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11:00. NEARLY 200 PEOPLE CAME OUT TO SHOW SUPPORT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AS WARDING DOZENS OF CARS AND TRUCKS DECORATED WITH FLAGS DROVE IN A PARADE OF SUPPORT FOR POLICE ORGANIZERS WITH GREENVILLE TEA PARTY. TELL US THIS WAS NOT A POLITICAL EVENT JUST A WAY FOR NEIGHBORS TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT. SOUTH CAROLINA LAWMAKERS SPOKE AHEAD OF THIS PARADE. THE ORGANIZER SAYS THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS EVENT CAME FROM SEEING PROTESTS AND RIOTS AROUND THE COUNTRY. DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF BLUE THAT WE SUPPORT YOU AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. THANK YOU FOR DOING ALL THE HARD WORK THAT YOU DO YOUR UNDERAPPRECIATED AND UNDERPAID. ORGANIZERS SAY THEY RAISED $3,000 TODAY I

Calls to 'refund the police' in Drive to Defend the Blue event

SC lawmakers, hundreds gathered for event in Greenville

Updated: 7:00 PM EDT Aug 1, 2020

The Greenville Tea Party held an event Saturday morning aimed at supporting law enforcement. The Drive to Defend the Blue event drew hundreds to Greenville County Square and featured South Carolina state lawmakers. We have been defunding our police force a long time," Rep. Chris Wooten (R-Lexington County) said. "It's time to refund our police."Dozens of cars, many flying American flags with a blue stripe symbolizing support for police officers, drove out of County Square to make a loop downtown.Organizer Pressley Stutts, the chairman of the Greenville Tea Party, said the gathering was to show solidarity, thanks, love and support to law enforcement officers for diligently working to keep communities safe.The group said the event raised $3,000 for the Law Enforcement Foundation, whose mission, according to its website, is to advance and enhance the law enforcement profession in South Carolina. Stutts said the money would go to provide scholarships to children of law enforcement officers and support personnel.

The Greenville Tea Party held an event Saturday morning aimed at supporting law enforcement. The Drive to Defend the Blue event drew hundreds to Greenville County Square and featured South Carolina state lawmakers.

We have been defunding our police force a long time," Rep. Chris Wooten (R-Lexington County) said. "It's time to refund our police."

Dozens of cars, many flying American flags with a blue stripe symbolizing support for police officers, drove out of County Square to make a loop downtown.

Organizer Pressley Stutts, the chairman of the Greenville Tea Party, said the gathering was to show solidarity, thanks, love and support to law enforcement officers for diligently working to keep communities safe.

The group said the event raised $3,000 for the Law Enforcement Foundation, whose mission, according to its website, is to advance and enhance the law enforcement profession in South Carolina. Stutts said the money would go to provide scholarships to children of law enforcement officers and support personnel.

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Calls to 'refund the police' in Drive to Defend the Blue event - WYFF4 Greenville

Read: The Herman Cain meltdown

In 1982, nearing 40, he was a vice president at Pillsbury, but felt stuck. So he joined the management-training program at Burger King, a Pillsbury subsidiary, which began with a stint flipping patties (a marked contrast with President Donald Trump, who enjoys fast food but would never be caught dead producing it). That was a short-time gig; Cain shot up through the ranks at Burger King, and in 1986 was dispatched to lead Godfathers Pizza, a failing Omaha, Nebraskabased subsidiary of Pillsbury. When the turnaround was slower than than the parent company wanted, Cain cobbled together an ownership group to buy Godfathers.

Cain was an energetic leader, and not one who took himself too seriously. An indelible clip shows Cain, clad in a white choir robe and in fine singing fettle, belting a parody of John Lennons Imagine at an Omaha banquet: Imagine theres no pizza I couldnt if I tried. Cain also served on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and its Omaha branch, winning praise.

His politics emerged slowly. He became a Republican, he later said, after overhearing a Black man say, Black Republicans? Theres no such thing. Cain promptly registered with the GOP. The attraction was mutual. With his bootstrap backstory and his insistence on color blindness despite his own Black heritage (Its not about color, he said. Its going to be about the content of your ideas.), Cain appealed to a Republican Party focused on individualism and opposed to affirmative action and other race-based policies.

Cain won more conservative fans in 1994, when he tore into President Bill Clinton and his health-care proposal at a nationally televised town hall, saying hed have to lay off workers if it passed. The law sank; Cains political fortunes rose. In 1996, he left Godfathers to lead the National Restaurant Association, a powerful and traditionally conservative lobbying organization in Washington.

