Category: 2020 Election

The White House is trying to throw Republican governors under the bus by rewriting history

AlterNet logoWhite House adviser Kellyanne Conway appeared to signal a new shift in messaging on the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday by throwing governors — particularly Republican allies of the president — under the bus.

Of course, this is a common tactic in President Donald Trump’s administration. As soon as it becomes convenient, abandon any allies and blame them for any mistakes.

But in this case, the attempt is so cynical and transparent to anyone with a long-term memory that it’s hard to believe it could work at all. Conway apparently wants us to forget Trump’s attitude toward the pandemic for the last three months. She made this clear as she blamed states for opening up too quickly and triggering a resurgence of the coronavirus, even though that’s exactly what Trump urged them to do. Continue reading.

Four years ago, Trump said he alone could fix things. What isn’t worse now?

Washington Post logoThe sight of Donald Trump standing by himself behind the briefing room lectern, doing his best to sound presidential and in command of a crisis, was a reminder of a milestone to which no one at the White House cared to draw attention.

Tuesday — the day that Trump delivered his first coronavirus briefing in months — also marked the fourth anniversary of his acceptance of the 2016 Republican nomination at the GOP convention in Cleveland. It was there that he so memorably declared to thousands of cheering delegates and a national television audience: “I alone can fix it.”

Today, it is hard to find any measure by which the country is not feeling more insecure andworse off than it did when Trump was elected. Continue reading.

Amid a tense meeting with protesters, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tear-gassed by federal agents

Washington Post logoPORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler choked on tear gas late Wednesday as he stood outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, where federal agents set off explosives and fired chemicals into a crowd of hundreds.

The Democratic mayor pressed a hand over his nose and mouth, already covered by a blue surgical mask, as a thick cloud of gas surged toward him. He had strapped on lab goggles to help protect his eyes, but still, the mayor said, his face burned and eyes watered.

“It’s hard to breathe — it’s a little harder to breathe than I thought,” Wheeler told The Washington Post while a man with a leaf blower turned the nozzle on the mayor to clear away any gas still hanging in the air. “This is abhorrent. This is beneath us. Continue reading.

Trump’s Joint Chiefs vice chairman said the president ‘is an idiot’ who only cares about money — according to a retired Army Colonel

AlterNet logoA Washington Post profile on a retired Army Colonel reveals President Donald Trump’s Joint Chiefs vice chairman, Gen. John Hyten, thinks his boss is an “idiot,” and the First Lady is “smarter than the president.”

Col. Kathy Spletstoser, who retired from the Army in 2019 after serving for 27 years, “has accused Hyten of sexually assaulting her more than half a dozen times while she was under his command,” The Washington Post reports, “and then retaliating against her — accusations that he has vigorously denied during a military investigation and in front of the Senate.”

Spletstoser is trying to gain access to records she believes will help her case against Hyten. To support her point, she revealed to The Washington Post a conversation she says Hyten had with her, after he attended a dinner with the president and First Lady in October 2017. Continue reading.

Amid rising coronavirus deaths, Trump paints a rosy picture of America’s present and future

Washington Post logoPresident Trump painted a wishful view Wednesday of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, in which existing treatments can almost cure patients flooding hospitals, all schools will safely reopen this fall, and the country’s soaring cases are confined to a handful of states.

But the rosy assessment he issued at a White House news briefing — alone at the lectern without any top public health experts — was undermined by the alarming reality that on Wednesday, almost every metric showed just how badly America is losing its fight against the virus.

The number of daily deaths on Wednesday surpassed 1,100, the first time that mark had been reached since May 29. And total deaths in the United States since the start of the pandemic increased to more than 140,000. Continue reading.

House passes bill to repeal Trump’s travel ban

The measure, mainly seen as a statement against the president’s immigration policies, is not expected to be taken up in the Senate

The House passed a measure Wednesday that would repeal the Trump administration’s ban restricting travel from targeted nations and prohibit future presidents from implementing bans based on race or religion.

The measure passed 233-183, mainly along party lines. The legislation would lift restrictions President Donald Trump has put on numerous countries over the years, including travel limits initially placed on a group of predominantly Muslim nations.

The measure also would expand the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit discrimination based on religion. The bill is not expected to advance in the Republican-led Senate, however. Continue reading.

Trump keeps boasting about passing a cognitive test — but it doesn’t mean what he thinks it does

Washington Post logoAs President Trump and his team began attacking former vice president Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness this summer, Trump began pondering his own cognitive abilities.

As part of his annual physical two years earlier, the president had taken the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — a 10-minute test designed to detect mild cognitive impairment such as the onset of dementia — and he believed he could weaponize his performance against Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

During a private campaign meeting in the Cabinet Room in early June, Trump brought up the test unprompted. In an extended riff, he talked about how well he had done — boasting that he’d been able to remember five different words, in order — and suggested challenging Biden to take the assessment, saying he was certain the former vice president would not fare as well. Continue reading.

Trump sending agents into more cities to help combat crime

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration’s intervention into local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a “law and order” mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the “radical left,” which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

“In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House event, blaming the movement for “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.” Continue reading.

To Battle a Militarized Foe, Portland Protesters Use Umbrellas, Pool Noodles and Fire

New York Times logoWith no clear leaders or blueprints, demonstrators have scrounged for items from home and largely embraced a strategy of spontaneous consensus.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Shields were made of pool noodles, umbrellas and sleds. The body armor was pieced together with bicycle helmets and football pads. The weapons included water bottles and cigarette lighters.

Facing federal forces who came to Portland to subdue them, many of the city’s protesters have taken to the streets this week with items scrounged from home. Then they have assembled at the federal courthouse each night with sometimes starkly different visions of how to put their tools to use.

In 55 consecutive nights of protest in Portland, no two have been alike. The protests began on May 29, after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. They have continued ever since, night after night, and they show no signs of letting up. Continue reading.