Category: White Supremacy

Trump Adviser, Son Post Image Featuring White Nationalist Symbol

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A white nationalist symbol has made its way into the latest back and forth in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Amid the flurry of statements about Hillary Clinton calling “half” of Donald Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” — a reference to some of the Republican nominee’s supporters who ascribe to views popular among the white nationalist-linked alt-right movement — informal Trump adviser and confidante Roger Stone tweeted a picture of the poster from the movie “The Expendables” altered as “The Deplorables.” Donald Trump, Jr., one of Trump’s sons, posted the same image on Instagram. The origin of the image is unclear.

The Photoshopped faces in the picture include Trump, running mate Gov. Mike Pence, Gov. Chris Christie, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Ben Carson, both of Trump’s eldest sons, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, alt-right icon Milo Yiannopoulos, and Stone himself.

Prominently featured over Trump’s right shoulder: popular white nationalist symbol, Pepe the Frog.

“Pepe the Frog is a huge favorite white supremacist meme,” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center told NBC News of the meme.

While Pepe the Frog may not be a household name, the meme is known to members of the alt-right on the internet.

“It’s constantly used in those circles,” Beirich said. “The white nationalists are gonna love this because they’re gonna feel like ‘yeah we’re in there with Trump, there’s Pepe the Frog.'”

Pepe the Frog, a cartoon amphibian, was popularized on the website 4chan, and became associated with the neo-Nazi movement.

The Trump campaign has been repeatedly accused of dog whistles to white supremacists and the alt-right, though his original position on support from these groups was ambiguous. When confronted with the support of prominent white nationalist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in February, Trump stumbled in his initial disavowal of the man — telling CNN at the time, “I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”

He later clarified that he disavowed Duke’s support, though the former Klansman — now running for Congress in Louisiana — has continued to tweet messages of support for the Republican nominee.

Over the course of this campaign, Trump has retweeted Twitter accounts with names such as ‘WhiteNationalistTM’ and blasted out anti-Semitic images to his over 11 million followers on the social media site. Some members of his campaign have been tied to the alt-right, including Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, who is now CEO of the Trump campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton gave a speech shortly after Bannon’s appointment linking Trump’s campaign to the nationalistic movement and calling on the rest of the GOP to reject extremist views. Clinton has continued to argue that Trump has “given voice” those who engage in “offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

Stone, for his part, is known for his controversial tweets that usually defend Trump, warn of a rigged election, and lashing out at Clinton. For months he has repeatedly advertised “Clinton Rape” t-shirts on his account and pushed hard on the Trump-proposed narrative that the election could be rigged against the Republican nominee.

Stone is no longer with the campaign in an official capacity, after parting ways with Trump in August of last year. Despite that, he remains a self-described “FOT: Friend of Trump” who was most recently invited to attend the campaign’s event announcing Gov. Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks tells NBC News that “Don Jr., like Mr. Trump, disavows any groups or symbols associated with a message of hate.”

Stone could not be reached for comment on this article or the image’s origination. In his tweet, Stone said that he was “proud” to be among “The Deplorables” in the image, while Trump, Jr. wrote that he was “honored to be grouped with the hard working men and women of this great nation that have supported” his father.

(h/t NBC News)

Reality

Tweeting white supremacist and neo-Nazi imagery once could be considered an accident, multiple times shows an unmistakable pattern that can’t be explained away.

  • On July 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted that Jeb Bush likes “Mexican illegals because of his wife.”
  • On August 28th, 2015, Trump tweeted an attack on Jeb Bush how he should stop “speaking Mexican.”
  • On November 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted a meme tying Jeb Bush to the Nazis that used racist imagery.
  • On December 10th, 2015, Trump tweeted the debunked belief pushed by “alt-right” websites like Breitbart that the UK has Muslim no-go zones.
  • On November 22nd, 2015, Trump tweeted a graphic with fake statistics that incorrectly inflated African-American murderers in the United States.
  • On January 22nd, Trump retweeted a tweet from the white supremacist WhiteGenocideTM.
  • On February 10nd, Trump AGAIN retweeted a tweet from WhiteGenocideTM, after being blasted a few weeks prior.
  • On July 4th, the Trump campaign tweeted anti-Semitic imagery of rival Hillary Clinton with a star of David on a backdrop of money. Trump tried to explain the controversy away that it was a “sheriff star” but journalist uncovered the Trump campaign never created that image because it was originally posted on a neo-Nazi website.
  • On July 5th, Donald Trump Jr. liked a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” neo-Nazi movement on Twitter.
  • On July 6th, Trump attempted to defend his “Star of David” tweet by retweeting a meme from a known white supremacist.
  • On July 20th, an elected Trump delegate known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.
  • On July 25th, Trump’s foreign policy advisor Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn retweeted an anti-semitic post.
  • On August, 29th, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a post from known white supremacist Kevin MacDonald.

