Category: 2020 Election

In a pair of interviews, Trump highlights white victimhood

Washington Post logoAsked about police killings of black Americans, Trump replies: What about whites?

The fundamental premise of the Black Lives Matter movement, agree with it or not, is straightforward: Too many black Americans die at the hands of police each year, a function of racism embedded in the system of law enforcement in this country. There’s no claim of primacy; it’s not the case that protesters with the movement demand that black Americans get exceptional treatment when confronted by law enforcement. Instead, it demands that they not be treated exceptionally, that being black not correlate with a higher risk of death when being detained.

This premise and its correlating demands and assertions have been the subjects of robust debate for more than five years, including in the past several weeks after the death of George Floyd while being restrained by a police officer in Minneapolis. There’s certainly nuance to the subject that demands close attention. It’s the sort of thing that poses a complex challenge to elected leaders, given its overlap with the complicated issues of race and power.

Most elected leaders, anyway. In an interview with CBS News’s Catherine Herridge on Tuesday, President Trump waved away concern about the rate at which black people die at the hands of police with a comment that amounted to white lives matter, too. Continue reading.

Missouri governor says Trump is ‘getting involved’ in case of St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters

Washington Post logoMissouri Gov. Mike Parson said Tuesday that President Trump would be “getting involved” in the case of the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at a group of protesters passing outside their home last month, and who are under review for criminal charges.

On Tuesday, both the president and Republican governor offered separate impassioned defenses of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who went viral after brandishing guns at protesters on the private street outside their mansion on June 28.

Parson, who said the couple had “every right to protect their property,” said he spoke with Trump just before the governor’s coronavirus news briefing. He said Trump made it clear he “doesn’t like what he sees and the way these people are being treated,” referencing the McCloskeys. Continue reading.

White House tells 18 million unemployed workers to ‘Find Something New’ in ad campaign

Washington Post logoThe initiative — complete with a virtual roundtable featuring Apple CEO Tim Cook — was swiftly derided as “tone-deaf” on social media.

Ivanka Trump urged out-of-work Americans to “find something new” Tuesday as part of a new jobs initiative designed to tout the benefits of skills training and career paths that don’t require a college degree.

But the effort — complete with a website, advertising campaign and virtual roundtable featuring Apple CEO Tim Cook and IBM chair Ginni Rometty — was swiftly derided on social media as “clueless” and “tone-deaf” given the pandemic, recession and Trump’s own familial employment history.

“This initiative is about challenging the idea the traditional 2 and 4 yr college is the only option to acquire the skills needed to secure a job,” President Trump’s eldest daughter and White House adviser said in a Twitter post. “This work has never been more urgent.” Continue reading.

Faulty data collection raises questions about Trump’s claims on PPP program

Washington Post logoBorrowers and bankers involved in Paycheck Protection Program say SBA released false and sometimes inflated figures

A trove of data on $517 billion in emergency small-business loans contains numerous errors that cast doubt on the Trump administration’s jobs claims and obscure the real economic impact of the program, according to a Washington Post analysis and interviews with bankers and borrowers.

A Post analysis of data on 4.9 million loans released last week by the Small Business Administration shows that many companies are reported to have “retained” far more workers than they employ. Likewise, in some cases the agency’s jobs claim for entire industries surpasses the total number of workers in those sectors.

And for more than 875,000 borrowers, the data shows that zero jobs were supported or no information is listed at all, according to the analysis. Continue reading.

White House virus task force member says ‘none of us lie’

WASHINGTON — A top member of the White House coronavirus task force said Tuesday that “none of us lie” to the public, an accusation President Donald Trump had retweeted, and that while kids need to be back in school as Trump insists, “we have to get the virus under control.”

Adm. Brett Giroir’s comment came a day after Trump shared a Twitter post from a former game show host who, without evidence, accused government medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, of “lying.”

Trump himself has at times disregarded the advice of his medical experts on the task force and continues to play down the threat from the virus as it spikes across the country, forcing some states to slow or reverse steps to reopen their economies. Continue reading.

