joan1984 · 282332
0 Members and 13 Guests are viewing this topic.
Quote from: joan1984 on August 14, 2019, 09:10:30 PM Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.WHAT WOULD JESUS CAPSLOCK!?You know the illegal "Russkies" don't come in through Mexico, and South America, right?What about the open border?
Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.
Was just on the phone with a representative for my electric company. He was located in Mexico. He sent me an email with our agreement, and asked if I had received it yet. I looked and said no, he said he hopes it got thru the wall.
Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.THAT is the answer to your 'illegal' ruskies concern. Round them up, ship them home... if not home, then OUT of here, by whatever means is necessary.
Dow plummets 800 points on worsening global recession fears “Trade wars are easy.” — Donald J. Trump
Trump has repeatedly refused to accept any responsibility for inciting violence in American communities, dismissing critics who have pointed to his rhetoric as a potential source of inspiration for some citizens acting on even long-held beliefs of bigotry and hate."I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last week, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.Seven cases involved violent or threatening acts perpetrated in defiance of Trump, with many of them targeting Trump's allies in Congress. But the vast majority of the cases -- 29 of the 36 -- reflect someone echoing presidential rhetoric, not protesting it.ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.The 36 cases identified by ABC News are remarkable in that a link to the president is captured in court documents and police statements, under the penalty of perjury or contempt.In many cases of assault or threat, charges are never filed, perpetrators are never identified or the incident is never even reported to authorities. And most criminal acts committed by Trump supporters or his detractors have nothing to do with the president. But in 36 cases, court records and police reports indicated some sort of link.The perpetrators and suspects identified in the 36 cases are mostly white men -- as young as teenagers and as old as 75 -- while the victims largely represent an array of minority groups -- African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and gay men.Federal law enforcement authorities have privately told ABC News they worry that -- even with Trump's public denunciations of violence -- Trump's style could inspire violence-prone individuals to take action against minorities or others they perceive to be against the president's agenda."Any public figure could have the effect of inspiring people," FBI Director Chris Wray told a Senate panel in July. "But remember that the people who commit hate fueled violence are not logical, rational people."While asserting that "fake" media coverage is exacerbating divisions in the country, Trump has noted that "a fan" of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders opened fire on Republican lawmakers playing baseball in a Washington suburb two years ago. "Nobody puts ... 'Bernie Sanders' in the headline with the maniac," Trump said last year.And, last week, Trump similarly insisted that the man who fatally shot nine people in Dayton, Ohio, three days earlier "supported" Sanders and other liberal causes.But there's no indication either of those shooters mentioned Sanders while launching their attacks, and no charges were ever filed because they were both fatally shot during their assaults.In identifying the 36 Trump-related cases, ABC News excluded incidents of vandalism. ABC News also excluded several cases of violence -- from attacks on anti-Trump protesters at Trump rallies to certain assaults on people wearing "Make America Great Again" hats -- that did not establish explicit ties to Trump.In conducting its review, ABC News did find several cases where pro-Trump defendants were charged with targeting minorities, or where speculation online suggested the defendants were motivated by Trump, but in those cases ABC News found no police records, court proceedings or other direct evidence presenting a definitive link to the president. So those cases were also excluded in the ABC News tally.Nevertheless, last year Trump said he deserves "no blame" for what he called the "hatred" seemingly coursing through parts of the country. And he told reporters that he's "committed to doing everything" in his power to not let political violence "take root in America."The White House did not respond to a request seeking comment for this report.Here are the 36 cases identified by ABC News:Aug. 19, 2015: In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported." The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with "ethnic intimidation" and other crimes for threatening to "put a bullet" in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by "a love of country," not "hate." "Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, 'We've got to check people out more closely,'" Tavella's attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.April 28, 2016: When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama, they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the "liberal media," and in court documents, prosecutors noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to Facebook a month earlier: "The establishment is trying to steal the election from Trump. ... Obama is already on a kill list ... Your [name] can be there too." Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.June 3, 2016: After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he told police "Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump," according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to "ethnic intimidation" and other charges. It's unclear what sentence he received.Aug. 16, 2016: In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being "a white supremacist" and said "he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group," according to court documents filed in the case. Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.Sept. 1, 2016: The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera's "intense racial animus," noting in federal court that "within hours" of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying "Donald Trump is the last hope for white people." The 60-year-old Nucera has been indicted by a federal grand jury on three charges, including committing a federal hate crime. Nucera, who is white, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He retired two years ago.September 2016: After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening statements to a mosque's Facebook page, his attorney argued in court that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin was "using similar language and expressing similar views" to "campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump." Noting that his client "supported Donald Trump," attorney Caleb Mason added that "Mr. Feigin's comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist acts." Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.Oct. 13, 2016: After the FBI arrested three white Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men's attorneys insisted to a federal judge that the plot was "self-defensive" because the three men believed "that if Donald Trump won the election, President Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the country would have to step in." Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein's attorney argued for a lighter sentence based on "the backdrop" of Stein's actions: Trump had become "the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters" like Stein, and the "climate" at the time could propel someone like Stein to "go to 11," attorney Jim Pratt said in court. Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.Nov. 3, 2016: In Tampa, Florida, David Howard threatened to burn down the house next to his "simply because" it was being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department. He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were "the match that lit the wick." He cited Trump's warnings about immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. "[With] the fact that the president wants these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over, there's a concern about Muslims," Howard said. Howard, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the 59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison.Nov. 10, 2016: A 23-year-old man from High Springs, Florida, allegedly assaulted an unsuspecting Hispanic man who was cleaning a parking lot outside of a local food store. "[H]e was suddenly struck in the back of the head," a police report said of the victim. "[The victim] asked the suspect why he hit him, to which the suspect replied, 'This is for Donald Trump.' The suspect then grabbed [the victim] by the jacket and proceeded to strike him several more times," according to the report. Surveillance video of the incident "completely corroborated [the victim's] account of events," police said. The suspect was arrested on battery charges, but the case was dropped after the victim decided not to pursue the matter, police said. Efforts by ABC News to reach the victim for further explanation were not successful.Nov. 12, 2016: In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets and repeatedly yelled the word, "Trump," according to law enforcement records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.Jan. 3, 2017: In Chicago, four young African-Americans -- sisters Brittany and Tanishia Covington, Jordan Hill and Tesfaye Cooper -- tied up a white, mentally disabled man and assaulted him, forcing him to recite the phrases "F--k Donald Trump" and "F--k white people" while they broadcast the attack online. Each of them ultimately pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime and other charges, and three of them were sentenced to several years in prison.Jan. 25, 2017: At JFK International Airport in New York, a female Delta employee, wearing a hijab in accordance with her Muslim faith, was "physically and verbally" attacked by 57-year-old Robin Rhodes of Worcester, Mass., "for no apparent reason," prosecutors said at the time. When the victim asked Brown what she did to him, he replied: "You did nothing, but ... [Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you." Rhodes ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of "menacing," and he was sentenced to probation.Feb. 19, 2017: After 35-year-old Gerald Wallace called a mosque in Miami Gardens, Florida, and threatened to "shoot all y'all," he told the FBI and police that he made the call because he "got angry" from a local TV news report about a terrorist act. At a rally in Florida the day before, Trump falsely claimed that Muslim refugees had just launched a terrorist attack in Sweden.Wallace's attorney, Katie Carmon, later tried to convince a federal judge that the threat to kill worshippers could be "protected speech" due to the "very distinctly political climate" at the time. "There are courts considering President Trump's travel ban ... and the president himself has made some very pointed statements about what he thinks about people of this descent," Carmon argued in court.Wallace, who is African American, ultimately pleaded guilty to obstructing the free exercise of his victims' religious beliefs, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.Feb. 23, 2017: Kevin Seymour and his partner Kevin price were riding their bicycles in Key West, Florida, when a man on a moped, 30-year-old Brandon Davis of North Carolina, hurled anti-gay slurs at them and "intentionally" ran into Seymour's bike, shouting, "You live in Trump country now," according to police reports and Davis' attorney. Davis ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of battery evidencing prejudice, but in court, he expressed remorse and was sentenced to four years of probation.May 3, 2017: In South Padre Island, Texas, 35-year-old Alexander Jennes Downing of Waterford, Connecticut, was captured on cellphone video taunting and aggressively approaching a Muslim