Category: White Supremacy

Trump tweets Brian Kilmeade’s insistence that ‘white supremest groups’ didn’t overtake protests

President Trump has made a point of emphasizing that there were no obvious “white supremests” at protests across the U.S. this weekend.

Several peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody, as well as police brutality and systemic racism as a whole, had turned violent across the country as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters and as people destroyed buildings. It all prompted Trump to declare anti-facist activists domestic terrorists on Sunday, and to share Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade’s condemnation of the group.

On Monday’s show, Kilmeade declared that he didn’t “see any indication that there were any white supremest groups mixing in” to protests, blaming unrest instead on “antifa.” Trump tweeted that quote, and copied Kilmeade’s oft-used, made-up term “white supremest” instead of saying “white supremacist.”

Kilmeade didn’t explain how he was able to identify “white supremest groups” or distinguish them from antifa supporters. He also mischaracterized antifa as an “organization,” while it is rather a just a broad designation for activists who oppose the oppression of minority groups. 

[The Week]

Reality

Right-wing groups are involved in the George Floyd protests as agitators and “accelerationists,” most notably setting fire to St. John’s church in Washington D. C.

Trump promotes shooting black Americans in the street

Twitter says President Donald Trump and the White House’s official Twitter (TWTR) account have violated its rule against glorifying violence and has affixed a warning label to tweets on both, marking the first time such action has been taken against the accounts.The social media platform is using what it calls a “public interest notice” to flag the incendiary post about the protests and violence in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This means the tweets will not be removed, but will be hidden behind a notice that says “this Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.” Users can view it if they click past the notice.The company’s move risked escalating tensions with the White House during an already tense week. Trump signed an executive order that purported to address “censorship” by Twitter and other social media companies, following Twitter’s earlier decision to affix fact-check type labels to two of his misleading posts about mail-in voting ballots.

Hours after Twitter flagged the tweet from Trump, the official White House account posted the same message. Twitter then took the same action with that message.

“As is standard with this notice, engagements with the Tweet will be limited,” Twitter said in a tweet explaining its earlier decision to place a warning label on Trump’s tweet. “People will be able to Retweet with Comment, but will not be able to Like, Reply or Retweet it.”

A spokesperson for Twitter said the decision was made by teams within the company and CEO Jack Dorsey was informed of the plan before Trump’s tweet was labeled.Trump continued his criticisms of Twitter on Friday after it labeled his post, tweeting that “it well be regulated.”

The president posted an identical message to Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram. CNN has reached out to Facebook for comment.

The post in question was about a third night of protests following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was filmed on video saying that he could not breathe as a white police officer used his knee to pin Floyd down.

As cable news networks carried images of fires and destructive protests in Minneapolis, the president tweeted at 12:53 a.m. ET: “these THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

His phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” mirrors language used by a Miami police chief in the late 1960s in the wake of riots. Its use was immediately condemned by a wide array of individuals, from historians to members of rival political campaigns.

Some users reported the tweet to Twitter as a rule violation.

Less than two-and-a-half hours later, Twitter took action. “This Tweet violates our policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line, its connection to violence, and the risk it could inspire similar actions today,” the company said.

“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance.”

Twitter (TWTR) has said in the past that it makes exceptions to its rules when heads of state are involved, due to the inherently newsworthy nature of their posts.

Facebook came under scrutiny last year for saying it would not fact-check politicians’ posts.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and cofounder, defended the company’s position in a speech last year in Washington, but noted there may be some exceptions. “Even for politicians we don’t allow content that incites violence or risks imminent harm — and of course we don’t allow voter suppression,” he said.

[CNN]

Trump is refusing to unveil Obama’s portrait at the White House, breaking a 40-year tradition

President Donald Trump won’t be unveiling former President Barack Obama’s portrait at the White House, breaking a 40-year tradition, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

Obama would also not be interested in attending such an event, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The White House and a representative for Obama did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

For decades, first-term presidents have held ceremonies in the East Room to unveil the portraits of their immediate predecessors. Obama did so for former President George W. Bush in 2012, for example.

“George, you went out of your way to make sure that the transition to a new administration was as seamless as possible,” Obama said at the time.

Trump and Obama have perhaps the most contentious relationship of any current and former presidents in modern US history. In recent days, Trump has made baseless allegations that Obama committed an unspecified crime. Before his transition from reality TV to politics, Trump spent years perpetuating a racist conspiracy theory regarding Obama’s place of birth.

Despite their rocky past, Obama wrote Trump an Inauguration Day letter in 2017 and left it in the desk drawer in the Oval Office; Trump said it was “beautiful.”