Trump uses Rose Garden as substitute rally venue in onslaught against Biden

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump used a White House event on China to excoriate his expected Democratic presidential rival, Joe Biden, on Tuesday in a rambling diatribe that turned the Rose Garden setting into a substitute rally venue, minus his supporters.

The Republican president, who trails Biden in national opinion polls, has chafed at his inability to hold large political gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

His campaign postponed an outdoor rally scheduled for last Saturday in New Hampshire, citing a tropical storm off the East Coast. An indoor rally he held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last month featured a partially empty arena. Continue reading.

The White House Called a News Conference. Trump Turned It Into a Meandering Monologue.

New York Times logoThe president spoke in the Rose Garden for 63 minutes. He spent only six of those minutes answering questions from reporters.

WASHINGTON — In theory, President Trump summoned television cameras to the heat-baked Rose Garden early Tuesday evening to announce new measures against China to punish it for its oppression of Hong Kong. But that did not last long.

What followed instead was an hour of presidential stream of consciousness as Mr. Trump drifted seemingly at random from one topic to another, often in the same run-on sentence. Even for a president who rarely sticks to the script and wanders from thought to thought, it was one of the most rambling performances of his presidency.

He weighed in on China and the coronavirus and the Paris climate change accord and crumbling highways. And then China again and military spending and then China again and then the coronavirus again. And the economy and energy taxes and trade with Europe and illegal immigration and his friendship with Mexico’s president. And the coronavirus again and then immigration again and crime in Chicago and the death penalty and back to climate change and education and historical statues. And more. Continue reading.

Gun safety group plans to spend $1M to flip Minnesota Senate

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A major gun control group with ties to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday it plans to spend at least $1 million to try to flip the Minnesota Senate to Democratic control and keep the Minnesota House in the hands of lawmakers who back its positions.

The Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund has targeted the state Senate because Republicans hold just a three-vote majority there. But GOP senators have blocked legislation supported by the Democratic-controlled House and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for universal background checks on gun sales and a “red flag law” that would allow courts to temporarily confiscate guns from people judged to be an imminent threat to themselves or others.

The fund and an affiliated group, Moms Demand Action, are focusing on 12 Senate districts now held by Republicans, mostly in the Twin Cities suburbs, Rochester and St. Cloud. They’re also targeting five GOP-held House districts while trying to defend a dozen legislative seats held by supporters. Their first ad attacks GOP lawmakers for refusing to consider the two gun control bills. Continue reading.

Conservative writer details how Trump’s ‘cult of personality’ is revealing its ‘grotesque selfishness’

AlterNet logoConservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin has been consistently critical of President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis. This week in her column, the Never Trumper asserts that Trump and his loyalists in the Republican Party will gladly encourage others to put themselves at risk during the pandemic but won’t take such risks themselves.

“This is the natural consequence of a cult of personality in which the leader’s ego and survival are paramount,” she writes in her column titled: “The party of grotesque selfishness.”

“Both ‘Fox & Friends’ host Brian Kilmeade and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos say life is full of risks; so, send your kids back to school no matter what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say,” Rubin observes. “President Trump has been jetting around, greeting visitors and talking to his supporters — albeit fewer than planned — without wearing a mask in public until Saturday. His cult naturally adopted his contempt for this basic health measure. It was only when the pandemic socked red states that many Republican officials became terribly dismayed that ‘some people’ had politicized masks.” Continue reading.

Restaurant says it banned obnoxious Trump guy who broke coronavirus rules

Last week, Alpha News published a story detailing one man’s political persecution at the hands of a local business.

In the original story, Greg Aberle was made out to be an extremely loyal customer to Porter Creek Hardwood Grill in Burnsville, where he’d spent “what he estimates to be roughly $90,000” over the past nine years. This generosity was no match for Porter Creek’s political correcness, according to Aberle, who said he’d been banned from the bar and restaurant “because of his support for Donald Trump.”

Aberle told Alpha News — which, again people: sucks — his MAGA hat had been the subject of “snide comments” for some time running, and that he and his girlfriend have “never done a thing to warrant getting kicked out of that place, aside from wearing Trump hats.”  Continue reading.