Category: Intolerance

A White Nationalist is Among Donald Trump’s Pledged Delegates in California

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White supremacist William Johnson

A Los Angeles attorney who advocates for the creation of a “white ethno-state” is on an official list of Donald Trump’s Republican convention delegates published Monday night by state election officials.

William Johnson, a self-described white separatist who is the chairman of the American Freedom Party, is among the delegates pledged to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee published by the California Secretary of State’s office.

The American Freedom Party is a group whose stated aim is “to represent the political interests of White Americans” and preserve “the customs and heritage of the European American people.” The party advocates deporting “all non-white immigrants and U.S. citizens, including anyone with any ascertainable trace of Negro blood” and believes that “diversity is white genocide.” In 1989 Johnson published a book entitled Amendment to the Constitution: Averting the Decline and Fall of America that laid out his plans for these racial deportations and called for the repeal of the 14th and 15th amendments. The book garnered him significant notoriety and he even appeared on many talk shows to discuss it.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Trump’s campaign said Johnson’s inclusion on the published list of delegates was an error.

“Upon careful review of computer records, the inclusion of a potential delegate that had previously been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016 was discovered,” Tim Clark, Trump’s California campaign director, said in the statement. “This was immediately corrected and a final list, which does not include this individual, was submitted for certification.”

But state officials said the billionaire may not have any way to formally cut him from the list. Sam Mahood, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, said California election code deals with selection and certification of delegates, but not their removal.

“They submitted a delegate list to our office yesterday, which was the deadline,” Mahood said. “They attempted to submit a revised list today, which we informed them we would not be accepting because it’s past the deadline.”

In practice, Johnson could simply not attend the Republican National Convention, where he would be replaced by an alternate delegate.

A spokeswoman for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

In California, Republican voters seeking to become convention delegates apply directly to their candidates’ campaigns, which then sort through the submissions and select their slate of delegates. These names are later submitted to the Secretary of State’s office.

“Donald Trump is the candidate that will Make America Hate Again,” Mark Paustenbach, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.

“Trump’s racist, xenophobic candidacy continues to fuel a resurgence of white nationalism in the United States, and to elevate a man like this shows that Trump has neither the temperament nor judgment to serve as president.”

In an interview with The Times, Johnson said he received an email from the Trump campaign on Tuesday afternoon confirming that his name “was erroneously listed as a potential delegate.”

Johnson said he had advocated for Trump in recent months, setting up robo-calls supporting the candidate in seven different states, but not California. Johnson said he also created a “crisis hotline to be able to handle people who have been traumatized or vandalized supporting Trump.”

Johnson, who unsuccessfully ran for a judgeship in Los Angeles County in 2008, did not mince words when asked by a reporter to explain his politics.

“I would like a separate white ethno-state…. I think diversity and multiculturalism is a failure, and I think it’s going to destroy civilization,” he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the American Freedom Party as an organization founded by “racist Southern California skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule.” Joanna Mendelson, an investigative researcher with the California branch of the Anti-Defamation League, said groups like the American Freedom Party highlight a tonal shift in the white supremacist movement, away from brash displays of violence and toward a subtler approach.

“What these individuals do is they kind of use pseudo-intellectual racism to articulate their views, and they attach themselves to national topics, be it immigration or the elections currently, and insert themselves into the conversation,” she previously told the Los Angeles Times. Johnson was one of the keynote speakers at Camp Comradery last year, a national gathering of white separatists in Bakersfield, according to Mendelson and the American Freedom Party’s website.

Trump, who has often been criticized for his controversial statements about Mexicans and a call to deny Muslims access to the country, ran into trouble earlier in his campaign when he was slow to disavow an endorsement from David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Trump’s other California delegates include more established figures like House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Harmeet K. Dhillon, vice chair of the state’s Republican Party.

With Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz dropping out of the race, California’s June 7 primary will serve as little more than a coronation for Trump.

Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said Johnson is well-known in extremist circles, and his appearance among Trump’s delegates highlights the way this year’s election cycle has served to legitimize voices that were previously considered fringe.

“This white nationalist is someone that any respectable, mainstream candidate should leave skid marks running from,” Levin said.