And these are just the tweets. Trump had also refused to disavow former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke’s endorsements, called his foreign policy plan “America First,” and his father was once caught at a KKK clan rally, just to name a few.

Donald Trump Jr. Retweets Prominent White Supremacist

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Just days after Hillary Clinton criticized the Trump campaign for promoting groups and individuals associated with preserving “white identity,” Donald Trump Jr. has retweeted an adherent of the “alt-right” movement that Clinton singled out for criticism.

Donald Trump’s oldest son this week retweeted a post from Kevin MacDonald, a former professor at California State University Long Beach who now runs a website about “White Identity, Interests, and Culture.” He has been accused of anti-Semitism by critics, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is the leading organization that tracks hate groups.

MacDonald said last week that white people in America are becoming a victimized minority and that Colin Kaepernick struggles as a quarterback because he lacks the leadership abilities inherent to his white teammates.

MacDonald’s tweet had to do with Clinton’s State Department and perceived favoritism for UBS, a global financial services company that donated to the Clinton Foundation.

trump-jr-tweet-kevin-macdonald-hrc-foundation

Trump Jr.’s retweet prompted Richard Spencer, a leader of the alt-right movement, to tweet “Wow. Just wow.”

(h/t New York Times, Slate)

Reality

Journalists have noticed that Donald Trump Jr. follows many known white supremacists in the alt-right movement on his Twitter account, including users @Bidenshairplugs and @Ricky_Vaughn99.

Trump spreads claim that Clinton’s ‘mentor’ was ‘KKK member’

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Donald Trump on Saturday pushed back against Hillary Clinton’s efforts to link him to the Ku Klux Klan.

The Republican nominee retweeted a supporter’s post that the Democratic nominee “said a KKK member was her mentor.” And speaking later in Des Moines, Iowa, he dredged up Clinton’s use of the term “super predators” in the 1990s to argue that he, not Clinton, offered African-Americans the best choice for president.

Trump’s retweet and his latest appeals to black voters capped off a week of increasingly ugly and racially charged accusations between the two leading presidential candidates, during which Trump called Clinton a “bigot” and the Democratic nominee charged that Trump’s campaign was built on “prejudice and paranoia” while also tying him to the KKK.

“@DiamondandSilk: Crooked Hillary getting desperate. On TV bashing Trump. @CNN, she forgot how she said a KKK member was her mentor,” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — better known as Diamond and Silk, two African-American sisters supporting Trump who frequently speak at his rallies — confirmed to CNN that the tweet referred to the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a former KKK member whom Clinton mourned in 2010 as “a true American original, my friend and mentor.”

“Donald J. Trump can’t help who embraces his campaign but Hillary Clinton could’ve helped who she embraced,” the duo said in a statement to CNN.

A Trump spokesman, Jason Miller, declined to comment, and a message left with Clinton’s campaign was not returned.

Trump’s surrogates in recent days have pointed to Clinton’s relationship with Byrd in response to accusations that Trump’s campaign stokes racial tensions.

Thursday night, Trump supporter Scottie Nell Hughes also cited Byrd, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “(Clinton) sat there and praised Sen. Byrd saying that he was her mentor, that he should be respected and he was a leader of the KKK.”

And on Friday, Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany, speaking to CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “The Lead,” said Trump’s campaign was not engaging in Clinton’s “gutter politics.”

