monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Trump’s denial of his coronavirus failings will be “one of the biggest propaganda battles in American history”

Elon Musk: 'What I find most surprising is that CNN still exists'

President Donald Trump posted several bellicose tweets on Friday about the states where some people, including his supporters, are protesting their governors’ stay at home orders.

Trump first tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” followed by “LIBERATE MICHIGAN,” then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.”

“And save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” he added in his tweet about Virginia.

Political Elite Plays Its Last Card

Desperation Time

The Democrats will be left hoping for a flare-up of the disease and advocating policies certain to prolong economic misery. They have been outmaneuvered, though that is not obvious because of the indignity of the president’s bear-baiting sessions with his media enemies.

Trump not only has the high ground and the burning cause of regaining prosperity, but he will also win the single combat war. The Democrats try to hide Joe Biden, and the lockdown has helped. But eventually, he will have to face Trump, and he is not remotely as forceful, accomplished, or formidable a chief. Trump has many infelicities and is an exhausting president, but he is quite effective and has been very successful, including in managing the greatest crisis the country has faced since the end of the Vietnam War.


Beyond that, whether this could be articulated by them or not, about half the country thinks the Democrats now are led and applauded by a media echo chamber of atheist elitists who want gays to dictate popular culture, regard abortion and childbirth as equivalent events, want to replace fossil fuels with wind and sun, eliminate defense spending and have a real dialogue with the world instead, mock and oppress all the churches except Islam (whose excesses assist in the forward march of paganism), and elevate barrio poseurs as guardians of a new intellectualism. It won’t fly.

The indestructible soul of America is not having it. The Bushes were unwitting enablers, the Clintons were corruptible opportunists, Obama was a fraud elevated because of the need to break the glass ceiling of color for the nation’s highest office. Biden is just a muddled amalgam of 40 years at the public trough, an arthritic wheelhorse in a machine that has broken down.

Could real violence come as a consequence?

Seriously. That's nothing but "observation", "opinions".

the first paragraph was total biased right wing opinion.

what I find surprising is that the Washington times still exists

I know what you mean, it's demographic can't or won't read. I do understand is makes a superior wrap for garbage.

Some of the protests have been small events, promoted via Facebook groups that have popped up in recent days and whose organizers are sometimes difficult to identify. Others are backed by groups funded by prominent Republican donors, some with ties to Trump. The largest so far, a rally of thousands that jammed the streets of Lansing, Michigan, on Wednesday, looked much like one of the president's rallies -- complete with MAGA hats or Trump flags -- or one of the tea party rallies from a decade ago.

...But the protests expose resilient partisan divisions, particularly in battleground Michigan. The protest there was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, a group founded by a pro-Trump state representative and his wife, Meshawn Maddock, who is on the advisory board for an official Trump campaign group called "Women for Trump" and is also the co-founder of Michigan Trump Republicans. Their daughter is a field organizer for the Michigan Republican Party.

Another group that promoted the event, the Michigan Freedom Fund, is run by Greg McNeilly, a longtime political adviser to the DeVos family, who are prolific Republican donors and have funded conservative causes across the state for decades. McNeilly was campaign manager for Dick DeVos, the husband of current U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, during his failed bid for governor in 2006. The group, which does not have to disclose its donors, raised over $4 million in 2018, according to its most recent tax statements.

...Carol Hefner, who previously served as an Oklahoma co-chair of Trump's 2016 campaign, was a major organizer of the [Oklahoma City] event. Hefner, whose husband is part of the Hefner Energy empire and currently operates a company that makes Argentinian meat sauce, differentiated it from many of the others, characterizing it as a "rally" rather than a protest.

...Other gatherings have links to fringe groups. A protest Thursday in the Texas capital of Austin, where protesters chanted "Free Texas" and "Make America Free Again," was broadcast live by InfoWars TV, part of a company owned by conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones.

The Ohio event earlier this week brought together a collection of anti-vaccine advocates, Second Amendment supporters, tea party activists and other anti-government activists. A Columbus Dispatch photo of Ackison and other protesters yelling through glass doors of the statehouse rocketed around the internet.

President Donald Trump endorsed conservative protests against social distancing measures in three states immediately after Fox News aired a segment on the efforts, dumping gasoline on a movement that threatens the fragile consensus on steps public health experts say are preventing nightmarish death figures from the novel coronavirus.

Beginning at 11:19 a.m. ET, Fox’s America’s Newsroom ran a segment detailing a wave of protests against stay-at-home orders from governors of Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia. Fox aired a package featuring footage from a protest in Virginia and another in Minnesota, with Fox News correspondent Mike Tobin quoting the group “Liberate Minnesota” calling the stay-at-home order “an overreaction.” Co-anchor Ed Henry then interviewed a Michigan sheriff who is defying Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s order in that state.

Trump, who was apparently watching the segment, responded to it in real time by expressing support for the protests, sending multiple tweets saying, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.”

Earlier this week, Fox hosts cheered on protests by conservative activists against Michigan’s stay-at-home order. As I noted at the time, “If Trump sees Fox’s protest coverage and endorses the effort, social distancing will become even more politically polarized. The hard-won progress in the fight against the virus could evaporate in an instant, leaving behind a shattered economy and an influx of COVID-19 deaths.”

I specifically started this thread