But that detente did not last long. Trump has frequently blamed Obama for various issues he’s faced as president, including for issues with COVID-19 testing.

Obama has generally avoided the limelight since leaving the White House. In the rare instances he’s criticized Trump, the former president has often done so without saying his successor’s name. Over the weekend, Obama appeared to excoriate Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic but did not explicitly mention him.

“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama said during a virtual commencement address for 2020 graduates of historically black colleges and universities. “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

Though Obama did not mention Trump, the former president’s comments were widely interpreted as a direct jab at his successor.

[Business Insider]

U.S. Citizens Married To Immigrants Are Blocked From Getting Stimulus Checks

The coronavirus stimulus package was meant to put emergency spending money into the economy, issuing a $1,200 check to most Americans that they can use to pay their bills in this time of hardship, and help stimulate businesses in the process. Now, though, we’re learning about all the strings that are coming attached to that hastily passed package — including the fact that U.S. citizens aren’t eligible to receive the money if they’re married and filed taxes jointly with an immigrant who doesn’t have a social security number.

The LA Times reports that there are more than a million Americans in this position across the country. This is just one more way the Trump administration has found to attack immigrants, no matter how they arrived in this country.

According to the Times, the stimulus bill doesn’t just pass over immigrants who don’t pay taxes. Any immigrant without a social security number — even if they have a tax ID and pay U.S. taxes — can render their entire family ineligible to receive any money.

This isn’t about documented versus undocumented immigration, either. Immigrants to the U.S. receive a social security number only when they receive a work permit, which means there are a whole host of visas immigrants can use to come to the country perfectly legally (student or fiancé visas, for example) that won’t get them a work permit or a social security card. For people on non-work visas, it’s impossible to obtain a social security number until obtaining permanent resident status, which is a whole other process that takes a ton of paperwork, a ton of money, and months or even years of waiting, depending on how backed up the system was at the time they applied. The LA Times interviewed a number of people who are in the middle of the months-long process of applying for a legal green card, whose families won’t receive stimulus checks because of it.

For the Trump administration (and, let’s be real, Republican lawmakers) to deny families much-needed stimulus money for this reason is nothing but another baseless attack on people who come to live in the U.S., no matter how they do it.

For all their spouting that they have no problem with immigration as long as it’s done “the right way,” this stimulus check provision is proof that that’s not what Trump and GOP lawmakers think at all. They just hate immigrants, and now, by default, American citizens who associate with them.

In response to this, California has announced its own stimulus plan, offering grants of up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families, meant to help immigrants without legal status get through this crisis. But immigrants who do have legal status, but aren’t able to work in the U.S.? The government is leaving those people (and their families) out of help, and it’s heartbreaking.

[Yahoo]

Trump claims he will temporarily suspend immigration into US due to coronavirus fears

President Donald Trump said late Monday night he will sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration to the United States as the nation battles the health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” he tweeted.

It’s unclear what mechanism he will use to suspend immigration, how long such a suspension could last or what effect this will have on the operation of US border crossings and on those who already hold green cards.

The White House declined to provide further information on the executive order Monday evening.

The tweet comes as the administration seeks to reopen parts of the country from the coronavirus shutdown through a phased approach, but it’s also a continuation of the President’s 2016 campaign promise to slow immigration.

Trump has repeatedly touted his decision to halt travel from China and Europe as a means of blunting the spread of coronavirus in the United States.

The tweet also comes hours after Trump directed Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant Health and Human Services secretary for health, to provide an update on border wall construction after he briefed reporters on coronavirus testing.

[CNN]

Trump calls coronavirus a ‘foreign virus’ in Oval Office address

President Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night.

The characterization of the global pandemic as a foreign virus aligns with how some Trump allies have described the coronavirus in recent days, which critics have called xenophobic.

“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” the President said.

“I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus.”

The rare Oval Office address to the nation by Trump came as his administration has faced harsh criticism for his response to the pandemic. The President said he was “marshaling the full power of the federal government” to confront the growing public health crisis, including a monthlong halt in travel from Europe to the United States.

The address came the same day the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, with more than 1,200 cases in the US.

The outbreak has not just sparked fear and anxiety in countries like the US and the UK — it has also seen a rise in xenophobic and racist assaults against people of East Asian, and particularly Chinese, descent. And panic over the virus continues to pummel the Chinese business sector in cities like New York, where fear of the disease has driven people away from east Asian neighborhoods.

The President’s reference to the virus as “foreign” echoes a tweet he shared earlier this week promoting a US southern-border wall as a way to protect Americans from the “China Virus.”