family, repeatedly shouting, "Donald Trump will stop you!" and other Trump-related remarks. Police arrested downing, of Waterford, Connecticut, for public intoxication. It's unclear what came of the charge.May 11, 2017: Authorities arrested Steven Martan of Tucson, Arizona, after he left three threatening messages at the office Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. In one message, he told McSally he was going to "blow your brains out," and in another he told her that her "days are numbered." He later told FBI agents "that he was venting frustrations with Congresswoman McSally's congressional votes in support of the President of the United States," according to charging documents. Martan's attorney, Walter Goncalves Jr., later told a judge that Martan had "an alcohol problem" and left the messages "after becoming intoxicated" and "greatly upset" by news that McSally "agreed with decisions by President Donald Trump." Martan, 58, has since pleaded guilty to three counts of retaliating against a federal official and was sentenced to more than one year in prison.Oct. 22, 2017: A 44-year-old California man threatened to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for her frequent criticism of Trump and her promise to "take out" the president. Anthony Scott Lloyd left a voicemail at the congresswoman's Washington office, declaring: "If you continue to make threats towards the president, you're going to wind up dead, Maxine. Cause we'll kill you." After pleading guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, Lloyd asked the judge for leniency, saying he suffered from addiction-inducing mental illness and became "far too immersed in listening to polarizing political commentators and engaging in heated political debates online." His lawyer put it this way to the judge: "Mr. Lloyd was a voracious consumer of political news online, on television and on radio … [that are] commonly viewed as 'right wing,' unconditionally supportive of President Trump, and fiercely critical of anyone who opposed President Trump's policies." The judge sentenced Lloyd to six months of house arrest and three years of probation.April 6, 2018: The FBI arrested 38-year-old Christopher Michael McGowan of Roanoke, Virginia, for allegedly posting a series of Twitter threats against Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., over several months. In one posting in December 2017, McGowan wrote to Goodlatte: "I threatened to kill you if you help Trump violate the constitution," according to charging documents. In another alleged post, the self-described Army veteran wrote: "If Trump tries to fire [special counsel Robert] Mueller I WILL make an attempt to execute a citizens arrest against [Goodlatte] and I will kill him if he resist." In subsequent statements to police, he said he drinks too much, was "hoping to get someone's attention over his concerns about the current status of our country," and did not actually intend to harm Goodlatte, court documents recount. A federal grand jury has indicted McGowan on one count of transmitting a threat over state lines, and it's unclear if he has entered a plea as he awaits trial.July 6, 2018: Martin Astrof, 75, approached a volunteer at the campaign office of Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., in Suffolk County, New York, and "state[d] he was going to kill supporters of U.S. congressman Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump," according to charging documents. Astrof was arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to one year of probation.August 2018: After the Boston Globe called on news outlets around the country to resist what it called "Trump's assault on journalism," the Boston Globe received more than a dozen threatening phone calls. "You are the enemy of the people," the alleged caller, 68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, told a Boston Globe employee on Aug. 22. "As long as you keep attacking the President, the duly elected President of the United States ... I will continue to threat[en], harass, and annoy the Boston Globe." A week later, authorities arrested Chain on threat-related charges. After a hearing in his case, he told reporters, "America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president." Chain has pleaded guilty to seven threat-related charges, and he is awaiting sentencing.Oct. 4, 2018: The Polk County Sheriff's Office in Florida arrested 53-year-old James Patrick of Winter Haven, Florida, for allegedly threatening "to kill Democratic office holders, members of their families and members of both local and federal law enforcement agencies," according to a police report. In messages posted online, Patrick detailed a "plan" for his attacks, which he said he would launch if then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, the police report said. Seeking Patrick's release from jail after his arrest, Patrick's attorney, Terri Stewart, told a judge that her client's "rantings" were akin to comments from "a certain high-ranking official" -- Trump. The president had "threatened the North Korean people -- to blow them all up. It was on Twitter," Stewart said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Patrick has been charged with making a written threat to kill or injure, and he has pleaded not guilty. His trial is pending.Late October 2018: Over the course of a week, Florida man Cesar Sayoc allegedly mailed at least 15 potential bombs to prominent critics of Trump and members of the media. Sayoc had been living in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, and he had posted several pro-Trump messages on social media. Federal prosecutors have accused him of "domestic terrorism," and Sayoc has since pleaded guilty to 65 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. "We believe the president's rhetoric contributed to Mr. Sayoc's behavior," Sayoc's attorney told the judge at sentencing.Dec. 4, 2018: Michael Brogan, 51, of Brooklyn, New York, left a voicemail at an unidentified U.S. Senator's office in Washington insisting, "I'm going to put a bullet in ya. … You and your constant