Category: 2020 Election

Conservative media helps Trump perform ‘law and order’ in Portland, with risks for November

Washington Post logo“Disaster”

“War zone.”

“Carnage in American cities.”

The descriptions of events in Portland, Ore., were emblazoned this week across scenes of mayhem playing in a loop on Fox News and pumped out by right-wing influencers on social media. The dystopian portrait has turned the liberal city into a test case for President Trump’s latest performance of “law and order” — the catchphrase he is making a focal point of his flagging reelection campaign by portraying Democrats as presiding over urban battle zones in which demonstrators are desecrating federal property. Continue reading.

Trump wants to be king. Did John Yoo just hand him the crown?

Washington Post logoPresidents rely on John Yoo for legal advice at their peril. Ask George W. Bush, who used Yoo’s memos from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel as justification for his program of “enhanced interrogation.” The memos were later repudiated by Bush’s own Justice Department.

Now another president is poised to seize on Yoo’s work as justification for . . . well, God knows what. President Trump, who likes the lawyers who tell him what he can do, not the ones who instruct him what he can’t, has seized on Yoo’s contorted argument that the Trump administration’s loss at the Supreme Court in the “dreamers” immigration case is actually a win — albeit a misguided one — for presidential power. Yoo, now teaching law at Berkeley, can find presidential power anywhere, for anything. But this argument is a stretch even for Yoo.

Yoo’s argument, in National Review, goes like this: President Barack Obama lacked the legal authority to implement, by executive fiat, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to protect from deportation dreamers brought to the United States as children. The Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by the liberal justices, found that while Trump had the authority to revoke DACA, he hadn’t gone through the proper administrative procedures to do so lawfully. Continue reading.

Trump Discards Promises On Minimum Wage Increase

On July 1, Donald Trump said he would share good news about the minimum wage within two weeks.

Since then, 21 days have passed without a word from the White House on the subject.

“I’m going to have a statement on minimum wage,” Trump told Fox Business during a White House interview. “I feel differently than a lot of people on minimum wage, some people in my own party. But I will have a statement over the next two weeks on minimum wage.”

Trump claimed it would be “a very positive statement.” But the promised announcement never surfaced. Continue reading.

Trump is threatening to send federal agents to various cities. The mayors are fighting back

Across the United States, protests have showed no signs of stopping following the Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd. In response, the Trump administration deployed federal forces in cities like Portland, Oregon, where they reportedly snatched protesters off the streets. Now, the mayors of several major cities have penned a letter condemning the “para-military type forces”.

It’s clear that President Trump is eager to quell protests as the election approaches. Over the past few days, reports of masked agents in Portland have grown. One protester, Mark Pettibone, told Oregon Public Broadcasting about his detainment, stating, “I am basically tossed into the van. And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.”

The problems in Portland stem not only from the government utilizing snatch-and-grab tactics but also from the fact that, as Business Insider reported, there is no discernible chain of command. Federal agents are out in unmarked vehicles and nobody knows who they are or what agencies they’re working with. Continue reading.

Fox News Viewers Increasingly Believe Covid-19 Conspiracy Theory

A new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that people who get their news from Fox News are more likely to buy into a conspiracy theory that has frequently been spread by right-wing media since the pandemic began: The false and baseless idea that the coronavirus death count has been inflated.

The poll found that 62 percent of Fox News watchers said the real number of coronavirus deaths is lower than the official number, closely aligning with 59 percent of Republicans. By contrast, only 9 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of Americans overall professed this view.

And this figure is going up, too: When the poll previously asked this question in May, it showed 44 percent of Fox News watchers and 40 percent of Republicans thought the deaths were over-counted, compared to just seven percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Americans overall. Continue reading.

October Surprise Part II: How Ron Johnson Unwittingly Exposed Trump’s Ukraine Plot

The Ukraine Scheme

In April 2018, Trump hired Rudy Giuliani, as his personal attorney, who in turn hired two associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Russian born businessmen living in Florida, where they had contrived a variety of sketchy schemes. (One of Parnas’ firms, Fraud Guarantee, which had no identifiable customers or office, paid Giuliani a $500,000 consulting fee.) At a dinner at the Trump Hotel on April 30, Parnas reportedly told Trump that the U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was “unfriendly to the president and his interests,” that her presence stood in the way of the Giuliani operation. Trump vehemently repliedthat she should be fired.

The effort to discredit and oust Yovanovitch was launched immediately. On May 9, Parnas and Fruman got Congressman Pete Sessions, a Republican of Texas, to write a letter to the State Department demanding her dismissal, claiming she had “spoken privately and repeatedly about her disdain for the current Administration,” in exchange for a promise to raise $20,000 in campaign contributions through a pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action. Sessions appeared as “Congressman-1” in the federal indictment of Parnas and Fruman. “Parnas and Fruman committed to raising those funds for Congressman-1. Parnas met with Congressman-1 and sought Congressman-1’s assistance in causing the US Government to remove or recall the then-US Ambassador to Ukraine,” the indictment stated. Continue reading “October Surprise Part II: How Ron Johnson Unwittingly Exposed Trump’s Ukraine Plot”

Kayleigh McEnany’s word games on the controversial scenes in Portland

Washington Post logoFederal law enforcement is currently clashing with demonstrators in Portland who say the officers have declined to identify either their agencies or themselves and have thrown the protesters in unmarked vans. But Kayleigh McEnany offered assurances that there is no “secretive” effort afoot. Oh, and she would also like to suggest that perhaps that Navy veteran who was beaten by police had it coming.

That was the gist of the White House press secretary’s Tuesday comments on the controversial and legally suspect scenes in Portland. The White House news briefing was the first since questions have been raised about the constitutionality and appropriateness of law enforcement failing to identify itself during a crackdown.

McEnany offered some very carefully worded and suggestive thoughts about the situation, and it’s worth breaking them down. Continue reading.

Trump’s acting Homeland Security secretary just made a damning admission on Fox News

AlterNet logoAppearing on Fox News Tuesday night, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf — who has not been confirmed to his position by the Senate — made a damning admission about his department’s conduct in Portland.

Federal officials in Portland have prompted a fierce backlash for aggressive and legally dubious tactics against protesters in the city. Local officials have demanded that the federal officials, some of them using unmarked vehicles and wearing camouflage without identifying insignia, leave and let police handle law enforcement. But President Donald Trump and Wolf seem intent on using the Homeland Security forces to intimidate, rough up, and apprehend protesters to make the federal government appear tough.

And while he was speaking to Fox Host Martha MacCallum on Tuesday, Wolf seemed to confirm what many had accused his agency of doing: making unlawful arrests. Continue reading.

‘MomBloc’ and protest first-timers march into Portland streets, moved by the aggressive tactics of federal agents

Washington Post logoPORTLAND, Ore. — Kim Brolutti was on his knees, he said, when federal agents in Portland sprayed him in the face with chemicals at point-blank range.

It was the first demonstration in a long time for the retired 66-year-old nurse and father of two, who was compelled to join Portland activists who had called on parents from around the region to stand on the front lines after days of clashes with federal officials in the city.

As Brolutti’s eyes burned and his vision blurred, his adult children led him out of the crowd and away from an advancing line of federal police. He found a bench and sat. A volunteer street medic flushed out his eyes with water, and Brolutti’s head leaned back into his daughter’s open palms. Continue reading.