(h/t Los Angeles Times)

Update

The white nationalist William Johnson has resigned as a delegate for the Trump campaign.

They don’t need the baggage that came along with my signing up as a delegate.

Reality

Trump is playing this off as a simple mistake, and point out the fact that William Johnson was removed from a list a few months ago holy shit what was William Johnson even doing on a list to be a potential delegate in the first fucking place!?

From campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks:

Yesterday the Trump campaign submitted its list of California delegates to be certified by the Secretary of State of California. A database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016.

As you can see it was all a database error that holy shit what was William Johnson even doing on a list to be a potential delegate in the first fucking place!?

As it turned out the Trump’s explanation was a total fabrication because the Trump campaign was personally corresponding with William Johnson a day before the story broke.

william-johnson-campaign-email

And even though he tried to resign as a delegate, due to California delegate rules William Johnson will remain as a delegate for Trump.

In the end this is not surprising at all as Trump has had a history of white supremacy. Some examples include:

If Trump had reviewed our Supporters list, he would have found William Johnson under the list of hate group leaders.

Links

William Johnson’s Delegate Pledge Form

Donald Trump’s ‘Taco Bowl’ Message: ‘I Love Hispanics’

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Less than 48 hours after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump began his Hispanic outreach with … “taco bowls.”

On his social media accounts, including Twitter, Mr. Trump shared on Thursday afternoon a photo of himself eating what he called a taco bowl and offering a thumbs up at his desk in Trump Tower, along with the message:

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!

During his telephone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump responded to remarks from Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman, who called the tweet offensive and akin to the ayatollah of Iran posting a picture of him enjoying matzoh ball soup “and claiming he loves Jews.”

That’s a terrible thing that a guy can say that. As of yesterday, I had 59,000 retweets. 59,000 in a short period of what? That’s almost got to be some kind of a record. People loved it.

It is not a record.

Trump then claimed:

I’m going to do great with Hispanics. I mean, I’m going to do fantastically because I’m bringing jobs back to America.

(h/t New York Times, Politico)

Reality

Mr. Trump has alienated many Hispanic voters with his campaign, which he began with a speech that dubbed Mexicans as criminals and rapists. His rallies often include rowdy calls to build a large wall at the border with Mexico.

Seventy-seven percent of Hispanic registered voters view Mr. Trump unfavorably and only 12 percent view him favorably, according to a Gallup poll in March. And Hispanic leaders immediately seized on Mr. Trump’s taco bowl posts as demeaning.

Also if you notice, Donald Trump’s taco bowl had no guacamole. No guacamole! Who orders a taco bowl and skips on the guacamole!?

 

Trump Blames Immigrants for Rise in LA Crime

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Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump opened his California campaign in Costa Mesa, addressing thousands of supporters in a rambling speech that lasted more than an hour. Trump mostly stuck to this usual stump speech – attacking Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, and the media.

But in the latter part of his address, he made note of a sharp rise in local crime rates. We wanted to check out his claims.

Claim #1: Crime is up. 

“In Los Angeles, homicides are up 10.2 percent,” Trump said. “Rapes are up 8.6 percent. Aggravated assaults are up 26.5 percent,” he told the raucous crowd. “Your crime numbers, they’re going through the roof, and we can’t have it anymore.”

Trump’s statistics are correct. He was citing LAPD statistics. Crime rates did rise significantly last year in Los Angeles and other major cities. However, what he leaves out is that crime levels are far below historic rates.

Last year, the city recorded 280 homicides. That was 26 more than 2014. But in 1990, there were 1,100 murders in Los Angeles.

“When you look at the long-term trends in Los Angeles, the arrows are pointing in the wrong direction for any sort of crime increase,” said Franklin Zimring, director of the criminal justice research program at Boalt Hall’s Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. “Homicides are not just lower, but vastly lower.”

Claim #2: Illegal immigration is to blame for the crime spike

Trump was on much less solid ground when he blamed the crime spike on illegal immigration from Mexico.

To underscore his point, he opened his speech by ceding his podium to Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was shot and killed in Los Angeles by an immigrant in 2008. He also invited to the stage other locals whose loved ones were killed by immigrants.

As he has his entire campaign, Trump vowed to crack down on what he describes as a flood of illegal immigrants.