lambasting of President Trump. Oh, reproductive rights, reproductive rights." He later told an FBI agent that before leaving the voicemail he became "very angry" by "an internet video of the Senator, including the Senator's criticism of the President of the United States as well as the Senator's views on reproductive rights." "The threats were made to discourage the Senator from criticizing the President," the Justice Department said in a later press release. Brogan has since pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, and he is awaiting sentencing.Jan. 17, 2019: Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York, was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for threatening to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and for threatening to "hang" former President Barack Obama. Taubert used "overtly bigoted, hateful language" in his threats, according to federal prosecutors. On July 20, 2018, Taubert called the congresswoman's Los Angeles office to say he would find her at public events and kill her and her entire staff. In a letter to the judge just days before Taubert's trial began, his defense attorney, Courtenay McKeon, noted: "During that time period, Congresswoman Waters was embroiled in a public feud with the Trump administration. … On June 25, 2018, in response to Congresswoman Waters' public statements, President Trump tweeted: 'Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has … just called for harm to supporters … of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!'" As McKeon insisted to the judge: "This context is relevant to the case." A federal jury ultimately convicted Taubert on three federal charges, including retaliating against a federal official and making a threat over state lines. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.Jan. 22, 2019: David Boileau of Holiday, Florida, was arrested by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office for allegedly burglarizing an Iraqi family's home and "going through" their mailbox, according to a police report. After officers arrived at the home, Boileau "made several statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent," the report said. "He also stated if he doesn't get rid of them, Trump will handle it." The police report noted that a day before, Boileau threw screws at a vehicle outside the family's house. On that day, Boileau allegedly told police, "We'll get rid of them one way or another." Boileau, 58, has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail.Feb. 15, 2019: The FBI in Maryland arrested a Marine veteran and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, who they said was stockpiling weapons and "espoused" racist and anti-immigrant views for years as he sought to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country." In court documents, prosecutors said the 49-year-old "domestic terrorist" compiled a "hit list" of prominent Democrats. Two months later, while seeking Hasson's release from jail before trial, his public defender, Elizabeth Oyer, told a federal judge: "This looks like the sort of list that our commander-in-chief might have compiled while watching Fox News in the morning. … Is it legitimately frustrating that offensive language and ideology has now become part of our national vocabulary? Yes, it is very frustrating. But … it is hard to differentiate it from the random musings of someone like Donald Trump who uses similar epithets in his everyday language and tweets." Hasson faces weapons-related charges and was being detained as he awaits trial. He has pleaded not guilty.Feb. 15, 2019: Police in Falmouth, Massachusetts, arrested 41-year-old Rosiane Santos after she "verbally assault[ed]" a man for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat in a Mexican restaurant and then "violently push[ed] his head down," according to police reports. Apparently intoxicated, "she stated that [the victim] was a 'motherf----r' for supporting Trump," one of the responding officers wrote. "She also stated that he shouldn't be allowed in a Mexican restaurant with that." Santos was in the United States unlawfully, federal authorities said. Police arrested her on charges of "simple assault" and disorderly conduct. She has since admitted in local court that there are "sufficient facts" to warrant charges, and she has been placed on a form of probation.Feb. 25, 2019: An 18-year-old student at Edmond Santa Fe High School in Edmond, Oklahoma, was captured on cellphone video "confronting a younger classmate who [was] wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat and carrying a 'Trump' flag," according to a press release from the local school system. "The [older] student then proceeds to grab the flag and knock the hat off of his classmate's head." The 18-year-old student was charged in local court with assault and battery, according to Edmond City Attorney Steve Murdock. The student has since pleaded guilty and was placed on probation, Murdock added.March 16, 2019: Anthony Comello, 24, of Staten Island, New York, was taken into custody for allegedly killing Francesco "Franky Boy" Cali, the reputed head of the infamous Gambino crime family. It marked the first mob boss murder in New York in 30 years, law enforcement officials told ABC News the murder may have stemmed from Comello's romantic relationship with a Cali family member. Court documents since filed in state court by Comello's defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, said Comello suffers from mental defect and was a believer in the "conspiratorial fringe right-wing political group" QAnon. In addition, Gottlieb wrote: "Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016, Anthony Comello's family began to notice changes to his personality. … Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president's full support. Mr. Comello grew to believe that several well-known politicians and celebrities were actually members of the Deep State, and were actively trying to bring about the destruction of America." Comello has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. His