Category: Unpresidential

Republicans Are Increasingly Calling For A Civil War

Over the past several years, a number of prominent Republicans and right-wing commentators have called for a civil war or have used coded language like “national divorce.” This rhetoric is dangerous and anti-democratic, and it is important to be aware of it.

It is important to call out this rhetoric whenever we hear it or see it from our friends and family on social media or in person. We need to make it clear that violence is not the answer, and that we are committed to resolving our differences peacefully through the democratic process.

The examples are many, but include:

  • Trump tweeted during his first impeachment, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
  • Greg Gutfeld called for a new Civil War because “elections don’t work.”
  • Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed on Hannity, “The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war … but it’s going that direction.”
  • Ned Ryun on Jesse Watters’ Fox News show said “we are in a cold civil war with the left” as a reaction to Donald Trump’s arrest and mugshot.
  • Chip Roy said if Warnock and Ossoff win Georgia: “If we have a Democratically-controlled Senate, we’re now basically at full-scale hot conflict in this country, whereas right now we’re in a cold civil war.”
  • Clay Higgins made a call to arms over Trump’s indictment for stealing America’s classified documents.
  • Greg Gutfeld said gender affirming care will cause Christians to engage in a civil war.
  • Tucker Carlson threatened civil war if Republicans did not win in 2020.
  • Tucker Carlson again threatened a civil war.
  • Tucker Carlson said any gun control legislation should result in a second civil war.
  • Peter Navarro says a Second Civil War is coming because of Trump’s indictments, and says to Democrats that what they are doing “will come back to haunt you as soon as Republicans take back Trump’s America from your cold, woke hands.”
  • Marjorie Taylor Greene said “We need a national divorce where we can split into red states and blue states. No, that doesn’t mean civil war. Doesn’t mean you can’t travel to different states. There would still be trade and commerce.”
  • Republican State Senator Colton Moore said on Steve Bannon’s podcast he was ready to take up arms and said a civil war was coming if Trump was convicted.
  • At a fundraiser for the indicted Michigan fake electors, State Rep Matt Maddock, the husband of one of them, is on audio tape saying that if the government keeps prosecuting right-wingers then someone is going to get shot or a civil war will happen.
  • Has-been actor Jon Voight responded to Trump’s trial date announcement by claiming only Trump can lead Republicans in Civil War 2.0.
  • Conservative commentator Doug Hagmann called for violence against poll workers in the next Civil War, which he was bringing his own guns and providing body bags for his victims.
  • The mother to murderer and conservative hero Kyle Rittenhouse, said lawyer Lynn Wood left Rittenhouse in jail despite having bail money to save him from Civil War and Armageddon. In reality Wood was grifting the Rittenhouses out of money.
  • Actually, Lynn Wood, who was part of Trump’s failed “Kraken” team has been promoting a Civil War against liberals, independents, and non-Trump loyal Republicans quite regularly.
  • Domestic terrorist and Proud Boy leader, regularly promoted by Fox News and right wing media, Enrique Tarrio, expected a Civil War before January 6th which he tried to accelerate.
  • January 6th rioters were seen wearing Civil War shirts.

Donald Trump suggests delay to 2020 US presidential election

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Donald Trump has suggested November’s presidential election be postponed, saying increased postal voting could lead to fraud and inaccurate results.

He floated a delay until people could “properly, securely and safely” vote.

There is little evidence to support Mr Trump’s claims but he has long railed against mail-in voting which he has said would be susceptible to fraud.

US states want to make postal voting easier due to public health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the US constitution, Mr Trump does not have the authority to postpone the election himself. Any delay would have to be approved by Congress. The president does not have direct power over the two houses of Congress.

What did Trump say?

In a series of tweets, Mr Trump said “universal mail-in voting” would make November’s vote the “most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history” and a “great embarrassment to the USA”.

He suggested – without providing evidence – that mail-in voting, as it is known in the US, would be susceptible to foreign interference.

