Category: Racist: Middle-Eastern

Trump, When Confronted on ‘Unknown Middle Easterners’ Caravan Tweet, Says ‘Take Your Cameras and Search’

President Donald Trump this afternoon stood by his claim that there are “unknown Middle Easterners” in the migrant caravan coming to the border, a baseless claim he apparently got from Fox News.

One reporter asked him for evidence that there are terrorists in the caravan, and Trump responded by saying, “You know what you should do, John? Go into the middle of the caravan, take your cameras, and search.”

“Take your camera, go into the middle, and search,” Trump said. “You’re gonna find MS-13, you’re gonna find Middle Eastern, you’re gonna find everything. And guess what? We’re not allowing them in our country. We want safety.”

For the record, some reporters actually fact-checked the President’s claim earlier today:

[Mediaite]

Trump Claims Without Evidence ‘Unknown Middle Easterners Are Mixed In’ With Immigrant Caravan

President Donald Trump — in full midterms push — claimed on on Monday that “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” with the caravan of Central American immigrants making its way to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Like many of the president’s unfounded tweets, this one was likely inspired by Fox & Friends, which has given wall-to-wall coverage of the caravan on Monday, with guests repeatedly suggesting that ISIS and other Islamic terror groups could be infiltrating the group.

“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States,” Trump wrote. “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!”

The Fox & Friends coverage that appears to have inspired Trump’s tweet about “unknown Middle Easterners” is based on comments by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales that authorities have arrested 100 people suspected to be involved with terror, over some period of time, in his country. Watch Pete Hegseth bring that up in the video above, and make the leap to tie that comment to the caravan of immigrants.

Per ABC News:

[Mediaite]

Trump administration to reverse Obama-era guidance on use of race in college admissions

The Trump administration is planning to rescind a set of Obama-era policies that promote using race to achieve diversity in schools, a source familiar with the plans tells CNN.

While the decision does not change current US law on affirmative action it provides a strong illustration on the administration’s position on an issue that could take on renewed attention with the departure of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court.
“The executive branch cannot circumvent Congress or the courts by creating guidance that goes beyond the law and—in some instances — stays on the books for decades,” Justice Department spokesperson Devin O’Malley told CNN in a statement. “Last year, the Attorney General initiated a review of guidance documents, which resulted in dozens of examples—including today’s second tranche of rescissions — of documents that go beyond or are inconsistent with the Constitution and federal law. The Justice Department remains committed to enforcing the law and protecting all Americans from all forms of illegal race-based discrimination.”
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.
The move, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes as the administration has thrown its weight behind a student group that accuses Harvard University of discriminating against Asian-Americans in its admissions process.
Last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he was ending the practice of the Justice Department issuing “guidance documents” that have the “effect of adopting new regulatory requirements or amending the law,” without to going through the formal rulemaking process. As a result, 25 documents were rescinded in December.
The guidance that will be reversed Tuesday provided examples of different educational contexts within which institutions could permissibly consider race.
Tuesday’s reversal also does not affect what a school decides to do on its own within the confines of current Supreme Court precedent, but civil rights groups swiftly reacted with disappointment.
“We condemn the Department of Education’s politically motivated attack on affirmative action and deliberate attempt to discourage colleges and universities from pursuing racial diversity at our nation’s colleges and universities,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The rescission of this guidance does not overrule forty years of precedent that affirms the constitutionality of a university’s limited use of race in college admissions. This most recent decision by the Department of Education is wholly consistent with the administration’s unwavering hostility towards diversity in our schools.”
[CNN]

Trump: Democrats Want Immigrants to ‘Pour In’ From the Middle East

President Donald Trump went on a tear against Democrats at his rally in Minnesota Wednesday night regarding his topic du jour — immigration — and made sure to include a painfully xenophobic quip about the Middle East.

“So the Democrats want open borders,” Trump told his rowdy crowd at a Duluth, MN stadium. “Let everybody come in. Let everybody pour in, we don’t care, them come in from the Middle East, let them come in from all over the place.” The crowd booed.

“We don’t care, we’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said.

He then commented on the executive order he signed today the put an end to his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated migrant children from their parents at the southern border.

“We will keep families together but the border is going to be just as tough as it has been,” he said.

Later in the rally, Trump referenced his infamous remarks that the Mexico government is “sending rapists” to the United States, and doubled down on the absurdly false claim.