trial is pending, and he has pleaded not guilty.April 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a 55-year-old man from upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. She is an outspoken critic of Trump, and Trump has frequently launched public attacks against her and three other female lawmakers of color. Two weeks before his arrest, Patrick Carlineo Jr. allegedly called Omar's office in Washington labeling the congresswoman a "terrorist" and declaring: "I'll put a bullet in her f----ing skull." When an FBI agent then traced the call to Carlineo and interviewed him, Carlineo "stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government," according to the FBI agent's summary of the interview. Federal prosecutors charged Carlineo with threatening to assault and murder a United States official. Carlineo is awaiting trial, although his defense attorney and federal prosecutors are working on what his attorney called another "possible resolution" of the case.April 13, 2019: 27-year-old Jovan Crawford, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and 25-year-old Scott Roberson Washington, D.C., assaulted and robbed a black man wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat while walking through his suburban Maryland neighborhood. Before punching and kicking him, "The two suspects harassed [the victim] about the hat and asked why he was wearing it. [The victim] told them he has his own beliefs and views," according to charging documents filed after their arrest by Montgomery County, Maryland, police. Crawford later received a text message noting that, "They jumped some trump supporter," the charging documents said. Crawford and Roberson have since pleaded guilty to assault charges and are awaiting sentencing.April 18, 2019: The FBI arrested John Joseph Kless of Tamarac, Florida, for calling the Washington offices of three prominent Democrats and threatening to kill each of them. At his home, authorities found a loaded handgun in a backpack, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In later pleading guilty to one charge of transmitting threats over state lines, Kless admitted that in a threatening voicemail targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., he stated: "You won't f---ing tell Americans what to say, and you definitely don't tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say." Tlaib, a vocal critic of Trump, was scheduled to speak in Florida four days later. Kless was awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the federal judge, he said he "made a very big mistake," never meant to hurt anyone, and "was way out of line with my language and attitude."April 24, 2019: The FBI arrested 30-year-old Matthew Haviland of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, for allegedly sending a series of violent and threatening emails to a college professor in Massachusetts who publicly expressed support for abortion rights and strongly criticized Trump. In one of 28 emails sent to the professor on March 10, 2019, Haviland allegedly called the professor "pure evil" and said "all Democrats must be eradicated," insisting the country now has "a president who's taking our country in a place of more freedom rather than less." In another email the same day, Haviland allegedly wrote the professor: "I will rip every limb from your body and … I will kill every member of your family." According to court documents, Haviland's longtime friend later told the FBI that "within the last year, Haviland's views regarding abortion and politics have become more extreme … at least in part because of the way the news media portrays President Trump." Haviland has been charged with cyberstalking and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. His trial is pending.June 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a Utah man for allegedly calling the U.S. Capitol more than 2,000 times over several months and threatening to kill Democratic lawmakers, whom he said were "trying to destroy Trump's presidency." "I am going to take up my second amendment right, and shoot you liberals in the head," 54-year-old Scott Brian Haven allegedly stated in one of the calls on Oct. 18, 2018, according to charging documents. When an FBI agent later interviewed Haven, he "explained the phone calls were made during periods of frustration with the way Democrats were treating President Trump," the charging documents said. The FBI visit, however, didn't stop Haven from making more threats, including: On March 21, 2019, he called an unidentified U.S. senator's office to say that if Democrats refer to Trump as Hitler again he will shoot them, and two days later he called an unidentified congressman's office to say he "was going to take [the congressman] out … because he is trying to remove a duly elected President." A federal grand jury has since charged Haven with one count of transmitting a threat over state lines. Haven pleaded not guilty and was awaiting trial.Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring 24 others. The FBI labeled the massacre an act of "domestic terrorism," and police determined that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, posted a lengthy anti-immigrant diatribe online before the attack. "We attribute that manifesto directly to him," according to El Paso police chief Greg Allen. Describing the coming assault as "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas," the screed's writer said "the media" would "blame Trump's rhetoric" for the attack but insisted his anti-immigrant views "predate Trump" -- an apparent acknowledgement that at least some of his views align with some of Trump's public statements. The writer began his online essay by stating that he generally "support" the previous writings of the man who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand earlier this year. In that case, the shooter in New Zealand said he absolutely did not support Trump as "a policy maker and leader" -- but "[a]s a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure." Crusius has been charged with capital murder by the state of Texas.