“You have heard no language to this level coming out of the Trump campaign,” McEnany said. “They could be digging into her past with Robert Byrd.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Yes it is true that Senator Robert Byrd was a mentor to Hillary Clinton when she joined the senate. Yes it is true that Senator Byrd was a member of the KKK, but what Trump is deceitfully neglecting to mention is that Byrd was a member, as in, used to be a member, in his youth decades before meeting Clinton. By the time Hillarly Clinton joined the Senate, Robert Byrd had disavowed the Klan decades ago, explained it was wrong, and had such an exemplary civil rights voting record he was graded at 100% by the NAACP.

When Senator Byrd died in 2010, the NAACP released a statement praising Byrd, saying that he “became a champion for civil rights and liberties” and “came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda”.

These are the facts, I’m sorry. Donald Trump and his surrogates did not tell the entire story.

It also glosses over the fact Donald Trump was endorsed by the actual KKK , he failed to condone former Grand Wizard David Duke’s endorsement, had multiple known white supremacists representing him at the Republican National Convention, and Trump’s own father was caught at a KKK rally.

Trump’s First TV Ad Cites Known White Supremacist Organization for Anti-Immigrant Stats

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Donald Trump is out with his first TV ad of the general election, and it’s predictably dishonest: an image of “Hillary Clinton’s America” being flooded with refugees and “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes” while “the system stays rigged against Americans.” The ad has drawn comparisons to the infamous anti-immigrant ad that California Gov. Pete Wilson ran in 1994 as he was trying to push through a ballot measure imposing draconian penalties on undocumented immigrants.

The ad, also unsurprisingly, cites the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the group whose reports provide a constant stream of ammunition to anti-immigrant politicians despite its troubling roots in white nationalism and history of skewing the facts.

The CIS citation comes about 10 seconds into the ad, when the narrator warns that in Clinton’s America, “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay, collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line.”

The ad’s citation appears to be referring to an April 14 CIS article on the implications of U.S. v. Texas, the Supreme Court case on President Obama’s DAPA and expanded DACA executive actions, which extended temporary deportation relief to some people brought to the country as children and some of their parents. This appears to be where the Trump campaign got the “collecting Social Security benefits” line, which it dishonestly links to its smear of “illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes” (the DAPA and DACA programs bar people convicted of most crimes from eligibility). Those who receive eligibility to work under the programs do become eligible for Social Security, which they pay into like nearly every other American worker, under rules that existed long before President Obama took office.

It’s telling that the Trump campaign is getting its arguments about immigration policy from CIS. The group is one of a large network of anti-immigrant organizations started by John Tanton, an activist with white nationalist leanings and a troublingly extreme “population control” agenda including such things as supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.

CIS itself is more conservative in its rhetoric than its founder—allowing it to gain a foothold among members of Congress and others eager for research supporting an anti-immigrant agenda—but the agenda it promotes is one that demonizes immigrants.

As RightWingWatch.org noted in a recent report on CIS and its fellow Tanton-linked organizations, CIS has been a proponent of the idea “that instead of embracing a moderate position on immigration in order to win back Latinos who favored George W. Bush, the GOP should put its energy and resources into expanding its popularity and increasing turnout among white voters, in part by scapegoating people of color”—a strategy that Trump’s campaign is putting to the test:

CIS spokespeople regularly make this argument, along with another one that has long been popular among white nationalists: that Latino immigrants will never vote Republican because they are inherently liberal. During the debate over the “Gang of Eight” bill, CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian argued that the GOP shouldn’t bother trying to increase its share of the Latino vote because “generally speaking, Hispanic voters are Democrats, and so the idea of importing more of them as a solution to the Republican Party’s problems is kind of silly.” In another interview, Krikorian argued that immigration reform would “destroy the Republican Party” and ultimately “the republic.” The next year, he charged that Democrats were using immigration as “a way of importing voters” and to “create the conditions, such as increased poverty, increased lack of health insurance, that lead even non-immigrant voters to be more receptive to big government solutions.” At one point, Krikorian told Republicans that they should oppose immigration reform simply to deny President Obama a political victory.

