Category: 2020 Election

Trump Campaign Video Features Conspiracy Theorist Who Backs QAnon, Doubts Coronavirus

On July 5, the Trump campaign’s Real News Insights featured Lara Trump interviewing Fox Nation host Isaiah Washington.

As Media Matters has documented, Washington is a QAnon supporter who has pushed conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, 5G networks, Black Lives Matter, and many other topics.

During the episode, which Trump celebrated as the campaign show’s 250th, she and Washington discussed his support for President Donald Trump, and how he was “blown away” when he visited the White House last year and saw the president deviate from the prepared remarks on his teleprompter. Washington also criticized the media for not wanting “to support” solutions that Trump is trying to implement. Continue reading.

Supreme Court denies Democrats’ bid to fast-track ongoing fight for Trump financial records

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by House Democrats to accelerate the timeline of remaining court battles over congressional subpoenas for President Trump’s tax returns.

The bid by lawmakers came in response to the court’s landmark 7-2 ruling earlier this month to shield a trove of Trump’s financial records from several Democratic-led House committees and return the dispute to lower courts for further litigation.

Under regular Supreme Court procedure, the ruling would reach the lower courts no earlier than Aug. 3, a delay Democrats sought to avoid by asking the justices to expedite the process. Continue reading.

October Surprise: Ron Johnson’s Journey Through ‘Multiple Untruths’ To The Fable Of Obamagate

The Lugar Center is a fairly recent addition of the sort of traditional institute in Washington that prevailed before Donald Trump. Its mission is to advance an internationalist foreign policy, “bipartisan governance,” and bring together experts to “bridge ideological divides.” It was founded by one of the last of the moderate Republicans, Richard G. Lugar, the late U.S. senator from Indiana, who once seemed to define the mainstream of a now bygone party, in the forefront of legislation to curb nuclear proliferation, but was purged in a brutal primary, losing to a Tea Party candidate who declared rape that resulted in a pregnancy was a “gift from God.”

On May 27, the Lugar Center released its first comprehensive Congressional Oversight Hearing Index, an in-depth study of the due diligence of every committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate in holding the executive branch accountable, concluding with a grade for each committee. “If a House or Senate committee is failing to meet historical standards, because of partisan bias, the inattention of the committee chair, or any other reasons, the COHI will illuminate that shortfall,” the Center stated. While many committees received high grades, the lowest grade—an “F” for failure—was awarded to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The report observed that the committee previously had been “one of the most active in the Senate,” but that its hearing schedule had “fallen dramatically.” On the Lugar Center’s carefully considered Bell Curve, the committee was at rock bottom and its chairman had flunked.

Trump’s Senators

Just a week later, on June 4, that chairman, Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who had come to power on the Tea Party wave that carried out Richard Lugar, rammed through authorization for 35 subpoenas to fulfill President Donald Trump’s reported demand at a meeting on May 19 of Senate Republicans to get “tough” on the “Obamagate” conspiracy, a purported “Deep State” plot of the Obama administration and the intelligence community to destroy his presidency by investigating his campaign’s links to and possible collusion with the Russian interference in the 2016 election. Continue reading.

Colin Powell Suggests Trump Is Supporting ‘Another Country’ By Playing Footsie With The Confederacy

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell on Sunday revealed that he supports the renaming of bases that honor Confederate generals.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell on Sunday revealed that he supports the renaming of bases that honor Confederate generals.

During an interview on CBS, host Margaret Brennan asked Powell if the country is too divided to address systemic racism.

“We’re a much better nation now,” Powell explained. “We’re living better than we did then. But there’s more to be done. There are more youngsters that have to be educated, there are more adults that have to be educated. We have to fix the economic system.” Continue reading.

Trump to send federal forces to more ‘Democrat’ cities

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Monday said he would send law enforcement to more U.S. cities, as a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests in Oregon with unmarked cars and unidentified forces angered people across the country.

Trump, a Republican, cited New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland, California, as places to send federal agents, noting the cities’ mayors were “liberal Democrats.” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot frequently blasts Trump on Twitter.