“The [Democrats] talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race,” he said.

Mr Trump also said postal voting was “already proving to be a catastrophic disaster” in areas where it was being tried out.

In June, New York allowed voters to vote by post in the Democratic primary poll for the party’s presidential candidate. But there have been long delays in counting the ballots and the results are still unknown.

US media report that there are also concerns that many ballots will not be counted because they were not filled in correctly or do not have postmarks on them that show they were sent before voting officially ended.

However, several other states have long conducted votes by post.

Donald Trump can’t delay November’s presidential election without Congress, partially controlled by the Democrats, first approving the decision. If he didn’t already know this, someone has certainly told him by now.

The president also must know that tweeting about a delay – even framed as an “I’m just asking!” question – is sure to ignite a political firestorm, particularly after he has repeatedly refused to say whether he’d accept an adverse result in the upcoming presidential election.

Mr Trump appears to be doing everything in his power to undermine the credibility of November’s vote, in which a record number of Americans are predicted to rely on mail-in voting to avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. He’s repeatedly made false and misleading claims about the reliability of the mail balloting and suggested broad conspiracy theories. Critics warn that he could be laying the groundwork for contesting the results – although the purpose may be simply to give him a scapegoat if he loses.

His tweet could also be an attempt to divert attention away from the truly dismal second-quarter economic numbers just released. He’s been relying on a financial turnaround to breathe life into his re-election campaign, and instead the outlook appears exceedingly gloomy.

Whatever the reason, tweeting about an election delay is not the move of a candidate confident of victory – and could be a sign of more desperate moves to come.

[BBC]

Trump Pushes Fake COVID Cure From Fringe Doctors, Banned by Facebook

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President Donald Trump exhibited his new serious tone toward the coronavirus crisis on Monday night, sharing a viral video of fringe doctors touting the controversial anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as “a cure for COVID.”

The video, which also featured the doctors dismissing mask-wearing, was eventually taken down by Facebook for “sharing false information” about the virus, after racking up millions of views in a matter of hours. Several right-wing outlets and personalities, however, continued to promote the clip of the doctors’ press conference on Twitter, eventually reaching the president’s timeline.

Besides retweeting the clip several times, Trump—who recently said his retweets tend to get him “in trouble”—went on to share several other posts promoting hydroxychloroquine, which the FDA has rescinded for emergency use for the virus.

Numerous studies and clinical trials have found that the drug has shown no real benefit in treating coronavirus patients. Experts also have warned of potentially deadly side effects. 

Trump then shared a tweet directly from Dr. Stella Immanuel, one of the physicians who took part in the press conference. Immanuel is also a preacher who once wrote a book claiming that there is a Satanic plot to take over the world and recently challenged CNN anchors and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to provide her with urine samples. (The video tweeted by Immanuel, along with several others the president shared, were later taken down.)

She also didn’t take kindly to Facebook removing the video of her saying masks don’t work and that hydroxychloroquine is a magic cure for the virus.

“Hello Facebook put back my profile page and videos up or your computers with start crashing till you do,” she tweeted late Monday night. “You are not bigger that God. I promise you. If my page is not back up face book will be down in Jesus name.”

The president also shared tweets attacking Fauci on Monday night, despite insisting recently that he had a “very good relationship” with the doctor after White House officials publicly blasted him.

At least one of the accounts the president retweeted on Monday night was from a follower of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that alleges a “deep state” cabal of pedophiles is plotting against Trump.

[The Daily Beast]

Trump Promotes Video Undermining Fauci Which Facebook, YouTube and Twitter Remove for ‘False Information’

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President Donald Trump appears to have complicated feelings for Dr. Anthony Fauci While the commander in chief has publicly said that he has a good relationship with the nation’s top immunologist, his Twitter feed tells a different story.