Quote from: joan1984 on August 14, 2019, 09:10:30 PM Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.THAT is the answer to your 'illegal' ruskies concern. Round them up, ship them home... if not home, then OUT of here, by whatever means is necessary.I know you're too cowardly to give a clear and concise answer, but since you are so concerned about illegal activity, where do you stand on election fund violations, obstruction of justice, and ignoring subpoenas?Cue the whiny slanted Democratic conspiracy complaints in 3... 2... 1...#Resist
So, not clear, not concise? Hmm... Is all you need, all you get.Cue:1. Change the subject. 2. Attack.--------You seem up on Alinsky's Rules For Radicals, I see.Quote from: Athos_131 on August 14, 2019, 11:10:49 PMQuote from: joan1984 on August 14, 2019, 09:10:30 PM Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.THAT is the answer to your 'illegal' ruskies concern. Round them up, ship them home... if not home, then OUT of here, by whatever means is necessary.I know you're too cowardly to give a clear and concise answer, but since you are so concerned about illegal activity, where do you stand on election fund violations, obstruction of justice, and ignoring subpoenas?Cue the whiny slanted Democratic conspiracy complaints in 3... 2... 1...
Quote from: joan1984 on August 14, 2019, 09:10:30 PM Anyone who is illegally here should be removed.THAT is the answer to your 'illegal' ruskies concern. Round them up, ship them home... if not home, then OUT of here, by whatever means is necessary.I know you're too cowardly to give a clear and concise answer, but since you are so concerned about illegal activity, where do you stand on election fund violations, obstruction of justice, and ignoring subpoenas?Cue the whiny slanted Democratic conspiracy complaints in 3... 2... 1...
1. Change the subject...
Quote from: joan1984 on August 15, 2019, 12:18:32 AM1. Change the subject...Let me get this straight. Liberals are nothing but Racism Racism Racism all the time.And yet you contest that step 1 is change the subject?Which is it? Athos_131 can't be so focused that EVERYTHING is racism, all the time, and change the subject.
Psi, please restrict your hands for a few minutes, and let what you read sink in, until you actually understand the words you are reading. Then you will be ableto thoughtfully respond. Far less confusing that way. TY
Psi, please restrict your hands for a few minutes, and let what you read sink in, until you actually understand the words you are reading. Then you will be able to thoughtfully respond. Far less confusing that way. TY
The Post reports that there is no Trump administration plan in the event of a recession: "Trump has a somewhat conspiratorial view, telling some confidants that he distrusts statistics he sees reported in the news media and that he suspects many economists and other forecasters are presenting biased data to thwart his reelection.” (Next, he’ll be ranting about strawberries.)If you think that’s frightful, consider another Post report: “Trump has pushed top aides to investigate whether the U.S. government can purchase the giant ice-smothered island of Greenland.” As one might expect, “The presidential request has bewildered aides, some of whom continue to believe it isn’t serious, but Trump has mentioned it for weeks.”Greenland is part of the kingdom of Denmark, and last time I looked it wasn’t on the market. (What would the comps be?) In case you thought the wall was an expensive boondoggle, imagine what a pretty penny it would cost to buy a country of “2.2 million square kilometers, with 1.7 million of that covered in ice.” (Yes, after World War II, the Truman administration tried to buy it, but it didn’t amount to anything and no serious person thinks Denmark is going to sell part of its kingdom to us.)Sure, this is humorous, but it also frightening. We have no idea why this particular Trump obsession has taken hold or why someone — his secretary of state, perhaps — has not told him that this is silly, a waste of aides’ time and evidence of Trump’s unfitness as commander in chief. It is, after all. And whoever leaked this to the media seems to have understood the necessity of halting this behavior and, more important, grappling with his unhinged conduct.We are facing a possible recession, brought on by Trump’s ignorant trade war. Trump has made hash out of relations with allies, sabotaged bipartisan support for Israel, been snookered by Kim Jong Un, refused to take interest in securing our elections from Russian interference and exacerbated a border crisis by cutting off aid to three Central American countries We have a wave of white nationalist violence, for which a large majority of Americans think he is at least somewhat to blame. And Trump frets about Greenland.Alarm bells should have been ringing long ago about this president’s fitness. Trump’s inability to distinguish facts from lies (more than 12,000 of them); his obsession with (and exaggeration of) his 2016 victory, which renders him unwilling