Trump, adding his own comment to the tweet, said, “Going up fast. We need the Wall more than ever!”
The post was met with fierce pushback from critics, including Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, who tweeted, “A wall won’t stop a virus. Racism won’t stop a virus.

“Do your job.”

[CNN]

Reality

Donald Trump referred to the novel coronavirus as a “foreign virus” in his Oval Office address on Wednesday night, echoing Fox News and Republicans who have sought to frame the Chinese people as “bat eaters” from an “uncivilized world.”

The White House had to issue a correction after Trump was unable to read directly from a teleprompter and announced he is banning goods trade from Europe although he is not banning goods trade from Europe.

“And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval,” Trump said. “Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.”

The White House quickly noted that the restrictions were focused on people, not boxes, and Trump later appeared to clarify his remarks in a tweet.

Media

Trump swipes at ‘little wise guy’ Brad Pitt, Korean film ‘Parasite’ during rally

President Trump took aim at the winners of the Academy Awards at a rally in Colorado Thursday night, singling out newly-minted best supporting actor winner Brad Pitt and best picture winner “Parasite.”

Trump blasted the Academy for giving its top honor to Bong Joon-Ho’s dark comedy about conflict between two families of different economic status, saying “The winner is a movie from South Korea. What the hell was that all about? We’ve got enough problems with South Korea, with trade. And after all that they give them best movie of the year?”

The movie was the first winner in a language other than English.

Trump also castigated Brad Pitt, who won for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood,” by taking a shot at the actor’s victory speech.

“And then you have Brad Pitt. I was never a big fan of his. He got up and said a little wise guy statement. Little wise guy. He’s a little wise guy,” the president said.

In his acceptance speech, Pitt, a longtime supporter of liberal causes, said the time he had been given to speak was “more than the Senate gave John Bolton,” in reference to the former White House National Security adviser who offered to testify in the Senate impeachment trial if subpoenaed.

“I’m thinking maybe Quentin does a movie about it and in the end the adults do the right thing,” Pitt added.

The president then went on to ask “Can we get ‘Gone with the Wind’ back?” The Civil War epic won the 1939 award for Best Picture in 1940.

Trump has criticized the Academy Awards telecast for several years, dating back to before his candidacy for president. As president, he has frequently blamed ratings declines for the ceremony on actors’ attacks on him.

[The Hill]

Trump appoints unqualified loyalist Richard Grenell to oversee spy agencies

Donald Trump has appointed the US ambassador to Germany, a combative loyalist, to his administration’s most senior intelligence post, in his continuing effort to wield personal control over the spy agencies, according to multiple US reports.

By making Richard Grenell acting director of national intelligence (DNI), rather than nominating him for the permanent position, Trump has sidestepped the need for Senate confirmation, a loophole the president has increasingly exploited as he has moved to replace career officials with those chosen for their personal loyalty.

The move marks a radical break from past practice. Since the position was established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to coordinate the 17 intelligence agencies, the office of the director of national intelligence has been viewed as non-partisan, and generally occupied by career professionals. The current acting DNI, Joseph Maguire, is a retired vice-admiral and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Grenell does not have a background in intelligence or the armed services, but the White House statement confirming the appointment claimed Grenell had “years of experience” working with the intelligence community in other jobs, as special envoy to Serbia and Kosovo peace talks (a job he was given in October) and while he was spokesman at the US mission to the UN from 2001 to 2008.

“He is committed to a non-political, non-partisan approach as head of the intelligence community, on which our safety and security depend,” the statement said.

Until now Grenell has been best known as a Twitter warrior, lashing out at critics of the Trump administration with a ferocity that captured the president’s attention.

Grenell has also been an outspoken advocate of LGBT rights, and has made the issue part of his brief as ambassador.

According to some reports, he will remain ambassador to Berlin and special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations while overseeing the US intelligence agencies. Neither the state department nor the White House would comment on those reports on Thursday.

The president has been a bitter critic of the intelligence agencies, particularly when their assessments were at odds with his own – about Iran and North Korea, for example. He once derided agency chiefs as “passive and naive”. His denunciations became so acerbic that the agency chiefs have stopped giving public briefings to Congress over national security threats.

“The president has selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation’s intelligence community in an acting capacity,” Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said, noting that Grenell was the second acting director in the post since the resignation of the last Senate-confirmed DNI, Dan Coats, last summer.

Warner said that the acting appointments were an apparent “effort to sidestep the Senate’s constitutional authority to advise and consent on such critical national security positions, and flouting the clear intent of Congress when it established the office of the director of national intelligence in 2004”.

