Category: 2020 Election

Trump sticks his foot in his mouth with a desperate appeal to female voters

AlterNet logoAlmost nothing President Donald Trump ever does is subtle. When he tries to appeal to specific voting demographics, he often lacks the finesse to communicate the essential idea that he doesn’t just care about them for their votes — he actually shares their values.

That’s why he can easily espouse bigoted ideas even when trying to court specific groups of voters, such as when he told African-Americans that they are “living in hell in the inner cities” or when he told Jewish voters that supporting Democrats demonstrates “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

So it was little surprise that, when Trump tried on Thursday to reach out to suburban women voters, he botched it: Continue reading.

Trump cancels Jacksonville portion of GOP convention

Axios logoPresident Trump says he’s canceled the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, Florida, citing health concerns over the coronavirus and a need to protect the public.

What he’s saying: Trump made the announcement from the White House briefing room, saying he would still give a speech accepting the nomination “in a different form,” and that delegates still would convene in Charlotte, N.C., earlier that week as planned for party business. Trump claims he told his team “the timing for this event is not right, it’s just not right,” adding, “I have to protect the American people.”

Our thought bubble:In the wake of the Tulsa rally debacle, where many of Trump’s elderly supporters stayed away for fear of COVID-19, Trump’s aides have been urging him to publicly address their concerns. Continue reading.

DOJ watchdog to probe alleged use of force by law enforcement against protesters

The Hill logoThe internal watchdog at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced an investigation into the alleged use of force by federal law enforcement personnel against protesters in Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office will coordinate with his counterpart at the Department of Homeland Security to examine use of force allegations involving DOJ law enforcement personnel.

Horowitz said in a statement that his office “is initiating a review to examine the DOJ’s and its law enforcement components’ roles and responsibilities in responding to protest activity and civil unrest in Washington, DC, and in Portland, Oregon over the prior two months.” Continue reading.

Judge orders Michael Cohen to be released to home confinement

Axios logoA federal judge on Thursday ordered President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen to be released from prison and into home confinement, ruling that the Justice Department retaliated against him over his planned tell-all book about the president.

Catch up quick: Cohen was released from federal prison in New York in May to serve his three-year sentence at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. But he was imprisoned again this month after officials said he refused the conditions of his home confinement, including by writing his book. The judge ruled that DOJ’s actions curbed Cohen’s First Amendment rights.

What they’re saying: ““I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release,” District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said at Cohen’s hearing. “Why would the Bureau of Prisons ask for something like this … unless there was a retaliatory purpose?” Continue reading.

Trump’s fight with city leaders escalates

The Hill logoPresident Trump is escalating his fight with city leaders as he looks to send federal law enforcement agents beyond Portland, Ore., and into Chicago and other U.S. cities.

Trump on Wednesday announced that the Justice Department’s “Operation Legend” — an effort to help local police combat violent crime — is expanding from Kansas City, Mo., to Chicago, Albuquerque, N.M., and other U.S. cities.

he move comes as agents Trump deployed to protect federal property in Portland have come under widespread criticism for their heavy-handed tactics. Though the deployment to Portland was not part of Operation Legend, local leaders from other U.S. cities are made nervous by the federal response they’ve seen unfold in Portland. They also feel uneasy because the orders come from a president who has made it a point to single out Democratic-run cities and is eager to flex his law-and-order image ahead of the 2020 election. Continue reading.

Jason Lewis Continues Spreading COVID Misinformation — This Time About Masks (Really)

Lewis Falsely Claims that Experts are “All Over the Place” on Efficacy of Masks

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis continues to fuel misinformation and question medical experts’ advice amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Yesterday, Lewis called Minnesota’s new mask mandate “ill-advised.”

Lewis expressed his opposition toward masks in this video posted online, saying:

“As recently as May of this year, the New England Journal of Medicine questioned their [masks] efficacy outside of a health care setting. And of course, the authorities, the experts, have been all over the place. First you didn’t need them. Now you do. Now there seems to be this growing demand.”

