Tag: tweet

Sheriff Supporting Trump Makes Call for ‘Pitchforks and Torches’

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In yet another example of the ratcheting up of rhetoric as the 2016 campaign enters its home stretch, a prominent and polarizing Donald Trump supporter, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Sheriff David Clarke Jr., has suggested the time may come for “pitchforks and torches.”

Clarke, an African-American, delivered a fiery address at this summer Republican National Convention, during which he announced the news the acquittal of one of the police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray to rapturous applause.

He has been very vocal on social media, repeating Trump talking points about the alleged corruption of the Clintons and their foundation, and railing against the Black Lives Matter movement, which he claims is responsible for violence against police officers.

(h/t NBC News)

Trump Tweet Storm Further Divides Republican Party Before Election

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Twitter

Donald Trump attacked House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans who he claimed had been “disloyal” to him in a series of defiant Tuesday morning Twitter messages.

The tweets come after a number of GOP luminaries announced they could no longer support their nominee in the wake of the publication of a 2005 video showing Trump bragging about groping women. Trump apologized for his “locker room” talk and has flatly refused to drop out.

On Monday, Ryan said he would no longer defend Trump through the last month of the general election campaign — but he neglected to rescind his endorsement of the New York businessman.

In the messages, Trump said “the shackles” had been removed, and he said the “disloyal” Republicans are more of an impediment to a victory than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — analysis that could well be correct if some portion of his base refuses to support him at the polls.

Pundits have warned for some time that the Republican Party could be on the verge of a civil war.

A spokesman for the House speaker said, “Paul Ryan is focusing the next month on defeating Democrats, and all Republicans running for office should probably do the same.”

As Trump attacked his fidelity, Ryan’s own Twitter account posted a series of policy discussions on Tuesday morning.

During the primary season, Trump rose to prominence by attacking the “establishment” elements of his party, whom he painted as self-serving and unconcerned with the general populace’s well-being. That populist tactic had seen less use, however, during the general election as Trump sought to win over moderate voters.

(h/t CNBC)

Trump Tweets Americans Should Watch Miss Amercia’s Sex Tape

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Twitter

Update: In the title we referred to Alicia Machado as “Miss America,” she was Miss Universe.

Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks on a former Miss Universe in a stream of early-morning tweets.

Trump’s verbal barbs directed at Alicia Machado, who won the Miss Universe title in 1996, started after the first presidential debate Monday when Hillary Clinton mentioned her and claimed that Trump used to call her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”

Rather than back away from the accusations, Trump has repeatedly defended his criticisms of the woman and her weight.

His latest came online this morning:

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

Researchers have looked and the so-called “sex tape” came from a reality television show called La Granja, which is nothing more than some grainy, night-vision footage of a couple of covered figures writhing in a bed, hardly qualifies as explicit. And reality television being what it is, the scene the tape depicts was quite possibly staged or fabricated.

Alicia Machado did pose topless for Playboy magazine, though.

However if Machado has a sex tape or not, this does not matter. The argument put forth at the first presidential debate was; Does Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump engage in bullying and sexism and are this qualities you would want in your President?  And by Trump attempting deflect charges of sexism and bullying by turning around and engaging in sexist attacks against a woman’s weight and acting like the textbook definition of a bully over several days does not help his defense.

Trump Threatens to Sue New York Times

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Donald Trump threatened to sue The New York Times on Twitter after posting several other messages blasting the paper and its well-known columnist Maureen Dowd.

“My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting,” Trump tweeted.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, posted several other tweets Saturday attacking the Times and Dowd, calling her a “neurotic dope.”

On Saturday, the Times published a story digging into Trump’s reliance on tax breaks to build his New York real estate empire. It put the total value of tax breaks on Trump properties at at least $885 million.

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Trump has had a long history of harassing the press and individual journalists for reporting on what he says.

In the past, Trump has made his feelings known that journalists should be “congratulating” him, which is not their jobs and sounds more like the role of the press in soviet Russia.

Furious Trump Lashes Out at CNN: They’re ‘Mostly Losers in Life!’

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Twitter

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continued his war on journalism Saturday morning, taking aim at unnamed CNN panelists who have been critical of his campaign and calling them “losers in life.”

Using his favorite criticism mechanism, Twitter, Trump wrote, “@CNN just doesn’t get it, and that’s why their ratings are so low – and getting worse. Boring anti-Trump panelists, mostly losers in life!”

Trump’s push-back comes one day after the candidate was roundly criticized  by the media for manipulating them to promote his new hotel under the guise of a major announcement regarding his conspiracy mongering over whether President Obama was not born the the U.S.

On an almost nightly basis, Trump advocates — including Kayleigh McEnany and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski — have been taken to the woodshed for making outrageous statements while attempting to spin Trump’s comments and actions.

Friday night, CNN host Don Lemon was forced to cut Lewandowski’s mic when the Trump booster — who receives paychecks from both Trump and CNN — refused to allow Lemon to read a statement on Trump’s birther crusade.

Wednesday night, CNN panelists laughed after a Trump advocate attempted to explain how the candidate was going to deal with the Flint water crisis by beginning, “First, we;re going to build the wall..” a reference to Trump’s proposed multi-billion dollar wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

(h/t Raw Story)

Trump Fires Back at Criticism from Robert Gates

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Twitter

Donald Trump took to Twitter early Saturday morning to lob an attack at Robert Gates, after the former Defense secretary said he is “beyond repair” on national security.

“I never met former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He knows nothing about me. But look at the results under his guidance – a total disaster!” the GOP presidential nominee tweeted.

