Tag: Trump white supremacy

Court blocks Trump order to exclude undocumented immigrants from census count

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A federal court on Thursday blocked a memorandum signed by President Trump seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in the census for apportionment, saying such action would violate the statute governing congressional apportionment.

A special three-judge panel out of New York wrote that the president’s argument that undocumented immigrants should not be counted runs afoul of a statute saying apportionment must be based on everyone who is a resident of the United States.

The judges found that all residents must be counted for apportionment purposes regardless of their legal status. Continue reading.

As NFL reopens amid altered landscape, Trump resumes attacks on players who demonstrate for racial justice

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President Trump’s attempt to show that the nation is recovering from the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic will clash head-on Thursday with his denunciations of social justice demonstrations when the National Football League kicks off its season in prime time.

Trump has lobbied heavily for sports leagues to restart despite the threat of the virus, but his demands have been incongruous when it comes to the NFL, an $8.8 billion juggernaut whose television ratings dwarf all competitors’.

Ahead of the season opener between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans, the president and his allies have resumed their long-standing bashing of NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem to call attention to police brutality affecting communities of color. Continue reading.

Trump Jr. makes absurd excuse for killer Kyle Rittenhouse: ‘We all do stupid things at 17’

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The cosmic disappointment of a son only Donald Trump could have, Donald Trump Jr., was on ExtraTV on Tuesday to discuss his new book, Liberal Privilege. I believe the book is sold exclusively at the Hypocrites Handbook Book Store on Nepotism Island, in the magical land of Cowpie. Right out of the gate, Junior was asked by Extra host Rachel Lindsay what he thought of the statement Black Lives Matter, as well as the movement underneath its umbrella.

Trump Jr. stammered his way into explaining that “the phrase Black Lives Matter is obvious, ah no one in America, you know, says anything else.” Lindsay, who is Black, cut Trump Jr. off to remind him that yes, in fact, there are tons of people that say almost anything else besides Black Lives Matter. Trump Jr. responded that “no one” he knew did. Welcome through the looking glass, Extra! This is the Trump family, of course, so somehow this was the least offensive and ignorant thing Junior said in the interview. It was the first question, so he was likely just warming up those three brain cells he’s working with.

Junior went on to explain that he thought Black Lives Matter was a “very good marketing message,” and a “great catchphrase,” but that the political ideology behind it didn’t support it. As opposed to, I guess, Trump and Junior’s white supremacist agenda. Trump Jr. went on to defend his father’s lack of communication with Jacob Blake’s family and his very direct communication with the Kenosha police department. His defense was the same one we’ve already heard: Trump called someone and the Blake family had asked that their family lawyer be on the call—and we know lawyers not in Trump’s pocket spook Donald Trump—and the police department that Trump was meeting with are fighting to save businesses. Continue reading.

New Homeland Security Report Warns Biggest Threat Is White Nationalist Terror

A new draft report from the Department of Homeland Security warns that white supremacists are the “most persistent and lethal” threat in the United States, according to a new CNN report by Geneva Sands.

It stands in sharp contrast to the notion of terroristic threats typically portrayed by conservatives, which focuses on the threat from Muslim attackers from other countries and, more recently “Antifa” and leftist groups. The DHS report warns that although foreign terrorist groups will continue to call for attacks on the U.S., those groups “probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year.” But it predicts that the U.S. will face an “elevated threat environment at least through” early 2021 because of white supremacists.

Sands notes that DHS has had three different drafts of that report. According to Sands, the language in the drafts varies. But all three versions cite white supremacists as the greatest terrorist threat in the U.S. Continue reading.

Trump employs images of violence as political fuel for reelection fight

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President Trump has reverted to using graphic depictions of violence as a centerpiece of his reelection campaign strategy, using his Twitter account, his stump speech and even the White House podium as platforms for amplifying domestic conflict.

His 2016 focus on radical Islamist terrorism and undocumented-immigrant crime, which he credited with helping him win the Republican nomination, has been replaced by warnings of new threats as he elevates gruesome images of Black-on-White crime, street fights involving his supporters and police-misconduct unrest nationwide.