Steven Camarota, the research director at CIS, has said that the current level of legal immigration “dooms” conservatives. Stephen Steinlight, a senior policy analyst at CIS, has said that immigration reform would lead to “the unmaking of America” by “destroying the Republican Party” and turning the U.S. into a “tyrannical and corrupt” one-party state. He explained that Latinos aren’t likely to vote Republican because they “don’t exemplify ‘strong family values,’” as illustrated by high rates of “illegitimacy.” More than a year before Donald Trump made national headlines by calling for a ban on all Muslim immigration, Steinlight said that he would like to ban Muslims from coming to the country because they “believe in things that are subversive to the Constitution.”

Steinlight summed up the argument in 2005, when he said that immigration threatens “the American people as a whole and the future of Western civilization.” More recently, Steinlight told a tea party group in 2014 that the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill amounted to “a plot against America ” because it would turn the U.S. into a Democrat-led “one-party state” where citizens would “lose our liberty” and “social cohesion.” Steinlight has happily fed into some of the more vitriolic tea party hatred of President Obama, saying that the president should not only be impeached for his handling of immigration, but that “ being hung, drawn and quartered is probably too good for him .” On another occasion, Steinlight said that he’d like to attack religious leaders who support immigration reform with “a baseball bat.”

(h/t RightWingWatch.org)

Media

A White Supremacist Trump Delegate Tweets Racial Slur While at RNC

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An elected Trump delegate from Chicago known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Illinois Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.

Lori Gayne, a Chicago-area mortgage banker, was attending the Republican National Convention and posted a photo on Sunday night of police officers standing on the roof of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where an opening party was taking place. She wrote the following caption, indicating that cops were prepared to shoot black protesters:

“Our brave snipers just waiting for some “n—- to try something. Love them.”

The Chicago Sun Times reported that she had used an abbreviation for the racial slur.

Gayne admitted to party officials and reporters that she authored the abhorrent post and later apologized in a statement.

“I strongly regret the offensive statements I recently made on social media. While I in no way intended to make racist or threatening statements, I now realize that they could be interpreted that way,” she said.

Illinois GOP Chairman Tim Schneider revoked Gayne’s credentials as a RNC delegate and told the Sun-Times that the party “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”

Gayne was elected in March’s Illinois Republican Primary as a Trump delegate for the 5th Congressional District and was identified as early as May for her white-power loving social media posts under the Twitter handle “whitepride.”

In an interview with Chicago Tribune in May, Gayne said the following:

“With all the racism going on today, I’m very proud to be white. Just like black people are proud to be black and now, as white people, whenever we say something critical we’re punished as if we’re racists. I’m tired of it. I’m very proud,” Gayne said.

“I’m so angry I don’t even feel like I live in America. You can call me a racist. Black Lives Matter? Those people are out of control,” she said.

She used other social media accounts under different names to attack Muslims, the Tribune reported.

Gayne is not even the first Trump delegate to tout white supremacy.

Los Angeles doctor William Johnson resigned in May after Mother Jones revealed that he was the leader of the white nationalist American Freedom Party.

A day later, anti-Muslim pastor and fellow California delegate Guy St.-Onge resigned after racist social media posts surfaced, including “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hate the USA!”

The AFP claims that there are even more of its members who are delegates but have declined to identify them, Mother Jones reported.

Trump has also garnered the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and former Louisiana lawmaker David Duke, who said in February that it would be treason to white voters’ heritage to not cast a vote for the real estate magnate.

(h/t New York Daily News)

 

Donald Trump Jr. Likes Tweet From White Supremacist

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Today, Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray noticed that Donald Trump Jr., who has been taking a large role in his father’s campaign, had “liked” a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” movement on Twitter:

The user, @Ricky_Vaughn99, his Twitter timeline is absolutely full of hateful racist and anti-Semitic tweets; there’s no way Trump Jr. could possibly have missed it. Yet he chose to follow this user.

Some recent tweets from Ricky_Vaugn99, who’s being followed by the son of the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the US, include:

(h/t Buzzfeed, Little Green Footballs)

Reality

Journalists have noticed that Donald Trump Jr. follows and retweets many known white supremacists in the alt-right movement on his Twitter account, including users The Occidental Observer, @Bidenshairplugs and @Ricky_Vaughn99.