Throughout the 2000s, Cain dabbled in politics, both as an activist and sometimes candidate, but his break came with the Tea Party in the early years of Barack Obamas presidency. Racial resentment was at the center of much of the Tea Party movement, and Caina successful, wealthy conservative who was Black and rejected claims of racism from his compatriotsbecame both a popular leader and a useful fig leaf.

In 2011, Cain decided to run for president, fulfilling a dream hed floated as early as 1996. The Republican field was large and fractious, and although Mitt Romney was the early favorite, a series of alternative candidates rose in the polls: first Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry; later came Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Squarely in the middle, Cain rose in the polls, cresting atop the race with more than a quarter of the vote in RealClearPolitics average, in November 2011.

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The Tragedy of Herman Cain - The Atlantic

In a video posted Monday online, a group of people calling themselves Americas Frontline Doctors and wearing white medical coats spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, sharing misleading claims about the virus, including that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment and that masks did not slow the spread of the virus.

The video did not appear to be anything special. But within six hours, President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted versions of it, and the right-wing news site Breitbart had shared it. It went viral, shared largely through Facebook groups dedicated to anti-vaccination movements and conspiracy theories such as QAnon, racking up tens of millions of views. Multiple versions of the video were uploaded to YouTube, and links were shared through Twitter.

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter worked feverishly to remove it, but by the time they had, the video had already become the latest example of misinformation about the virus that has spread widely.

That was because the video had been designed specifically to appeal to internet conspiracists and conservatives eager to see the economy reopen, with a setting and characters to lend authenticity. It showed that even as social media companies have sped up response time to remove dangerous virus misinformation within hours of its posting, people have continued to find new ways around the platforms safeguards.

Misinformation about a deadly virus has become political fodder, which was then spread by many individuals who are trusted by their constituencies, said Lisa Kaplan, founder of Alethea Group, a start-up that helps fight disinformation. If just one person listened to anyone spreading these falsehoods and they subsequently took an action that caused others to catch, spread or even die from the virus that is one person too many.

One of the speakers in the video, who identified herself as Dr. Stella Immanuel, said, You dont need masks to prevent spread of the coronavirus. She also claimed to be treating hundreds of patients infected with coronavirus with hydroxychloroquine, and asserted that it was an effective treatment. The claims have been repeatedly disputed by the medical establishment.

President Trump repeatedly promoted hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug, in the early months of the crisis. In June, he said he was taking it himself. But that same month, the Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency authorization for the drug for Covid-19 patients and said it was unlikely to be effective and carried potential risks. The National Institutes of Health halted clinical trials of the drug.

In addition, studies have repeatedly shown that masks are effective in curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

The trajectory of Mondays video mirrored that of Plandemic, a 26-minute slickly produced narration that spread widely in May and falsely claimed that a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. In just over a week, Plandemic was viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before it was taken down.

But the video posted Monday had more views than Plandemic within hours of being posted online, even though it was removed much faster. At least one version of the video, viewed by The Times on Facebook, was watched over 16 million times.

Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter deleted several versions of the video on Monday night. All three companies said the video violated their policies on sharing misinformation related to the coronavirus.

On Tuesday morning, Twitter also took action against Donald Trump Jr. after he shared a link to the video. A spokesman for Twitter said the company had ordered Mr. Trump to delete the misleading tweet and said it would limit some account functionality for 12 hours. Twitter took a similar action against Kelli Ward, the Arizona Republican Party chairwoman, who also tweeted the video.

No action was taken against the president, who retweeted multiple clips of the same video to his 84.2 million followers Monday night. The original posts have since been removed.

When asked about the video on Tuesday, Mr. Trump continued to defend the doctors involved and the treatments they are backing.

For some reason the internet wanted to take them down and took them off, the president said. I think they are very respected doctors. There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it, that shes had tremendous success with it and they took her voice off. I dont know why they took her off. Maybe they had a good reason, maybe they didnt.

Facebook and YouTube did not answer questions about multiple versions of the video that remained online on Tuesday afternoon. Twitter said it was continuing to take action on new and existing tweets with the video.

The members of the group behind Mondays video say they are physicians treating patients infected with the coronavirus. But it was unclear where many of them practice medicine or how many patients they had actually seen. As early as May, anti-Obamacare conservative activists called the Tea Party Patriots Action reportedly worked with some of them to advocate loosening states restrictions on elective surgeries and nonemergency care. On July 15, the group registered a website called Americas Frontline Doctors, domain registration records show.

One of the first copies of the video that appeared on Monday was posted to the Tea Party Patriots YouTube channel, alongside other videos featuring the members of Americas Frontline Doctors.

