Militia Leader Says His ’Troops’ Will Appear Armed At Polling Places, Ready For ‘Civil War’

Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes said members of his militia will be at polling locations on Election Day to “protect” Trump voters during an appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program.

After making that claim, Rhodes made a number of unhinged statements, including saying Oath Keepers would follow directives from President Donald Trump to take members of the “deep state” into custody and “do what we have to do,” that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act before the election, that Oath Keepers will “be in range” of Washington D.C., to stop a “Benghazi-style” attack on the White House on election night, and that a war will have to be fought against Democrats on the West Coast who are “bought” by the Chinese government. Rhodes also hyped the possibility of a second civil war where his “battle-hardened” supporters kill the “street soldiers” and “command and control” of “the radical left.” He later claimed the United States is already in a civil war because “you have sitting politicians who are part of the enemy’s ranks.”

Disturbingly, Rhodes telegraphed how he will interpret election results, saying that he would consider a win by Democratic nominee Joe Biden illegitimate and evidence the election had been stolen, presaging how he and his militia might react to that outcome. Continue reading.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller reveals aggressive second-term immigration agenda

The immigration hardliner says the president would fight to limit asylum, target “sanctuary cities,” expand the “travel ban” and cut work visas.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump‘s senior adviser Stephen Miller has fleshed out plans to rev up Trump’s restrictive immigration agenda if he wins re-election next week, offering a stark contrast to the platform of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In a 30-minute phone interview Thursday with NBC News, Miller outlined four major priorities: limiting asylum grants, punishing and outlawing “sanctuary cities,” expanding the so-called travel ban with tougher screening for visa applicants and slapping new limits on work visas.

The objective, he said, is “raising and enhancing the standard for entry” to the United States. Continue reading.

By Demonizing Immigrants And Refugees, Trump Only Harms The Innocent

A fanatic has been defined as someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. It’s a good description of Donald Trump, who began his quest for the presidency stoking fear of foreigners and used this year’s final debate to keep doing it, as he has throughout his presidency.

Foreigners who come to America — with or without authorization — are viewed with hostility by this administration. It has diverted military funding to build Trump’s border wall. It has separated thousands of foreign children from parents who came without permission — and then failed to reunite hundreds of these families. It has cut refugee admissions by some 90% and legal immigration by half. It has declared war on “sanctuary cities.”

From the beginning, he’s combined pitiless policies with venomous rhetoric. In announcing his candidacy in 2015, he said of Mexicans coming to the U.S.: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Continue reading.

The White Supremacist And Extremist Donors To Trump’s 2020 Campaign

His reelection campaign has not rejected or returned campaign contributions from multiple well-known far-right bigots, FEC records show.

President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign has repeatedly accepted donations from well-known white supremacists, extremists and bigots, Federal Election Commission records show. 

Among the far-right figures who have given money to Trump’s reelection bid are a neo-Nazi pastor in Louisiana, a wealthy Florida businessman who called former President Barack Obama the N-word, and a neo-fascist activist recently arrested for opening fire on Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Portland, Oregon. 

The Trump campaign, which did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on this story, has been aware of at least some of the white supremacists’ donations, past media reports show. But it has declined to reject or return their money ― even though it is common practice for political campaigns to voluntarily forfeit donations from extremists. In 2015, for example, the Republican presidential campaigns of Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz returned thousands of dollars in contributions from the leader of a white supremacist group. Continue reading.

Here’s the list of white supremacist and extremist Trump donors the president’s campaign refuses to denounce

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President Donald Trump continues to deny that he is a racist but his ties to the white supremacists and extremists that his presidential campaign refuses to sever ties with and denounce have raised more questions about his beliefs. 

While most presidential campaigns typically decline financial donations and endorsements from people and organizations they do not align with, that has not been the case for the Trump campaign.

From small donations to thousand-dollar donations, American Bridge 21st Century compiled a report based on Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings that revealed approximately 30 white supremacists, bigots, and extremists donated directly to Trump’s official re-election campaign and multiple other political action committees (PACs) including the Trump Make America Great Again Committee and Trump Victory, according to The Huffington Post. Continue reading.

Detention Facilities For Immigrants Fast-Tracked For Deportation Were Rife With Problems, Inspectors Find

Federal inspectors also found that families were held in Border Patrol custody for longer than a week, well beyond the 72-hour standard for detention.

Two controversial pilot programs that sought to quickly deport Mexican and Central American asylum-seekers at the southern border were rife with issues, including migrant families forced to remain in custody longer than what was appropriate, juvenile girls stuck in the same detention space with unrelated adult men, and toilets in facilities that had limited privacy.

The details come from a draft report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that was obtained by BuzzFeed News. The two pilot programs instituted last fall — the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) and Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) — were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to quickly screen and potentially remove asylum-seekers at the border.

Under HARP, Mexican asylum-seekers detained by Border Patrol agents were given an initial screening called a credible fear interview by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers within 48 hours, and the decision on the screening was expected to go quicker than usual. The other program, PACR, was similarly organized but aimed at Central Americans who traveled through Mexico to arrive at the US border. Continue reading.

Migrant parents could face fateful choice: Be separated from their children or stay together in jail

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The federal judge who oversees long-running litigation about the treatment of migrant children in U.S. custody ordered the government Friday to finalize its procedures for providing parents a fateful choice: allow their children to be released to a designated guardian, or remain together in immigration jail.

Such a decision, known informally as “binary choice,” could transform the family migration dynamics that have confounded the Trump administration and the Obama administration before it as successive waves of Central American families crossed the border and overwhelmed U.S. capacity to process their humanitarian claims.

Most important, it would shift the nature of the decision about whether to separate children from their families at the border. Instead of it being up to the government, as it is now, it would be up to the migrant parents. Continue reading.

Trump Says Immigrant Children He Orphaned Are ’So Well Taken Care Of’

Donald Trump on Thursday night defended his administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families with no way of reuniting them, claiming they are “so well taken care of.”

Asked at the final presidential debate about the 545 detained immigrant kids taken forcibly from their parents at the southern U.S. border under his administration’s zero-tolerance policy, whose families the Trump administration has been unable to locate, Trump first suggested without proof that some had been brought into the country by “coyotes.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden quickly refuted that argument, noting that the kids in question had come over with their families before being separated by border officials. Continue reading.

The Florida director of a pro-Trump Latino group is the chairman of the Proud Boys.

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Enrique Tarrio, the Florida state director of Latinos for Trump, a national grass-roots organization unaffiliated with the Trump campaign, is also the chairman of the Proud Boys, a far-right organization linked with white supremacy and acts of violence.

Mr. Tarrio said in an interview Thursday night that he had “personally knocked on 40,000 doors for the president” and was a close personal friend of Roger J. Stone Jr., a former presidential adviser.

When he was asked at the presidential candidates’ debate on Tuesday to denounce the Proud Boys, the president said, “stand back and stand by.” Mr. Tarrio said he did not interpret Mr. Trump’s comments as a call to arms: “What I took from it personally was to stand by him.” Continue reading.

‘We Need To Take Away Children’: Former Administration Officials Were ‘Driving Force’ Behind Family Separation Policy

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Under the current administration, children were taken away from their parents and detained at the border in cages without soap, blankets, or even toothbrushes. A recent New York Times article found that former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod. J. Rosenstein, were the “driving force” behind this family separation policy.

Here are some of those children’s stories in their own words. It’s time to end inhumane immigration policies.

View the post here.