“This should frighten you,” the former National Security Agency lawyer Susan Hennessey said on Twitter. “Not just brazen politicization of intelligence, but also someone who is utterly incompetent in an important security role. The guardrails are gone.”

After Coats’s resignation in July, Trump attempted to replace him with an outspoken Republican partisan, the congressman John Ratcliffe, but Ratcliffe was forced to stand down in the face of bipartisan scepticism over his qualifications in the Senate and revelations that he had exaggerated his experience in his official biography.

[The Guardian]

Trump Deletes Tweet Calling Bloomberg ‘TOTAL RACIST’ Over Very Same Stop & Frisk Policy He Backed in 2016

President Trump ripped 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg as a “total racist” after audio released Tuesday from a 2015 speech showed the former mayor unapologetically defending his controversial “stop-and-frisk” policy, which targeted young men of color.

“WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” the commander-in-chief tweeted early Tuesday along with a link to the audio clip.

Within minutes, the tweet had been taken down.

In leaked audio of Bloomberg’s speech, the Democrat sounded defiant in his acknowledgment of how the policy targeted minority kids in minority neighborhoods, arguing that they were targeted “because that’s where all the crime is.”

“Ninety-five percent of murders, murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops,” Bloomberg said.

In late 2016, then-candidate Trump called for a nationwide stop-and-frisk policy during an interview with Fox News, saying the program “worked very well” for New York City.

“I would do stop-and-frisk. I think you have to. We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” the then-GOP nominee told the network.

“You understand, you have to have, in my opinion, I see what’s going on here, I see what’s going on in Chicago, I think stop-and-frisk. In New York City it was so incredible, the way it worked.

“Now, we had a very good mayor, but New York City was incredible, the way that worked, so I think that could be one step you could do,” he added.

Upon entering the Democratic primary contest in November, Bloomberg apologized for his controversial policing policy.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg’s campaign could not immediately be reached by The Post for comment on Trump’s tweet.

“Birth tourism” is Trump’s next immigration target

The Trump administration has a new target on the immigration front — pregnant women visiting from other countries — with plans as early as this week to roll out a new rule cracking down on “birth tourism,” three administration officials told Axios.

Why it matters: Trump has threatened to end birthright citizenship and railed against immigrant “anchor babies.” The new rule would be one of the first tangible steps to test how much legal authority the administration has to prevent foreigners from taking advantage of the 14th Amendment’s protection of citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.

  • “This change is intended to address the national security and law enforcement risks associated with birth tourism, including criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry,” a State Department official told Axios.
  • The regulation is also part of the administration’s broader efforts to intensify the vetting process for visas, according to another senior administration official.

The big picture: “Birth tourists” often come to the U.S. from China, Russia and Nigeria, according to the AP.

  • There’s no official count of babies born to foreign visitors in the U.S., while the immigration restrictionist group Center for Immigration Studies — which has close ties to Trump administration immigration officials — puts estimates at around 33,000 every year.

How the new regulation would work: It would alter the requirements for B visas (or visitor visas), giving State Department officials the authority to deny foreigners the short-term business and tourism visas if they believe the process is being used to facilitate automatic citizenship.

  • It’s unclear yet how the rule would be enforced — whether officials would be directed to consider pregnancy or the country of the woman’s citizenship in determining whether to grant a visa.
  • Consular officers who issue passports and visas “are remarkably skilled at sussing out true versus false claims,” the senior official said.
  • “The underlying practical issue is that very few people who give birth in the U.S. got a visa for that specific purpose. Most people already have visas and come in later,” according to Jeffrey Gorsky, former chief legal adviser in the State Department visa office.

This is but one step in the administration’s plans to make it harder for people from other countries to benefit from birthright citizenship.

  • “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” the senior official said. “Just the legal recognition that this is improper and wrong and not allowed is a significant step forward.”
  • The plans to address the use of B visas for birth tourism were included in the latest version of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.
  • Immigration experts expect there to be a similar rule for Customs and Border Protection to go along with the State Department’s regulation.

What to watch: Most of Trump’s major immigration moves have been met with lawsuits. If the regulation leaves it to officers’ discretion to ensure that B visas aren’t used for birth tourism, it would be difficult to challenge in court, according to Lynden Melmed, an attorney and former chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

  • “State Department officials have all the discretion in the world to deny people visas,” said Sarah Pierce of the Migration Policy Institute. Foreign nationals who are outside the U.S. and have not yet received visas “don’t have a lot of legal standing.”
  • But specific restrictions that could keep out non-birth tourism visitors — such as pregnant women coming to the U.S. for business, etc. — would be legally questionable, according to Melmed and Gorsky.

[Axios]

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