Category: Intolerance

Top staffer at a pro-Trump super PAC doubles down on claim that black people are ‘statistically’ lazier than whites

Carl Higbie, a former Trump administration official who now works as a high-ranking staffer at a super PAC connected to the president’s agenda distanced himself from racist comments he made on the radio that led to his resignation in January. Now, however, he is doubling down on his claim that black people are “statistically” lazier than whites and claiming the comments were taken out of context.

CNN’s KFILE, the blog that originally revealed the America First Policies’ staffer’s numerous bigoted comments, reported Tuesday that Higbie has since recanted his apology for the remarks he made on his radio show in 2013 and 2014. During those shows, Higbie said he believes “wholeheartedly” that the “black race as a whole” are lazier than white people. He also claimed black women use welfare “as a form of employment,” and that he doesn’t like Muslims because their “ideology sucks.”

When resigning from his position leading the government program that sponsors Americorps, Higbie said that his comments from years prior “do not reflect who I am or what I stand for” and claimed to “regret saying them.”

During a radio appearance on Friday, however, the former Trump administration official said he stands by his comments.

“They dig up a couple things, a couple. Look, I had a radio show,” Higbie told Virginia talk radio DJ John Fredericks. “How many times have you said something on radio that could possibly be construed as very controversial when taken completely out of context? What, daily?”

Higbie went on to tout his time spent “in low-income, urban minority communities” as well as his “mission trips in high school to Dominican Republic, Central America [and] South America” before saying he made a “statistical observation” about black people as a race.

“It fit their narrative,” he said of KFILE’s reporting that led to his resignation. “And because I made a statistical observation, they think that’s racist.”

CNN noted that America First Policies, Higbie’s employer, has hosted a number of events that have been attended by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who is scheduled to attend another such event tonight where the staffer will reportedly be. The super PAC also used to employ Pence’s chief of staff before he took his job in the White House.

[Raw Story]

Trump Put on the Spot About ‘Sh*thole Countries’ Remark in Presser with Nigerian President

President Trump held a joint press conference today with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, and at one point, the African leader was asked about Trump’s infamous comments about “shithole countries.”

Buhari hesitated to weigh in much on this topic, explaining, “The best thing for me is to keep quiet.”

Trump, who didn’t even deny making that comment in the first place, said it didn’t come up in their discussions:

“We didn’t discuss it, and you do have some countries that are in very bad shape and very tough places to live in. But we didn’t discuss it, because the president knows me, and he knows where I’m coming from and I appreciate that. We did not discuss it.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Stands By His ‘Muslim Ban’ Campaign Rhetoric: ‘There’s Nothing to Apologize For’

President Donald Trump apparently stood by his campaign calls for a “Muslim ban” in a news conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, telling a reporter he has “nothing to apologize for” regarding his rhetoric.

The first question of his joint presser went to Washington Times reporter S.A. Miller, who pointed out that the opposition to the Trump administration’s travel ban in court rests on his campaign rhetoric calling for the ban of Muslims from the U.S.

“The lawyers for your opponents said if you would simply apologize for your rhetoric from the campaign, the whole case would go away,” Miller noted.

“I don’t think it would,” Trump replied. “And there’s no reason to apologize. Our immigration laws in this country are a total disaster, they’re laughed at all over the world, they’re laughed at, for their stupidity.”

“We have to have strong immigration laws,” Trump continued. “So I think if I apologized it wouldn’t make ten cents of a difference to them. There’s nothing to apologize for. We have to have strong immigration laws to protect our country.”

Despite the administration’s claims that its immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority countries is not a ban on Muslims, it has struggled against opponents in court cases who use Trump’s campaign rhetoric calling for a “Muslim ban” against him.

[Mediaite]

Media

Corey Lewandowski flashes white power ‘OK’ symbol on stage at Trump’s Michigan rally

Corey Lewandowski, who was campaign manger for Donald Trump in 2016 until being fired for being charged with battery after he grabbed a female reporter, joined Donald Trump on stage in Michigan Saturday night.

Lewandowski briefly took the microphone, and confusedly introduced Trump as “the next president of the United States.”

But not before he appeared to flash the “OK” symbol, as captured by Fox News cameras which had a wide-view shot at the time.

The “OK” symbol is widely used by white supremacists like Richard Spencer, though alt-right types like Stephen Miller and random interns also use it.

