Category: Policies

Trump targets ‘pathetic’ Federal Reserve after worst manufacturing reading in a decade

President Donald Trump again attacked the Federal Reserve on Tuesday after the weakest U.S. manufacturing reading in 10 years.

In a tweet, the president wrote Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the central bank “have allowed the Dollar to get so strong, especially relative to ALL other currencies, that our manufacturers are being negatively affected.” He contended the Fed has set interest rates “too high.”

“They are their own worst enemies, they don’t have a clue,” he wrote. “Pathetic!”

As his trade war with China rages on, Trump has repeatedly blamed the Fed’s interest rate policy for concerns about a slowing U.S. economy. He has contended the central bank has not moved quickly enough to ease monetary policy — though the Fed has cut its benchmark funds rate twice this year.

The Fed did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Trump’s tweet comes after the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing reading fell to 47.8 in September, down from 49.1 in August. A reading below 50 shows a manufacturing contraction.

The poor economic data contributed to major U.S. stock indexes sliding Tuesday.

The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of global currencies, has climbed more than 3% this year and sits near its highest level since mid-2017. A stronger dollar relative to global currencies is generally expected to reduce exports and increase imports, hurting manufacturers because it makes their products more expensive overseas.

While exchange rates may have contributed to the drag on manufacturing in September, trade also did, according to ISM.

“Global trade remains the most significant issue as demonstrated by the contraction in new export orders that began in July 2019. Overall, sentiment this month remains cautious regarding near-term growth,” Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, said in a release announcing the data.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed any concerns about a looming American recession. He has also contended his trade conflict with the second-largest economy in the world will not harm businesses or consumers — despite indications that it has already started to hurt some companies and worry Americans.

Seeing concerns about a flagging economy as a ploy to discredit him before the 2020 election, Trump has claimed the central bank bears the blame for any slowdown rather than his own policies.

[NBC News]

Media

Trump slammed for congratulating China on 70 years of Communist rule

President Trump faced a backlash online and from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Tuesday for congratulating China on the 70th anniversary of Communist rule.

“Congratulations to President Xi and the Chinese people on the 70th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China!” the president said in a tweet that was slammed for ignoring decades of human rights abuses in the country.

Trump has generally spoken favorably about Xi, though relations between the two nations have deteriorated since he took office and has launched a trade war with Beijing.

His shoutout came amid violent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, where an 18-year-old was hit in the chest by a live round fired by police in the Chinese territory.

House Republican Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming released a statement pointing to China’s oppressive governing tactics, according to the Washington Post.

“This is not a day for celebration,” she said in a joint statement with Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).

The US will use the occasion to “rededicate ourselves to ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party is left on the ash heap of history,” they added.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) also issued a statement that contrasted sharply with the president’s message.

“Today Chinese tyrants celebrated 70 years of communist oppression with their typically brutal symbolism: by sending a police officer to shoot a pro-democracy protester at point-blank range,” Sasse said.

“The freedom-seekers in Hong Kong mourn this anniversary, and the American people stand with them against those who deny their God-given dignity.”

In a statement, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said: “From the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution to the camps in Xinjiang today, it has been a ghoulish 70 years of Chinese Communist Party control.”

And Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a Trump ally, tweeted a terse “I will pass” in response to the president’s wishes.

On Twitter, Trump’s followers also didn’t hold back in calling him out.

“Don’t forget to send timely salutations to the other loves of your life, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Rodrigo Duterte, and Jair Bolsonaro!” Karen Walz wrote.

User Michael Lebowitz wrote: “Are you kidding me. Congratulations to a nation that has killed more people than Hitler and Stalin in the effort to uphold communism. They are morally corrupt and certainly not deserving of congratulations.”

“Mr. President, I regret to point out you are literally congratulating your greatest enemy, the biggest threat to the US: you are congratulating the CCP,” @WBYeats1865 tweeted.

“Today the CCP just showed off their missiles capable of striking Taiwan, Japan, Guam, and USA soil, and they said it PROUDLY!” he added, referring to the Chinese display of military might on Tuesday.

And another user, Jim Clarke, said: “Never thought I see the day a US President celebrates the anniversary of communism!”

[New York Post]

Trump suggests arresting Adam Schiff for ‘treason’

President Donald Trump and his allies on Monday ratcheted up their campaign against Rep. Adam Schiff as the White House’s Ukraine scandal entered its second week — with Trump again suggesting the House Intelligence chairman committed treason.

Locked in a defensive crouch and staring down an impeachment inquiry, Trump continued to batter the California Democrat for allegedly mischaracterizing his July phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Rep. Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President, and read it aloud to Congress and the American people,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It bore NO relationship to what I said on the call. Arrest for Treason?”

During Trump’s conversation with Zelensky, the president urged his foreign counterpart to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

After Schiff offered a knowingly exaggerated version of the call’s transcript before a meeting of his committee last Thursday, conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers were quick to castigate the congressman on social media and cable news.