In a flurry of curious Tweets and retweets late Monday night, Trump’s retweeted a podcast promotion that featured Fauci-critic Dr. Lee Vliet which is sure to cause drama at the next White House Coronavirus Task Force meeting (at least one that both Trump and Fauci will attend.)

The tweet originated from a Twitter account called WarRoomPandemic, and claimed: “Dr. Fauci has misled the American people on many issues, but particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine and calling Remdesivir the new gold standard.” A screengrab of that tweet was shared by CNN’s Manu Raju below:

The tweet led to a Breitbart-hosted video that some might call scientifically questionable observations that promoted the still-unproven hydroxychloroquine and questioned the benefits of mask-wearing.  The video was also shared by Donald Trump Jr., was eventually removed by Facebook for pushing “false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19.” YouTube and Twitter also pulled the video.

But it was another undermining tweet of Dr.Fauci that will restart a media conversation about their relationship.

This is not the first time that Trump has promoted criticism of Dr. Fauci.  The deteriorating state of the relationship between Trump and Fauci drew new intrigue in early April after Trump went on a Twitter binge and retweeted a post bearing the hashtag #FireFauci. This happened after Fauci gave an interview to CNN and said “obviously” more lives would have been saved if the federal government adopted coronavirus counterstrategies earlier.

Fauci’s approval rating for his role in fighting the coronavirus has been significantly higher than that of Trump’s. In a national poll of 1,337 registered voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College in mid-June, 76% of respondents said they trusted Fauci for “accurate information” about the COVID-19 pandemic compared with just 26% who said they trusted Trump. This has led to multiple reports of the president feeling some animus towards Dr. Fauci, which may be the reason for Monday’s night’s undermining tweet.

[Mediaite]

Trump tweets imaginary law that doesn’t exist to threaten protesters

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Impeached president Donald Trump today tweeted an imaginary law that does not exist.

There is no such law.

It doesn’t exist.

Complete fiction.

[Boing Boing]

Trump suggested that Twitter’s trending topics are ‘illegal’ because they make him look bad

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President Donald Trump reignited his feud with Twitter on Monday, suggesting that the website’s trending topics section is “illegal” because the topics and content that appear there make him look bad.

“So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called ‘Trending’, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up, trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!” Trump tweeted.

Trump didn’t mention a specific trend or cite any evidence to support his claim that Twitter was intentionally biasing its trends against him, nor did he say which laws he believed the company is violating.

Twitter’s website says that “trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.” Users can also view topics that are trending by location instead of those personalized for them, according to the site.

Twitter declined to comment for this story.

Trump and other conservatives frequently accuse social media companies of bias against their political viewpoints, though so far without any systemic evidence. Trump has more than 84 million followers on the platform, the seventh-largest audience of any user and second only to former President Barack Obama among politicians, according to Brandwatch.

Multiple lawsuits brought by conservatives who said social media companies illegally discriminated against them have been rejected by courts because the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private companies.

Trump’s own criticisms of social media sites, Twitter in particular, have escalated in recent months as platforms face growing pressure to take action against hateful and potentially violence-inducing speech as well as misinformation.

Twitter drew Trump’s ire in May when it added fact-checking links to his false tweets about voting by mail, and again the same week when it applied a “glorifying violence” label to his tweet threatening protesters following George Floyd’s death with being shot.

Shortly after, Trump issued an executive order targeting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that protects social media companies from being sued for content posted by users on their platforms, specifically calling out Twitter. Legal and tech policy experts have expressed skepticism that the order would hold up in court.

[Business Insider]

Trump on accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell: “I wish her well”

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President Trump said he wished alleged sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “well” during a White House coronavirus briefing on Tuesday. Maxwell, the former girlfriend of financier Jeffrey Epstein, is accused of recruiting girls in the 1990s for Epstein to sexually abuse during massage sessions she sometimes participated in at his Manhattan mansion and in Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and London.