While the symbol is used by white supremacists as a symbol of their common beliefs, they also claim it’s a meta-troll and that people are getting angry about an “OK” symbol. The Anti-Defamation League says it’s not a hate symbol—it’s just a symbol made by right-wingers who want to show they have an affinity with Nazis but who are not Nazis.

[Raw Story]

Trump Asks If There Are Hispanics In The Room Before Demanding His Wall

President Donald Trump was met with silence at a campaign-style rally in Michigan Saturday night when he asked if there were any Hispanics present, then repeated his demand for a border wall.

Trump skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner to instead regale his fervent supporters in Washington, Michigan. After taking credit for Hispanic unemployment numbers dropping, the president said this:

“Any Hispanics in the room?” Trump asked to relative silence. “Naw, not so many? That’s OK.”

Then he took a swerve into: “In all fairness, Kanye West gets it. He gets it.” The president was referring to the rapper’s recent show of support for him.

Satisfied the audience was lacking in Hispanics, Trump launched into a tirade repeating his demand for his border wall, and said those illegally crossing into the U.S. are somehow voting for Democrats in elections.

“All of these people pouring across are gonna vote Democrat,” he claimed, even though studies have shown few undocumented people vote for anyone, Democrats or otherwise, except in the few places where their votes are specifically allowed.

“They do it for a lot of reasons,” Trump said. “A lot of times they don’t even know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, but we have to have borders and we need it fast.”

He threatened to “close down the country” if he doesn’t get funding for his wall in next year’s budget.

Before Trump attempted to reach out to Hispanic voters in South Florida earlier this month, he employed a similar tactic of surveying the audience.

“Are there any Hispanics in the room?” Trump asked during a roundtable discussion on tax cuts, The Washington Post reported.

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“No, I doubt it,” he said.

[Huffington Post]

Trump floats September shutdown for ‘border security’

President Donald Trump told supporters at a speech on Saturday that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this fall.

Trump was speaking in Washington Township, Michigan, at the same time that the White House correspondents’ dinner was taking place back in Washington, DC, with some lawmakers and current and former members of his administration in attendance. During his remarks, he alluded to the appropriations deadline at the end of September.

“We have to have borders, and we have to have them fast,” he said. “And we need security. We need the wall. We’re going to have it all. And again, that wall has started. We got 1.6 billion. We come up again on September 28th, and if we don’t get border security, we’ll have no choice. We’ll close down the country because we need border security.”

Despite his campaign pledge to make Mexico pay for his proposed wall on the US-Mexico border, Trump has demanded that Congress fund the project. Last month, he signed a bill that funds the government through September after expressing frustration with a spending package that included $1.6 billion for border security, but not the wall.

In his speech Saturday night, Trump railed against the Democratic Party on a range of issues, including immigration.

“A vote for a Democrat in November is a vote for open borders and crime,” Trump said.

He continued, “The open border policies of the Democratic Party are not just wrong, they’re dangerous, and they’re in fact deadly. They’re deadly.”

[CNN]

Trump rebuked for saying it was ‘tough’ to watch the Paralympics

President Trump, who infamously mocked a disabled journalist on the campaign trail, said Friday he had a “tough” time watching American Paralympians compete in South Korea.

Trump made the off-color comment while congratulating U.S. athletes who participated in the Olympic and Paralympic games in Pyeongchang last month.

“What happened with the Paralympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me,” Trump said, standing on the White House North Portico surrounded by members of the Olympic and Paralympic teams. “And I watched — it’s a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.”

A person familiar with the situation told the Daily News that Trump was referring to his schedule and how it prevented him from watching all of the games.

But the remark nonetheless drew instant ire over social media.

“Imagine losing your legs then fighting your way to the top of a new sport only to be INSULTED by the President of the United States,” musician Mikel Jollett tweeted.

Trump was widely rebuked after he made fun of Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter who has arthrogryposis, a condition causing contractures in his right arm and hand.

[New York Daily News]

Donald Trump Suggests Melania’s Birthday Gift Was Him Going on ‘Fox and Friends’

President Donald Trump said that he conducted an interview with Fox and FriendsThursday because it was his wife’s birthday and “maybe I didn’t get her so much.”

First Lady Melania Trump turned 48 on Thursday, but the president spent a good portion of his early morning calling in to give his favorite network an interview.

After beginning the interview by wishing his wife a happy birthday, he was skittish when asked what else he got her.