The pattern continued over the holiday weekend, when he tweeted video of a melee in Texas between protesters and security officers during an event for a Trump-affiliated group and two celebratory videos of a protester in Portland, Ore., with his feet on fire. One of the videos was scored to the Kenny Loggins song “Footloose,” and the second featured mocking play-by-play commentary by a mixed-martial-arts announcer. Continue reading.

Portland and Kenosha violence was predictable – and preventable

The U.S. reached a deadly moment in protests over racial injustice, as back-to-back shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 25 and 29 took the lives of three people and seriously injured another. 

It was tragic – but not surprising. 

The alleged shooters were at the protests for different reasons: One was a pro-police supporter who believed he was protecting local businesses in Kenosha and the other an “antifa supporter” and “fixture of anti-police demostrations” in Portland. The victims included apparent supporters of Black Lives Matter protests and a supporter of a far-right group. Together, they reflect an escalating risk of spontaneous violence as heavily armed citizen vigilantes and individuals mobilize at demonstrations and protests. Continue reading.

Returning To His Roots, Trump Promotes Racial Discrimination In Housing

As polls show his base stagnant and his poll numbers dropping, Donald Trump has decided to replay an old favorite. While trying to strike fear of the invading “other” is right out of the 1968 playbook of both Richard Nixon and George Wallace, it’s also a tactic Trump honed at his father’s knee. It makes perfect sense for Trump in trouble to return to what he knows — and he knows all about shutting the literal and figurative door on Black folks moving into white neighborhoods.

In the 1970s, Trump and his father, Fred Trump — president and chairman, respectively, of Trump Management — were named as defendants in lawsuits brought by the Justice Department, accusing them of turning away African Americans who applied to rent apartments in some of the company’s buildings. That would be breaking the letter and spirit of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, something that was by no means the exception among property owners of the time.

The reaction, though, was pure Donald Trump. Rather than settle the lawsuits quietly, as some did, he called the charges “absolutely ridiculous,” denied them, countersued and said the government was trying to make him rent to “welfare recipients,” all sadly predictable. Though the Trumps eventually settled without admitting guilt, test renters of different races received different treatment, and investigations found that certain discarded applications were marked with “C” for “colored.” Continue reading.

Right-wing protesters gather outside Portland, adding to tensions

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SALEM, Ore. — More than 1,000 supporters of President Trump, including some aligned with white nationalist extremist groups, gathered in northwest Oregon on Monday night in a show of force against left-wing protesters, creating even more tension in a region that has been rocked by weeks of protests.

On Monday evening, despite National Weather Service warnings of an extreme wind storm, hundreds of cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles and at least one RV hoisted Trump flags and blasted “God Bless The U.S.A.” from truck bed speakers for a “cruise rally” through the suburbs of Portland. Some members of the group then drove about 50 miles to Salem, where they gathered in front of the state capitol.

Armed with rifles, pistols, knives and clubs, the far-right demonstrators at one point charged into a smaller group of liberal counterprotesters, knocking at least one activist to the ground. Continue reading.

Trump Emerges as Inspiration for Germany’s Far Right

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Among German conspiracy theorists, ultranationalists and neo-Nazis, the American president is surfacing as a rallying cry, or even as a potential “liberator.”

BERLIN — Just before hundreds of far-right activists recently tried to storm the German Parliament, one of their leaders revved up the crowd by conjuring President Trump.

“Trump is in Berlin!” the woman shouted from a small stage, as if to dedicate the imminent charge to him.

She was so convincing that several groups of far-right activists later showed up at the American Embassy and demanded an audience with Mr. Trump. “We know he’s in there!” they insisted. Continue reading.

More Than Ever, Trump Casts Himself as the Defender of White America

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Presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics, the president has increasingly made appeals to the grievances of white supporters a centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON — After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country’s real race problem is bias against white Americans.

Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the police, Mr. Trump issued an order on Friday to purge the federal government of racial sensitivity training that his White House called “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”

The president then spent much of the weekend tweeting about his action, presenting himself as a warrior against identity politics. “This is a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue,” he wrote of such programs. “Please report any sightings so we can quickly extinguish!” He reposted a tweet from a conservative outlet hailing his order: “Sorry liberals! How to be Anti-White 101 is permanently cancelled!” Continue reading.