to recognize Russia intervened to help him; his incoherent speech pattern and tweets; his refusal to read briefing materials; his impulsive moves and personal attacks on perceived enemies; and his affection for and manipulation by foreign dictators collectively suggest that he is not fit to work in the White House, let alone to be president. (Should the military obey a first-strike order from this guy?)One would hope that former advisers, including James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, Dan Coats and Gary Cohn, as well as the few remaining independent voices in the administration (FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel), would understand the necessity of advising Congress and the American people if they have concerns that the president is unfit.Don’t get your hopes up about the 25th Amendment, however. We have no reason to think members of his Cabinet and Vice President Pence would have the character and good judgment to activate its terms.Nevertheless, Trump’s behavior should give the House, already down the road on an impeachment inquiry, a sense of urgency. If the president has committed High Crimes & Misdemeanors and is also unfit, shouldn’t Congress be speeding things up? If evidence from Donald McGahn and others prove compelling on obstruction of justice and the economy sinks into recession, the Republican-led Senate might just take an impeachment trial seriously, or at the very least, urge him to resign or declare that he won’t run for reelection.In the meantime, the media and Congress should stop pretending Trump is fit to govern. He’s not. He needs to go as soon as possible, by whatever legal or electoral means possible.
President Trump is gripped by fear.That is the message coming through from his public statements, his recent policy decisions, and reporting from inside the White House that paints a picture of a president increasingly rattled and irrational, striking out wildly as he searches for an argument that will frighten Americans enough to reelect him.Let’s take a tour around the news today:Trump told his fervid supporters at a rally Thursday that if he is not reelected, the economy will crash. “You have no choice but to vote for me because your 401(k)’s down the tubes. Everything is going to be down the tubes. So whether you love me or hate me, you’ve got to vote for me.”Amid growing signs of a coming economic downturn, he is reportedly experiencing a combination of denial and rage. “Trump has a somewhat conspiratorial view, telling some confidants that he distrusts statistics he sees reported in the news media and that he suspects many economists and other forecasters are presenting biased data to thwart his reelection,” The Post reports. But he has also “told aides and allies that [Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell] would be a scapegoat if the economy goes south.”Trump is increasingly using the powers of the presidency against his perceived enemies: “The president has grounded a military jet set for use by the Democratic House speaker, yanked a security clearance from a former CIA director critical of him, threatened to withhold disaster aid from states led by Democrats, pushed to reopen a criminal investigation targeting Hillary Clinton and publicly called for federal action to punish technology and media companies he views as biased against him.”When he learned that Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) were planning a visit to Israel, Trump pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bar them from the country — yes, a U.S. president pushing a foreign government to refuse entry to U.S. public officials. Netanyahu initially relented, then after near-universal international condemnation, announced that Tlaib would be allowed to visit her elderly grandmother on the West Bank.In the most bizarre bit of news, Trump reportedly has expressed interest in buying Greenland, a suggestion that should make us wonder whether he has gone completely off the deep end. His own staff seems to be wondering too: “The presidential request has bewildered aides, some of whom continue to believe it isn’t serious, but Trump has mentioned it for weeks.” Perhaps if they stall him for a while, he won’t order them to blow up the moon and build him a time machine.In all this, it’s the economic news that really has Trump sweating. As any sensible observer understands, presidents get more credit than they deserve when the economy does well and more blame than they deserve when it does poorly, because most of what happens in a country with about 330 million people and more than $20 trillion of economic activity is out of their control.Trump was given an economy in the midst of a steady recovery, which since then has continued on pretty much the same trajectory it was on (though job creation was somewhat better under President Barack Obama). Yet more than any other president in history, he has insisted that he deserves personal credit for every positive economic development, which could only be the