“I better not get into that because I may get in trouble,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t get her so much. I got her a beautiful card, you know I’m very busy to be running out looking for presents. I got her a beautiful card and some beautiful flowers. And she did a fantastic job with France. The people of france were just spellbound by their great president who just left. Emmanuel.”

The first lady has had a busy week preparing for the Trumps’ first state dinner as they hosted French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte at the White House on Tuesday.

Still, there were signs of tension between husband and wife. During an arrival ceremony for Macron Tuesday, the president, not for the first time, struggled to get Melania Trump to hold his hand.

President Trump’s questionable birthday gifts come amid a continued flood of reports over alleged extramarital affairs. Indeed, in the same Fox and Friends interview Thursday, Trump confirmed for the first time that his personal attorney Michael Cohen represented him during the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”

Trump was apparently referencing a $130,000 payment that Cohen has admitted making to Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, just weeks before the 2016 election. Daniels has alleged that she had an affair with Trump in 2006, just months after Melania gave birth to son Barron.

[Newsweek]

Media

DeVos Education Dept. Begins Dismissing Civil Rights Cases in Name of Efficiency

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has begun dismissing hundreds of civil rights complaints under a new protocol that allows investigators to disregard cases that are part of serial filings or that they consider burdensome to the office.

Department officials said the new policy targeted advocates who flooded the office with thousands of complaints for similar violations, jamming its investigation pipeline with cases that could be resolved without exhausting staff and resources. But civil rights advocates worry that the office’s rejection of legitimate claims is the most obvious example to date of its diminishing role in enforcing civil rights laws in the nation’s schools.

Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said the new provision was part of the office’s revision of its manual that lays out procedures for processing civil rights cases. The goal of the new manual, which took effect last month, is to help the office better manage its docket, investigations and resolutions, she said.

Among the changes implemented immediately is a provision that allows the Office for Civil Rights to dismiss cases that reflect “a pattern of complaints previously filed with O.C.R. by an individual or a group against multiple recipients,” or complaints “filed for the first time against multiple recipients that” place “an unreasonable burden on O.C.R.’s resources.”

So far, the provision has resulted in the dismissal of more than 500 disability rights complaints.

Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Office for Civil Rights under the Obama administration, said the new provision undermined the mission of the office. Unlike the Justice Department, the Education Department cannot pick and choose the cases it pursues. If the office has evidence that the law has been violated, it must open a case.

“The thing that scares me is when they get to say ‘we won’t open some cases because it’s too much for us,’ or ‘we don’t like complainant,’ or ‘it’s not our week to work on that,’ you start to change the character of the office,” Ms. Lhamon said.

But Debora L. Osgood, a lawyer who worked for 25 years at the Office for Civil Rights and now consults with and represents schools on civil rights matters, praised the change. She said the provision showed that the agency was “essentially taking the reins back for control of its complaint docket.”

Ms. Osgood said that in her experience, one person could clog the pipeline in each of the agency’s 12 regional offices, limiting investigators’ ability to respond to other complaints. It often frustrated investigators who prided themselves on being able to resolve complaints promptly, she said.

[The New York Times]

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Democrats Voting Against Pompeo Don’t ‘Love’ America

As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepares to vote on President Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee Mike Pompeo, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared on Fox & Friends Monday morning and accused anyone planning to vote against him of being unpatriotic.

“Look, at some point, Democrats have to decide whether they love this country more than they hate this president,” Sanders said on Fox News. “And they have to decide that they want to put the safety and the security and the diplomacy of our country ahead of their own political games. And we’re very hopeful that they will.”

Sanders cited the fact that Pompeo was “top of his class” at Harvard and “first in his class” at Westpoint, but those credentials have little to do with the opposition to Pompeo from every Democratic member of the committee in addition to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

During his confirmations hearings earlier this month, Pompeo was forced to defend his hawkish positions on Iran and Russia and refused to apologize for Islamophobic comments he had made in the past. “My record is exquisite with respect to treating each and every faith with the dignity that they deserved,” the current CIA director insisted.

Last fall, Pompeo delivered false and misleading statements about the intelligence community’s findings on Russian interference in the 2016 election. While Pompeo said at a security conference, “The intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,” the official report directly stated, “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”

“Hard to believe Obstructionists May vote against Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State,” President Trump tweeted on Monday, shortly after his press secretary’s appearance on Fox & Friends. “The Dems will not approve hundreds of good people, including the Ambassador to Germany. They are maxing out the time on approval process for all, never happened before. Need more Republicans!”

[Daily Beast]

Media

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