Even before the pandemic, many Americans were struggling, and COVID only added to the challenges. We have to be compassionate, and in fact, the stimulus packages already passed and coming have brought trillions of dollars in relief to millions of Americans.
Even so, if proponents exaggerate the nature and extent of the problems, it is wrong and ineffective to develop appropriate strategies. That’s exactly what happened on MSNBC’s AM Joy Show this morning.
Initially, guest host Tiffany Cross claimed that she was pending negotiations on the new stimulus package Americans are “starving”. Unlike people who fell off the net due to addiction or mental illness, perhaps Cross could tell us how many Americans starved to death during these negotiations.
Even more monstrous, tThe Rev. William Barber, a poverty attorney and regular MSNBC guest, offered some stats that can only be described as insane.
He claimed that 140 million Americans were in poverty before the pandemic and that another eight million have grown since then. A total of 148 million Americans, according to Barber. That would corresponds to 45% of the US population in poverty! The true number is 10.5%.
For example, Barber has exaggerated the number of Americans in poverty four times. But those were little potatoes compared to his absolute whopper when it came to deaths. Barber claimed that even before COVID, 250,000 Americans were dying “a day”. That would be 91 million deaths a year – that corresponds to a quarter of the population that dies every year! The number of daily deaths is actually around 7,900. In order to Barber has inflated the real number around. . . 31 times!
MSNBC’s insane claims were sponsored in part by Ninja Foodi.
Here is the transcript.
MSNBC
AM Joy
10/18/20
10:03 am EDT
TIFFANY CROSS: For the people who watch and hear, what is this about? So I thought Pelosi was talking to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. It seems that one of the big problems is national testing – that they don’t want certain aspects, they want to leave national testing to local states. They think it should be managed at the state level. What’s the problem with that? And how is that the crux of the matter people are hungry and starve? “
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Well, the pandemic isn’t over for any of us until it’s over for all of us.
. . .
CROSS: I would now like to bring in Bishop William Barber, Co-Chair of the Campaign for the Poor and author of We Are Called To Be A Movement. Bishop Barber, I am so glad to have you with me this Sunday morning because you and I were talking about the dire reality for the American people across the country when 8 million people fell into poverty. What do you think of the current situation and how can we combine the humanity of what is happening with the political maneuvers in Congress?
WILLIAM BARBER: Well, thank you very much. Here is that – let’s make it clear. You cannot get out of it without addressing the issue of poverty and low prosperity. And I tell all politicians that. We have to say that poverty should be the main problem.
We already had 140 million people in poverty, 250,000 die a day from COVID. Now let’s say eight million more people have fallen into poverty since May and Tiffany, that is not discussed.
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