“We are going to build the wall,” Trump added. “Mexico is going to pay for the wall.”

What Trump never mentions is that government statistics show a sharp drop in illegal immigration.

The United States Border Patrol reported 337,117 apprehensions nationwide last fiscal year, compared to 486,651 the year before, a 30 percent decline.  That’s also a nearly 80 percent decline since the peak of apprehensions in fiscal year 2000, when more than 1.6 million apprehensions were made.

A 2015 Pew Research Center study also found that between 2009 and 2014, more Mexican nationals left the U.S. than came. The study found that an estimated 1 million Mexican nationals (including their U.S.-born children) left the U.S. to return to Mexico, but less than 900,000 migrated to the U.S. in the same time period.

Zimring also points out that decades of academic research has shown new immigrants tend to be law abiding.

“First generation immigrations of all kinds have extremely low crime rates,” said Zimring.

(h/t NPR)

Donald Trump’s Lawyers Argue Calling Strategist a ‘Dummy’ is Not Defamatory

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Calling a person a “loser” and a “major dummy” with “zero credibility” is not defamatory, Donald Trump’s lawyers say.

In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, lawyers for Trump, his campaign and his ousted campaign manager say Cheryl Jacobus‘ defamation suit against them should be tossed because their statements that she’s a “dummy” and opportunist who begged for a job with his campaign “are protected opinion speech” — and “hyperbole” should be expected from a presidential candidate.

Jacobus’ $4 million lawsuit says it was the Trump campaign that approached her to work as its political director, and she turned the job down because she feared the now-canned campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was a “powder keg.”

But, her suit notes, that didn’t stop Lewandowski from going on MSNBC in January and smearing her after she criticized the campaign on TV, saying she “came to the office on multiple occasions trying to get a job from the Trump Campaign, and when she wasn’t hired clearly she went off and was upset by that.”

And Lewandowski’s boss, the now presumptive GOP presidential nominee, went after Jacobus soon after, tweeting to his millions of followers that “@cherijacobus begged us for a job. We said no and she went hostile. A real dummy!”

In a later tweet, Trump again said she’d “begged” for work and they “turned her down twice.”

The strategist’s suit says she was defamed by their phony insistence she’d begged them for work and then turned on them when she didn’t get it.

In their late Monday filing, lawyers for team Trump said they didn’t do anything wrong.

Because Jacobus, a GOP political strategist, had said negative things about them in TV interviews, “any responsive opinions expressed by the defendants” about her motivations “are protected opinion speech in the heated national public debate that accompanies a presidential campaign, where the listening public anticipates fiery opinions, up-and-back-rhetoric, and hyperbole.”

And she might indeed have had a bias against the campaign, they claimed.

“It is indisputable that plaintiff’s motivations for criticizing the Trump campaign (and even labelling the campaign as liars) are uniquely within her own head. Any reflexive and responsive statements by defendants speculating about her motivations or biases can, therefore, only be opinion as well,” their filing says.

There “could have been an infinite array of possible motivations for plaintiff’s criticism of Mr. Trump and the Trump campaign.”

It also argues the statements were not defamation because of where they were made.

“Furthermore, the alleged defamatory statements were made via Twitter and on a morning talk show, which are both known as mediums for parties’ expressing their opinions,” their filing says.

Jacobus’ suit says the allegations harmed her personally and professionally — leading to fewer TV bookings and an onslaught of vicious online threats from Trump supporters.

Jacobus’ lawyer, Jay R. Butterman, said the focus by Trump’s attorneys on the “loser” and “major dummy” slams were a smokescreen designed to distract from what Trump and Lewandowski actually did to his client — falsely portray her as an unprofessional and vindictive spurned job applicant.

“It’s absolutely a red herring,” Butterman said. “They’re emphasizing these blunt attacks while ignoring the damaging statements regarding her professional ability — that she begged for a job.”

He noted one of the Trump tweets came after the campaign had been sent a cease and desist letter about the bogus claims.

“It is our opinion that Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss is a cowardly act of a man who, in repeating his libels against Ms. Jacobus after he received a cease and desist clearly explaining the falsity of his statements, dared her to sue him. Now, as Ms. Jacobus has bravely confronted Donald Trump and his smears, he hides behind technical arguments and claims that anything he says must be deemed merely his ‘opinion,’” Butterman said.