Trump: Anti-Semitic Tweet Showed ‘a Sheriff’s Star,’ Not Star of David

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Donald Trump brushed off concerns Monday about possible anti-Semitic imagery in a tweet posted from his account.

The tweet, which was posted and deleted Saturday, featured a picture of Hillary Clinton on a backdrop of money next to a six-sided star that read “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” It drew widespread backlash almost immediately for resembling the Star of David, an important Jewish symbol.

After the tweet was deleted, a revised graphic was posted to Trump’s Twitter account, this time with a circle subbed in for the star.

The presumptive Republican nominee tweeted Monday:

Trump campaign adviser Ed Brookover echoed his boss, telling CNN’s “New Day” on Monday morning that there was “never any intention of anti-Semitism,” adding that Trump has denounced it in the past.

“Not every six-sided star is a Star of David,” Brookover said. “We have corrected this tweet and have moved on.”

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who is now a paid CNN commentator, pushed back against criticism on Saturday, saying the uproar was “political correctness run amok.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Donald Trump placed the blame of this controversy entirely at the feet of the media and claimed that what was tweeted out was simply just a sheriff star. However this “sheriff’s star” defense does not address the ethical and logical gaps about Trump’s controversial tweet.

First, let’s look at some sheriff stars. This is an actual 6-pointed sheriff’s star. It has rounded points.

This is a graphic clip-art of a 6-pointed sheriff’s star. It again has rounded points and is encased in a circle.

This is the Star of David. It has no circle surrounding it and has sharp points.

star-of-david

Second, there was no explanation for how the image made its way from a neo-Nazi message board to his Twitter followers. Mic.com discovered that Donald Trump’s Twitter account wasn’t the first place the meme appeared. The image was previously featured on /pol/ — an Internet message board for the alt-right, a digital movement of neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and white supremacists newly emboldened by the success of Trump’s rhetoric — as early as June 22, over a week before Trump’s team tweeted it.

The watermark on the lower-left corner of the image leads to a Twitter account that regularly tweets violent, racist memes commenting on the state of geopolitical politics. After being uncovered as the origin of the meme that Twitter user had deleted the account.

That means somebody on the Trump campaign saw the image on a white supremacist message board or Twitter account, copied the image, edited the image, and posted it to Trump’s twitter account.

Finally, as previously reported, someone in the Trump campaign noticed the symbol, voluntarily took the tweet down, and re-posted an edited meme now with a poorly photoshopped circle over the star. So someone in his campaign had to be aware of the imagery and what it could construe.

 

Trump: ‘It’s Possible’ a Muslim Judge May Not Be Able To Fairly Evaluate a Case Against Me

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Donald Trump on Sunday hinted at a broader argument that judges of specific religious and ethnic backgrounds may not be fit to hear cases against him.

Last week, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee suggested that Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel — whose parents are Mexican — should not preside over fraud lawsuits against Trump University, a for-profit university formerly owned by Trump.

In a Sunday interview on “Face The Nation,” Trump also suggested a Muslim judge would not be able to hear a case against him because of Trump’s plan to bar Muslims from entering the US.

“If it were a Muslim judge, do you also feel that they wouldn’t be able to treat you fairly because of that policy of yours?” host John Dickerson asked.

“It’s possible, yes,” Trump replied. “That would be possible, absolutely.”

Dickerson pushed Trump, asking whether the real-estate magnate was unfairly discrediting judges because of their ethnic background.

“Isn’t there sort of a tradition though in America that we don’t judge people by who their parents were and where they came from?” Dickerson asked.

“I’m not talking about tradition — I’m talking about common sense,” Trump said.

Trump’s assertion that Curiel is not qualified to fairly hear Trump’s case because of the judge’s parents’ nationality has ignited a firestorm of criticism from the real-estate mogul’s political opponents.

In a Saturday speech in California, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton slammed Trump’s “prejudiced, bigoted attack” on Curiel.

“This is not just another outlandish, insulting comment from Donald Trump, and it is not normal politics. This is something much, much more dangerous,” Clinton said.

