Category: Latest News

Furious Trump demanded leaker who revealed he fled to his bunker during protests be executed: report

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According to Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s bombshell book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, a furious Donald Trump demanded that officials in his government find out who leaked the story that he fled to his bunker during the George Floyd protests in D.C. and wanted them tried for treason and then executed.

As the report notes, Trump, his wife Melania and son Barron were escorted to the bunker — news of which quickly made it to the press, which caused the president to blow up.

Bender reports the former president, “held a tense meeting with top military, law enforcement and West Wing advisers, in which he aired grievances over the leak.” Continue reading.

Bans on critical race theory could have a chilling effect on how educators teach about racism

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Perhaps no topic has dominated education news in 2021 like the debate over whether or not critical race theory should be taught – or whether it is even being taught – in America’s schools.

Critical race theory is an academic framework that holds that racism is embedded in American society and its institutions. 

The debate about whether K-12 students should be exposed to this theory has prompted some Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws to make sure that never happens. As of early July 2021, six states have passed laws that seek to ban instruction on critical race theory in K-12 schools, although the laws rarely mention critical race theory by name. Continue reading.

In a surreal moment, Trump told the truth about his lies at CPAC

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During a speech filled with lies, boasts, and bullying attacks that observers have come to expect, former President Donald Trump offered a rare moment of self-effacing honesty over the weekend to the audience at CPAC.

He brought up the conservative conference’s practice of holding a straw poll to see who attendees favor to be the Republican Party’s next presidential nominee — a contest which other polls suggest he still dominates. But while he was speaking, the poll hadn’t been finished yet, so he telegraphed exactly how he will react no matter the results.

“You have a poll coming out, unfortunately — I want to know what it is,” he said. “Now if it’s bad, I disown — I say it’s fake. If it’s good, I say that’s the most accurate poll perhaps ever.” Continue reading.

The bogus GOP claim that Biden is responsible for higher gasoline prices

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“As millions of Americans travel this holiday weekend, they are feeling the cost of Biden’s policies at the pump. Gas prices are at their highest level in 7 years.”

— Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, in a tweet, July 3

“Nowhere are Americans feeling the pain more than at the pump. Gasoline prices have spiked about 70 cents per gallon since President Biden was inaugurated. They will only continue to climb.”

— Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), in a Fox News opinion article, July 2

“Average gas price: June 2020: $2.21 June 2021: $3.07 President Biden’s economy!”

— Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in a tweet, June 21

It’s that time of year again: Gasoline prices have spiked, and politicians are trying to make political hay.

The Fact Checker has had to deal with this faux issue for decades. We wrote about it in 1996 when then-Sen. Bob Dole campaigned for president and urged a repeal of the 4.3 cent gasoline tax because gasoline then was on track to reach $1.31 a gallon. We wrote about it in 2000 when gas prices appeared to have popped to the highest level ever. We wrote about it in 2012 when Republicans misleadingly complained that gasoline prices had doubled in President Barack Obama’s term.

And here we are again. President Biden has been president for only six months, and somehow his policies have already led to high gasoline prices. Continue reading.

Trump getting tougher for Senate GOP to ignore

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Senate Republican leaders have tried to put former President Trump in the rearview mirror, rarely mentioning his name and keeping focused instead on the Democratic agenda, but Trump’s iron grip on the party’s grassroots is making it tougher and tougher to keep ignoring him.

Mainstream Republicans are getting increasingly caught up in the party’s internal battle over Trump’s legacy, with even stalwart conservatives such as Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) getting called out as insufficiently loyal to Trump or “Republicans in name only.”

Trump again showed his lock on the party’s activist base over the weekend by winning the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll with 70 percent of the vote, crushing the second-place winner, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who came in a distant second with 21 percent. Continue reading.

The Republican Party’s top lawyer called election fraud arguments by Trump’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions

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The Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a “joke” that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.

Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a Republican Party staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Donald Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified.