“He asks the courts to grant him the unique ability to intentionally and recklessly disregard the truth or falsity of his statements. Donald Trump, a shrill critic of our nation’s First Amendment rights, now cowers behind those very rights,” the lawyer said, adding that Trump’s “statements smearing Ms. Jacobus are clear and unquestionable claims of facts, which are just as clearly false and defamatory.”

(h/t New York Daily News)

Melania Trump: Reporter ‘Provoked’ Anti-Semitic Attacks

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In a long interview with GQ reporter Julia Ioffe, Donald Trump’s wife Melania Trump defended her husband against a comparison between him and Adolf Hitler, argued that his campaign is about uniting the country, and a profile on her family history.

In the article Ioffe also reported that Melania has a 50-year-old half-brother, Denis Cigelnjak, whom her father has never acknowledged but who a blood test proved is his biological son.

Once the article was released, Melania wrote a Facebook post which was highly critical of Ioffe, who wrote the piece. In the post Melania engaged in the same tactics as her husband, bashing the press, claiming that there were “numerous inaccuracies” in the story about her family, but didn’t go into detail.

The article published in GQ today is yet another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting. Julia Ioffe, a journalist who is looking to make a name for herself, clearly had an agenda when going after my family.

Shortly after publishing the GQ article, Ioffe was barraged with threatening phone calls, emails, and Twitter messages. She documented many of them on Twitter, noting that she’d faced this kind of harassment before only when working as a journalist in Russia.

When asked about the backlash Ioffe had gotten for uncovering her family history, Melania said:

I don’t control my fans, but I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I understand what you mean, but there are people out there who maybe went too far. She provoked them.

Julia Ioffe herself defended the piece in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month.

This is not a heavily critical article. There is nothing in it that is untrue. If this is how Trump supporters swing into action what happens when the press looks into corrupt dealings, for example, or is critical of his policies?

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Nothing Melania Trump originally said in the GQ article or the Facebook post called upon Ioffe’s Jewish heritage. It was the Trump supporters who used Ioffe’s background when directing their threats towards her. What was troubling was Melania’s nonsensical response that somehow it was Ioffe herself who provoked the anti-semitic attacks.

On one hand Melania said she didn’t agree with the anti-semitic attacks against the reporter who profiled her, then on the other hand she didn’t tell her fans to stop and placed the blame squarely on the victim.

However we can empathize with Melania Trump how she might be upset how politics brings one’s family into the public sphere. For example it must be difficult for a politician to be on the receiving end of:

Trump’s ‘America First’ Has Ugly Echoes From U.S. History

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered his most comprehensive foreign policy speech to date in Washington, outlining a general vision for international relations that would reconfigure American responsibilities abroad to put “America first.”

Trump said during a speech organized by the National Interest magazine:

“My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else. That will be the foundation of every single decision that I will make. ‘America First’ will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.”

The speech included no dramatic new policy proposals that might generate headlines, such as his past calls to bar Muslims from entering the United States or to build a wall on the frontier with Mexico.

The real estate mogul said that a Trump administration would install a foreign policy vision that “replaces randomness with purpose, ideology with strategy, and chaos with peace.” He said that as president he would call for summits with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, and with Asian allies in the Pacific. Chief among his goals would be to update existing organizations to “confront shared problems, like terrorism and migration.”

Where he was specific, like rejecting the terms of last year’s nuclear deal with Iran, calling for more investment in missile defense in Europe and accusing the Obama administration of tepid support for Israel, he was firmly within the Republican mainstream.

(h/t Washington Post, Reuters, CNN)

Reality

Although Trump called for the United States to “shake the rust off of America’s foreign policy,” he delivered few specific proposals, instead focusing on outlining a broad framework the rests on demanding respect for the United States abroad.

It is extremely unfortunate that in his speech outlining his foreign policy goals, Donald Trump chose to brand his foreign policy with the noxious slogan “America First,” the name of the isolationist, defeatist, anti-Semitic national organization that urged the United States to appease Adolf Hitler.