Gates on Friday criticized both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on military issues, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “neither candidate has seriously addressed how he or she thinks about the military or the use of force.”

Gates specifically ripped Trump for “naive and irresponsible” expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and for a Middle East plan he called a “dangerous approach oblivious to the reality” of the region.

“Mr. Trump is also willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself,” he wrote.

“He disdains expertise and experience while touting his own — such as his claim that he knows more about ISIS than America’s generals. He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations.”

Gates and Trump have gone after each other throughout the presidential campaign.

Gates ripped Trump in May for appearing unwilling to accept advice from foreign policy experts, and Trump responded that he’s “not a big fan” of the former Defense secretary, who served under President Bush as well as President Obama.

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.

Trump Defends 2013 Tweet About Allowing Women to Serve in the Military

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Donald Trump on Wednesday defended a tweet that he posted three years ago that stated the estimated number of unreported sexual assaults in the military and then mused: “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”

“Well, it is, it is a correct tweet,” Trump said when asked about the tweet during NBC News’ Commander-in-Chief Forum in New York on Wednesday night. “There are many people that think that that’s absolutely correct … Well, well, it’s happening, right? And, by the way, since then, it’s gotten worse.”

NBC’s Matt Lauer, who led the forum, pushed Trump to better explain himself and asked if the Republican nominee thinks that the only way to end sexual assault in the military is to kick women out. (Sexual assault in the military is not just a problem for women, as that Pentagon has said that many assault cases involve men attacking other men.)

“No, not to take them out, but something has to be happen[ing],” Trump said. “Right now part of the problem is nobody gets prosecuted. You have reported — and the gentleman can tell you — you have the report of rape, and nobody gets prosecuted. There are no consequence[s]. When you have somebody that does something so evil, so bad as that, there has to be consequence[s] for that person. You have to go after that person. Right now, nobody’s doing anything. Look at the small number of results. I mean, that’s part of the problem.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

First, from Trump’s statements he was clearly under the impression that we are dealing with only men raping women, and may believe the rape myths that men cannot be raped, and that women cannot be perpetrators.

Donald Trump’s answer never addressed the blatantly sexist overtones of his tweet, and instead called for more prosecutions. However this response also calls into question Trump’s understanding of a very nuanced issue.

According to Human Rights Watch, military personnel who report a sexual assault frequently find that their military career is the biggest casualty. This gives most victims of sexual assault no incentive or protections to come forward or with any recourse once they’ve been booted out of the armed forces.

Trump, however, has said women should be in the military because, “they’re really into it.”

Media

CNN

Trump Fraudulently Photoshops Poll in Tweet

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Donald Trump’s campaign can’t seem to get out of its own way on social media.

On Monday morning, Trump began heralding poll results from Iowa and the key swing state of Ohio. He mentioned the results at a rally and tweeted out nifty graphics on his account to share the numbers.

The only problem: he kept crediting an outlet that doesn’t commission such polls: FiveThirtyEight.

Trump credited Nate Silver’s electoral wizardry for showing he had a lead over Clinton of 46 percent to 43 percent in Ohio and a 44 percent to 41 percent lead in Iowa.

Later, his campaign also tweeted out the poll results, again crediting FiveThirtyEight. Those tweets have since been deleted and retweeted — screenshots are below.

FiveThirtyEight didn’t commission the polls, as noted by Nate Silver and the site’s senior political writer and analyst Harry Enten. Both analysts pointed out that Trump was probably citing the results of the most recent Ipsos/Reuters poll of likely voters from those states.

Indeed, a look at FiveThirtyEight’s current forecast shows Clinton with around a 60 percent chance of winning Ohio and Trump with just over a 50 percent chance of winning Iowa.

As for the Ipsos/Reuters poll of likely voters, however — it actually shows Clinton as the favorite to win the election in November.

Later, Trump sent out another tweet, appropriately citing the Ipsos/Reuters poll with attribution to FiveThirtyEight, thought not its forecast that Trump would lose if the election were held today.

In July, the campaign found itself at the center of a much larger uproar when Trump tweeted a Photoshopped image of Hillary Clinton with anti-Semitic overtones. It was later deleted and replaced.

His son-in-law and political adviser, Jared Kushner, responded in the newspaper he owns, the New York Observer. “If my father in law’s fast-moving team was careless in choosing an image to retweet,” he wrote, “well part of the reason it’s so shocking is that it’s the actual candidate communicating with the American public rather than the armies of handlers who poll-test ordinary candidates’ every move.”

We’ll chalk it down as yet another reminder to be skeptical of what you see on the internet. And what you read in the polls — it’s still a long two months until Nov. 8.

(h/t Mashable)

Trump Calls Female ‘Morning Joe’ Co-Host Mika Brzezinski ‘Crazy and Very Dumb

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Donald Trump on Friday ratcheted up his attacks of the co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after the show devoted part of its panel discussion to criticizing the Republican nominee on the multitude of flip-flops on “softening” his immigration policy over the past 24 hours.

Trump tweeted, referring to Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough:

“Just heard that crazy and very dumb @morningmika had a mental breakdown while talking about me on the low ratings @Morning_Joe. Joe a mess!”

The Republican nominee has frequently targeted the show on Twitter, threatening last month to “tell the real story” about Scarborough and Brzezinski, who opened the Friday show by noting his comments to radio host Laura Ingraham that there would indeed be “softening” in his immigration plan, despite playing to his base during his hyped Wednesday night speech in Arizona.

Media

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