Mr. Trump was asked about her case and whether she should turn in other powerful men such as Britain’s Prince Andrew, who U.S. authorities want to speak to. 

“I don’t know, I really haven’t been following it too much,” he said. “I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach… But I wish her well, whatever it is.” 

Mr. Trump and his wife Melania were seen in photos with Epstein and Maxwell in the 2000s. Mr. Trump and Epstein both own property on Palm Beach. 

Maxwell, 58, is facing criminal charges from allegations that she facilitated and participated in some of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes. She pleaded not guilty to the charges and was denied bail last week. Maxwell has been held without bail since her July 2 arrest and will remain behind bars until trial.

Epstein, 66, took his life last August at a Manhattan federal jail while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. 

Maxwell could face 35 years in prison if convicted on six criminal counts, including four for allegedly transporting minors for sexual assaults. 

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, told “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King last week that Maxwell was the “mastermind” behind the alleged sex trafficking. 

“She is a monster,” Giuffre said. “She’s worse than Epstein. She did things even worse than Epstein did. She was vicious. She was evil. And she’s a woman.” 

Giuffre said Maxwell, along with Epstein, groomed and abused her and forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17. Prince Andrew said he has no recollection of meeting Giuffre and denies having sex with her.

[CBS News]

Trump attacks Biden clean energy plan while announcing environmental rollback

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President Trump mocked presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s climate plan Wednesday during a speech unveiling an environmental regulation rollback the White House hopes will speed construction projects.

Trump’s comments came in an Atlanta speech announcing a rollback to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), weakening a bedrock environmental law in order to speed permitting for pipelines, oil and gas drilling, highways, and other infrastructure.

“Our past vice president opposes — think of this — all of our permitting reforms,” Trump said to the crowd. 

“Biden is happy to tie up projects in red tape, and we want to get things built,” he added.

Biden does oppose Trump’s rollback to NEPA. 

“No one should be fooled that Donald Trump is attempting to destroy a bipartisan, cornerstone law to distract from the fact that ‘Infrastructure Week’ never happened and never will happen as long as he is president,” Biden campaign spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement.

“He has failed to deliver any real plan to create jobs and instead is cutting corners to once again ignore science, experts, and communities and reservations entitled to clean air, water, and environments,” Hill added.

Biden recently unveiled a $700 billion economic plan and has included multiple environmental measures as part of his vision for restoring economic growth. 

A Tuesday update to his environmental plan, which comes as the left wing of the party has sought to push him further on green issues, would set a 2035 target for carbon-free power.

That goal was among those recommended by a “unity task force” of supporters of both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the former vice president. The panel was co-chaired by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a leading proponent of the Green New Deal. 

“Unbelievable. Biden wants to massively re-regulate the energy economy, rejoin the Paris climate accord, which would kill our energy totally,” Trump said Wednesday.

“They still haven’t explained what they could do to power our great plants and factories, but at some point I’m sure they will. We’ll learn that from AOC, who is in charge of energy,” he said, adding, “AOC and Bernie are in charge of energy.”

[The Hill]

Trump plans to appoint controversial former aide Sebastian Gorka to national security education position

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced his intent to appoint controversial former aide Sebastian Gorka to a board that oversees the federal government’s national security education program.

Gorka will serve a four-year term on the National Security Education Board, the White House said on Tuesday afternoon.

A White House aide for less than a year, Gorka left his role as deputy assistant to the president in acrimonious fashion in August 2017. The White House pushed back against Gorka’s claims that he resigned, and MSNBC reported at the time that Gorka was barred from the White House grounds before his resignation letter surfaced.

In the Trump administration, Gorka worked with Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner in an internal foreign policy think tank known as the Strategic Initiatives Group.

Gorka, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, is a former Breitbart contributor and currently hosts a conservative radio show. He is a national security analyst who has specialized in studying Islamic extremism and has drawn criticism for his statements that Islam is an inherently violent religion.