At best the Trump campaign simply did not perform adequate research, which highlights how they are not prepared for presidential politics. At worst they are again appealing to white supremacists with another dog-whistle message.

Media

Trump Doubles Down on Sexist Woman Card Comment Toward Hillary

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Mr. Trump seemed to relish injecting gender politics into the race as he looks ahead to a potential general election matchup with Mrs. Clinton. In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he claimed that women do not like Mrs. Clinton and that he has every right to attack her if she plays up the fact that she would be the first female United States president.

It’s not sexist. It’s true. It’s just a very, very true statement. If she were a man, she’d get 5 percent. She’s a bad candidate. She’s a flawed candidate. She’s not going to do very well in the election, and I look forward to showing that.

And again on Morning Joe on MSNBC he repeated the claim. Remarking that he was still “recovering” from Clinton’s “shouting,” an increasingly high-energy Trump remarked:

I know a lot of people would say you can’t say that about a woman, because of course a woman doesn’t shout. The way she shouted that message was not — that’s the way she said it, and I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months.

Mrs. Clinton addressed Mr. Trump’s new line of attack during her victory speech on Tuesday night, telling voters to “deal me in” when it comes to Mr. Trump’s suggestions that he is trying to capitalize on her gender and argued that she would be the best candidate to defend women’s rights on health and in the workplace.

Reality

The statement that Hillary Clinton plays the woman card is one that Trump has repeated many times over the course of his campaign.

A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely female voters nationwide have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 48 percent who have a negative opinion of Clinton. And women are far more likely to have intensely negative views of Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month found that 64 percent of women feel “strongly unfavorable” toward Trump, compared with 41 percent of men.

Media

Good Morning America

Morning Joe

Trump: If Clinton ‘were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote’

2 comments
Trump victory speech for Pennsylvania

While celebrating sweeping victories in five primaries Tuesday night, Donald Trump mocked the qualifications of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and suggested she was playing “the women’s card” to her advantage in the presidential race.

“Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the women’s card,” Trump said during a news conference at Trump Tower. “And the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

The statement that Hillary Clinton plays the woman card is one that Trump has repeated many times over the course of his campaign.

A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely female voters nationwide have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 48 percent who have a negative opinion of Clinton. And women are far more likely to have intensely negative views of Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month found that 64 percent of women feel “strongly unfavorable” toward Trump, compared with 41 percent of men.

The sexist and false claim was perfectly summed up by Chris Christie’s wife, Mary Pat, who stole the show with this little reaction:

Media

Full speech:

Trump Institute Fired Veteran For ‘Absences’ After He Was Deployed To Afghanistan

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Trump University logo

Huffington Post – Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been vocal about the need to take care of U.S. veterans. He’s said that if elected, he’ll “put our service men and women on a path to success as they leave active duty.”

But that’s not what the Trump Institute, a get-rich-quick real estate seminar, did for Richard Wright, a senior master sergeant in the Air Force reserves who worked for the company in 2006 and 2007. Wright was deployed to Afghanistan in the spring of 2007. When he came home to his job, the Trump Institute fired him. “All of your absences,” Wright’s boss at the Trump Institute told him, had forced the company to “reevaluate your position with the Trump Institute.” It is a violation of federal law to penalize an employee for absences caused by military service.

When Wright accepted a job at the Trump Institute in December 2006, he thought he’d be working directly with Trump.

“Having a chance to work with him was a dream come true,” Wright, now 48, said of Trump in an email to The Huffington Post.

Dozens of former customers of the Trump Institute and Trump University, a real estate instruction program, have also described being told that Donald Trump was personally overseeing the programs that bore his name, and that instructors were “hand-picked by Mr. Trump.” Judging from the information on the Trump Institute’s (now defunct) website, it’s easy to see why:

It was only after Wright started the job that he realized Trump had little to do with the day-to-day operations of the Trump Institute.

Trump provided his name, along with his image, his reputation, his video endorsements and his promises to help the Trump Institute lure potential customers and employees. But like many of the hundreds of businesses and real estate projects that have borne Trump’s name, the Trump Institute was actually a joint venture between Trump and an outside company — in this case, a Florida-based business called National Grants Conferences. Trump was paid franchise fees, but the details of his profits from the schools are a well-guarded secret.