result of his unique genius. He has a particular habit of visiting a factory that was approved or began construction when Obama was president and saying it was all because of him. “It was the Trump administration that made it possible. No one else,” he said this week outside a Shell plastics plant that had been planned since 2012 and which the company formally announced in 2016. “Without us, you would never have been able to do this.”Meanwhile, whenever he creates a new controversy with some racist outburst, distressing public performance or new revelation of corruption on the part of himself and his appointees, Republicans everywhere offer the same argument: Okay, so that stuff isn’t exactly optimal, and yeah, I wish he’d tone down the bigotry and stop tweeting. But the economy is doing well, right?You don’t need a PhD in political science to understand the threat this poses. If the economy does falter — even a slight slowdown, let alone a full-on recession — it could become almost impossible for Trump to win reelection. If he can’t argue that he has delivered prosperity, all that remains is the single most repugnant human being to ever sit in the Oval Office, befouling everything he touches.Trump knows this as well as anyone. In his growing fear of that eventuality, he wants us all to be as afraid as he is: afraid of immigrants, afraid of socialism, afraid of dissenting voices, afraid of a changing society, afraid of the future.As a political strategy, it’s certainly morally abhorrent, but it still might work. After all, if Trump didn’t have such skill at finding and stimulating what is worst in people, he wouldn’t have become president in the first place. And by this time next year, fear could be all he has left.
Trump has indicated interest in purchasing Greenland—and although Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated via Twitter that they were “open for business, not for sale,” it’s worth asking: how do you buy a country, anyway?First, let’s take a look at why our president is interested in acquiring Greenland, which is currently an autonomous Danish territory. As The Wall Street Journal reports:U.S. officials view Greenland as important to American national-security interests. A decades-old defense treaty between Denmark and the U.S. gives the U.S. military virtually unlimited rights in Greenland at America’s northernmost base, Thule Air Base. Located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it includes a radar station that is part of a U.S. ballistic missile early-warning system. The base is also used by the U.S. Air Force Space Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.So, okay, acquiring Greenland could have some national security value—not to mention that it would prevent other countries, such as China, from building an economic or military presence on the island. However, the real underlying motivation might have more to do with setting up a legacy:The source believed the president was interested in the idea because of the island’s natural resources and because it would give him a legacy akin to President Dwight Eisenhower’s admission of Alaska into the U.S. as a state.Alaska was, of course, purchased from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, so this kind of land transfer has precedent. The U.S. purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million—after hinting that if Denmark weren’t willing to sell, they might have to occupy the islands “to prevent their seizure by Germany”—so you can see why Trump might wonder if the Danes would be interested in cutting another deal.Except Greenland is different. As The Atlantic explains:the decision is not even Denmark’s to make. Legally and morally, the island’s 56,000 residents—most of whom are ethnically Greenlandic Inuit—get to decide on any international union their state joins.Plus, Greenland is very, very socialist; its citizens practice common ownership of both land and government, and provide free medical care for all. To quote The Atlantic again:Trump will have to commit to supporting all those programs if he hopes to add Greenland to the union. And so the United States will gain a state quite unlike any it has had before: a state where landed property is illegal, where private medical care is banned, and where most major industries are state-owned.If our president did in fact make Greenland a state, I wonder how many of us would be tempted to move there.But back to the question of how to buy a country. Traditionally, this kind of thing takes a lot of discussion between the two governments involved, a huge pile of money, and an occasional veiled threat—that is, if the host government isn’t interested in selling, the territory may fall into new ownership the old-fashioned way.I am pretty sure we aren’t going to invade Greenland. I don’t even think we’re going to make an offer on Greenland, honestly. And if our president really wants to build his legacy by creating a new state, I’ve heard that Puerto Rico and/or the District of Columbia might be interested.