The president was unwilling to drop the issue Monday afternoon, complaining about Schiff’s remarks to reporters in the Oval Office following a swearing-in ceremony for his new Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia.

“Adam Schiff — representative, congressman — made up what I said. He actually took words and made it up,” Trump said, as Scalia’s family looked on. “The reason is, when he saw my call to the president of Ukraine, it was so good that he couldn’t quote from it. Because there was nothing done wrong. It was perfect.”

Trump previously demanded Sunday that Schiff be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” and claimed that his “lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber.”

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, kept up that line of attack Monday, charging that Schiff “didn’t embellish” but instead “lied about” the memo the White House released last week summarizing the Zelensky call.

“He stood in front of the American people with millions of people listening and he lied,” Giuliani told the Fox Business Network. “He put on a stupid phony show, just like he lied when he said he had direct evidence of Russian collusion.”

Eric Trump, the president’s son, also assailed Schiff on Monday, telling the hosts of “Fox & Friends” that the congressman “is exactly why we need term limits in this country” and adding: “He’s a total disgrace.”

[Politico]

TRUMP THREATENS “CIVIL WAR” IF HE’S IMPEACHED

Over the past two and a half years, Donald Trump has carved out a niche for himself as a manic, deranged tweeter the likes of which the Oval Office—nay, the world—has never seen. In times of great stress—the Special Counsel’s investigation, the blue-wave midterms, a Fox News host not sufficiently fellating him—the president has amped up his output, tweeting dozens of times a day. But Sunday may have set a new record when the leader of the free world fired off a whopping 46 messages to the universe, including retweets from random supporters and one from an account called “Trump But About Sharks,” which replaces random words from his tweets “to make them about sharks.”

Most notable, though, was the president’s quoting of pastor/Fox News contributor Robert Jeffress, who made a rather bold impeachment prediction on air:

For those of you keeping up at home, threatening a Civil War is an escalation from Trump’s go-to prediction regarding what will happen to the country if he loses power, which is typically a stockmarketcollapse. Democrats, characteristically, condemned the retweet, but it inspired noteworthy pushback from one Republican corner as well: “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a veteran, tweeted back. “I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.”

[Vanity Fair]

Trump demands to meet whistleblower, warns of ‘big consequences’

President Trump on Sunday evening railed against the whistleblower and other individuals at the center of a growing scandal involving his phone call with Ukraine’s president, warning there could be “big consequences.”

“Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then [Rep. Adam] Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress,” Trump said in a series of tweets.

“His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber,” he continued, before adding that he wants Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”

“In addition,” he added, “I want to meet not only my accuser, who presented SECOND & THIRD HAND INFORMATION, but also the person who illegally gave this information, which was largely incorrect, to the ‘Whistleblower.’ Was this person SPYING on the U.S. President? Big Consequences!”

[The Hill]

A top State Department official at the center of the Ukraine whistleblower complaint just resigned

Kurt Volker, the US State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, resigned on Friday, following the release of the declassified version of a whistleblower complaint at the center of Democratic lawmakers’ inquiries on impeaching President Donald Trump.

Volker, was mentioned in the complaintthat was released Thursday morning. According to a section titled “ongoing concerns,” Volker met with Ukrainian leaders to help “navigate” Trump’s demands for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after a July 25 phone call. Volker was said to have been accompanied by Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union.

According to the whistleblower, who spoke with numerous US officials who looked at readouts of the meetings, the two US diplomats allegedly “provided advice” to the Ukrainian leaders on Trump’s “demands.”

Volker served part-time in his position, according to The New York Times, and served as the US ambassador to NATO. His resignation was first reported by The State Press, Arizona State University’s student-run newspaper.

House lawmakers issued a deposition for Volker, in addition to other US officials mentioned in the whistleblower complaint, to testify before Congress next week.

Volker’s resignation comes after a whistleblower brought to light the existence of a controversial phone call between the US and Ukrainian president. In a publicly released summary of the Trump-Zelensky phone call, the US president was said to have asked the Ukrainian president for a “favor” in investigating a conspiracy theory about the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump had also requested Zelensky to “look into” unproven allegations of misconduct from former Vice President and 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, according to the summary.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday, and the anonymous whistleblower has also indicated that they want to testify about the potential misconduct, according to information obtained by CNN. 

Trump denied there was a “quid pro quo” arrangement during the call with President Zelensky, who met the US president in New York on Wednesday. Zelensky publicly echoed Trump’s description of a cordial call, and he said he did not want to be involved in the “democratic, open elections of USA.”

[Business Insider]

Update

Volker’s role in helping Trump to interfere in the 2020 election was corroborated by… Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. No really. Look:

Republicans Block FEC From Publishing Rule On Foreign Election Interference

FEC Chair Ellen L Weintraub had to tweet out the entire FEC weekly digest after Republicans blocked her from publishing it because it contained a draft rule banning foreign election interference.