She continued: “Judge Curiel is as much of an American as I am, and he’s as much of an American as Donald Trump is. But he has Mexican roots. So to Donald Trump, that means he can’t do his job. Well, Donald Trump’s not just wrong about Judge Curiel. He’s wrong about America. He’s wrong about what makes this country great.”

(h/t Business Insider)

Reality

So let’s follow Donald Trump’s “common sense” logic that only people who he has not offended can fairly evaluate a case against him.

  • An American judge with Mexican heritage is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his plan to build a wall with the United States and Mexico.
  • An American judge who is of the Islamic faith is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his plan to ban all Muslims entering into the United States and to have a database of every Muslim person living here.
  • An American female judge is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his repeated sexist and misogynist comments towards women.
  • An American judge with African heritage is unable to preside over any of his cases because of his racist tweets and calling black protesters “not people.”
  • An American judge who has disabilities is unable to preside over any of his cases because of how he mocked a reporter with disabilities.

Then according to Donald Trump, only white Christian male judges can be “unbiased” enough for him? Explain how this is not racist and intolerant.

Media

Trump: ‘Illegal Immigrants Are Taken Much Better Care of by This Country Than Our Veterans’

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Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally to highlight POW-MIA issues on Memorial Day weekend in Washington, U.S. May 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RTX2EQSU

Donald Trump told a Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally that people in the U.S. illegally often are cared for better than the nation’s military veterans. Trump was speaking at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of thousands of bikers gathered to honor prisoners of war and service members missing in action.

“In many cases, illegal immigrants are taken much better care of by this country than our veterans,” Trump told the attendees. “We’re not going to allow that to happen any longer.”

“We’re gonna rebuild our military,” he continued. “And we’re gonna take care of our veterans. Our veterans have been treated so badly in this country.”

(h/t PBS)

Reality

Donald Trump tries to show he has the back of our country’s veterans, however there has been some rather large controversial moments during his campaign. Trump once said that Senator John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was caught by the enemy, and has yet to apologize for making that comment. Trump also claimed for 4 months that he donated $1 million dollars to veteran charities, which he eventually did but only after journalists uncovered he was lying the whole time.

Donald Trump does have a point that veterans must be treated better by our lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, as the Veterans Administration has seen its troubles over the years. From unsatisfactory treatment and conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Center and long wait times under George W. Bush, to Obama firing Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in 2014 for long wait times and false record-keeping. And not much has been done because to this day wait times are still an issue at VA hospitals.

However, all that aside, the main issue here is how Donald Trump is making a false choice between veterans and illegal immigrants. He is instilling a nativist “us-versus-them” mentality to his supports by exploiting veterans to play on patriotism by pitting them against illegal Mexican immigrants. In effect, Donald Trump is trying to convince you that there are only two choices, “fund vets or fund illegal immigrants,” when there are actually more than two options.

There are probably hundreds of different and competing ideas to raise revenues or reform spending in order to fund better VA services. For example, we could end or cut back on corporate welfare, which according to the right-leaning CATO Institute cost taxpayers $100 billion per year. And another choice would be to let the Bush tax cuts expire, which according to the Congressional Research Service cost taxpayers on average $350 billion per year. Even Trump’s plan to repeal Obamacare would leave 37 million people uninsured again but would save taxpayers on average $67 billion per year. To boil a very complex answer down to “either vets or illegals” is simply illogical and dishonest.

Finally, Trump is pushing some long debunked far-right conservative myths how illegal immigrants are “a drain on the system” as the basis of his statement. These myths come from anti-immigration organizations, such as Center for Immigration Studies and Federation for American Immigration Reform, who consistently put out flawed studies that feed right-wing ideology for stronger immigration policies.

The fact is tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, exceed the cost of the federal services they use. Undocumented immigrants pay into, but do not qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits. Most of these programs require proof of legal immigration status and under the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, even legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for more than five years.

Media

Trump Loses Another Delegate as Anti-Muslim Pastor ‘Takes One For the Team’

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The chaos over Donald Trump’s California delegation to the national convention escalated on Wednesday after a controversial, anti-Muslim pastor said he was standing down to “take one for the team”.