The doctors have also been promoted by conservatives like Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, a nonprofit media organization.

More:
Misleading Hydroxychloroquine Video, Pushed by the Trumps, Spreads Online - The New York Times

Down with the Wall of Moms! Death to the Leaf-Blower Dads!

In George Orwells classic novel 1984, members of the Outer Party stood in front of their telescreens daily to revile Big Brothers enemies and exult in his power. Long live Boss Trump!

Just so Fox News excited coverage of Portlands Wall of Moms in their COVID-19 masks and bicycle helmets confronting Trumps mercenaries in full combat gear. A second group calling themselves Leaf-Blower Dads are using lawn equipment to force tear gas barrages back in the faces of the storm troopers who fired them.

Classic American ingenuity, if you think about it. Also a reminder that in Portland, the majority of dangerous, violent anarchists Boss Trump warns against are unarmed women and suburban men with yards and garages who know their way around Home Depot.

But theyre not having an invasion of Trumps personal Gestapo: paramilitary forces wearing no insignia, with no badge numbers or names, and accountable to nobody.

People are coming out in thousands to defend their community from an invasion. Theres also a Wall of Vets, and Teachers Against Tyrants. Thats why Portlands mayor, Oregons governor and its two U.S. senators have demanded the federal agents removal. Theyd had the situation under control before the troops arrived. Which is not to nominate protest leaders for sainthood. There are opportunists and fools of every political persuasion.

Also, history teaches, provocateurs are all too willing to smash windows, loot and burn for purposes of their own. During rioting at the Chicago Democratic convention in 1968, some of the angriest hotheads turned out to be cops impersonating anti-Vietnam War activists.

In Portland, however, Boss Trumps crowing about his agents tear-gassing Mayor Ted Wheeler as he addressed protest marchers (They knocked the hell out of him, he boasted on Fox News) was received with contempt: the boasting of a flabby blowhard whos hidden behind bodyguards all his life. He has approximately the same chance of winning Oregons electoral votes as I do and Im not on the ballot.

If that offends you, dear reader, riddle me this: What would have been your reaction if a phalanx of anonymous, masked federal agents had assaulted, say, a Tea Party demonstration during the Obama administration?

If youre a conservative, it might be like Paul Rosenzweigs, a career Republican who was one of Kenneth Starrs keenest sleuths in the Great Bill Clinton Sex Investigation. Writing in The Atlantic, he argued that invading Portland is a complete corruption of conservative ideals.

There is nothing conservative about unconstitutional police activity, and there is nothing conservative about unilateral federal intervention in state affairs. Those are the acts of an authoritarian.

Rosenzweig and co-author Arthur Rizer also quote Tom Ridge, former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush: DHS was not established to be the presidents personal militia.

See, while prating about being a law and order president, Trump is doing everything he can to provoke violence, hoping it will frighten suburban voters into holding Joe Biden somehow responsible despite Bidens history as a pro-cop liberal throughout his long career. Hes also hoping to somehow distract voters from the 150,000 Americans who have died because of his negligence and incompetence in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, when Richard Nixon successfully played the law and order card in 1968, Lyndon Johnson was president. Nixons opponent was Vice President Hubert Humphrey. So far, polls show that Trump has had no success convincing anybody outside his hardcore base that others are responsible for the violence hes working so hard to provoke.

But there are three months to go, and discord is spreading across the country. Seattle; Oakland; Louisville; Aurora, Colo.; etc. Rival groups are carrying guns and itching for a fight.

In Austin, a man carrying an AK-47 was shot to death by a man in a car suspected of trying to run civil rights marchers down. The mayor of Richmond, Va., has alleged that White supremacists marching under the banner of Black Lives Matter violently disrupted an otherwise peaceful protest.

The only things restraining Trump are his cowardice and fear of getting caught. Rightly or wrongly, writes my man Charles Pierce in Esquire, this puts the responsibility on the protestors themselves. ... (I)ts time for the burning of police stations and other acts of violence to stop. Its time for folks to stop hurling themselves mindlessly into the face of faceless law-enforcement.

Way past time, actually. In Portland (and elsewhere), activists could foil Trump by simply staging demonstrations some distance from federal property.

Let the Trump Troopers gas each other. Activists need to shout down apostles of violence and turn vandals and arsonists over to legitimate law enforcement.

Above all, emulate John Lewis, the great civil rights icon, who understood the folly of rioting and the overwhelming moral authority of nonviolent mass resistance.

Go here to read the rest:
The two-minutes hate, 2020 edition | Opinion - Indiana Gazette

On Thursday morning, minutes after news broke of the worst quarterly economic collapse in U.S. history, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested delaying this years election.