“What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,” Riemer, a longtime Republican lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman, on Nov. 28, referring to Trump attorneys Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.” Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement On Governor Walz’s Executive Action On Conversion Therapy

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SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, following Governor Walz’s executive action on conversion therapy, the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity through bullying and intimidation, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“Conversion therapy is not backed by science and can cause life-long trauma for those forced to endure it. I applaud Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan on this step today to stop this barbaric practice. 

“Last year when the Governor and DFL leaders in the legislature tried to ban conversion therapy, Senate Republicans led by Senator Paul Gazelka blocked it. It is shameful that we have Republicans like Paul Gazelka and Scott Jensen who are not only on the wrong side of history on this issue, but who are actively contributing to a toxic environment that tells LGBTQ+ youth that they shouldn’t love and accept themselves for who they are. This is a great step for Minnesota and we must re-elect Governor Walz in order to move the state forward, not backward.”

Continue reading “DFL Party Statement On Governor Walz’s Executive Action On Conversion Therapy”

‘Tremendously ill advised’: Legal expert shocked by Sidney Powell’s closing tantrum at sanctions hearing

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Trump-backing attorney Sidney Powell on Monday refused to back down from pushing bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and said she would file all of her election-related lawsuits over again if given the opportunity.

At the close of a Michigan sanctions hearing that also featured fellow Trump-loving lawyer Lin Wood, Powell issued a defiant defense of her past false claims about the 2020 election, including allegations that Dominion Voting Systems conspired with dead Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to rig American elections.

“It is the duty of lawyers of the highest tradition of the practice law to raise difficult and even unpopular issues,” Powell said. “The fact that there may have been adverse precedent against us does not change that fact. Were that true, there would not have been a decision called Brown v. Board of Education. We have practiced law with the highest standards. We would file the same complaints again.” Continue reading.

‘I Alone Can Fix It’ book excerpt: Inside Trump’s Election Day and the birth of the ‘big lie’

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At the end of a tumultuous day, the defiant president refused to accept the signs that he was losing the White House contest to Joe Biden. “I won in a landslide and they’re taking it back,” Trump told advisers.

Part one of an excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.” Leonnig and Rucker will discuss this book during a Washington Post Live event on July 20.

Finally, Election Day had arrived. The morning of Nov. 3, 2020, President Trump was upbeat. The mood in the West Wing was good. Some aides talked giddily of a landslide. Several women who worked in the White House arrived wearing red sweaters in a show of optimism, while some Secret Service agents on the president’s detail sported red ties for the occasion. Trump’s voice was hoarse from his mad dash of rallies, but he thought his exhausting final sprint had sealed the deal. He considered Joe Biden to be a lot of things, but a winner most definitely was not one of them. “I can’t lose to this f—— guy,” Trump told aides.

Around noon, his detail whisked Trump across the Potomac River to visit his campaign headquarters in Arlington, where campaign manager Bill Stepien and the senior leadership briefed Trump in the conference room. Stepien outlined what to expect that night — when polls closed in each battleground state, how quickly votes should be tallied and which states would probably have the first projected winners. He explained that because of the huge number of mail-in ballots in many states, it might take long into the night for votes to be counted. Patience was in order.

Stepien explained to Trump that in many battleground states, the first votes to be recorded were expected to be in-person Election Day votes, which could lean Trump, while mail-in votes, which were likely to heavily favor Biden, would be added to the tally later as those ballots were processed. This meant that the early vote totals could well show Trump ahead by solid margins. Continue reading.

GOP Candidate Violently Disrupts Rep. Porter’s Town Hall

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Nick Taurus, a Republican running for the seat in California’s 45th Congressional District currently held by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, was reportedly involved in what the Los Angeles Times called a “scuffle” at a town hall Porter held on Sunday in Irvine, California.

According to the Times‘ reporting, Taurus and a group of his supporters interrupted Porter with chants and shouting as she spoke, leading to physical confrontations between his supporters and hers that were broken up by police.

On July 8, Taurus had posted a call on his Instagram account for his supporters to cause disruption at the event. “CONFRONT KATIE PORTER!” Taurus wrote, adding, “Her America Last policies are awful for the 45th district and we intend to voice our displeasure.” Continue reading.