Guy St Onge, who proselytizes frequently on YouTube, told the Guardian he was no longer a delegate for the presumptive Republican nominee. Onge has in the past shared social media postings appearing to advocate killing Muslims and last year claimed: “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hate the USA!”

St Onge, who is listed on the California secretary of state’s official list as one of three delegates pledged to Trump from California’s 35th congressional district, declined to say precisely when he stood down. The list was formally submitted by the Trump campaign on Monday night.

However St Onge informed the Guardian of his decision to relinquish his delegate spot hours after reporters contacted the Trump campaign asking for confirmation the controversial pastor was among a colorful list of delegates, some of whom have a controversial past.

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign was forced to distance itself from another one of their delegates, self-avowed white nationalist William Daniel Johnson, who once called for a constitutional amendment which would revoke citizenship for all non-white Americans.

It was at first unclear if either St Onge or Johnson could be formally removed from Trump’s delegate list. California’s secretary of state said on Tuesday that the Trump campaign had attempted to send a revised delegate list after news broke about Johnson’s inclusion. However, because they had missed the deadline, a spokesperson for the secretary of state said the initial list must stand.

But late Wednesday afternoon, the Trump campaign told the Guardian that an updated list of its delegates was posted on the website of the California Republican party, without William Johnson and Guy St Onge on it.

According to his voluminous social media presence, St Onge is an evangelical pastor living in Ontario, California. His numerous Facebook accounts, YouTube videos and Tumblr page feature videos of his preaching, photos of himself carrying rifles and anti-Muslim memes.

A meme shared on one of his Facebook pages reads: “Allah SUCKS/ Mohammed SUCKS/ Islam SUCKS/ Any of you Hadji’s have an issue with me saying this, PM me and I’ll gladly give you my address. You can come visit me, where I promise/ I will/ KILL YOU/ In my front yard!!”

Reached by a reporter through Facebook, St Onge replied Wednesday afternoon: “I am no longer a delegate, by my own choosing … I will take one for the team, Loyal to a fault you might say … Jesus loves you, but not the trouble you try and cause for others.”

Asked about precisely when he ceased being a delegate, St Onge replied: “I have spoken to the appropriate people . thank you, Have a great day and may God bless you …”

He subsequently posted a Facebook post about a Guardian reporter on another Facebook account, writing: “This is a reporter who started doing a story on me … who is she to call the kettle black?”The post has since been deleted.

In a later message, St Onge wrote: “I see you are not a Christian so that tells me a lot about you and who you represent!!”

Asked about a report that he had once burned a Mexican flag, St Onge responded: “No, that is not true, even if it was, they burn ours don’t they?” The pastor then messaged a reporter several links to a video of two men, one wearing a Trump T-shirt, burning a Mexican flag. “I would call these men my brothers, US Citizen brothers!!,” he wrote.

According to a biography on one of St Onge’s Facebook pages, he “was in a very bad world, full of drugs, motorcycles, gangs and cops and more” before he was reborn and baptized in September 1995. “For me my life used to be all about Sex, Drugs and Rock&Roll … Now it is God Jesus and the Holy Ghost,” he writes on Facebook.

On 27 March 2016, St Onge posted about his application to be a Trump delegate on Facebook, writing: “I JUST SIGNED UP TO BECOME A NATIONAL DELEGATE FOR DONALD TRUMP, I WILL NOT FIND OUT UNTIL March 31, 2016. WHEN THEY DECIDE …”

St Onge is the second California delegate to attempt to drop out after Johnson, a corporate attorney and prominent white nationalist from Los Angeles.

Trump’s campaign blamed Johnson’s inclusion on a “database error” and said he was no longer a delegate. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Mixed in with Bible verses and YouTube sermons, St Onge shares a wide variety of political material, including anti-same sex marriage memes, a meme featuring the Confederate flag that reads “620,000 Died for this flag they deserve to be honored”, and a “Christian for Trump” image with the attached commentary: “Not saying Trump is a very godly man, but God can use anyone even evil to bless His people which are not just the Jews any longer but even the Gentiles now, for we are all under the same God …”

Another post features a photoshopped image of Barack Obama and David Cameron kissing, with the caption: “Sodomites!!”

(h/t The Guardian)

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