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? he tweeted.

Trump has repeatedly railed against mail-in ballotswhich is how he casts his votesas an illegitimate form of voting, even though five states vote exclusively by mail and another 29 plus the District of Columbia allow no-excuse absentee ballots. (Which are, of course, sent by mail.) In the last presidential election, one-quarter of all votes cast were by mail. There is zero evidence that mail-in voting leads to increased voter fraud.

Trump doesnt have the authority to delay the electiononly Congress could do that, and even many Republican stalwarts in the House and the Senate were quick to shoot down Trumps suggestion on Thursday. But after almost four years of Trump, the idea that something cant happen just because it has never been tried or might be illegal doesnt reassure everyone.

To put Trumps suggestion in context, Foreign Policy spoke with Timothy Naftali, a presidential scholar at New York University. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FP: Is there any precedent for Trumps suggestion to delay the election?

Timothy Naftali: No. I think the way to frame this is to look at how the United States managed elections in the Civil War and in World War II: In 1864 and 1944, the United States had elections. In both cases, especially the Civil War, the country was convulsed. In World War II, that country was in the middle of a national emergency. And even so, the election happened as it was supposed to on the day it was supposed to.

There was no call for delay. Remember, no one but a man who lacks any historical knowledge or any commitment to the Constitution is calling for this. We have to keep in mind whats going on here. Theres no national call to delay the election. There are no local or state leaders of any number who are suggesting that the presidential election cannot be held as required in November. There is only one man with a Twitter finger.

This is a distraction by a man who is facing a massive political rejection. Theres no grounding or history for what hes suggesting. And thats why serious people in the last couple of hours responded by saying that this cant happen.

FP: If we look at not just Trump but the whole of the Republican Party, would you put this suggestion within the wider trends of the Republican Party or solely as a Trump phenomenon?

TN: Oh, thats an interesting question. I think theres a radical element on the American right that has sought to undermine democratic norms to hold on to power as a minority position in this country. And Donald Trump reflects that, but he didnt create that; he has benefited from it. The election of Donald Trump is a perfect storm of all of these various phenomena that weve seen in the last 20 years but especially since the Tea Party movement gained traction.

The irony of this moment is that the argument of Trumpists was that we needed a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. And it is that which will save us from a presidential delay of a presidential election because the Constitution makes clear its up to the Congress to decide when we vote for the president. Its not up to the president to decide. So if you follow this strict constructionist approach, Trump is done on this issue, but I dont think theres any consistency in the Trump worldview, other than presenting power for Trump himself and access to power for his family.

And so theres now a struggle for the future of the Republican Party. I mean, will it be renamed the party of Trump? Should it be carrying [Abraham] Lincolns banner anymore? Its up to Republicans to determine that, but what we have seen on the right is systematic. We see on the right, as demographics have shifted in this country, and as public opinion has shifted on cultural and social issues, there have been those on the right who tried to use and find every institution and lever of power available to prevent democracy from being expressed in this country.

FP: I suppose the question is whether this is the Republican Party that tried and failed to repeal Obamacare or the party that managed to deprive Merrick Garland of a Supreme Court seat.

TN: Well, I think that were not talking about an organization. I dont think theres a central strategic core to this organization because theres no logical consistency to the ideas that Republicans have professed as an institution in the last 10 years. They went from being pro-free trade and pro-balanced budgets to protectionists and not seeming to care about the budget. Theyve been all over the map on immigration. Theyve been strict constructionists, but then many of them supported the use of the national emergency power to fund the wall [along the border with Mexico].

I dont see any logical consistency among professed Republican ideas in the last decade. The consistency is the desire for power and the desire to use whatever instruments are available to suppress the vote, to limit democracy, and to stay in office. And Trump is what seemed to be the perfect instrument. And Trump, of course, was very happy to have these ideas and tactics floating about because he likes to win.

Im not sure he ever really understood what it meant to be president. Im not sure he still understands it, because he doesnt seek a national mandate, but he loves winning. And he also doesnt mind cheating. And hes found people in the Republican Party who dont mind cheating either.

And so [Thursdays] tweet is hoping to find a way to cheat, but the Constitution gives the power to Congress and Congress is divided, and theres no way the House would approve this. And, listening to some of the GOP reactions, Im not sure that the Senate would approve shifting the date. So hes desperately looking for a way to cheat to avoid defeat in November. Im not saying whats going to happen, but the tea leaves suggest that if he doesnt cheat, hes going to lose.

Go here to see the original:
'The Tea Leaves Suggest That if He Doesn't Cheat, He's Going to Lose' - Foreign Policy