[Mediaite]

Trump awards Medal of Honor to Navy SEAL accused of war crimes

President Trump on Thursday awarded the Medal of Honor to a retired Navy SEAL who has been accused of committing war crimes — and leaving a man behind in enemy territory.

Former Master Chief Special Warefare Operator Britt Slabinski received the award during a public ceremony at the White House.

In 2002, he spearheaded a controversial SEAL Team Six mission in Afghanistan — which led to the deaths of seven Americans.

He was a Senior Chief Petty Officer at the time, in charge of leading a seven-member unit into eastern Afghanistan to set up an observation post on the mountain of Takur Ghar.

It was just six months after 9/11, and US forces had been waging war with Al Qaeda in the valley below as part of Operation Anaconda.

“Britt and his teammates were preparing to exit the aircraft on the mountain peak when their helicopter was struck by machine gun fire, and machine gun fire like they’ve never seen before,” explained Trump, who recounted the events on Thursday.

“Not a good feeling,” he said.

As the chopper “lurched away from the assault,” one of the SEAL Team Six members — later identified as Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts — got tossed from the aircraft but was thought to have survived.

“At this point, Britt received information suggesting [Roberts] was probably still alive,” Trump said. “The team faced a choice: to wait for reinforcements and pretty much safety, or to return immediately to the enemy stronghold in the hope of saving Neil’s life.”

Despite being “out-manned, out-gunned and fighting uphill on a steep, icy mountain,” Trump said Slabinski and his squad made the choice to turn back.

“For them, it was an easy one,” the president added. “They went back to that mountain.”

While Trump hailed Slabinski for his actions, many in the military community feel that he made several bad decisions that day in 2002, which wound up costing the lives of seven Americans, including Roberts.

First, he chose to take a much more dangerous route than the one they had planned after experiencing maintenance delays and pressure from senior officers. Slabinski told the New York Times in 2016 that when they landed on Takur Ghar, Qaeda forces were already waiting.

Next, he reportedly made the decision to land his team directly on the observation post — rather than hiking up to it from a safer position. Military officials later determined that this was a major error, which “violated a basic tenet of reconnaissance.”

Slabinski then chose to turn back after losing Roberts — recruiting Air Force Technical Sgt. John Chapman in the process, according to accounts.

Unbeknownst to him, Roberts had already been captured by enemy fighters and killed.

“Britt continued to engage the enemy, repeatedly exposing himself to horrendous fire,” Trump said Thursday, calling the assault the “Battle of Roberts Ridge.”

“When they could go no further, Britt tended to the wounded and coordinated their escape until his team was finally evacuated,” the president added.

Members of the Army’s Delta Force and 75th Ranger Regiment teams, which were involved in the battle, believe Slabinski left Chapman behind that day after retreating with the rest of his unit.

Footage obtained by the Times appears to show the airman battling Qaeda forces on the mountain for another hour — even resorting to hand-to-hand combat at one point.

Chapman wound up dying in an attempt to protect arriving reinforcements from gunfire, according to the Times.

He will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, though it’s unclear when.

Slabinski has repeatedly denied leaving him on Takur Ghar that day, while also defending the rest of his actions.

“I can tell you, we left no one behind. No one,” he told Fox News, just three days before receiving the Medal of Honor.

“What I saw, what I experienced, I know that clearly that we didn’t leave anyone behind up there,” Slabinski said. “I wasn’t more than 20 to 30 feet away from where John was and that was my experience. But what I want people to focus on is that it’s called Roberts Ridge now because we lost six other people up there. A total of seven.”

Asked if he thought Chapman was still alive when they retreated, Slabinski replied: “That wasn’t what I experienced. It wasn’t what I saw.”

In addition to the 2002 incident, Slabinski has been accused of multiple war crimes. They include illegally ordering the executions of male Afghans and mutilating the bodies of fallen enemy fighters.

“[Slabinski] certainly has been accused of some very bad things,” retired SEAL officer Dick Couch told Politico.

He pointed out, however, how the award is based on “one specific action” — and not the recipient’s character.

“I’ve read excerpts of what he did in that battle and it certainly seems Medal of Honor-worthy,” Couch said.

Dana White, a spokesperson for Defense Secretary James Mattis, told Politico that Mattis “was well aware of the news reporting around Master Chief Slabinski” and recommended him for the Medal of Honor anyway.

[New York Post]

HHS official shared post saying ‘forefathers’ would have ‘hung’ Obama, Clinton for treason

A political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services shared an image in 2017 that said “our forefathers would have hung” Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for treason, a CNN KFile review has found.