“We’re sending law enforcement,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We can’t let this happen to the cities.”

As pressure grows, Trump’s talk on race grows far less subtle

Behind in the polls, Trump is turning his attention to talk about race and suburbs. It’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

During his Fox News interview yesterday, Donald Trump was reminded that many U.S. military leaders believe it’s time to change the name of bases named after Confederate generals. “I don’t care what the military says,” the president said. “I’m supposed to make the decision.”

Moments later, the Republican added, “We’re going to name it after the Rev. Al Sharpton?”

In context, no one had brought up the MSNBC host and no one has suggested naming installations after Sharpton. Trump simply wanted to defend the practice of naming U.S. military bases after Confederates who took up arms against American troops. And to help bolster his case, the first name that came to the president’s mind as an example of someone who shouldn’t be honored was a prominent voice from the African-American community. Continue reading.

The Lincoln Project is out with a stark new ad on Portland, Trump’s ‘shadowy’ thugs, and your city

A dystopia is an imagined place, and the latest Lincoln Project ad, released Sunday night, rolls out like the trailer for a film about such a dark state. But, of course, Portland, Oregon, is a very real place, and the ad is based on a very real story unfurling right now, rendered in black and white and red with a pulp-noir sensibility.

“This is how it starts: A president out of control as polls forecast his downfall,” the narrator begins over an image of President Trump and a typically bad poll. “This is how it starts: In a small city far from the Beltway, shadowy men — no badges, no ID, deputized by a rogue attorney general — snatch so-called ‘enemies of the state’ off the streets. This is how it starts: Without a warning or a warrant, heavily armed paramilitary units shove their targets into unmarked vans and race away.”

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf gets a cameo, too, and the ad makes clear the federal incursion into Portland is designed for a national rollout: “Faceless enforcers say you don’t have the right to protest. Now Trump’s bureaucrats are promising to send their their thugs everywhere — your town, your neighborhood. This is how it starts, and how freedom dies — unless we stand up, unless we speak out, unless we demand justice.” Continue reading.

In Portland, federal agents are reportedly tossing protesters in unmarked vans

For the past several days, unidentified, ambiguously accountable, and largely anonymous federal agents have been terrorizing the activist community in Portland, Oregon, snatching protesters off the streets and throwing them into unmarked civilian vans as the social justice movement launched in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer continues to embroil the city.

“I see guys in camo,” protester Conner O’Shea told Oregon Public Broadcasting, describing the scene as his friend Mark Pettibone was detained by the assortment of federal officers. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door, and it was just like, ‘Oh shit. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.'”

“I am basically tossed into the van,” Pettibone added. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.” Continue reading.

Trump mocked after 5 cognitive questions he called ‘very hard’ during Fox News interview are revealed

AlterNet logoDuring his combative interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, Donald Trump defended his boast that he “aced” a test he was given by doctors to test his cognitive abilities by stating that the last five questions were “very hard” and that he doubted the Wallace would be able to answer them.

That led internet sleuths to look up those five questions that the president assigned a high degree of difficulty and, as the Daily Beast’s Julia Davis tweeted (along with an image also published by the Las Vegas Sun), “What day is it?” and “Where are you?” Continue reading.

 

Trump defends Confederate flag in Fox interview: ‘They’re not talking about racism’

AlterNet logoIf you have difficulty getting through interviews with Donald Trump. Brace yourself for his latest. On Fox News Sunday, Trump discussed a variety of topics with host Chris Wallace this morning including his take on the Confederate flag. Not only did he defend his stance against removing Confederate symbols and statutes throughout the country, but he added the flag did not offend him because it serves as a representation of the South—once again failing to acknowledge its racist history.

“When people proudly hang their Confederate flags, they’re not talking about racism. They love their flag, it represents the South,” Trump said. He even had the audacity to attempt to compare it to movements against racial injustice.

“I’m not offended, either, by Black Lives Matter,” Trump said. “That’s freedom of speech.” This statement, like others made by Trump,  contradicts former allegations he has made including calling a Black Lives Matter sign in New York a “symbol of hate.” Continue reading.