Weintraub tweeted:

Here is the summary of the draft rulethat Republicans blocked from publication, “The Federal Election Commission is summarizing its interpretation of the prohibition on foreign national contributions, donations, expenditures, and disbursements in connection with a federal, state, or local election, as well as the prohibition on soliciting, accepting, or receiving a contribution from a foreign national, under the Federal Election Campaign Act and Commission regulations.”

To summarize, a Republican FEC commissioner blocked the publication of the commission’s entire weekly digest, because he did not want the draft rule on banning foreign nationals from donating and candidates from accepting their donations and assistance to be printed.

Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who is taking help from foreign nationals. At some point, the American people are going to find out that the Republican Party runs on illegal foreign money. 

It is becoming clear that Republicans might not be able to win elections without illegal foreign cash, and keep the money coming they will try to silence any elements big or small who try to enforce or educate about the law.

[Politics USA]

Trump administration files statement supporting a Catholic high school that fired a gay teacher

The Trump administration filed a “statement of interest” supporting an Indiana Catholic School being sued by a former teacher who was fired for being in a same-sex marriage.

Joshua Payne-Elliot filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in July alleging that it “illegally interfered with his contractual and employment relationship” with Cathedral High School after the school fired him in June. 

The Justice Department announced in a Friday news release that it filed the statement of interest in the case, alleging that “the First Amendment protects the right of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis to interpret and apply Catholic doctrine.”

“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of religious institutions and people to decide what their beliefs are, to teach their faith, and to associate with others who share their faith,” Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Eric Dreiband said in the news release. “The First Amendment rightly protects the free exercise of religion.” 

Archbishop Charles Thompson said in a letter sent to parents and students after the firing that “continued employment of a teacher in a public, same-sex marriage would result in our forfeiting our Catholic identity.”

It also called the choice to fire Payne-Elliot “agonizing” for school officials.

In the news release, the Justice Department said that “courts cannot second-guess how religious institutions interpret and apply their own religious laws.”

“The former teacher’s lawsuit attempts to penalize the Archdiocese for determining that schools within its diocese cannot employ teachers in public, same-sex marriages, and simultaneously identify as Catholic. Supreme Court precedent clearly holds that the First Amendment protects the Archdiocese’s right to this form of expressive association, and courts cannot interfere with that right,” the news release said. 

The lawsuit filed by Payne-Elliot stated, “For thirteen years, Mr. Payne-Elliott was a cherished educator of countless students at Cathedral High School. Cathedral renewed his annual teaching contract on May 21, 2019.” 

“But on June 23, 2019, Cathedral’s President told Mr. Payne-Elliott that the Archdiocese had ‘directed’ Cathedral to terminate him, and that Cathedral was following that directive,” the court filing reportedly continued.

Last month, the Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not apply to sexual orientation.

[The Hill]

Senate confirms Aton Scalia’s Son as Labor secretary

The Senate has confirmed Eugene Scalia to lead the Labor Department, replacing Alexander Acosta who resigned amid questions over a plea deal he brokered for the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Senate voted along party lines, 53-44, to confirm Scalia. He is the son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

At his confirmation hearing last week, Democrats questioned his record on LGBTQ and disability rights, noting his past writings and court cases. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday voted along party lines to advance his nomination.

President Trump officially nominated Scalia in August, triggering opposition from labor unions due to his work as a lawyer for businesses in high-profile labor fights.

Scalia, 55, is a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a member and former co-chairman of its labor and employment practice group. He also co-chairs the firm’s administrative law and regulatory practice group.

He also served as solicitor of the Labor Department from 2002 to 2003 after his appointment by former President George W. Bush.

[The Hill]

Trump Blasts CNN for Chyron Typo; Reveals He Doesn’t Know Difference Between a Hyphen and an Apostrophe

Watch out CNN graphics team, you are on notice!

In a curiously focused complaint aimed at what he derided as “Low ratings” CNN, President Donald Trump took serious issue with the network’s handling of a tweet of his that ripped Rep. Adam Schiff, and cited what appeared to be a chyron typo as an example of “how dishonest the LameStream Media is.”

Trump tweeted:

At issue is a Trump tweet published Thursday after the House Intel Committee Chair led a hearing featuring Acting DNI Joseph Maguire regarding a whistleblower complaint that raised “urgent concerns” over Trump and his phone call with the Ukrainian president.

Trump’s source material tweet?

It seems that CNN, however, claimed that Trump misspelled “little” as “liddle.” The word “liddle” however, is not a word found in any reputable dictionary, though the Commander in Chief is clearly using a unique spelling on purpose, as he has used that term before.

The other problem for Trump is that CNN did not include his use of an apostrophe at the end of his made up word, though perhaps, unfortunately, he misidentified the punctuation mark. It is not a “hyphen” as he alleges, it is an apostrophe. He also spelt “describing” wrong.

[Mediaite]

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