The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine that Lewis references have already responded to false claims like these, saying that they support universal mask wearing:

“We understand that some people are citing our Perspective article (published on April 1 at NEJM.org) as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less.”

Lewis’ disregard and disdain for public health experts’ advice to help combat COVID-19 constitutes a serious threat and danger to Minnesotans’ well-being. As the state continues to see  a rise in cases and the first infant death caused by COVID-19, it is clear that the virus is still a very real threat to Minnesotans and Americans. Lewis puts his rigid views before what is best for Minnesota, even in the midst of a global pandemic.

Since the onset of the pandemic, which has claimed over 140,000 American lives, Lewis has peddled various conspiracy theories, spread misinformation — most recently falsely claiming that young children cannot transmit the virus.

How Trump’s Use of Federal Forces in Cities Differs From Past Presidents

New York Times logoLegal scholars fear the president is trying to take on a job that the Constitution did not give the federal government.

Federal forces went into Los Angeles to control the Rodney King riots. They entered Washington, Chicago and Baltimore in the days after the killing of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. They went into Detroit during a race riot in 1943, and then again in 1967. They were in Little Rock, Ark., during school integration. For the Pullman Strike of 1894 in Chicago, and across numerous cities during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, they were there, too.

So in some ways, the scenes of officers clad in riot gear this week in Portland, Ore., have a long American lineage in federal responses to domestic unrest. But there is something different in this moment, too, in President Trump’s repeated vows to send forces to other American cities for reasons that slip between protecting specific federal properties, restoring general order and combating violent crime.

“The idea of bringing in troops or law enforcement in its many forms to quell civilian protest is as American as apple pie — it is foundational to this nation,” said Heather Ann Thompson, a historian at the University of Michigan. But then the president began talking about crime in Chicago, and naming cities where protests this summer haven’t turned violent. Continue reading.

Trump tried to blame Black Lives Matter protests for the coronavirus surge. Data doesn’t support his claim.

Washington Post logoOne of the obvious reasons that President Trump has resumed regular coronavirus press briefings is poll data. Recent data indicating broad skepticism about Trump’s handling of the pandemic and increased support for his probable opponent in November’s election clearly spurred the White House to resume the briefings, in the hope that voters would shift their perceptions of how Trump has handled the crisis.

Trump, never a staunch adherent to the concept of subtlety, tried to put a fine point on where he thinks blame should lie for the recent surge in new cases.

“There are likely a number of causes for the spike in infections,” he said. “Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations, which you know very well about, which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide.” Continue reading.

SPLC Watchdogs Name Stephen Miller To ‘Extremist’ List

Civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has added Trump administration official and noted white supremacist Stephen Miller to its “Extremists Files” for his role in implementing some of the most inhumane and racist immigration policies in modern U.S. history, putting this taxpayer-paid official alongside notorious racists and bigots like former KKK grand wizard David Duke and dead homophobe Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

“Stephen Miller is the architect behind some of the most draconian anti-immigrant policies that we’ve seen from the Trump administration,” SPLC senior investigative reporter Michael Edison Hayden said in a statement received by Daily Kos, stating that leaked communications with fellow racists from before he joined the White House “essentially provided a roadmap for the dehumanizing and hateful policies that we’ve seen enacted under this administration.”

“Through the conscious use of fear-mongering and xenophobia, Miller implements policies which demonize immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, in an apparent effort to halt all forms of immigration to the United States,” the SPLC said in its new “Extremists” profile on the notorious racist, who was a Senate aide to Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III before joining the White House to implement his white supremacist vision. Continue reading.

Biden says Trump is America’s first ‘racist’ president

Washington Post logoJoe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on Wednesday called President Trump the country’s first racist to be elected to the White House.

The former vice president’s blunt assessment came during a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union after a health-care worker expressed concern that Trump continues to blame Asians for the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden signaled that he shared the questioner’s concern that Trump frequently refers to the pandemic as the “China virus,” saying, “the way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from, is absolutely sickening.” Continue reading.