Ximena Barreto is a far-right political pundit who in December 2017 joined the Trump administration as deputy director of communications at the department.

Barreto was placed on leave by the department on Monday after the liberal watchdog Media Matters reported that Barreto called Islam “a cult” and pushed the false Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which alleged that Clinton was part of a child-sex ring based in part at a Washington, DC, pizza restaurant.

A subsequent KFile review of her Twitter account “RepublicanChick” found that Barreto also repeatedly used the hashtag #BanIslam and twice shared conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. Barreto also shared a conspiracy theory that French President Emmanuel Macron was controlled by the Rothschild family and that Clinton and Obama were controlled by investor and Democratic mega-donor George Soros. Both the Rothschilds and Soros are frequent targets of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

A department spokesperson did not comment on tweets unearthed by KFile and reiterated to CNN that Barreto has been placed on administrative leave while they look into the matter.

Prior to joining HHS, Barreto was a far-right political pundit and Trump-supporting blogger.
She co-hosted a YouTube show called “The Right View by Deplorable Latinas.” A now-removed biography on her personal website said she “has worked as a political activist, and worked hundreds of hours with Republican candidates (sic) campaigns, including John McCain, Ted Cruz and President Donald Trump.”

Here’s what Barreto tweeted:

On Barack Obama

In May of 2017, Barreto retweeted an imagesaying the “our forefathers would have hung” Clinton and Obama for treason.
In August of 2017 Barreto retweeted an image of a statue of Obama labeling him “a Muslim terrorist.”
In January of 2017, Barreto wrote in a tweetthat Obama was a “pansy and a traitor.”

On Seth Rich

In October 2016, Barreto implied Rich was killed by either Clinton or the Democratic National Committee, using the hashtags #KilledByTheDNC #HillaryBodyCount #ClintonBodyBags
In May, 2017, Barreto retweeted a video about Rich, saying that “the media blackout and the silence from Washington on Seth Rich should scare the hell out of you.”

On Islam

On five separate occasions found by KFile’s review, Barreto tweeted the hashtag “#BanIslam” in asserting that those participating in the Women’s March had turned their back on “real oppression.”
She also tweeted “#DeportLSarsour,” referring to Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour.
In other tweets, she called for a boycott of Amazon for an ad that showed a Christian priest and Muslim imam together, saying that “an Imam would never sit with a priest FYI”.

On Hillary Clinton, Democrats and Emmanuel Macron

In a tweet in August of 2016, Barreto falsely claimed that Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s family had terrorist ties.
In April of 2017, Barreto spread a conspiracy theory that Macron was controlled by the Rothschilds and that Clinton and Obama were controlled by Soros.
“Macron is just a political puppet of the Rothschilds, just like Obama and Hillary are Soros Puppets!” she wrote.

[CNN]

Zinke tells employees diversity isn’t important

Several employees at the Interior Department have told CNN that Secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly says that he won’t focus on diversity, an apparent talking point that has upset many people within the agency.

Three high-ranking Interior officials from three different divisions said that Zinke has made several comments with a similar theme, saying “diversity isn’t important,” or “I don’t care about diversity,” or “I don’t really think that’s important anymore.”

Each time, Zinke followed with something along the lines of, “what’s important is having the right person for the right job,” or “I care about excellence, and I’m going to get the best people, and you’ll find we have the most diverse group anyone’s ever had,” the sources said.

Interior last year unexpectedly reassigned 33 senior executive staffers, of which 15 were minorities, according to the lawyer of one of the staffers who was moved. Some of those who were reassigned have filed complaints with the US Merit Systems Board.

The accusations against Zinke come as he is under investigation by multiple agencies, including Interior’s inspector general and Office of Special Counsel, regarding employee reassignment and taxpayer spending on possible politically related travel.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift vehemently denied that Zinke said anything along those lines of criticizing the need for diversity, saying, “the anonymous claims made against the secretary are untrue.”

Swift added, “As a woman who has worked for him for a number of years in senior positions, I say without a doubt this claim is untrue, and I am hopeful that they are a result of a misunderstanding and not a deliberate mistruth.”

Swift pointed to two women and an African-American who Zinke has appointed to senior leadership positions, and said “Zinke has filled several other senior positions at the career and appointed level with individuals from diverse backgrounds.”

But Zinke’s alleged comments were particularly surprising to those who feel the agency has struggled to recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

In a hallway meet-and-greet shortly after Zinke was confirmed, one staffer told CNN that Zinke was asked about diversity at Interior, a department with about 68,000 employees, of which more than 70 percent are white, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
“(Zinke) flat out said, ‘I don’t really think that’s important anymore. We don’t need to focus on that anymore.’ He obviously needed someone to provide him with better talking points,” the staffer said.