Michael and Irene Milin, NGC’s founders, spent decades in the get-rich-quick business before linking up with Trump. NGC promised to teach its clients how to access millions of dollars in “free money” from the government. In reality, NGC seminars were little more than elaborate sales pitches for yet more NGC events, and the company, which has since been dissolved, had a long history of legal troubles and fraud investigations that spanned multiple states.

NGC’s free-money seminars provided the framework for the Trump Institute’s signature offering, the Donald Trump Way to Wealth Seminar. Trump Institute clients paid as much as $35,000 to learn the “Donald Trump Way To Wealth,” and to receive coaching from mentors like Wright.

In the clip below, from an infomercial that appears to date to 2006, Trump tells potential customers how important it is that they enroll in the Trump Institute. He also hits on the woman interviewing him.

That same year, the Trump Institute hired Wright as a tele-consultant (or “mentor,” in Trump parlance). His job was to speak on the phone with clients who had purchased “memberships” in the Trump Institute, and give them advice about investing in real estate.

On paper, Wright and his fellow mentors were technically employed by Xylophone, LLC, a foreign limited liability company controlled by Irene Milin. But to the outside world, they were working for the Trump Institute.

Two months into the job, Wright was called up for active duty, and in early February 2007, he wrote to his boss, Jay Shavin, to say he would be deployed to Afghanistan starting around March 1.

In Afghanistan, Wright was assigned to the 451st Air Expeditionary Group at Kandahar Airfield, near the country’s southern border with Pakistan. Wright was awarded three different medals for outstanding service in the six weeks he was overseas.

Wright arrived home to Florida on Monday, April 16, 2007. He asked his boss to approve two personal days for him to get his bearings, do laundry and so on.

Before Wright left for Afghanistan, he had approximately 40 different clients whom he was advising on how to buy real estate “the Trump Way.” Like the other Trump Institute mentors, Wright was promised commissions on his clients’ deals — $250 each time a client bought property and rented it out “using Trump methods,” and $750 each time a client bought and then sold a property, a process known as “flipping.”

In his first week back home, Wright emailed some of his clients to let them know he was “back safe and sound,” according to court documents.

On Monday, April 23, Wright got this note from Shavin:

I specifically told you NOT to contact your old clients. Jeff was in the office when we had the discussion. I also emphatically stated that you were not to contact your old clients. You are so concerned about your closings that do not exist, that your employment is in jeopardy. I told you that I put your former client into a deal that has not closed and would give it to you.

It is apparent that you do not listen to instructions. You are to report to my office tomorrow before you do anything. You have been here less than three months (deducting your time off for the Air Force Reserve). I find it insulting that you would make a request to be paid for time you did not work and/or personal time you did not earn.

You are still on probation. With all of your absences and inability to adhere to specific instructions, you force me to reevaluate your position with the Trump Institute.

Wright replied, in part: “I don’t think your previous comments were called for or appropriate. I am a good mentor & have always been a team player & do not appreciate being spoken to that way.”

“You needn’t be offended by my remarks,” Shavin wrote back. “Your employment is hereby terminated.”

In subsequent emails, Shavin denied that Wright was fired because of his time in Afghanistan. He also said that any further emails from Wright would be considered “harassment.”

A year later, Wright sued the Trump Institute and its parent company, Xylophone, for wrongful termination under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. That law, passed in 1972, requires that military service members called up to active duty from civilian jobs “be restored to the job and benefits you would have attained if you had not been absent due to military service.” Under the law, the burden falls on the employer to prove that it did not fire a service member for absences related to his or her military service.

The Trump Institute ultimately reached a settlement with Wright that forbids him from talking about the case. Shavin died in 2014. Lyn Miller, another former Trump Institute employee, said Shavin was “a knowledgeable and awesome guy.”

Alan Garten, executive vice president and general counsel of the Trump Organization, provided a statement to HuffPost when asked about Wright’s experience.

“The Trump Institute was a licensee of Trump University and was not owned or controlled by Mr. Trump or any of his companies,” Garten said. “As such, Mr. Trump had nothing whatsoever to do with the employment of any of the Trump Institute’s employees or mentors, had no involvement in the development or enforcement of any of the Trump Institute’s employment policies and has no knowledge of this matter. Mr. Trump has always been a great supporter of the men and women who have served in this country’s armed forces and has devoted much of his campaign to improving the lives of veterans.”

Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the companies that paid him money and bore his name haven’t shielded him from lawsuits over their conduct.

In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Trump and Trump University for civil fraud. Included in his case filings were scores of complaints from Trump Institute clients. In California and New York, Trump University is facing allegations of fraud, and in the California case, the company faces a class action lawsuit with more than 5,000 plaintiffs.

HuffPost attempted to contact the Milins multiple times at the number listed for their charitable organization, the Milin Family Foundation, but there was never any answer.

Wright doesn’t blame Trump for his firing, even though the Trump Institute bore Trump’s name, benefited from Trump’s endorsement and paid money to Trump in franchise and licensing fees.

“He was really just the name on the box & had nothing to do with the inner workings of the company,” Wright said in an email to HuffPost. “At the time I really needed a job & I loved what I was doing.”

This fall, Wright, who still invests in real estate, hopes to vote for Donald Trump for president.

“I am a HUGE Trump fan and supporter and think he would make an excellent leader,” he said. Trump “is saying all the things that politicians have been afraid to say over the years. That is why they are nervous and siding against him. He threatens what they have worked so hard to build. As a veteran, I LOVE that he is wanting to make America great again.”

(h/t Huffington Post)

Reality

It is a violation of federal law to penalize an employee for absences caused by military service.

Some may argue that since Senior Master Sargent Wright himself does not put any direct blame on Donald Trump then therefor the buck should stop with the owners and operators of the Trump Institute. This, however, is not how the business world works. For example, in 1996 it was discovered that a clothing line by talk show host Kathy Lee Gifford was being manufactured by children as young as 12 in Honduran sweatshops. Even though Wal-Mart was responsible for producing the Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line the court of public opinion turned harshly against her. It was a business decision by Kathie Lee to place her name, her image, and her reputation on the line unchecked. (No pun intended.)

Donald Trump is running for the Republican candidacy for the President of the United States of America on qualifications that he is a “great businessman” so it is entirely fair to challenge him on his record. Donald Trump put his name and support behind companies, such as Trump University and the Trump Institute, which engaged in fraudulent and illegal activities. A great businessman would have either been more careful with where they invested or had more control in a company that they stamped their name on.

Trump Wants Harriet Tubman on $2 Bill

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Trump suggesting Tubman should be put on the $2 bill.

The Treasury Department’s decision to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with abolitionist Harriet Tubman was met with mixed results. Donald Trump has weighed in, saying the move was “pure political correctness.”

“Well, Andrew Jackson had a great history and I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill. Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country,” Trump said during a town hall on NBC’s “Today Show.”

While he called Tubman “fantastic,” he suggested she appear on a different bill.

“I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can maybe come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or we do another bill. I don’t like seeing it. Yes, I think it’s pure political correctness,” he said.

Trump joined with his former GOP presidential rival Ben Carson, who called for Tubman on the $2 bill. The neurosurgeon told Fox Business, “I love what she did, but we can find another way to honor her.”

The $2 bill currently features the image of Thomas Jefferson.

Andrew Jackson, the nation’s seventh president, was revered for being the first “common man” elected as president. But the darker side of his legacy includes slave-owning and expelling thousands of Native Americans from their homes, forcing them on the walk now referred to as “The Trail of Tears.”

And while Jackson owned slaves, Tubman’s life mission was to free them. An abolitionist and Union spy, Tubman was responsible for leading hundreds of slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad, an elaborate network of safe houses.

Tubman will become the first person of color and the first woman to grace a U.S. paper currency.

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

By taking a simple suggestion to avoid language or behavior that any particular group of people might feel is unkind or offensive and twist it to be a label for things that you don’t agree with, Donald Trump is simply evoking a tired old Republican trope known as “conservative correctness“.

Who is this offending? Andrew Jackson’s descendants? But with the statement that Tubman should appear on the $2 he is equally offending Thomas Jefferson’s descendants.

And finally, isn’t it interesting that conservatives would be “okay” with a black woman on a bill, as long as it is the most rare bill that the United States prints?

Media

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