According to the board’s website, presidential appointments to the National Security Education Board include experts from nonprofits and academic institutions. The board oversees the National Security Education Program, which was created in 1991 to promote a pool of U.S. citizens fluent in foreign languages and skilled in international affairs.

The news drew swift condemnation from Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) on Twitter.

“A white nationalist like Gorka would have no place in any decent presidential administration,” Beyer wrote on Twitter. “For Trump racism and fascism are a feature, not a bug.”

[Politico]

Trump administration orders hospitals to send coronavirus data directly to the White House, not the CDC

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The Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington, starting Wednesday, according to a Health and Human Services document updated July 10.

The handoff had an immediate effect. Wednesday afternoon one of the important CDC pages that tracked changes over time in how many hospital beds in the nation are occupied by COVID-19 patients ceased working. The CDC confirmed the page’s disappearance was a consequence of the switch.

It was first noted by Charles Ornstein from the news non-profit ProPublica.

The data came from the National Healthcare Safety Network, the most widely used hospital infection tracking system in the United States. It is run by the CDC.

In a call with reporters Wednesday, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said the agency has agreed to remove the NHSN from the collection process in order to streamline reporting.

The disappearance of the site takes away a useful metric of the pandemic for health care workers.

Changes in time of the number of hospital beds being occupied by COVID-19 patients tells public health officials how close to being unable to accept new patients a hospital or a region is, or if things are getting better.

Michael Caputo, HHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement earlier Wednesday the new coronavirus data collection system would be “faster,” and the CDC has a one-week lag in reporting hospital data.

“The President’s Coronavirus Task Force has urged improvements for months, but they cannot keep up with this pandemic,” he said. “Today, the CDC still provides data from only 85 percent of hospitals; the President’s COVID response requires 100 percent to report.”

The disappearance of the site takes away a useful metric of the pandemic for health care workers.

Changes in time of the number of hospital beds being occupied by COVID-19 patients tells public health officials how close to being unable to accept new patients a hospital or a region is, or if things are getting better.

Michael Caputo, HHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a statement earlier Wednesday the new coronavirus data collection system would be “faster,” and the CDC has a one-week lag in reporting hospital data.

“The President’s Coronavirus Task Force has urged improvements for months, but they cannot keep up with this pandemic,” he said. “Today, the CDC still provides data from only 85 percent of hospitals; the President’s COVID response requires 100 percent to report.”

Caputo added: “The CDC, an operating division of HHS, will certainly participate in this streamlined all-of-government response. They will simply no longer control it.”

Wednesday afternoon, Redfield described the data collection system as a way to streamline the process and make it easier for the nation’s hospitals to get information to state and federal authorities.

“We at CDC know that the life blood of public health is data,” he said. “Collecting, disseminating data as rapidly as possible is our priority and the reason for the policy change we’re discussing today.”

The CDC, along with many federal agencies, has long struggled to provide state-of-the-art data systems with lagging funding and sought to upgrade its systems. 

Redfield indicated the change would not be detrimental, saying the new system would streamline the process, reduce duplication and the reporting burden on medical providers and “enable us to distribute the scarce resources, using the best possible approach,” he said. 

“We’ve merely streamlined data collection for hospitals on the front lines,” he stressed. “No one is taking access or data away from CDC.”

Public health experts and infectious disease scientists sounded an alarm on the protocols, noting that further politicization of the pandemic will hurt health workers and patients.

“Placing medical data collection outside of the leadership of public health experts could severely weaken the quality and availability of data, add an additional burden to already overwhelmed hospitals and add a new challenge to the U.S. pandemic response,” Dr. Thomas File, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement.

He said collecting and reporting public health data is a “core function of the CDC,” and bypassing the agency would “undermine our nation’s public health experts.”

“As infectious diseases physicians, front-line providers and scientists, we urge the administration to follow public health expertise in addressing this public health crisis,” File said.

[USA Today]

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