A similar comment was made during another hallway greeting session with a different group of employees.

“He said it several times. I think it’s just how he speaks – he has his canned talking points,” said the second source, who heard the same comment from Zinke months later at a holiday party.

A third person, someone who is a minority in a leadership position in the department, said he heard a similar comment during a management meeting.

“That told me everything I needed to know,” the person said. “It’s a hard business as it is, and then not to be respected or appreciated for the diverse perspective that you bring to the situation — and that’s why it’s important in my opinion. It’s the fact that we don’t look at things the same way. When we have conversations about public lands and how they’re used, we cannot afford to have a small percentage of people making those decisions.”

Zinke came under fire from the public and at least one member of Congress earlier this month over remarks seen by some as insensitive. In testimony before the House Natural Resources committee, he greeted Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii) with the Japanese greeting “Konichiwa” after she told a story about her grandparents being held in internment camps during World War II, and asked why he was cutting funding to preserve those sites.

Days later, after numerous news stories calling the remarks inappropriate, Zinke doubled down in a comment to reporters, saying “How could ever saying ‘Good morning’ be bad?”

[CNN]

Trump nominee to lead migrant agency shared Clinton, DNC conspiracies

President Trump’s pick to lead a United Nations migrant relief organization made hundreds of comments pushing conspiracy theories about Islam and Democrats, according to a CNN investigation published Thursday.

Ken Isaacs, the Trump administration’s choice to lead the UN’s International Organization for Migration, has faced additional scrutiny after CNN uncovered old social media posts where he appeared to equate all Muslims with terrorists.

On Thursday, CNN published a new trove of past comments.

CNN found that Isaacs also shared conspiracy theories about the Clintons and about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

In the summer of 2016, Isaacs tweeted that Switzerland should consider building a wall in the Alps to keep refugees from crossing the border, and responded to a terrorist attack in Nice, France, by saying Islam “is not peaceful.”

Last August, he retweeted a user who claimed climate change is a “big hoax,” and wrote that scientists “can’t predict path of a visible storm yet but certain of manmade climate change.”

Isaacs previously apologized after CNN uncovered his initial comments about Muslims, saying his social media use was “careless.”

He declined to comment on Thursday’s story, and the State Department pointed to a past statement of support for his nomination.

If confirmed, Isaacs will lead the International Organization for Migration, which oversees the use of roughly $1 billion in migrant aid across the world.

[The Hill]

Trump vetoed Miss Universe contestants for being ‘too ethnic’ or ‘too dark-skinned’

Earlier this year, a report emerged claiming that President Donald Trump would personally rig the Miss Universe pageant to benefit contestants from countries where he had business relationships.

Now a new report published by Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones’ David Corn claims that Trump would also veto certain contestants if he deemed them to be “too ethnic.”

Specifically, one former Miss Universe staffer tells them that Trump would personally “make changes” to the list of finalists “if there were too many women of color” on it.

Another former Miss Universe staffer similarly tells them that Trump would weed out candidates who were too “dark-skinned.”

“He often thought a woman was too ethnic or too dark-skinned,” the staffer explains. “He had a particular type of woman he thought was a winner. Others were too ethnic. He liked a type. There was Olivia Culpo, Dayanara Torres [the 1993 winner], and, no surprise, East European women.”

One former staffer does say, however, that Trump could be persuaded to change his mind about a woman of color being worthy of his pageant “by telling him she was a princess and married to a football player.”

[RawStory]

Trump Recites Inflammatory, Anti-immigrant ‘Snake’ Song

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday recited the lyrics of a song seen as anti-immigration called “The Snake” to drive home his point about restricting immigration — an inflammatory move that harkened back to his days on the campaign trail.

In a speech to conservatives at a convention outside Washington, he also bashed opposition Democrats for failing to back his proposal for putting 1.8 million so-called Dreamer immigrants on a pathway to citizenship in exchange for tightening border security and severely restricting legal immigration.

During his hourlong address, Trump pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read “The Snake,” a ballad by Al Wilson about a reptile who repays a “tender woman” that nurses it back to health with a deadly bite.

During his campaign, as well as in a speech early in his presidency, Trump used the song, based on one of Aesop’s fables, as a less-than-subtle allegory about immigrants entering the United States.

[Voices of America]

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