A study at Ball State University's Center for Business and Economic Research last year found that trade accounted for just 13 percent of America's lost factory jobs. The vast majority of the lost jobs - 88 percent - were taken by robots and other homegrown factors that reduce factories' need for human labor.

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